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From: Joe Greco <jgreco@solaria.sol.net>
Message-Id: <199703111531.JAA27808@solaria.sol.net>
Subject: Re: freebsd as a news server?
To: msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au (Michael Smith)
Date: Tue, 11 Mar 97 9:31:46 CST
Cc: mmead@goof.com, julian@whistle.com, tom@sdf.com, isp@freebsd.org,
        hackers@freebsd.org
In-Reply-To: <199703090422.OAA28301@genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au> from "Michael Smith" at Mar 9, 97 02:52:50 pm
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> matthew c. mead stands accused of saying:
> > > 
> > > I really do suggest using  -o noatime,async
> > > on mounted news partitions too (for 2.2)
> > 
> > 	This system is a 2.1.6 installation.  Do these
> > recommendations change based on that?  Thanks for the replies!
> 
> No async support in 2.1.6, but I believe that noatime is supported.
> You should _really_ go search the archives of the -hackers list for
> postings from Joe Greco regarding big news servers.  In particular,
> you are using (probably) slow disks, your layout is likely to be
> wrong, and you don't have enough SCSI busses 8)

Sheesh, take a weekend off and get buried by 4000 messages.  :-(

Sorry I'm jumping in a bit late.

Advice:  running 2.1.6?  Upgrade to 2.1.7 :-)

async doesn't do too much under releases before 2.2.  'newsfeeds.sol.net'
is running on 2.2 with -o async,noatime and about a dozen 1GB ST-31055N's
for the spool disks and it blows through news like there's no tomorrow
(expires are FASSSST).

noatime is not supported out of the box: drop me a line if you need a
patch.  It's pretty easy to do.  It's a win, at least if you have lots
of things actually READING the spool (i.e. lots of laggy outbound feeds
or lots of readers).

If you don't have lots of fast disks, don't bother with noatime and async,
because it'll be like going from driving a tricycle to driving a bicycle 
on the freeway.  That's just my jewel for the day.  ;-)

... JG