Set Up Throttling for Mailing Lists

Bandwidth and email throttling allow system administrators to limit the quantity of data that a SmarterMail mail server transmits and/or accepts within a specified period of time. This limit can be set by bandwidth, the number of emails transmitted, and/or by the number of bounced messages received.

Understandably, there are periods where client requests may peak (certain hours of the day, for example). There are also times when one domain or user attempts to send a high volume of email in a short amount of time (monthly newsletters, billing statements, news announcements, etc.). Such peaks may cause congestion of data (bottlenecks) across the connection—causing unnecessary delays for normal traffic in the form of backed-up spool, slow delivery, delayed email, or mail server downtime.

When a mail server using outgoing bandwidth throttling has reached the allowed bandwidth set by the administrator, it will delay further send attempts until the bandwidth use reaches an acceptable level. Similarly, email throttling allows administrators to determine the maximum number of outbound emails that can be delivered per hour at the system, domain, and/or user levels. For both bandwidth and email throttling, delayed email traffic is rescheduled for delivery at the set quantity each hour until all deliveries have been completed. Bounce throttling prevents the mass number of failed email deliveries often associated with outbound or “spoof” spam techniques from overwhelming a SmarterMail mail server installation.

Applies to SmarterMail Enterprise 8.x - 12.x

Follow these steps to set up throttling for a specific mailing list:

1. Log in to SmarterMail as the domain administrator.
2. Click the Settings icon.
3. Expand the Domain Settings and Mailing Lists folders in the navigation pane.
4. Click Mailing Lists. A list of mailing lists will load in the content pane.
5. Select the the desired mailing list and click Edit in the content pane toolbar. The mailing list settings will load in a popup window.
6. Click the Throttling tab.
7. The default throttling settings will display. You can use these values or type in new values in the appropriate fields.
8. To enable the throttling settings, ensure you select the Enabled checkboxes.
9. Click Save.

All other settings are optional. For more information on mailing list throttling, please refer to the SmarterMail Online Help.