[rpd] list archives show strange ... and delays

[Willy Manga]

Hello Jordi,

[**wearing no hats**]

On 08/10/2020 15:50, JORDI PALET MARTINEZ wrote:

> [...]

>     > 1) There is a delay from sending an email to getting it back. I use lists, such as IETF and other RIRs, with many thousands of subscribers, and there is no such delay. Can that be resolved? For example, this email is being sent at 10:53:00 UTC+2, let's see when it comes back.

> 

>     what is the exact number we are talking about here ?

> 

> *** years! I've observed this always. I've already told Ernest 3 or so years ago. All the other lists come back in almost seconds, so I don't think is related to the size of the list (and I've the feeling that this one has much less subscribers than many others).


Sorry, I meant: according to you,  what is the "right" delay to accept ?
I was not talking about your inquiry.



>     In my humble opinion, you need to pull statistics over a long period and

>     you need to agree on "what is the delay to consider as being

>     problematic" to confirm there is an issue.

> 

>     If you subscribe to a mailing-list and want to receive emails one by one

>     (instead of digest mode) , I humbly think you should be worry if you got

>     any new email after 1 hour.

> 

> *** I disagree, this is not the expected behavior, and it makes the discussions complex and sometimes, you repeat arguments that someone else already send, but haven't been received yet!


Please note that I was just giving an example. It does not mean it
applies to what AFRINIC smtp servers are doing.


>     In practice it can be less BUT that should not be a concern modulo the

>     delay you consider as critical.

>     There are many smtp servers, spam,antivirus and whatever software

>     analysis along the path between lists.afrinic.net and your mailbox.

> 

> *** All that should take seconds, not minutes!


I do not agree with you :) . Again, SMTP is not designed for live
discussions. Therefore, by design, they are numerous reasons to have
delays but system administrators do their best to reduce that delay as
much as possible.

But the most important for us here is : what is the minimum acceptable
delay to consider?

From a system perspective, even 1 hour can be "normal". From an user
perspective, for RPD lists, I would say 15 minutes should be a
reasonable delay.
But it's just my point of view.



>     Besides, remember that email is *asynchronous* ; it's not built for

>     _live_ discussion. It's not a must to get an email ... 10 seconds

> 

>     If we only consider your email, actually you should not worry.

> 

>     TL;DR answer: the delay was 34 seconds.

> 

> *** NO! The delay is almost 8 minutes! Just compare my emails, and we may compare with other folks if they have the same situation or not. If is only myself, it is really strange, may be is due to some misconfiguration with IPv6 at your side? My IPv6 configuration works "in seconds" with IETF and the other RIR emails.


Sorry but I check the mail headers you sent and the delay is : 5 minutes
11 seconds.

But most important: if you receive a message let say 5, 8 or even 10
minutes after it has been sent; isn't it a _reasonable_ delay ?




>     Let's look the mail headers.

> [...]

> *** Look at your email headers "as I've received it", I've attached it.



Same exercise. This time: the duration between the mail I sent from my
mailbox and when it reaches your smtp server.

I check the mail headers you sent for review.

TL;DR answer: the delay was 4 minutes 49 seconds.

My email to AFRINIC (A):

Received: from mail-ed1-x529.google.com ([2a00:1450:4864:20::529]:37317)
 by mx1.afrinic.net with esmtps (TLSv1.2:AES128-GCM-SHA256:128)
 (Exim 4.84_2) (envelope-from <mangawilly at gmail.com>)
 id 1kQU6p-00049T-Rl
 for rpd at afrinic.net; Thu, 08 Oct 2020 11:29:20 +0000


----------------------


From AFRINIC to mail.consulintel.es (B)

Received: from lists.afrinic.net (lists.afrinic.net [2001:42d0:0:200::4])
        by mail.consulintel.es ([2001:470:1f09:495::5])
        (Cipher TLSv1:AES-SHA:256) (MDaemon PRO v16.5.2)
        with ESMTPS id md50000418564.msg for <jordi.palet at consulintel.es>;
        Thu, 08 Oct 2020 13:34:31 +0200


------------------------------------

We stick to UTC.

Arrival (B): Thu, 08 Oct 2020 11:34:31 +0000
Departure (A): Thu, 08 Oct 2020 11:29:20 +0000


Total duration: 5 minutes 11 seconds

Our concern is only the time between lists.afrinic.net and
mail.consulintel.es.
As you can see above, there is nothing to worry about here.




>     > 2) This is even worst. When I look into the archives, the emails are saved in a modified way. For example, I just emailed https://lists.afrinic.net/pipermail/rpd/2020/011634.html, and my text under "The reasons for this are:", appears without the numbers and not formatted as the email I send (and the one I got back).

> 

>     Actually Jordi, your emails are not easy to read for those who prefer to

>     read emails in plaintext :) . I, for instance have to switch to the

>     "HTML view" to read your emails.

> 

> *** I don't use html by default, but if I'm responding to someone that used HTML, it turns on automatically unless I notice it and I disable it. I use Outlook for Mac (complained to Microsoft many times about the lack of proper quoting, but can't switch because many business apps that rely on it).


How some organizations understand AND implement RFCs, that's another
story :) .

But can we agree that it is not an "issue" here ?


-- 
Willy Manga
@ongolaboy
https://ongola.blogspot.com/

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