I have already tried a fixed connection to a different computer, so it does seem that Wi-Fi is the culprit for the connection part. I have manipulated the antennas and am now getting 25 to 30+ (varies) speed on CLI and 20+ on browsers. However I can not bring a cable form the modem to this computer, and I want to speed up the WiFi - what can I do about it? Also, I do have suspicions about browsers just being slower, but this will need to wait until I speed the WiFi itself up. On 18 May 2017 at 11:24, Carlos E. R. wrote:

On 2017-05-18 12:07, James Knott wrote:

...

Do not try speedtest through WiFi. In addition to poorer bandwidth, the results may be variable due to interference etc. On 42.2 & Etherent, I generally get mid 70s down and 11 up on a 60/10 Mb package.

At best, try both.

Testing with the cable you see what the external connection can give, and then if with the WiFi you get less, you know that the culprit is the WiFi.

-- Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.

(from 42.2 x86_64 "Malachite" (Minas Tirith))

-- Yours, Mikhail Ramendik Unless explicitly stated, all opinions in my mail are my own and do not reflect the views of any organization -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 05/18/2017 08:33 PM, John Andersen wrote:

It is still true that unless you have a very late model AP, If you have any single 802.11G device on an 809.11N capable AP, don't be surprised if many stations get dragged down to G speed or lower.

Not quite. B causes a significant performance hit to G & N. This was because G and N use a different modulation type than B. This meant that when they detected a B signal, they'd have to drop into compatibility mode, where they had to transmit in B a packet to reserve the channel for the time it takes to send the G or N packet and then transmit the G or N packet. On the other hand, since G & N use the same type of modulation, only the N header has to be transmitted at G spec and then the rest of the packet can transmit at N speed. Similar happens on 5 GHz, with A, N & AC. They all use the same modulation method and just have to slow down the header to accommodate the lower speed devices. That said, there's no point in configuring the access point to allow any slower than you need. So, if you have no G devices, then don't configure the access point to allow them. Hopefully there's no B devices left in your area. Since N came out about 5 years ago, there's not a lot of devices around that can't do it. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On May 18, 2017 6:42:09 PM PDT, James Knott wrote:

On 05/18/2017 07:21 AM, Mikhail Ramendik wrote:

...

However I can not bring a cable form the modem to this computer, and I want to speed up the WiFi - what can I do about it? Also, I do have suspicions about browsers just being slower, but this will need to wait until I speed the WiFi itself up.

It's unlikely you'll ever match the Ethernet speed over WiFi. Modern gear usually has 1 Gb Ethernet ports. WiFi speed depends on the band used, distance, interference and more. Further, it's only half duplex.

It can't transmit & receive at the same time, the way Ethernet can.

802.11n uses multiple channels, and can easily achieve 450Mbps, and 802.11ac achieves three times that. Also true full duplex has been demonstrated and is in the near future. Google it. -- Sent from my Android phone with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 05/19/2017 12:31 AM, John Andersen wrote:

802.11n uses multiple channels, and can easily achieve 450Mbps, and 802.11ac achieves three times that.

That is the raw link speed, not actual use, which includes the various overheads, including being only half duplex. Still, when testing Internet bandwidth, WiFi introduces variables that affect throughput. Ethernet doesn't have that. If you have a Gb link, that's what you get, with full duplex. The only issue would be overloading a switch, so that packets are dropped. Now, I have a 60/10 connection, so I may be able to meet that with WiFi. But my ISP now offers up to 1 Gb via fibre, in some areas. With that, you may see the limitations of WiFi. Another thing to consider with WiFi is your neighbours. Unless you are well away from others, you may have to share the channel with others. In my home, I can see over a dozen nearby networks. That means they may reduce the bandwidth available to me. There may also be other, non-WiFi devices that can cause interference. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 05/19/2017 10:44 AM, Carlos E. R. wrote:

On 2017-05-19 15:04, James Knott wrote:

...

Now, I have a 60/10 connection, so I may be able to meet that with WiFi. But my ISP now offers up to 1 Gb via fibre, in some areas. With that, you may see the limitations of WiFi.

