Re: Re: Mass Mailing Using PHP

On Tue, 28 Sep 2004 14:54:24 +0800, Roger Thomas <sniper@home.net.my> wrote: > Quoting Manuel Lemos <mlemos@acm.org>: > > For this reason, during deliveries of messages to many recipients, it is better to pause > > once in a while to let the queue be fully processed and do not stall other programs. > > Do you mean, say we fetched 100,000 addresses from database, we make our script sleep for a > while after sending, say 1000 mails ? An alternative solution is to insert a small delay using usleep() after each message is sent such that the queue never gets overfull to begin with. Also, keep in mind you are dealing with multiple possible constraints -- local resource limitations (CPU & disk), and bandwidth available for connecting to remote hosts. For reference, I do this kind of thing on a fairly busy server, using Postfix, for nonprofit clients that do member newsletter mailings in the 5,000 to 10,000 piece range. I find that I am able to keep system load tolerably low by limiting my script to about 3-4 messages per second. In my case I am mostly concerned about managing local CPU. The queue never backs up. You will also want to look at protecting your script from dying prematurely by using ignore_user_abort() and set_time_limit() or equivalents. If you are sending only a few hundred messages, that shouldn't place much of a burden on your server, and you may not need to insert any delay at all. (Whereas if you are sending 100,000 messages, I'd have to guess you're a spammer, as any org with a legitimate reason to mail 100K people at once would be unlikely to be creating this script from scratch and asking basic questions in php-general. But I could be wrong.) good luck, pb -- paul bissex, e-scribe.com -- database-driven web development 413.585.8095 69.55.225.29 01061-0847 72°39'71"W 42°19'42"N