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Mailtrain Newsletter #8 – Bundled MTA

81 points by andris9 10y ago

leesalminen 10y ago
503 Service Unavailable?
- andris9 10y ago
  It was that damn Apache that could not handle any load. Killed it and exposed Node.js directly instead of proxying through mod_proxy, should be fine now
  - ddorian43 10y ago
    Does nodejs protect against slow requests (probably not) ?
    - andris9 10y ago
      Slow requests are not an issue as all connections are handled by the same process. If a connection gets idling or slow, then it does not take almost any resources (compared to apache where a separate process is spawned to handle that request)
      - xorcist 10y ago
        > compared to apache where a separate process is spawned That's not how Apache works. If your glibc is >= 2.3.2 (we're talking 2004 or newer) the default mode is epoll ("event" MPM), otherwise you will get a threadpool ("worker" MPM), and failing that you will get a processpool ("prefork" MPM). It will never spawn a process to handle a request, unless you forcibly enable prefork mode with a pool size of 1.
        andris9 10y ago
        Sure, I agree that my knowledge about Apache internals might be severely outdated. And I can't really blame Apache either because it's a very small box, in a larger one it might have quickly stabilized
  - brazzledazzle 10y ago
    In my experience this is due to an Apache default configuration that probably seemed reasonable when introduced but in practice can really screw you. Basically it caches and serves only the 503 for something like 3s to prevent the application it's proxying from getting kicked while it's down/flapping/starting. So the end result is that even if your app is only occasionally returning 503s for a small subset of users everyone gets to enjoy them for several seconds every time one is encountered. Fun stuff.
    - andris9 10y ago
      It's a really small box (512mb) that runs everyting and on a normal day it does not have any issues but when the requests from HN started coming in Apache used up all the RAM. I stopped Apache and started Mailtrain from command line in a screen session to listen directly on the web ports (so once it's out from the HN frontpage I can reboot the VPS and everything gets back to normal settings). So far it has been running smoothly with the server RAM usage in a constant 50%, no fluctuations https://cloudup.com/cokRbDpMIuw https://cloudup.com/cokRbDpMIuw
      - brazzledazzle 10y ago
        Yeah that's a pretty tight fit. Can't say I have much experience doing that all on one small box outside of local dev stuff.
Daviey 10y ago
For the lazy, has anyone done any cost analysis? I've used Sendy (self-hosted php, but non-free licence) before, and that is tied to just Amazon SES.. but this has a few options.
- pastullo 10y ago
  I also use Sendy: one with Amazon SES and one with a more dodgy local Postfix server. I am quite happy with it, but the feature missing in sendy is Segmentation. How does this compare?
  - andris9 10y ago
    Mailtrain allows you to create segments over exact or relative matches eg. "all users where signup date is after 7 days before today" or "users who have custom numeric field value between 1 and 10". There's not too much documentation about it but you an find some from the Wiki https://github.com/andris9/mailtrain/wiki/Relative-date-ranges-in-segments https://github.com/andris9/mailtrain/wiki/Relative-date-rang...
- slig 10y ago
  Do yourself a favor and read the Sendy source code.
  - jmreid 10y ago
    Can you elaborate?
    - NicoJuicy 10y ago
      I read on multiple places that it's a total mess, probably he means that :p
    - slig 10y ago
      Here's one example of what I saw. Imagine you want to track every open and every click an email gets. Most of the email clients nowadays block that hidden image that is used to track openings. So, if a user clicks on a link, that obviously means that they opened the email and an email open should be tracked as well. In order to do that, one might write a function that tracks opens and call that on the tracking pixel and whenever a link in clicked. Well, that's not what happens on that software. When the, for instance, `linktracker.php` runs, it makes a HTTP request (think open('http://$HOST:$PORT/opentracker.php?uid=$UID&campaign=$campaign' http://$HOST:$PORT/opentracker.php?uid=$UID&campaign=$campai...) ) to the `opentracker.php`, simulating what a browser would do, in order to avoid duplicating the code.
youeeeeeediot 10y ago
Anyone with any experience with this product? I've got a lot of users who want to use Mailchimp, but we run a very restrictive SPF/dmarc and we will not include any 3rd parties. This might be a good solution for self-hosting our own.
- jedberg 10y ago
  The biggest value Mailchimp provides is deliverability. They spend a lot of time working with ISPs to maintain the reputation of their IPs to make sure their mail ends up in the inbox and not the spam box. You can't self host that. The mailing list features themselves aren't much different than anyone else offers.
  - youeeeeeediot 10y ago
    I would argue that they absolutely fail in that regard. The default behavior from the service seems to be "impersonate" the user - any corporation that runs an SPF has to choose to either allow (tolerate) or deny it.
    - jedberg 10y ago
      Well yes that's how SPF was designed. Of course if you have an SPF record they will fail (and so will anyone else) if you don't allow them. That's kind of the point of SPF -- to prove to everyone else who you trust to deliver mail for you.
    - brazzledazzle 10y ago
      It's probably fair to say most customers want a white label solution so that's a completely reasonable default. If you're sending out emails from mailchimp on behalf of your company why wouldn't you want them to be from your company?
  - minton 10y ago
    Don't you get "deliverability" from the email provider (i.e., SendGrid, SparkPost, Amazon SES)?
drewjaja 10y ago
How advanced is the segmentation in mailtrain? Can it segment lists like (ListA + ListB) - ListC We're currently using Interspire Email Marketer and the segmentation feature is quite limited.
brunoqc 10y ago
I have a question for Amazon SES users. Do you need to submit the "Request a Sending Limit Increase" form to send emails to domains you don't own? Can it still be free? I just want to send 3-4 emails a day from my vps and my home router.
aeviator 10y ago
I've been using mailtrain in a business context (not talking about buy in newsletters) for a while now and I purely love it! It's fast, reliable and the ui is perfectly organized. What I still miss is simple Email functions like adding attachements and CC receipients. This sounds rediculous, but the missing CC has been keeping us off from using mailtrain in a lot of campaigns where simply other people where important to be informed about replies. Still I suggest anyone trying out mailtrain as it is super simple to spin up. I love seeing it getting new releases, thumbs up!
- andris9 10y ago
  Attachment support was added just today, see the related blog post: https://mailtrain.wordpress.com/2016/09/09/attachment-support-in-mailtrain/ https://mailtrain.wordpress.com/2016/09/09/attachment-suppor... I don't really get what you mean by the CC recipients. Could you create a new issue in the Mailtrain issue tracker in Github and describe what you would like to have https://github.com/andris9/mailtrain/issues https://github.com/andris9/mailtrain/issues

