Xref: utzoo news.software.b:3201 news.admin:7201 Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!coolidge From: coolidge@brutus.cs.uiuc.edu (John Coolidge) Newsgroups: news.software.b,news.admin Subject: Re: How can I remain calm? Summary: Both a bit wrong Message-ID: <1989Oct13.125402.17356@brutus.cs.uiuc.edu> Date: 13 Oct 89 12:54:02 GMT References: <1989Oct11.211031.10051@ee.rochester.edu> <1989Oct11.215444.11983@rpi.edu> <35575@apple.Apple.COM> <1989Oct11.235318.23465@brutus.cs.uiuc.edu> <526@ncis.tis.llnl.gov> Sender: news@brutus.cs.uiuc.edu Reply-To: coolidge@cs.uiuc.edu Organization: U of Illinois, CS Dept., Systems Research Group Lines: 73 mcb@ncis.tis.llnl.gov (Michael C. Berch) writes: >In <1989Oct11.235318.23465@brutus.cs.uiuc.edu> coolidge@cs.uiuc.edu writes: >> chuq@Apple.COM (Chuq Von Rospach) writes: >> >Gads. I hope he has a *large* disk in /usr/spool/mail. >> >> Actually, he's on a VMS machine, so the mail goes directly into his mail >> folder analogue. He _might_ be safe if on a quota'd disk, since overquota >> mail might just be bounced --- unless mail has exquota privs. In that >> case, it's hello full user disk, and probably bye bye any mail (since >> the only reasonable recovery is mass delete). >Huh? Am I missing something? According to the newsstats posting >from uunet last week, there were about 5,100 sites posting news. >The arbitron stats estimate a total of about 12,000 sites. That's an >upper bound. I'm willing to wager that no more than 7,500 sites are >able or willing to respond to a sendsys message. I have no clue as to >the average size of a sys file, but ours is 2K bytes and is >horrendously verbose, with contact info for every feed we've had in >the last couple of years. I constructed a couple of "normal" sys >files, and they seemed to be about 800 bytes -- let's round up to 1K. >Thus, 7500 * 1024 = 7,680,000 ~= 7.7 MB. I'd say for all but the >home systems or PCs, an extra 7.7MB of mail over a few days ain't >going to fill up too many disks. At most places I'm familiar with it >probably wouldn't be *noticed*, disk space-wise, though I'm sure the >size of the mailer log might attract attention. An extra 7.7MB of mail would blow our mail partition totally out of the water (of course, that's because it's way too small, but that's beside the point; it does happen). I have a feeling that most of the 9000ish sites in the comp.mail.maps list (vaguely remembered number, which is I think fairly accurate) will respond to a sendsys. I'd guess the number of responses to be at least 8000. Of course, what would be more valuable would some stats on what this sendsys actually produced... (of course, that confuses the issue with facts :-) ). But more importantly, 1024 bytes is _way_ too small a response pattern. Our sys file is around 4K. I've got the sys files of several of my connections on file, and the smallest was 3k, with the largest at 14K. Granted that I talk to large sites (I've got 12 connections, and my largest connection has 40), there are still a fair number of sites with five-ten connections around. 1K won't handle that many, not if anywhere near a broad range of groups are carried, or if any special batch files, etc., are specified. And all this is still ignoring all of the mail headers. For an average site, internet-internet transmission will entail around 400-800 bytes of mail headers. Once you go off the internet and into uucp, these group rapidly (more Received: headers, which are the big space user). I've seen 10K or larger mail headers, although these are rare. Considering that moocow is one hop off the internet (I think), and that most of the >8000 responders will be off the internet and not within short uucp range of moocow, mail headers alone will probably average in the 1K range. I'd guess that 2.5K*8000, or 20M, is a closer ballpark figure. It could still be short. 20M would put a serious crimp on many people's mail spool areas, I think. It would certainly mess us up if we were just carrying it for transmission, and it would totally overflow our mail disk if someone here was getting it. Again, I'd love some real numbers from moocow when all this settles down (average file size, number of sys files, etc.) And all of this ignores all of the letters of protest that could arise when sites find they're moving multiple megabytes of sys files around all headed for one site. (And, of course, the added news volume from discussing the added volume :-) ). And the poor link to moocow! This sort of volume will probably double the load on that link for a few days. --John -------------------------------------------------------------------------- John L. Coolidge Internet:coolidge@cs.uiuc.edu UUCP:uiucdcs!coolidge Of course I don't speak for the U of I (or anyone else except myself) Copyright 1989 John L. Coolidge. Copying allowed if (and only if) attributed. You may redistribute this article if and only if your recipients may as well.