Another thing to consider with WiFi is your neighbours. Unless you are well away from others, you may have to share the channel with others. In my home, I can see over a dozen nearby networks. That means they may reduce the bandwidth available to me. There may also be other, non-WiFi devices that can cause interference. At the place I'm today, I have 60/60 to internet, but the Wifi does 30 on good days, 10 on bad days, like today. There are 36 neighbours that I can see. I mean, that the NM sees.

The ISP wanted to double the speed and I said "NO". They "but you will navigate faster". Me: "not on WiFi". They "But... (whatever)". Me: "I'm an engineer and I know what I'm talking about. No." So they shut up and I got a rebate instead. :-)

While I usually use WiFi for my network computer, I connect via Ethernet, if I'm going to do some significant downloads to it. Incidentally, this shows a minor benefit of Linux over Windows. When I connect via Ethernet, I get a different IP address than I do via WiFi. If I then want to connect to the computer, with SSH for example, with Linux it doesn't matter which way I'm connected, as either address will work. But with Windows, if connected via Ethernet, the WiFi address is not reachable. This means, I have to use 2 different addresses/host names when booted into Windows, compared to it doesn't make any difference with Linux. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 05/19/2017 11:12 AM, Carlos E. R. wrote:

Me too, at home. Not here. The flat has telephone lines on all the rooms, but not ethernet. I could maybe work it out, but it doesn't entice me to do the job.

I live in a condo. When I bought it, it was wired for telephone in 4 rooms, but cable TV only in the living room & master bedroom. The cable connection was brought up through the wall between the 2 rooms. When I got a cable modem, my ISP ran a coax cable the entire length of my condo, from the living room to my "office". At the same time, I had them pull in a couple of runs of CAT5, so I now have Ethernet in my living & bedrooms, as well as my office. The phone cables are 3 pair CAT3, so I supposed I could have run 10baseT Ethernet along them, but never bothered doing that. I now have WiFi that covers my unit, so I'm not so worried about wired connections. Incidentally, unlike another major Canadian ISP, mine also provides IPv6, so I have a /56 prefix all to myself. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 05/19/2017 06:04 AM, James Knott wrote:

On 05/19/2017 12:31 AM, John Andersen wrote:

...

802.11n uses multiple channels, and can easily achieve 450Mbps, and 802.11ac achieves three times that.

That is the raw link speed, not actual use, which includes the various overheads, including being only half duplex. Still, when testing Internet bandwidth, WiFi introduces variables that affect throughput. Ethernet doesn't have that. If you have a Gb link, that's what you get, with full duplex. The only issue would be overloading a switch, so that packets are dropped.

Now, I have a 60/10 connection, so I may be able to meet that with WiFi. But my ISP now offers up to 1 Gb via fibre, in some areas. With that, you may see the limitations of WiFi.

Another thing to consider with WiFi is your neighbours. Unless you are well away from others, you may have to share the channel with others. In my home, I can see over a dozen nearby networks. That means they may reduce the bandwidth available to me. There may also be other, non-WiFi devices that can cause interference.

Agreed on all counts. My internet connection is pretty much the same bandwidth as yours, so I can't test higher speeds, but I do get all of 60 down on my multi band devices, even with background traffic going on. I haven't run in-house speed tests yet. I'll have to try that. I've been over to my neighbors house with my tablet and I can get 120 down using his wifi, he pays for lots of bandwidth. I'm not bothered by my neighbors, but they are probably/maybe bothered by me. My multi-band-multi-channel-multi-Access-point Wifi with MIMO and steerable antennas and background mesh Ap-to-AP transfer uses a lot of different channels all the time. There isn't a dead spot in my house. -- After all is said and done, more is said than done. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

Le 19/05/2017 à 02:14, David C. Rankin a écrit :

Unless you are actually timing the download (stopwatch and then using the filesize to calculate the rate) the reported differences in rates are probably

and don't forget the systems are multitask, windows may very well be downloading the next update on the mean time... jdd -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 05/19/2017 08:44 AM, Mikhail Ramendik wrote:

The current card is a 802.11N Ralink PCI device, vintage 2008. I don't want to spend a lot of money to replace it, so I've sent a question here about RTL8811AU devices. There are cheap USB dongles on ebay and I can wait for the delivery from China, so I just need to know if they will run.