81 points by andris9 10y ago

leesalminen 10y ago

503 Service Unavailable?

andris9 10y ago
It was that damn Apache that could not handle any load. Killed it and exposed Node.js directly instead of proxying through mod_proxy, should be fine now
- ddorian43 10y ago
  Does nodejs protect against slow requests (probably not) ?
  - andris9 10y ago
    Slow requests are not an issue as all connections are handled by the same process. If a connection gets idling or slow, then it does not take almost any resources (compared to apache where a separate process is spawned to handle that request)
    - xorcist 10y ago
      > compared to apache where a separate process is spawned That's not how Apache works. If your glibc is >= 2.3.2 (we're talking 2004 or newer) the default mode is epoll ("event" MPM), otherwise you will get a threadpool ("worker" MPM), and failing that you will get a processpool ("prefork" MPM). It will never spawn a process to handle a request, unless you forcibly enable prefork mode with a pool size of 1.
      - andris9 10y ago
        Sure, I agree that my knowledge about Apache internals might be severely outdated. And I can't really blame Apache either because it's a very small box, in a larger one it might have quickly stabilized
- brazzledazzle 10y ago
  In my experience this is due to an Apache default configuration that probably seemed reasonable when introduced but in practice can really screw you. Basically it caches and serves only the 503 for something like 3s to prevent the application it's proxying from getting kicked while it's down/flapping/starting. So the end result is that even if your app is only occasionally returning 503s for a small subset of users everyone gets to enjoy them for several seconds every time one is encountered. Fun stuff.
  - andris9 10y ago
    It's a really small box (512mb) that runs everyting and on a normal day it does not have any issues but when the requests from HN started coming in Apache used up all the RAM. I stopped Apache and started Mailtrain from command line in a screen session to listen directly on the web ports (so once it's out from the HN frontpage I can reboot the VPS and everything gets back to normal settings). So far it has been running smoothly with the server RAM usage in a constant 50%, no fluctuations https://cloudup.com/cokRbDpMIuw https://cloudup.com/cokRbDpMIuw
    - brazzledazzle 10y ago
      Yeah that's a pretty tight fit. Can't say I have much experience doing that all on one small box outside of local dev stuff.

