you'd have thought they have competant sysadmins which have a max filesize limit set on emails wouldnt you?
This is very easy to do in the MS Exchange world. By default Exchange 2000, and IIRC, 2003, doesn't have max filesize limits set. So they send out a 50Mb file to say 50 people. The takes forever, but it finally gets out.
This isn't the big problem, though! It is the bounce messages WITH THE SAME 50MB file included in it. So now you have just sent out 50Mb * 50 people which hosed the mail server/Internet connection for a long time, PLUS all the bounce messages coming back are hosing it.
Now think of what that does for the message store. When it went out, it just stored 50MB of data in their outbox/sent folder. When it comes back, it takes up 2.5Gb of space in their inbox!
Most people don't realize this until it has happened at least once.
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penultimate means second to last. I think you used the wrong word and meant to use "Ultimate".
This is very easy to do in the MS Exchange world. By default Exchange 2000, and IIRC, 2003, doesn't have max filesize limits set. So they send out a 50Mb file to say 50 people. The takes forever, but it finally gets out.
This isn't the big problem, though! It is the bounce messages WITH THE SAME 50MB file included in it. So now you have just sent out 50Mb * 50 people which hosed the mail server/Internet connection for a long time, PLUS all the bounce messages coming back are hosing it.
Now think of what that does for the message store. When it went out, it just stored 50MB of data in their outbox/sent folder. When it comes back, it takes up 2.5Gb of space in their inbox!
Most people don't realize this until it has happened at least once.
He *might* have meant to say *nix instead of lnix.