Make sure you have the port needed for these. USB 3 is preferred but USB 2.0 can achieve 60 MB/s. In house speeds can be rather amazing over 802.11n. For instance, transferring a 4.18 Gigabyte OpenSuse 42.1 ISO from a wired NAS (gigabit nic) via my Wifi Router (gigabit nic) to my Tablet (802.11n 5Ghz band): Speed Averaged 8.25 MB/s (mega BYTES sec) or 66Mbps (Mega BITS per sec). USB 2.0 -- After all is said and done, more is said than done. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

* Mikhail Ramendik [05-19-17 17:57]: [...]

Well, this card appears to be 2.4 GHz only, which is natural for a 2008 card.

I am in a housing estate but not apartment block (a row of two-story houses). Wifi Analyzer on my phone can see 2-3 networks other than mine, at -90dbm level; my laptop sometimes notices them too. A network scan in yast only gives my network.

So I decided to risk increasing the channel setting on the AP from 20 to 20/40 MHz for the 2.4 GHz network. This has increased the speed, and while it is still somewhat slower than 5 GHz, the difference in actual broadband access is less than 10%. But perhaps this difference is just not worth purchasing a new network card. (I will later try to test without Internet the AP has a USB slot for a flash drive, if I can make it serve a big file we can check the actual speeds of WiFi alone)

The bigger question, however, is whether 40 MHz is an appropriate setting, or whether my neighbours might get impacted.

Won't set short intervals - in this house I do very much expect multipath to exist. The house is small but has an actual chimney going right through the middle.

zypper in speedtest-cli -- (paka)Patrick Shanahan Plainfield, Indiana, USA @ptilopteri http://en.opensuse.org openSUSE Community Member facebook/ptilopteri Registered Linux User #207535 @ http://linuxcounter.net Photos: http://wahoo.no-ip.org/piwigo -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 2017-05-29 13:22, Wols Lists wrote:

On 29/05/17 10:16, L A Walsh wrote:

...

I've seen ThunderBird take over 30 seconds to send a 5MB email, that had to send the file from win7 via SMTP to my linux-box and save a copy via IMAP to my 'sent' mail.

I've seen worse ... when I was a regular on flickr (their UI changes have basically driven me away...) I used to upload via email. And I very quickly learnt that if you are sending several large emails, it pays to go off-line, prep all the emails ready to send, and then go back on-line. Otherwise everything grinds to a halt.

Just use postfix to do the job for you. -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 42.2 x86_64 "Malachite" at Telcontar)

On 2017-05-29 15:37, Wols Lists wrote:

On 29/05/17 13:24, Carlos E. R. wrote:

...

On 2017-05-29 13:22, Wols Lists wrote:

...

On 29/05/17 10:16, L A Walsh wrote:

...

I've seen ThunderBird take over 30 seconds to send a 5MB email, that had to send the file from win7 via SMTP to my linux-box and save a copy via IMAP to my 'sent' mail.

I've seen worse ... when I was a regular on flickr (their UI changes have basically driven me away...) I used to upload via email. And I very quickly learnt that if you are sending several large emails, it pays to go off-line, prep all the emails ready to send, and then go back on-line. Otherwise everything grinds to a halt.

Just use postfix to do the job for you.

I did try ... my mailserver collects incoming mail, but mysql is broken so I had to disable fetchmail, and I never managed to get it to work with outgoing mail.

what do you want mysql for, in this postfix context? -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 42.2 x86_64 "Malachite" at Telcontar)

On 29/05/17 11:33 AM, Wols Lists wrote:

I have several mail aliases, controlled by mysql. So (for Patrick)) fetchmail was configured to pull mail from the internet and fire it at postfix to deliver. With mysql broken, postfix can't resolve user-ids and deliver the mail.

