Mail delivery and mailing list enhancements

Jeremy Howard · 16th January 2002, 01:12 PM

I've uploaded the stuff I've been working on for a while which better tracks mail server usage. This is mainly in order to prepare for the commercial launch, because we can now track and report usage separately for different 'member levels', allowing us to give members and paid accounts higher bandwidth and storage quotas.

However this system does a lot more stuff too, so there's some other changes that will be of interest to some users. Overall these changes will further improve the robustness and scalability of the system.

Firstly, mailing lists. We've always had a policy of not allowing mailing lists used for distributing files, as most of you would know from earlier discussions here and the warning on the signup page. The new system more carefully tracks individual user's level of mailing list bandwidth used to allow us to target this better. We've now removed some broad rules we had that blocked some mailing lists that weren't used for attachments. They've been replaced with tracking of how much bandwidth your account uses for mailing lists. If it goes over 2MB in an hour, you get a warning. If you get 3 warnings in 24 hours, you get a 1 hour lockout.

Secondly, mail filters. We've always had filters that check for likely email worms and viruses. These worked well, except that the bounce message returned to the sender just said "content rejected", which was pretty unhelpful. Now, any bounced message will include descriptive information about exactly why the bounce occured. We'll enhance these messages with URLs linking to more information down the track as well.

Finally, bounce reports. Although there's nothing to actually see yet, every bounced message is now getting logged to a tracker. This will allow us to create a status screen for each user showing details of any bounced messages, as some people have requested. This screen will be introduced around the time that we launch the commercial service. This logging also means that we can now quickly catch problem accounts that are generating large amounts of bounces (e.g. incorrectly set up mailing lists can create 'bounce loops' where failure notification messages get sent back and forth for ever).

bjorn_temp · 16th January 2002, 08:59 PM

looking good!

**gpdoyon** · 16th January 2002, 10:33 PM

Hey, that sounds great! Thanks!

obwan · 17th January 2002, 06:21 AM

Great stuff

**Shelded** · 20th January 2002, 09:10 AM

16th January 2002, 01:12 PM	#1
Jeremy Howard Ultimate Contributor Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: Australia Posts: 11,499	Mail delivery and mailing list enhancements I've uploaded the stuff I've been working on for a while which better tracks mail server usage. This is mainly in order to prepare for the commercial launch, because we can now track and report usage separately for different 'member levels', allowing us to give members and paid accounts higher bandwidth and storage quotas. However this system does a lot more stuff too, so there's some other changes that will be of interest to some users. Overall these changes will further improve the robustness and scalability of the system. Firstly, mailing lists. We've always had a policy of not allowing mailing lists used for distributing files, as most of you would know from earlier discussions here and the warning on the signup page. The new system more carefully tracks individual user's level of mailing list bandwidth used to allow us to target this better. We've now removed some broad rules we had that blocked some mailing lists that weren't used for attachments. They've been replaced with tracking of how much bandwidth your account uses for mailing lists. If it goes over 2MB in an hour, you get a warning. If you get 3 warnings in 24 hours, you get a 1 hour lockout. Secondly, mail filters. We've always had filters that check for likely email worms and viruses. These worked well, except that the bounce message returned to the sender just said "content rejected", which was pretty unhelpful. Now, any bounced message will include descriptive information about exactly why the bounce occured. We'll enhance these messages with URLs linking to more information down the track as well. Finally, bounce reports. Although there's nothing to actually see yet, every bounced message is now getting logged to a tracker. This will allow us to create a status screen for each user showing details of any bounced messages, as some people have requested. This screen will be introduced around the time that we launch the commercial service. This logging also means that we can now quickly catch problem accounts that are generating large amounts of bounces (e.g. incorrectly set up mailing lists can create 'bounce loops' where failure notification messages get sent back and forth for ever).

20th January 2002, 09:10 AM	#5
Shelded Moderator Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: USA Northwest Posts: 3,842	This sounds just as requested. Thanks .

16th January 2002, 08:59 PM	#2
bjorn_temp Junior Member Join Date: Dec 2001 Posts: 29	looking good!

16th January 2002, 10:33 PM	#3
gpdoyon Moderator Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Westbrook, Maine USA Posts: 462	Hey, that sounds great! Thanks!

17th January 2002, 06:21 AM	#4
obwan Essential Contributor Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: tatoon Posts: 226	Great stuff