On Thu, 2008-07-03 at 14:21 -0700, John Thomas wrote:

Craig White wrote:

...

# grep size_limit /etc/postfix/main.cf message_size_limit = 2560000000 mailbox_size_limit = 5120000000

Is that 2.5 TB? I must be getting old. When I was young, I thought 10MB was big.

---- ;-)

what's zero but a placeholder ?

I think I do have 2 too many.

Craig

On Thu, 2008-07-03 at 22:25 +0100, Anne Wilson wrote:

On Thursday 03 July 2008 22:12:10 Craig White wrote:

...

On Thu, 2008-07-03 at 22:06 +0100, Anne Wilson wrote:

...

My daughter needs to send me a large file. It appears that it is getting through my ISP, but being rejected on my CentOS mail server. The message she's getting says

A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of its recipients. This is a permanent error. The following address(es) failed:

anne@localhost SMTP error: 552 5.3.4 Message size exceeds fixed limit Reporting-MTA: dns; borg2.lydgate.lan

I presume that this is a configurable limit, but I'm not sure where to look. Since it says MTA I'm thinking that it's probably postfix. Can someone please tell me what parameter I'm looking for? Thanks

I have reams of documentation printed out. I'll start wading through that tomorrow, but time is of the essence with this one.

---

# grep size_limit /etc/postfix/main.cf message_size_limit = 2560000000 mailbox_size_limit = 5120000000

So 'size_limit' is what I'm looking for. Thanks everyone. Now comes the really hard bit. I have to tell her, blindfolded, how to tell the size of the message she is sending. She uses btinternet's yahoo mailer, and I haven't a clue what she can see there. :-(

---- get 'properties' (usually a right click on the file) of the file she's attaching

Craig

on 7-3-2008 2:25 PM Anne Wilson spake the following:

On Thursday 03 July 2008 22:12:10 Craig White wrote:

...

On Thu, 2008-07-03 at 22:06 +0100, Anne Wilson wrote:

...

My daughter needs to send me a large file. It appears that it is getting through my ISP, but being rejected on my CentOS mail server. The message she's getting says

A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of its recipients. This is a permanent error. The following address(es) failed:

anne@localhost SMTP error: 552 5.3.4 Message size exceeds fixed limit Reporting-MTA: dns; borg2.lydgate.lan

I presume that this is a configurable limit, but I'm not sure where to look. Since it says MTA I'm thinking that it's probably postfix. Can someone please tell me what parameter I'm looking for? Thanks

I have reams of documentation printed out. I'll start wading through that tomorrow, but time is of the essence with this one.

---

# grep size_limit /etc/postfix/main.cf message_size_limit = 2560000000 mailbox_size_limit = 5120000000

So 'size_limit' is what I'm looking for. Thanks everyone. Now comes the really hard bit. I have to tell her, blindfolded, how to tell the size of the message she is sending. She uses btinternet's yahoo mailer, and I haven't a clue what she can see there. :-(

Anne

Just set it large until she sends you the file, and then set it back. How's that for blindfolded?

Anne Wilson wrote:

So 'size_limit' is what I'm looking for. Thanks everyone. Now comes the really hard bit. I have to tell her, blindfolded, how to tell the size of the message she is sending. She uses btinternet's yahoo mailer, and I haven't a clue what she can see there. :-)

Don't forget to account for encoding overhead, which can be up to 30% (maybe more).

nate

Anne Wilson wrote:

On Thursday 03 July 2008 23:05:19 nate wrote:

...

Anne Wilson wrote:

...

So 'size_limit' is what I'm looking for. Thanks everyone. Now comes the really hard bit. I have to tell her, blindfolded, how to tell the size of the message she is sending. She uses btinternet's yahoo mailer, and I haven't a clue what she can see there. :-)

Don't forget to account for encoding overhead, which can be up to 30% (maybe more).

That's the bit I thought I'd have to guess. Thanks for the estimate.

Anne _______________________________________________ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos

why not setup a vsFTPd account for her to upload to? much easier to deal with and can be chroot'd, and used by others as well. files go directly to file system as opposed to having to be processed by MTA. When clients ask me this same kind of question I generally tell them there's a lot of good reasons why the internet standard for a 5MB attachment limit, and if folks need to send files larger than that, then FTP services are better suited for such things.

Anne Wilson wrote:

On Friday 04 July 2008 17:45:33 Mark Weaver wrote:

...

Anne Wilson wrote:

...

On Thursday 03 July 2008 23:05:19 nate wrote:

...

Anne Wilson wrote:

...

So 'size_limit' is what I'm looking for. Thanks everyone. Now comes the really hard bit. I have to tell her, blindfolded, how to tell the size of the message she is sending. She uses btinternet's yahoo mailer, and I haven't a clue what she can see there. :-)

Don't forget to account for encoding overhead, which can be up to 30% (maybe more).

That's the bit I thought I'd have to guess. Thanks for the estimate.

why not setup a vsFTPd account for her to upload to? much easier to deal with and can be chroot'd, and used by others as well. files go directly to file system as opposed to having to be processed by MTA. When clients ask me this same kind of question I generally tell them there's a lot of good reasons why the internet standard for a 5MB attachment limit, and if folks need to send files larger than that, then FTP services are better suited for such things.

You haven't met my daughter :-) I'm not saying that she's stubborn, but....

Anne _______________________________________________ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos

:) I know what you mean. I have a few clients like that. When I explain to them it's less trouble and effort they soon come around.

