Newsgroups: news.software.b
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: c-news expire problem and questions
Message-ID: <1990Oct26.173652.805@zoo.toronto.edu>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <1104@massey.ac.nz>
Date: Fri, 26 Oct 90 17:36:52 GMT

In article <1104@massey.ac.nz> K.Spagnolo@massey.ac.nz (Ken Spagnolo) writes:
>When my disk fills to the point where nntp stops accepting
>new batches, expire also stops expiring...

The first question to ask is "how is NEWSMASTER defined, and is mail to
that address getting read?".  Doexpire has a couple of fallback modes,
each of which is accompanied by mail to NEWSMASTER reporting on the
situation.  If space is too short for archiving, expire gets invoked
with -h; if space is too short for a history-file rebuild, expire gets
invoked with -r.  `expire -h -r' might explain what you're seing.

>... First question:  What are residual lines?

The terminology is a little obscure, and needs fixing.  Residual lines
are history lines retained after the corresponding articles have expired.

>it seems the partion was too full even though spacefor was
>happy? ...

I think you need to take a good hard look at those local changes to
spacefor; sounds like they are not doing what you think they are.

>... When expiring, is
>spacefor called to report on available space in any other
>areas than control and archive?

No.

> I wouldn't think expire
>would go all the way thru and look at each article (or at
>least count them) if space was the problem...

Expire counts lines in the history file regardless of whether it can do
anything about them.  If you archive everything and expire is invoked
with -h and -r, there really isn't anything it can do.
-- 
The type syntax for C is essentially   | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
unparsable.             --Rob Pike     |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu   utzoo!henry