Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site ut-sally.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!gatech!ut-sally!crandell
From: crandell@ut-sally.UUCP (Jim Crandell)
Newsgroups: net.bizarre
Subject: Re: Please help!
Message-ID: <2586@ut-sally.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 4-Aug-85 21:07:54 EDT
Article-I.D.: ut-sally.2586
Posted: Sun Aug  4 21:07:54 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 5-Aug-85 06:18:24 EDT
References: <489@utastro.UUCP>
Distribution: net
Organization: U. Texas CS Dept., Austin, Texas
Lines: 37

> We have been running Unix 4.2bsd for a *long* time now, with very high
> load averages every day.  I guess it was inevitable, but strange effects
> on many working programs have been traced to a common cause:
> 
>       /dev/null is full, and is overflowing!
> 
> Anybody seen this problem before?  Can anyone help?

Unfortunately, this problem is very common.  The primary cause seems to
be, oddly enough, the USENET community.  Many posters to certain newsgroups
including (but not limited to) net.politics, net.religion, net.wobegon,
net.cooks, net.putrid_rice_eaters, net.pigeon_kickers, net.grammar.nitpickers,
net.fanatical_holycow_anti-iconoclasm_preservation_league_rumor_mongers
and probably a handful of others, habitually instruct their would-be
correspondents to ``direct flames to /dev/null'' or words to that effect.
Now, any site that has a high rate of news posting typically has a
correspondingly high rate of influx of flamage, but in many cases, this
traffic is directed to /dev/null.

The solution apparently is not straightforward, else someone surely would
have discovered it by now.  Avoidance measures should include identifying
the offending flame-redirecting news posters and threatening them with
detoxification if they refuse to mend their ways.  But there still remains
the difficulty of disposing of that flamage which has already accumulated.
The majority of such material is extremely vitriolic stuff, laden with
heavy metals and complex, hyper-stable organic radicals, and it thus is
not easily eliminated from the system by natural means.  Furthermore, 
its inordinately high temperature typically renders it fairly inimical
to removal by manual methods.  (It has been suggested that a daemon is
unusually well qualified to deal with this particular task.)

In conclusion, let me state simply that (a) yes, it's a problem, and
(b) no, I don't know what the hell to do about it, either.
-- 

    Jim Crandell, C. S. Dept., The University of Texas at Austin
               {ihnp4,seismo,ctvax}!ut-sally!crandell