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Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!seismo!rochester!rutgers!husc6!cmcl2!brl-adm!adm!bzs@bu-cs.bu.EDU
From: bzs@bu-cs.bu.EDU (Barry Shein)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: How do you handle large mailing lists?
Message-ID: <8416@brl-adm.ARPA>
Date: Wed, 22-Jul-87 16:23:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: brl-adm.8416
Posted: Wed Jul 22 16:23:00 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 24-Jul-87 06:18:58 EDT
Sender: news@brl-adm.ARPA
Lines: 33


>I have a relatively large mailing list, info-ultrix, which
>has outgrown the alias facility in sendmail.  Even using the
>:include: construct only postponed what I supposed I should
>have forseen.  How do you handle large mailing lists?  Right
>now, info-ultrix is well over 100 people and growing daily.
>
>	-- Art Z.

In what way has it outgrown sendmail? What exactly is the problem?

I manage INFO-FUTURES, around 300 addresses, with a sendmail alias and
I don't have any complaints against sendmail (some mild grumbles at
the entire rest of the universe and their never-ending mail address
changing, but hey, you laugh or you cry...)

One thing that makes it all work better is to do this kind of thing:

info-futures-1:	...bunch of addresses...
info-futures-2: ...more addresses...
	...etc...
info-futures:	info-futures-archive,info-futures-1,info-futures-2,...etc...
info-futures-archive: /usr/somewhere/somefile
owner-info-futures:	bzs@bu-cs.bu.edu
info-futures-requests: info-futures-request
info-futures-request: bzs@bu-cs.bu.edu

You can use that to break things down into categories or just to cut
down on size when sendmail finally gripes about the alias being too
large (is that your only problem? This fixes it and makes things more
manageable for free.)

	-Barry Shein, Boston University