Postfix doesn't *NEED* MySQL to do this. it can do it entirely with regular files. Having MySQL makes sense for service providers or large organizations where there are thousands or email accounts, perhaps served from a a single domain.[1] I don't think it makes sense for one person, one family, the "personal" rather than the Big Business context. Back when, I had this set-up with not just the many accounts I did have, but the permutations of my name and initials, expansions, with and without periods, with had without under-bar rather than period. I also had the lists that I subscribe to. I used fetchmail, procmail and Spamassassin as front-end and Postfix to deal with IDs. I had perhaps 160 IDs and perhaps another 20 or so list IDs. For the most part Postfix "filed". It was more flexible as a filing agent than Procmail :-) All of this was done with fixed files that were created and maintained with VI. Was it fast enough> For my (then) three domains and the less than 200IDs it had to deal with, rotating rust, cable speeds (topped out around 600 kilobytes/sec), yes it was fast enough. The limiting feature was never my machines, it was always the remote machines, be it for POP, IMAP fetches or for delivery with SMTP. I'm sure that speed differential is that my end is just me. It's not as if my machine, my file server, my mail server (then) ran a heavy load. Heck the way it was, was a old ClosetofAnzieties 800Mhz machine 1G Ram, 350G IDE drive, an MS XP generation machine that had to be junked 'cost it couldn't run whatever came next; but it could still run opsenSUSE 12.whatever. (But can't run Leap :-( ) No, you can run postfix quite well without a SQL database if your needs are modest, single user or just family sized. [1] Think, for example. of the @IBM.com or @HP.com addresses. The DNS/MX may give various servers, but the service has to be idempotent, that is it results in the same routing regardless of the mail host. And for the thousands, perhaps millions of employees. Yes, James.knott@IBM.com may be resolved to, re-routed to james.knott@toronto.ibm.com, but the only way to make sure that happens regardless of the server is to have the same 'database' on all of them. And this needs to be uncoupled from any /etc/passwrd file. A SQL database offers the replication/mirroring and the fast lookup. -- A: Yes. > Q: Are you sure? >> A: Because it reverses the logical flow of conversation. >>> Q: Why is top posting frowned upon? -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

David C. Rankin wrote:

On 05/29/2017 11:46 AM, Anton Aylward wrote:

...

Postfix doesn't *NEED* MySQL to do this. it can do it entirely with regular files.

Have use postfix for 17 years (both on a home server and office server supporting 5 law firms and one engineering firm) and never used anything but the default postfix backend. No mysql no database no nothing. There was never a bit of slowdown due to a lack of database backend.

I completely concur, unless you are handling thousands of user accounts, then all the db backend does is add another unnecessary layer of complexity to be maintained. If you are an ISP or fortune 500 company and are saturating your server load, then yes, there are indexing benefits from a database, if not, there is no benefit.

For less than 20 users on a single domain, I wouldn't bother with mysql either, but it's not a performance question, it's only about management and maintenance. Once you've got it running with mysql, you won't want to go back. -- Per Jessen, Zürich (20.8°C) http://www.dns24.ch/ - free dynamic DNS, made in Switzerland. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 30/05/17 04:06 AM, Carlos E. R. wrote:

In fact, the text files have to be converted to binary, as this:

postmap transport

Not necessarily. Yes you can hash/index the text files. It's an old Berkeley trick, hash/indexing text files. It is one option. Having plain text files, not hashed, is another. There is no *HAVE* about it. As a speed-up trick for less than 200 entries compared to a binary chop search of a sorted file it's like 0.000001 sec vs 0.0000015 sec. BFD. if you want to see what types of lookup mechanism are supported by postfix and its allies and relations and components, the run "postconf -m" I get: # postconf -m btree cidr environ fail hash internal ldap nis pcre proxy regexp sdbm socketmap static tcp texthash unix See the man page "postconf(1)" for details of what each of those are and how they are used. So you have plenty of options beside SQL, the various Berkeley-DB/hashed-text and plain-text files. BFD. Get over it! Given what I said about dependency on external components/systems/subsystems as opposed to just local files or libraries, I'd make two observations: * The Berkeley hash DB or the Btree mechanism are quite fast even for large (thousands, perhaps tens of thousands) entries. * If you're obsessed with SQL then SQLight is both 'local' and fast. I don't have that compiled in to my version, not do I have the Postgress interface compiled in, but they are options if you want them. -- A: Yes. > Q: Are you sure? >> A: Because it reverses the logical flow of conversation. >>> Q: Why is top posting frowned upon? -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

Carlos E. R. wrote:

On 2017-05-30 14:38, Anton Aylward wrote:

...

On 30/05/17 04:06 AM, Carlos E. R. wrote:

...

In fact, the text files have to be converted to binary, as this:

postmap transport

Not necessarily.

Yes you can hash/index the text files. It's an old Berkeley trick, hash/indexing text files. It is one option. Having plain text files, not hashed, is another.

