From owner-freebsd-stable Mon Jan 3 4:25:51 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Received: from dozer.skynet.be (dozer.skynet.be [195.238.2.36]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2508C14E70 for ; Mon, 3 Jan 2000 04:25:41 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from blk@skynet.be) Received: from [195.238.1.121] (brad.techos.skynet.be [195.238.1.121]) by dozer.skynet.be (8.9.3/odie-relay-v1.0) with ESMTP id NAA09428; Mon, 3 Jan 2000 13:25:26 +0100 (MET) Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Sender: blk@foxbert.skynet.be Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <200001021849.TAA30668@dorifer.heim3.tu-clausthal.de> References: <200001021849.TAA30668@dorifer.heim3.tu-clausthal.de> Date: Mon, 3 Jan 2000 12:27:01 +0100 To: Oliver Fromme , freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG From: Brad Knowles Subject: Re: Soft-updates + INN + CNFS = good or bad? Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Sender: owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG At 7:49 PM +0100 2000/1/2, Oliver Fromme wrote: > I've asked this before on -questions and didn't get a reply. > Sorry for repeating it on this list, but I don't think this is > a stupid question (if it is, then someone _please_ let me > know). I would tend to think that -questions would be the best place for things like this, but if you didn't get an answer there, then I would think that following up to -stable is okay, too. However, if I'm wrong (and I probably am), I'm sure someone will correct me. Other useful resources would be comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc and news.software.nntp. In fact, I would tend to think that news.software.nntp would be the best place to ask a question like this, since it deals more with the implementation of INN on a softupdates-enabled machine than it does with FreeBSD in particular. While I'm sure there are INN-knowledgeable people here who can help, I'm equally certain that there are FreeBSD-knowledgeable people there. > Does it make sense to use soft-update in conjunction with INN > and the news spool on CNFS? Is it good, or does it make things > worse, or does it not matter at all? Generally speaking, although softupdates should be pretty stable and usable in most instances, I prefer not to use things I don't need to, and with CNFS you shouldn't need softupdates -- all the synchronous meta-data updates that softupdates would help you sort out instead get eliminated completely by having a number of large files that get multiple articles written to them, and the large files always stay open, so even they don't have any synchronouse meta-data updates. > I _think_ that it doesn't matter, because the CNFS involves no > meta data updates, but I'm really not sure. Maybe just mount > it async instead? Personally, I wouldn't take the risk of mounting any of my filesystems async, unless it was a separate /tmp filesystem where I could not afford to instead make it a memory-based filesystem (mfs). > And how about INN's overview stuff? History and active files? Overview might or might not benefit from softupdates, I don't know. In particular, I think it would depend on the version of INN you'd be installing, and how the overview is implemented. I don't think it would make a difference with history or active files, since again they're typically kept open and constantly updated, instead of being opened and closed and re-opened again, thus creating lots of synchronous meta-data operations that softupdates could help you solve. -- These are my opinions -- not to be taken as official Skynet policy ____________________________________________________________________ |o| Brad Knowles, Belgacom Skynet NV/SA |o| |o| Systems Architect, News & FTP Admin Rue Col. Bourg, 124 |o| |o| Phone/Fax: +32-2-706.11.11/12.49 B-1140 Brussels |o| |o| http://www.skynet.be Belgium |o| \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/ Unix is like a wigwam -- no Gates, no Windows, and an Apache inside. Unix is very user-friendly. It's just picky who its friends are. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message