Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!lll-winken!uunet!microsoft!stevesc
From: stevesc@microsoft.UUCP (Steve Schonberger)
Newsgroups: news.software.b
Subject: Re: dbz caveat
Message-ID: <8236@microsoft.UUCP>
Date: 26 Oct 89 22:19:08 GMT
References: <1139@svx.SV.DG.COM> <1989Sep26.223014.13868@ddsw1.MCS.COM> <9668@b-tech.ann-arbor.mi.us> <6512@ficc.uu.net> <9680@b-tech.ann-arbor.mi.us> <1989Oct14.062717.15420@twwells.com> <675@wet.UUCP> <1989Oct16.043012.2938@twwells.com> <688@wet.UUCP> <1989Oct22.05
Reply-To: stevesc@microsoft.UUCP (Steve Schonberger)
Organization: Microsoft Corp., Redmond WA
Lines: 36

>: >You can figure that the newsfeed doubles in volume every year. This
>: >might, now, be an overestimate, but you probably won't go wrong
>: >making that assumption.
>
>:                  SVR3 only has 16 bits of inodes!

>This, on the other hand, is quite another kettle of fish.

>:                                                    (I get to use
>: 65488) The best I can do if things get really tight is to split
>: off comp onto its own filesystem.

>Urk. But if you gotta, you gotta.

I'm sure that for the sake of compatibility with machines that are
limited to 64k inodes, someone will come up with a solution.  Right
now it's ugly in the extreme to have different files on different
filesystems, because of the hard links between crossposted articles.
But the patch that allows news to run on systems like VMS that don't
allow hard links could be extended to use that trick (kludge, rather)
where hard links can't be used, and still use hard links where they
will work.  I'm not that up on the innards of news to undertake such a
project, but I'm sure that someone with the need will come up with a
solution, and post it to the benefit of all.  Splitting off comp is
fairly safe, since not much is crossposted between comp and elsewhere,
but as the volume gets larger that might not be such an adequate
solution.  Another possible kludge would be to make a custom link()
for news that duplicates the file when the paths are on different
filesystems, and calls the system link() when they're on the same
filesystem.  It's an uglier kludge, but easier to implement quick and
dirty.  Do Cnews or later revisions of Bnews address these potential
problems in any way?

-- 
	Steve Schonberger	microsoft!stevesc@uunet.uu.net
	"Working under pressure is the sugar that we crave" --A. Lamb