2.10 update: Sept. 21

[Dan Scott]

Email "From" addresses:

I've been able to set up a forwarding email address for HSN, such that
courtesy emails are sent with a From address "<something>@concat.ca"
and any responses to that email are then forwarded to the actual HSN
library email address.

If your IT organization uses similarly strict email rules[1], they
might be blocking email that purports to be coming from your domain;
if that's the case, then I can set up a similar forwarding address for
you. The downside is that your patrons might see "@concat.ca", not
recognize it and assume it's a phishing email or spam... but the
upside is that they would at least have the chance of receiving it.
Just let me know.

On the performance front:

Last night we stopped "windsor.concat.ca" from responding to any
requests (removed from DNS entirely), so we'll no longer see any
traffic that was intended for our dearly departed partner. And I added
one more low-value crawler to the "block" list.

Thus far we seem to be doing much better with available RAM, so it
seems likely the reduced crawler traffic is having a positive effect
on our overall performance.

However, I'm still seeing database transactions getting rolled back
for things like check-ins and updating MARC records, and it looks like
the general cause may be because the database isn't responding in the
six second maximum. For my next tweak, I'm going to try increasing the
minimum number of server processes that provide database connections
to avoid the possibility that the delay is due to the processes having
to start up when there is load on the system.

Down the road (Thanksgiving, perhaps), I'm hoping to upgrade the
version of the database that we're running on to a more modern
version--matching what BC Libraries Coop and many others use. This,
too, may be playing a part in our general lacklustre performance.

1. I can attest that Laurentian is currently not using strict email
rules to prevent From addresses of @laurentian.ca being sent from
other servers, which is a good news / bad news situation :)