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Date:      Thu, 02 Jan 1997 20:16:17 -0500
From:      Mike Tancsa <mike@sentex.net>
To:        HawkeWerks Multimedia <hawke@hawkewerks.com>, freebsd-isp@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: Newserver recommendations
Message-ID:  <3.0.32.19970102201614.0099e100@sentex.net>

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At 03:03 PM 1/02/97 -0600, HawkeWerks Multimedia wrote:
>I'm about to set up a full feed news server. I'd like any
>suggestions/recommendations for setup. Partition choices, any special INN
>configurations, recommended news feeders, etc. Any information would be
>greatly appreciated


I asked this question a few months or so ago and got many helpful
responses... Basically, it boils down to this...

*Dont* get one big whopper of a drive. Instead, split it up among many 4
gig hard drives, and with 2 SCSI controllers if you are pushing 8 disks...
Depending on how many news readers you will have, and how big of a feed you
want, get as much RAM as possible. 128Meg is a good starting point.  Dont
forget to compile in the MAXMEN option to take advantage of the extra RAM.
Also, get 512K cache.  Personally, I wouldnt bother with a Pentium Pro.
Spend the money you save on a Pentium 166 or even a 133 and buy more RAM.
I have 128Meg RAM, and an active file thats trimmed down to 16,000 news
groups with a couple of UUCP feeds, and 2 nntp partial outbound feeds, and
I hardly ever see the load average push much above .5-.6.  Also, trim any
dead weight out of the active file that you dont need... I am sure our
customers are not much different from a typical ISP, and we get at best
about 1500 different newsgroups being read in a month, with the most
popular being the alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.* newsgroups (by a VERY,
VERY large margin!)  So, if you want to keep more than a couple of days
around, you will need 8 gig for these groups alone!  Also, the
alt.binaries.warez.* take a tremendous amount of space as well.  If you
have never setup innd, read through the FAQ, its quite helpful... The most
recent versions of INND can be found at http://www.isc.org/isc/inn.html.

Also, as another person said, go through this mailing list and look at the
previous postings... They are quite helpful.


	---Mike



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