Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!amdahl!pacbell!pbhya!bgo
From: bgo@PacBell.COM (Bud Odekirk)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apollo
Subject: Unix mail problem
Message-ID: <30030@pbhya.PacBell.COM>
Date: 20 Sep 89 23:06:02 GMT
Organization: Pacific * Bell, San Ramon, CA
Lines: 29

We recently converted all of our users from DPSS mail to Unix mail (mailx),
we are having response problems, getting fork I/O error messages, and numerous
other problems.

We have about 460 users on 86 nodes. All of the Unix mail is located on one
node (//s5/sys5/usr/mail).

We contacted Apollo's Unix Mail expert in Chelmsford. His initial response
was that unix mail (and mailx) was designed to work on a one-machine system
such as a mainframe or mini.  He questioned the use of it on a multi-machine
system such as our token ring network.  He feels the problems we are 
experiencing are a result of too many machines trying to perform a function 
designed for one machine to handle. 

I know that there are a lot bigger systems than ours that are using Unix mail.
I would appreciate any comments, suggestions, recommendations, etc

Thanks

We have a very large mailx system configuration file (/usr/lib/mailx/mailx.rc)
and I suspect that is the problem.

/\*/\*/\*/\*/\*/\*/\*/\*/\*/\*/\*/\*/\*/\*/\*/\*/\*/\*/\*/\*/\*/\*/\*/\*/\*/\*/\
  Bud Odekirk
  2600 Camino Ramon, Room 3W600E
  San Ramon, Ca. 94583
  415 823-1379
  {att,bellcore,sun,ames,pyramid}!pacbell!pbhya!bgo
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