george@taca.ece.cmu.edu (George Cebulka) (03/08/91)
I'm having a problem with articles not getting expired. I have many articles
hanging around *way* past their expire times. This is causing my spool partition
to fill up (I'm at 96% now).
When I run "newsfrom 02/24/91 02/28/91" it returns exactly one article.
However, when I cd into a spool directroy for a newsgroup there are many the
creation dates show many files which fit into this time frame. Most of them
seem to be from around the Feb/24-Feb/28 time frame. It would almost seem that
few, if any, articles are getting deleted since that Feb 26.
Thank you
George Cebulka, ECE Facilities
Here is a copy of my explist file.
# modified version, no archiving
#
# hold onto history lines 14 days, nobody gets >365 days
/expired/ x 30 -
#/bounds/ x 0-1-120 -
# default: 7 days and ditch'em
cmu.ece.general x 0-45-46 -
cmu.ece.class x 0-120-121 -
ece x 0-120-121 -
cmu x 0-21-22 -
# Some of the stuff in news.announce is important. Let it hang around for a while.
news.software.nntp x 0-35-36 -
news.software.b x 0-35-36 -
news.announce.conferences x 0-30-31 -
news.announce.important x 0-120-121 -
news.announce.newusers x 0-120-121 -
news.announce.newgroups x 0-15-16 -
# Newsgroups we don't want to keep for more than a week.
#
# Newgroups that we don't want or need to keep more than 3 days
control x 0-2-2 -
# This is the default. Keep stuff for a week, then get rid of it
bionet x 0-7-7 -
talk x 0-7-7 -
# Stuff to get rid of early. This is an emergency measure.
comp x 0-6-6 -
comp.binaries x 0-3-4 -
comp.dcom x 0-3-4 -
comp.lang x 0-3-4 -
comp.amiga x 0-2-3 -
comp.sys x 0-3-4 -
comp.sources x 0-4-5 -
comp.unix x 0-4-5 -
comp.windows x 0-4-5 -
comp.mail x 0-3-4 -
alt x 0-6-6 -
alt.activism x 0-3-4 -
alt.flame x 0-3-4 -
alt.folklore x 0-3-4 -
alt.sex x 0-3-4 -
alt.sources x 0-3-4 -
alt.tv x 0-3-4 -
soc x 0-3-4 -
#
all x 0-7-7 -
Here is a partial listing of two of my directories.
/nnspool/comp/binaries/ibm/pc
total 2779
drwxrwxr-x 3 news 1536 Mar 6 19:40 .
drwxrwxr-x 3 news 512 Nov 26 11:53 ..
-rw-rw-r-- 1 news 25014 Feb 26 03:44 3752
-rw-rw-r-- 1 news 20978 Feb 26 03:44 3753
-rw-rw-r-- 1 news 44563 Feb 26 03:52 3754
-rw-rw-r-- 1 news 45034 Feb 26 03:52 3755
-rw-rw-r-- 1 news 5662 Feb 26 03:52 3756
-rw-rw-r-- 1 news 21029 Feb 26 03:52 3757
-rw-rw-r-- 1 news 7251 Feb 26 03:52 3758
-rw-rw-r-- 1 news 42878 Feb 26 16:33 3759
-rw-rw-r-- 1 news 40865 Feb 26 16:41 3760
-rw-rw-r-- 1 news 40890 Feb 26 17:34 3761
-rw-rw-r-- 1 news 40896 Feb 26 17:34 3762
-rw-rw-r-- 1 news 40103 Feb 26 17:34 3763
-rw-rw-r-- 1 news 22032 Feb 26 17:51 3764
-rw-rw-r-- 1 news 15755 Feb 26 17:51 3765
-rw-rw-r-- 1 news 46780 Mar 1 11:52 3766
-rw-rw-r-- 1 news 46457 Mar 1 12:03 3767
-rw-rw-r-- 1 news 45993 Mar 1 12:31 3768
total 241
/nnspool/soc/culture/japan
drwxrwxr-x 2 news 1536 Mar 7 19:36 .
drwxrwxr-x 34 news 1024 Feb 18 02:16 ..