Daviey 10y ago

For the lazy, has anyone done any cost analysis? I've used Sendy (self-hosted php, but non-free licence) before, and that is tied to just Amazon SES.. but this has a few options.

pastullo 10y ago
I also use Sendy: one with Amazon SES and one with a more dodgy local Postfix server. I am quite happy with it, but the feature missing in sendy is Segmentation. How does this compare?
- andris9 10y ago
  Mailtrain allows you to create segments over exact or relative matches eg. "all users where signup date is after 7 days before today" or "users who have custom numeric field value between 1 and 10". There's not too much documentation about it but you an find some from the Wiki https://github.com/andris9/mailtrain/wiki/Relative-date-ranges-in-segments https://github.com/andris9/mailtrain/wiki/Relative-date-rang...
slig 10y ago
Do yourself a favor and read the Sendy source code.
- jmreid 10y ago
  Can you elaborate?
  - NicoJuicy 10y ago
    I read on multiple places that it's a total mess, probably he means that :p
  - slig 10y ago
    Here's one example of what I saw. Imagine you want to track every open and every click an email gets. Most of the email clients nowadays block that hidden image that is used to track openings. So, if a user clicks on a link, that obviously means that they opened the email and an email open should be tracked as well. In order to do that, one might write a function that tracks opens and call that on the tracking pixel and whenever a link in clicked. Well, that's not what happens on that software. When the, for instance, `linktracker.php` runs, it makes a HTTP request (think open('http://$HOST:$PORT/opentracker.php?uid=$UID&campaign=$campaign' http://$HOST:$PORT/opentracker.php?uid=$UID&campaign=$campai...) ) to the `opentracker.php`, simulating what a browser would do, in order to avoid duplicating the code.

youeeeeeediot 10y ago

Anyone with any experience with this product? I've got a lot of users who want to use Mailchimp, but we run a very restrictive SPF/dmarc and we will not include any 3rd parties. This might be a good solution for self-hosting our own.

jedberg 10y ago
The biggest value Mailchimp provides is deliverability. They spend a lot of time working with ISPs to maintain the reputation of their IPs to make sure their mail ends up in the inbox and not the spam box. You can't self host that. The mailing list features themselves aren't much different than anyone else offers.
- youeeeeeediot 10y ago
  I would argue that they absolutely fail in that regard. The default behavior from the service seems to be "impersonate" the user - any corporation that runs an SPF has to choose to either allow (tolerate) or deny it.
  - jedberg 10y ago
    Well yes that's how SPF was designed. Of course if you have an SPF record they will fail (and so will anyone else) if you don't allow them. That's kind of the point of SPF -- to prove to everyone else who you trust to deliver mail for you.
  - brazzledazzle 10y ago
    It's probably fair to say most customers want a white label solution so that's a completely reasonable default. If you're sending out emails from mailchimp on behalf of your company why wouldn't you want them to be from your company?
- minton 10y ago
  Don't you get "deliverability" from the email provider (i.e., SendGrid, SparkPost, Amazon SES)?

drewjaja 10y ago

How advanced is the segmentation in mailtrain? Can it segment lists like (ListA + ListB) - ListC We're currently using Interspire Email Marketer and the segmentation feature is quite limited.

brunoqc 10y ago

I have a question for Amazon SES users. Do you need to submit the "Request a Sending Limit Increase" form to send emails to domains you don't own? Can it still be free? I just want to send 3-4 emails a day from my vps and my home router.

aeviator 10y ago

I've been using mailtrain in a business context (not talking about buy in newsletters) for a while now and I purely love it! It's fast, reliable and the ui is perfectly organized. What I still miss is simple Email functions like adding attachements and CC receipients. This sounds rediculous, but the missing CC has been keeping us off from using mailtrain in a lot of campaigns where simply other people where important to be informed about replies. Still I suggest anyone trying out mailtrain as it is super simple to spin up. I love seeing it getting new releases, thumbs up!

andris9 10y ago
Attachment support was added just today, see the related blog post: https://mailtrain.wordpress.com/2016/09/09/attachment-support-in-mailtrain/ https://mailtrain.wordpress.com/2016/09/09/attachment-suppor... I don't really get what you mean by the CC recipients. Could you create a new issue in the Mailtrain issue tracker in Github and describe what you would like to have https://github.com/andris9/mailtrain/issues https://github.com/andris9/mailtrain/issues