Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!ames!husc6!amcad!billb
From: billb@amcad.UUCP (Bill Burton)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: How do you fix the spool directory after it fills up?
Keywords: /usr/spool/news out of space
Message-ID: <144@amcad.UUCP>
Date: 13 Feb 88 06:24:40 GMT
Reply-To: billb%amcad.uucp@husc6.harvard.edu (Bill Burton)
Distribution: na
Organization: American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Cambridge, Mass.
Lines: 52

We have a very small amount of space allocated for the news spool area
on our system (25000 blocks).  We get most all the groups except soc and
sci and we are continually running out of room.

Here are the expire entries in crontab:
15 3,6,11,17 * * * /usr/lib/news/expire -e 1 -E 7 -n rec soc sci \
	comp.sys.amiga comp.sys.atari comp.binaries.amiga comp.os.minix
20 3,11,17 * * * /usr/lib/news/expire -e 10 -n comp.sources comp.binaries news
35 3,11,17 * * * /usr/lib/news/expire -e 4 -E 7 -n all control general junk \
	!comp.sources !comp.binaries !news !rec !soc !sci

We expire some of the groups quickly (-e1) since no one here reads them
and I noticed that sometimes they became quite large.  No one here reads
the rec groups but we are passing them along to another site. 

I recently begin manually expiring the maps since we don't run pathalias
(our feed does) with expire -I -e1 -n comp.mail.maps.

Every so often if I'm not keeping a watchful eye on the free space in
the spool directory, it fills up.

So -- how do I fix things?
1.  How can I expire things to prevent this problem.  I heard someone
    hacked inews to put articles on another filesystem when the spool
    filesystem filled up.
2.  What should I do to clean up /usr/spool/news?

I have using the following method to clean the spool directory:
a.  umount the /usr/spool/news filesystem
b.  run fsck and make a note of all the size errors relating to directories
c.  remount the /usr/spool/news filesystem
d.  run ff -i <list of inodes from fsck>
e.  for each directory with a size error, make a new one, cpio the files
    from the old to the new, rm -r the old one and mv newdir to olddir
f.  sometimes I run find and have it delete files with a size of zero and
    then rebuild the history file with expire -r as outlined in expire(8).
    
Is the above the best/right way to do this? 

Could anyone offer any suggestions on these problems?

Thanks in advance,
Bill

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
	Name:		William D. Burton
	US Mail:	American Academy of Arts and Sciences
			136 Irving St., Cambridge, MA 02138-1996
	Audible:	1-617-576-5023
	UUCP:		...!husc6!amcad!billb
	ARPANET:	billb%amcad.uucp@husc6.harvard.edu
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~