-rw-rw-r-- 1 news 6362 Dec 18 09:04 6553
-rw-rw-r-- 1 news 2085 Dec 18 09:32 6554
-rw-rw-r-- 1 news 2706 Dec 18 10:03 6555
-rw-rw-r-- 1 news 959 Jan 14 16:40 6728
-rw-rw-r-- 8 news 3237 Feb 24 01:46 6995
-rw-rw-r-- 1 news 1967 Feb 24 03:30 6996
-rw-rw-r-- 1 news 1647 Feb 24 05:21 6997
-rw-rw-r-- 8 news 2308 Feb 24 18:02 6998
-rw-rw-r-- 1 news 1935 Feb 24 20:03 6999
-rw-rw-r-- 3 news 1503 Feb 25 11:01 7000
-rw-rw-r-- 1 news 1429 Feb 25 12:17 7001
-rw-rw-r-- 1 news 1144 Feb 25 19:48 7002
-rw-rw-r-- 8 news 2082 Feb 26 00:39 7003
-rw-rw-r-- 1 news 1067 Feb 26 00:50 7004
-rw-rw-r-- 1 news 2731 Feb 26 00:54 7005
-rw-rw-r-- 1 news 1331 Feb 26 01:36 7006
-rw-rw-r-- 1 news 757 Feb 26 02:04 7007
-rw-rw-r-- 1 news 683 Feb 26 02:19 7008
-rw-rw-r-- 1 news 816 Feb 26 10:17 7009
-rw-rw-r-- 1 news 1592 Feb 26 11:50 7010
-rw-rw-r-- 1 news 3342 Feb 26 14:16 7011
-rw-rw-r-- 1 news 1031 Feb 26 17:46 7012
-rw-rw-r-- 1 news 2935 Feb 26 19:33 7013
-rw-rw-r-- 6 news 2609 Feb 26 19:44 7014
-rw-rw-r-- 7 news 1918 Feb 26 19:44 7015
-rw-rw-r-- 8 news 7830 Feb 26 19:44 7016
-rw-rw-r-- 8 news 2270 Feb 26 19:44 7017
-rw-rw-r-- 8 news 4068 Feb 26 19:44 7018
-rw-rw-r-- 9 news 5286 Feb 26 21:32 7019
-rw-rw-r-- 1 news 1944 Feb 28 17:03 7033
.
.
.
-rw-rw-r-- 1 news 1059 Mar 1 00:46 7034
--
George Cebulka, ECE Facilitiesmolenda@s1.msi.umn.edu (Jason Molenda) (03/08/91)
george@taca.ece.cmu.edu (George Cebulka) writes: > I'm having a problem with articles not getting expired. [...] > When I run "newsfrom 02/24/91 02/28/91" it returns exactly one article. >However, when I cd into a spool directroy for a newsgroup there are many the >creation dates show many files which fit into this time frame. Most of them >seem to be from around the Feb/24-Feb/28 time frame. It would almost seem that >few, if any, articles are getting deleted since that Feb 26. News Hiccup. It happens all the time, although there is No Good Reason for it to; in theory it shouldn't happen at all. The problem is most likely that the messages are not listed in the history file (/usr/lib/news/history, usually). Expire really just scans through the history file when it is deciding what articles should be expired. If, by some magic fate, an article is not listed in the history file, then expire will never delete it. newsfrom probably does the same thing (I've never used it so I'm not sure exactly how it works). Again, if the messages aren't in the history file, newsfrom won't list them. The easiest solution is to run 'addmissing' if you are running a recent version of Cnews (I forget when addmissing was added.. fairly recently I believe). This will run around the spool directory checking for messages that Cnews doesn't know about (or something to that effect). Alternatively, run a manual find(1) to delete messages older than <x> days and delete them. The problem with this is that if you archive any newsgroups or keep them longer than <x> days, you'll have to do some weird stuff to keep find(1) away from those messages. -- More information that you couldn't have existed another day without, from: Jason Molenda, Tech Support, Iris & News Admin, Minnesota Supercomputer Inst molenda@s1.msi.umn.edu || molenda%msi.umn.edu@umnacvx.bitnet "And remember: Evil will always prevail, because Good is dumb." -- Spaceballs
molenda@s1.msi.umn.edu (Jason Molenda) (03/08/91)
molenda@s1.msi.umn.edu (Jason Molenda) writes: >george@taca.ece.cmu.edu (George Cebulka) writes: >> I'm having a problem with articles not getting expired. [...] >The easiest solution is to run 'addmissing' if you are running a >Alternatively, run a manual find(1) to delete messages older than <x> >days and delete them. My thinking cap wasn't on. There is a third (rather undesirable) option. You can rebuild your history file. It really isn't _that_ bad on most systems these days; just set up an atjob to do it at some obscenely late hour of the night and you probably won't even notice. The only drawback is that you have increased chances of getting slightly-old articles at your site that have already been expired but would have still been in the history file normally. Not usually a big problem because your neighbour sites will usually 'shield' you from any serious problems with older articles. (to an extent.. it isn't Good Policy to rely on your neighbours to keep their expired Message-IDs around a long time.) -- More information that you couldn't have existed another day without, from: Jason Molenda, Tech Support, Iris & News Admin, Minnesota Supercomputer Inst molenda@s1.msi.umn.edu || molenda%msi.umn.edu@umnacvx.bitnet "And remember: Evil will always prevail, because Good is dumb." -- Spaceballs
henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) (03/09/91)
In article <1991Mar8.015811.243@fs7.ece.cmu.edu> george@taca.ece.cmu.edu (George Cebulka) writes: >However, when I cd into a spool directroy for a newsgroup there are many the >creation dates show many files which fit into this time frame. Most of them >seem to be from around the Feb/24-Feb/28 time frame. It would almost seem that >few, if any, articles are getting deleted since that Feb 26. It sounds like something is badly wrong with your news system, and the history file lacks entries for those articles. That is *not* a normal situation; you should investigate at once. Are current articles getting history entries properly? If not, that's the problem. (In particular, if you are running System V by any chance, check to see if your history has hit the default ulimit.) Running addmissing is the preferred solution. Rebuilding your history file is more drastic but would have the same effect in this situation. However, you really need to understand the problem first, or there is a good chance it will recur. -- "But this *is* the simplified version | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology for the general public." -S. Harris | henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry