From owner-freebsd-hackers Tue Feb 6 11:20: 4 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from mailtoaster1.pipeline.ch (mailtoaster1.pipeline.ch [62.48.0.70]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 7591037B401 for ; Tue, 6 Feb 2001 11:19:44 -0800 (PST) Received: (qmail 11823 invoked from network); 6 Feb 2001 19:16:32 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO monzoon.net) ([195.134.133.140]) (envelope-sender ) by mailtoaster1.pipeline.ch (qmail-ldap-1.03) with SMTP for ; 6 Feb 2001 19:16:32 -0000 Message-ID: <3A804E03.B1142434@monzoon.net> Date: Tue, 06 Feb 2001 20:18:27 +0100 From: Andre Oppermann X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.74 [en] (Windows NT 5.0; U) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Rik van Riel Cc: Poul-Henning Kamp , Charles Randall , 'Matt Dillon' , Dan Phoenix , Alfred Perlstein , Jos Backus , freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: soft updates and qmail (RE: qmail IO problems) References: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG 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