high cpu usage (cpanel + email questions)
My hosting company told me that the server hosting my domain has been bogged down by the email filtering process of my incoming emails.
Assuming my incoming mail issue is the sole reason for the high CPU load:
The cpanel currently has ":fail: no such address" set for non-accounted incoming emails.
I've setup one main pop3 account and around 100 forwarding addresses to this account. I get about 200 emails from these aliases per day. These are mostly non-spam emails.
I receive about 10,000~30,000 spam emails per day if catch-all is set. They are sent to hundreds and hundreds of non-existing aliases. There are all from different senders with different content. This is a normal behavior for this domain name, it's been going on for years.
So what is causing the high CPU load even it's set to :fail:?
Is it because I have ~100 forwarding aliases?
Is there a performance difference between using ":fail: no such address" and ":fail:"?
Would it help if I reduce the number of forwards to ~10?
And, which takes less hit on the CPU in my situation, setting up 10 pop3 accounts or setting up 1 pop3 account and 9 forwarding aliases?
I can live with checking 10 emails accounts if I have to.
Also,
What options do I have if nothing helps? My hosting company has frankly asked me to look for a 3rd party option for email.
But I can not give up this domain name and ~10 email aliases.
Is there a such service that only provides *reliable* email but no file hosting? I only need the pop3 service for that domain name. I really don't want to get a dedicated box just for pop3...
