Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)
Date:      Sun, 17 Sep 2000 23:54:44 -0700
From:      dannyman <dannyman@dannyland.org>
To:        David Drum <david@mu.org>
Cc:        freebsd-isp@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: Mail box trimming tool
Message-ID:  <20000917235444.A30479@dell.dannyland.org>
In-Reply-To: <20000917174029.A94914@elvis.mu.org>; from david@mu.org on Sun, Sep 17, 2000 at 05:40:29PM -0500
References:  <200009151707.NAA32297@eviloverlord.org> <20000917174029.A94914@elvis.mu.org>

next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
On Sun, Sep 17, 2000 at 05:40:29PM -0500, David Drum wrote:
> Quoth Matt Goward:
> 
> > Does anyone know of a tool that given a username and quota, will trim a 
> > mail box by deleting the oldest message until it is at the quota?  
> 
> Based on some statistics I generated for the 60,000-plus mailboxes I
> am responsible for, the median size is usually very small (under 1KB)
> but the standard deviation is very large (around 1.5MB).  So I don't know
> that expiring based on a space quota is appropriate, since mailbox sizes
> vary greatly.  We expire messages that are over 14 days old (based on
> the headers).  I've attached the script we use.

I have a web site that harvests pictures off of USENET a a constant rate.
Since I have finite storagespace, I of course have an expire script.  It
deletes files that are the oldest, with the catch that I subtract the file
size from the seconds since epoch.  a 1M file would be deleted about 10 days
before a 100k file, for example.  (if my math is right.)

An algorithm like this is trivial to implement if your mail storage is
Maildir, is why I think of it.  Even so, if you're going through the pain of
parsing mbox, it's a pretty simple sort of calculation to make.

Of course, it might be truly clever to replace a large MIME attachment with a
note saying it has been triaged out to save your quota, rather than deleting a
message, but I digress. :)

-d


-- 
dannyman - http://www.dannyland.org/~dannyman/


To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
with "unsubscribe freebsd-isp" in the body of the message




Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?20000917235444.A30479>