I didn't know about that. Or wasn't sure. Anyway, that is the real default on openSUSE.

What is the definition of "hash", by the way? Is it just an index, and the code still has to look at the original text file?

No, it's a table that is ready to load into memory and do lookups in. (Berkeley DB in postfix). -- Per Jessen, Zürich (27.0°C) http://www.cloudsuisse.com/ - your owncloud, hosted in Switzerland. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 30/05/17 14:46, Per Jessen wrote:

...

...

What is the definition of "hash", by the way? Is it just an index, and the code still has to look at the original text file?

No, it's a table that is ready to load into memory and do lookups in. (Berkeley DB in postfix).

In other words a database :-) Really, yes! Okay, it's not Berkeley DB I worked with, but I'm a Pickie, and as far as I can make out, a Berkeley table is almost identical to a Pick FILE. Managed properly, *M*U*C*H* more impressive, performance-wise, than a sql table. "SQL optimises the easy task of finding data in memory. Pick optimises the harder task of getting it there in the first place!" But I probably tried using text files and failed, which is why I went down the mysql route. I can't remember, the current system was installed about 2010 I think, if not earlier. And has just been migrated to larger disks and faster systems over the years. For those who are interested, Pick uses a technique called "linear hashing", which means the time taken to rehash a file is proportional to delta(size), not size. And it's a standard hashed file, so you have key-value pairs, you hash the key, and value is in the relevant bucket - 4K by default. And in a system with no pathological data and no tuning, it takes on average about 1.05 attempts to hit your target. Cheers, Wol -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

Anton Aylward wrote:

On 30/05/17 11:05 AM, Wols Lists wrote:

...

But I probably tried using text files and failed, which is why I went down the mysql route.

Whichever mode you choose, and it doesn't have to be the same for all the various 'files' that postfix uses, you do have to be diligent or it will fail.

if you choose a hash mode for one file and don't use the postfix hashing tool then it will fail. If you try using different modes for different files and get confused over which is which, and have some inconsistency, then it will fail.

By opting for MySQl you probably went though and made sure that all the settings, the 'database' options were correct. You enforced consistency.

Just my hunch - I expect Wol has a mixture of tables. There are a number of tables that change so rarely that putting them in mysql would be wasted. The ones with domains, userids and aliases, those are the ones you'd want to keep in mysql. Then maybe use one of the many isp-style config tools for ease of use. That's what we do - tables that rarely change are kept as hash, tables that change frequently or need changing by end-users, they are in mysql. -- Per Jessen, Zürich (28.0°C) http://www.cloudsuisse.com/ - your owncloud, hosted in Switzerland. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 2017-05-30 18:13, Anton Aylward wrote:

On 30/05/17 12:01 PM, Per Jessen wrote:

...

That's what we do - tables that rarely change are kept as hash, tables that change frequently or need changing by end-users, they are in mysql.

That makes perfect sense. For a service provider or any kind.

For an individual, for a family, the constraints are different.

When I was using Postfix in this set of circumstances, fetchmail feeding procmail to do the SpamAssassin stuff, then feeding to postfix to 'dispatch' and deal with aliases and identities, it was set up the once and stayed that way until I had a unrecoverable disk crash and said "Buqqer This", and went to a IMAP based system working with Dovecot.

My desktop computer has that configuration, basically untouched, perhaps for a decade. And it is working with dovecot and imap just fine. -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 42.2 x86_64 "Malachite" at Telcontar)

* Patrick Shanahan [05-29-17 14:49]:

* Wols Lists [05-29-17 11:36]: [...]

...

I have several mail aliases, controlled by mysql. So (for Patrick)) fetchmail was configured to pull mail from the internet and fire it at postfix to deliver. With mysql broken, postfix can't resolve user-ids and deliver the mail.

please explain how you configured fetchmail to "fire it at postfix". fetchmail will only *fetch* mail. it has no provision to deliver mail to *anywhere*.

...

So now, whenever my wife or I fire up thunderbird, rules fire on the internet e-mail account to move mail to the local accounts.

disreguard, I now understand what you are saying. I thought you were saying you were using fetchmail to "post" mail. -- (paka)Patrick Shanahan Plainfield, Indiana, USA @ptilopteri http://en.opensuse.org openSUSE Community Member facebook/ptilopteri Registered Linux User #207535 @ http://linuxcounter.net Photos: http://wahoo.no-ip.org/piwigo paka @ IRCnet freenode -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 2017-05-29 17:33, Wols Lists wrote:

On 29/05/17 14:52, Carlos E. R. wrote:

...

