* "Ryan A" <Ryan@xxxxxxxxxxxx>: > My client has a dating site and now he wants to mail all his members, > he does not want to use any of the already installed mailing lists but > wants us to make one for him, he's on a dedicated server. > > Presently he does not have too many members, just a few thousand > (around 3k i guess), I remember reading sometime back on the list that > using the mail() may not be the best option...not sure if thats still > true. > > The thing that bothers me the most is if the program times out..., how > do I start again from the ones that have not been sent? > > eg: > (10 members) > mail gets sent to first 4 members then times out > we re-click on the send button and it starts again from one...again > times out (this happens 5 times) > > that means members 1-4 will get the same email 5 times > > Doing this the hard way would be to connect to the db after each > successful mail and "mark" each member with todays date or > something...but I would like to avoid so many calls to the DB if > possible...esp if the site grows. > > Ideas/suggestions? Build a queueing system, and use cron to actually process and mail the list. Longer explanation: I run a mass-mailer for a non-profit, and the way our works is to store all mail information in a database. We then have a cronjob that runs each minute and checks to see if any mailings need to be sent (basically, the absense of a 'sent' flag), and then processes the mailing. Mails are then queued to an MTA -- in our case, Postfix. This allows us to handle bounces (another script is triggered when email bounces back to the reply-to address). So, on your web-based front-end, when you click 'Send', it actually simply places the information in a database queue, and the cronjob does the actual sending. -- Matthew Weier O'Phinney Zend Certified Engineer http://weierophinney.net/matthew/ -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
