Xref: utzoo comp.unix.wizards:5886 comp.mail.misc:736 news.software.b:1042 Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!pyramid!octopus!pete From: pete@octopus.UUCP (Pete Holzmann) Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards,comp.mail.misc,news.software.b Subject: Re: Another way that news eats inodes Message-ID: <376@octopus.UUCP> Date: 28 Dec 87 04:50:36 GMT References: <440@minya.UUCP> <375@octopus.UUCP> <7958@e.ms.uky.edu> Reply-To: pete@octopus.UUCP (Pete Holzmann) Organization: Octopus Enterprises, Cupertino, CA Lines: 32 Summary: Variation on a theme In article <7958@e.ms.uky.edu> david@ms.uky.edu (David Herron -- Resident E-mail Hack) writes: [regarding massive inode disappearance while news software is running] >that /usr/spool/news/.rnews directory is controlled by the SPOOLNEWS >code ... that is, if you have SPOOLNEWS defined then rnews will only >put it's input into a file in the ".rnews" directory and exit quickly. >..... >The *ONLY* time I've seen that method making zero length files is when >the filesystem is out of free blocks. ><---- David Herron -- The E-Mail guy ><---- or: {rutgers,uunet,cbosgd}!ukma!david, david@UKMA.BITNET In our case, we are not running SPOOLNEWS. And I've never gotten as far as seeing lots of zero length files. All I know is that the system is dead, and when it is rebooted, fsck fixes the inode count in the spool partition. I've since received an email response to my message from another sysadmin on a system V system. He's got the same problem, has had it for many patchlevels of news 2.11... he's got an hourly script running under cron. It checks the inode count; if it goes to zero, it kills any news process, dismounts and remounts the spool partition, and the inodes get restored. What a kludge! Any suggestions on how to find and kill this bug? Unfortunately (?! :-)) it hasn't hit us here now for a few weeks.... I wonder if it is related to any of the other recent bugs (% in article-id, etc)... we haven't upgraded beyond patchlevel 13 yet. Pete -- OOO __| ___ Peter Holzmann, Octopus Enterprises OOOOOOO___/ _______ USPS: 19611 La Mar Court, Cupertino, CA 95014 OOOOO \___/ UUCP: {hpda,pyramid}!octopus!pete ___| \_____ Phone: 408/996-7746