...

...

Just use postfix to do the job for you.

I did try ... my mailserver collects incoming mail, but mysql is broken so I had to disable fetchmail, and I never managed to get it to work with outgoing mail.

what do you want mysql for, in this postfix context?

I have several mail aliases, controlled by mysql. So (for Patrick)) fetchmail was configured to pull mail from the internet and fire it at postfix to deliver. With mysql broken, postfix can't resolve user-ids and deliver the mail.

So now, whenever my wife or I fire up thunderbird, rules fire on the internet e-mail account to move mail to the local accounts.

Ah, I see, I think. But I was talking of using postfix for sending out. -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 42.2 x86_64 "Malachite" at Telcontar)

On 29/05/17 19:04, Per Jessen wrote:

...

...

what do you want mysql for, in this postfix context?

It's perfectly reasonable to keep many or most of the various postfix tables in mysql. As Anton suggests, perhaps a little overkill for a personal or family setup, but that's a matter of choice.

And, when I was reading the postfix man pages, it was extremely unclear how to configure it any other way ... I just took what looked, to me, to be the easiest option. And professionally, I am (or was) a database programmer. Cheers, Wol -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 29/05/17 21:54, Carlos E. R. wrote:

On 2017-05-29 22:10, Wols Lists wrote:

...

On 29/05/17 19:04, Per Jessen wrote:

...

...

...

what do you want mysql for, in this postfix context?

...

It's perfectly reasonable to keep many or most of the various postfix tables in mysql. As Anton suggests, perhaps a little overkill for a personal or family setup, but that's a matter of choice.

And, when I was reading the postfix man pages, it was extremely unclear how to configure it any other way ...

postfix in openSUSE comes already configured, using plain text files. You just have to edit them, and use a command to convert to the binary format it finally uses. It is easier to maintain for a small setup.

Except my mail server doesn't run SuSE :-) And when I edited the text files, I couldn't see any particularly easy way of doing it. (I don't run SuSE on my systems from choice. I do run it on systems I support, so I run it on my laptop so I have a system with it.) Cheers, Wol -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 29/05/17 04:54 PM, Carlos E. R. wrote:

On 2017-05-29 22:10, Wols Lists wrote:

...

On 29/05/17 19:04, Per Jessen wrote:

...

...

...

what do you want mysql for, in this postfix context?

...

It's perfectly reasonable to keep many or most of the various postfix tables in mysql. As Anton suggests, perhaps a little overkill for a personal or family setup, but that's a matter of choice.

And, when I was reading the postfix man pages, it was extremely unclear how to configure it any other way ...

postfix in openSUSE comes already configured, using plain text files. You just have to edit them, and use a command to convert to the binary format it finally uses. It is easier to maintain for a small setup.

Two other points. 1. It's easier to see things with 'text files' than binary blobs. This has been a principle of UNIX and Linux for decades. Well, OK, to start with it was a space consideration. Many of the utilities we take for granted were, in the days before RAM and DISK became cheap, implemented as scripts rather than binaries since scripts took up less space. The whole 'pipes and filters', 'Software Tools' movement grew out of that. Scripts could be developed - edited - easily and in the era that UNIX came from the formalism around compiling for in incremental development, was not feasible, whereas it was for scripts/interpreters. And this set a style. It took pressure - the need for performance, usually - to warrant a move to binary. Even when UNIX needed large numbers of password entries at Berkeley, they avoided going binary by having ids beginning with "[a-g]", "[h-n]", "[o-t]", "[u-z]" in separate password files. It took SUN and networking to bring in "yellow pages/NIS", remote authentication. 2. As this thread shows, there is a dependency issue. If you can't access the database, you loose functionality. This is true for network based authentication, kerberos, NIS, as well. The file based option is more reliable for small systems or systems that do not *DEMAND* the need for a database simply because there is not that critical component to act as a failure mode. If the local disk with the /etc/postfix config files fails, then how did the postfix program get loaded & run?

From a simple reliability POV a simpler, fewer critical components, approach is better.

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