Date: Tue, 06 Feb 2001 20:18:27 +0100 From: Andre Oppermann <oppermann@monzoon.net> To: Rik van Riel <riel@conectiva.com.br> Cc: Poul-Henning Kamp <phk@critter.freebsd.dk>, Charles Randall <crandall@matchlogic.com>, 'Matt Dillon' <dillon@earth.backplane.com>, Dan Phoenix <dphoenix@bravenet.com>, Alfred Perlstein <bright@wintelcom.net>, Jos Backus <josb@cncdsl.com>, freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: soft updates and qmail (RE: qmail IO problems) Message-ID: <3A804E03.B1142434@monzoon.net> References: <Pine.LNX.4.21.0102061538290.1535-100000@duckman.distro.conectiva>
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Rik van Riel wrote: > > On Tue, 6 Feb 2001, Poul-Henning Kamp wrote: > > In message <5FE9B713CCCDD311A03400508B8B3013054E3F5D@bdr-xcln.is.matchlogic.com>, Charles Randall writes: > > >The qmail FAQ specifically recommends against soft updates for the mail > > >queue. > > > > > >http://cr.yp.to/qmail/faq/reliability.html#filesystems > > > > > >Is this incorrect? > > > > It seems to indicate that qmail doesn't use fsync(2) as much as > > it should do. If that is true, then yes, softupdates would mean > > that a lot of things which qmail (mistakenly) think has been > > written are in fact not on the disk. > > If this is true, I guess qmail can be officially considered > broken. IIRC SMTP requires you to wait until the data is on > stable (non-volatile) storage until you are allowed to return > SMTP 250... Qmail is not broken and issues a SMTP 250 with the inode number of the queue file when the fsync() call on that file has completed. > The system call used to guarantee this is fsync (and friends?); > if qmail doesn't use it but makes assumptions that aren't true > on any decent OS out there ... Qmail uses it extensivly. Qmail treats the queue as a transactional database with roll-forward and roll-backs in the event of a crash. -- Andre To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
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