On Thursday 03 July 2008 22:12:10 Craig White wrote:

On Thu, 2008-07-03 at 22:06 +0100, Anne Wilson wrote:

...

My daughter needs to send me a large file. It appears that it is getting through my ISP, but being rejected on my CentOS mail server. The message she's getting says

A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of its recipients. This is a permanent error. The following address(es) failed:

anne@localhost SMTP error: 552 5.3.4 Message size exceeds fixed limit Reporting-MTA: dns; borg2.lydgate.lan

I presume that this is a configurable limit, but I'm not sure where to look. Since it says MTA I'm thinking that it's probably postfix. Can someone please tell me what parameter I'm looking for? Thanks

I have reams of documentation printed out. I'll start wading through that tomorrow, but time is of the essence with this one.

---

# grep size_limit /etc/postfix/main.cf message_size_limit = 2560000000 mailbox_size_limit = 5120000000

I see that the defaults are

mailbox_size_limit = 51200000 message_size_limit = 10240000

and she was trying to send me a ~5MB attachment!

Sorted, now, thanks

Anne

On Thursday 03 July 2008 22:29:55 Jim Perrin wrote:

On Thu, Jul 3, 2008 at 5:06 PM, Anne Wilson cannewilson@googlemail.com

wrote:

...

My daughter needs to send me a large file. It appears that it is getting through my ISP, but being rejected on my CentOS mail server. The message she's getting says

Much as I dislike getting or giving "you asked for x, but here's how to do it with y" I'm going to do so here.

Email is one of those things which is great for small files, and such, but large transfers can cause issues at pretty much every aspect of the trip. If you've already got a webserver running, add a password protected area for uploads. You can even set it up to allow webdav style transfers over https. This avoids any mail handling delays, lets both parties know it got there successfully, and keeps the clutter out of the mailserver.

I wouldn't dream of sending big files like that by email, but this is a windows user who 'wants to get things done, not play with computers'. Her experience is that she can send a big pdf to her printers, so she wouldn't think that he sets his mailbox to accept unusually large files. As far as she's concerned, I'm at fault. She even read the 'Message size exceeds fixed limit' as meaning that my inbox was full. It's no good trying to tell her about better ways. She wouldn't see that as part of her work.

</rant> Thanks to list members I'll get the file thiis morning.

Anne

On Sunday 06 July 2008 17:26:05 Scott Silva wrote:

That is one of the biggest of my beefs about windows. It allows any computer noob to shoot themselves in the foot very easily. That can be a plus or a negative. The biggest negative is that there are now millions of computers on the internet that have run out on their free 2 months of virus scanner updates, and are now owned by someones bot network, while the clueless user keeps plugging along wondering why the darn machine is so slow. I guess the positive is that it is easy for Grandma and Grandpa on the other side of the country to get pics of the grandkids.

I just wish that PC manufacturers would just contract with one of the free virus scanner companies like Grisoft, instead of putting in Norton with a 60 day cripple point. Most users will just ignore the update message until it stops because they don't know it is really necessary software. A free virus scanner with updates will beat a heave commercial soft with no updates anytime.

I fail to see what any of this has to do with my question. As it happens she is not a computer newbie and she has had an AV contract since the Win3.1 days. However, that's totally irrelevant. She simply hadn't realised just how big a pdf with two large graphics and embedded fonts would be.

Anne

On Sunday 06 July 2008 19:38:16 Jacques B. wrote:

Have you considered a file transfer service such as yousendit.com? File size might still be an issue I guess as they limit it to 100 MB for their free account.  There's another thought.  Why not create yourself a gmail account or other such online account that is as forgiving as possible on file size and have her send it to that account.  Probably the easiest solution of all, "Honey, use this email address instead: xxxx".

Actually, she had the wit to try that, but gmail forwards all my mail to my IMAP server, and that's where it was being rejected. I've just temporarily raised the size limit. It's not as though it will be a constant need, and at least she has learned something. Next job is to teach her to decrease the size of her graphics where appropriate :-)

Anne

on 7-6-2008 11:16 AM Anne Wilson spake the following:

On Sunday 06 July 2008 17:26:05 Scott Silva wrote:

...

That is one of the biggest of my beefs about windows. It allows any computer noob to shoot themselves in the foot very easily. That can be a plus or a negative. The biggest negative is that there are now millions of computers on the internet that have run out on their free 2 months of virus scanner updates, and are now owned by someones bot network, while the clueless user keeps plugging along wondering why the darn machine is so slow. I guess the positive is that it is easy for Grandma and Grandpa on the other side of the country to get pics of the grandkids.

I just wish that PC manufacturers would just contract with one of the free virus scanner companies like Grisoft, instead of putting in Norton with a 60 day cripple point. Most users will just ignore the update message until it stops because they don't know it is really necessary software. A free virus scanner with updates will beat a heave commercial soft with no updates anytime.

I fail to see what any of this has to do with my question. As it happens she is not a computer newbie and she has had an AV contract since the Win3.1 days. However, that's totally irrelevant. She simply hadn't realised just how big a pdf with two large graphics and embedded fonts would be.

Anne

It wasn't a personal attack, just a general state of the "average" windows user vs an "average" user of some of the linux/unix derivatives.

My comment on just increasing the allowed message size until after you received the large message was to help with your immediate problem with the least amount of change to your daughters system.