Interaction of two copies of Thunderbird on the same LAN

[Robert Miles]

I have two computers on a LAN, each with Thunderbird installed and
connected to the same newsgroups server.

Do the recent versions of Thunderbird place any restrictions on both of
these computers both accessing that server at once? The server might -
I've forgotten if it allows more than one connection from the same
account at once. Are there any stronger restrictions on both of them
downloading from the same newsgroup at once?

I've tried having both of them download from the same newsgroup at the
same time, but from different newsgroups servers. No obvious
interference, although there is probably some slowdown due to sharing
the bandwidth. Both computers showed about twice as much disk activity
as usual. Does this mean that each copy of Thunderbird is watching what
the other downloads, to see if any of it is messages it has also been
told to download?

Or are the two copies of Thunderbird exchanging information on what
messages are already downloaded so they can get some of the messages
from the other copy instead of from either server?

[Ron Hunter]

You don't mention how they access the LAN. Mine go through a NAT
router, and there is no interaction that I can see.

[Ed Mullen]

I have several computers that are connected to my IMAP email account at
the same time. No issues.

--
Ed Mullen
http://edmullen.net/
I asked Mom if I was a gifted child. She said they certainly wouldn't
have paid for me.

[John H Meyers]

On 5/18/2013 10:44 PM, Robert Miles wrote:

> I have two computers on a LAN, each with Thunderbird installed
> and connected to the same newsgroups server.
> Do the recent versions of Thunderbird place any restrictions
> on both of these computers both accessing that server at once?

Restrictions about maximum simultaneous connections
are generally imposed by news servers,
usually on the basis of IP addresses where connections originate,
regardless of either what newsgroups are involved
or what software is generating the connection requests.

People on networks which feature Network Address Translation (NAT)
are sometimes penalized by that arrangement -- for example,
our campus appears to the world as if all its traffic
comes from only two IP addresses (one per major bandwidth supplier),
which can cause anyone's access to any popular single news server
to compete with everyone else on campus for the few simultaneous
connections which some servers may allow.

> Or are the two copies of Thunderbird exchanging information
> on what messages are already downloaded
> so they can get some of the messages from the other copy
> instead of from either server?

That type of collusion is more characteristic of software made for
illegal file sharing, which tries to build its own networks
of conspiring users who each become a server. Neither Thunderbird
itself nor the NNTP protocol has anything in common with such a design.

--