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Grex > Helpers > #130: Grex System Problems - Winter 2003/2004 |  |
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| Author |
Message |
| 25 new of 384 responses total. |
janc
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response 42 of 384:
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Jan 5 10:12 UTC 2004 |
Grex's mail disk died. I spent most of the night re-arranging disks so we
are back up. However none of the lame things I tried allowed me to get data
off the mail disk. Kip will try something less lame tommorrow ... er ...
later this morning, but I wouldn't get your hopes high. I think that all the
mail that was in the mail spool (delivered but not read) was lost.
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gelinas
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response 43 of 384:
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Jan 5 11:44 UTC 2004 |
Right now, mail is being delivered but it cannot be read. I've sent a
message to learn if this is accidental or deliberate.
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russ
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response 44 of 384:
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Jan 5 14:29 UTC 2004 |
Here's part of the problem:
drwx------ 29 root wheel 512 Jan 4 20:37 /usr/spool/mail
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janc
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response 45 of 384:
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Jan 5 15:29 UTC 2004 |
Oops. That was accidental. That partition had been previously used for
something else, and I forgot to change the perms. Should be OK now.
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twenex
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response 46 of 384:
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Jan 5 15:33 UTC 2004 |
Thanks for tryin'. Was that particular disk only used for mail?
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ryan
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response 47 of 384:
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Jan 5 15:36 UTC 2004 |
This response has been erased.
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aruba
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response 48 of 384:
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Jan 5 15:59 UTC 2004 |
THanks for all your work, Jan.
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janc
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response 49 of 384:
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Jan 5 16:10 UTC 2004 |
Thanks also go to Kip, who came by to help last night, stayed around for a
long time before it became clear just how slow moving data around on Grex is,
and will be putting in some more time trying to recover data from the disk.
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twenex
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response 50 of 384:
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Jan 5 16:11 UTC 2004 |
Indeed, Thanks, and Thanks in advance.
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dpc
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response 51 of 384:
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Jan 5 18:56 UTC 2004 |
Good show, people! I just got mail, and was able to read it.
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albaugh
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response 52 of 384:
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Jan 5 22:12 UTC 2004 |
So, in case we weren't warned that this was the case (were we?), should / must
we consider our mail inboxes to be "transient, unprotected, etc.", thus a
lower status of citizen than our personal directory? If so, then that implies
/ dictates that one must keep a secondary, local inbox for e-mails that can't
be replied to immediately. And that practice will exacerbate space problems
on the personal partitions.
What's up with this?
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tod
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response 53 of 384:
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Jan 5 23:19 UTC 2004 |
This response has been erased.
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ryan
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response 54 of 384:
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Jan 5 23:21 UTC 2004 |
This response has been erased.
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tod
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response 55 of 384:
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Jan 5 23:23 UTC 2004 |
This response has been erased.
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ryan
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response 56 of 384:
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Jan 5 23:46 UTC 2004 |
This response has been erased.
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mcnally
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response 57 of 384:
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Jan 6 00:04 UTC 2004 |
re #55:
the decision whether or not to back up e-mail is a fairly complicated one.
legally, not backing up e-mail is probably safest for Grex as it doesn't
put us in a situation where we can be compelled by subpoena to deliver
e-mail that a user believed he had deleted.
from a practical standpoint, too, e-mail backups are more difficult,
too, considering the much more rapid change of pace compared to most of
the files in a user's home directory, especially since the recently
changed information is probably the most important in the file..
A weekly backup schedule really isn't going to do most users much good
when it comes to e-mail and more frequent backups probably require staff
and storage resources that Grex simply doesn't have. If continuing problems
with mail loss occur, drive mirroring or some sort of error-recovery
capable RAID might be the way to go for the mail partition but periodic
tape backups won't help much.
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tod
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response 58 of 384:
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Jan 6 00:56 UTC 2004 |
This response has been erased.
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gelinas
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response 59 of 384:
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Jan 6 01:10 UTC 2004 |
It's not that simple, tod.
As long as a backup tape exists, it has to be searched to comply with a
subpoena or other legal discovery. The best way to go is generally accepted
to be not keeping any records not needed. (And yes, under Michigan law, an
e-mail is a "record".)
As was noted above, _right now_ we don't have the resources to back up
/var/spool/mail in a useful fashion.
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rcurl
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response 60 of 384:
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Jan 6 01:35 UTC 2004 |
If it is understood that mail service might be interrupted and mail lost,
then it is up to the user to decide whether they will use Grex for mail.
Is that caveat stated anywhere?
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keesan
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response 61 of 384:
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Jan 6 01:42 UTC 2004 |
Can the missing contents of inboxes be restored from the most recent backup
tape?
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gelinas
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response 62 of 384:
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Jan 6 01:44 UTC 2004 |
That question has been answered, Sindi: No.
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richard
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response 63 of 384:
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Jan 6 02:05 UTC 2004 |
yeah thanks to Jan and Kip for their hard work. I was talking on mnet to Jan
last night past three a.m. and he was at the pumpkin even then, so it must
have taken a while. To stay out all night when you have two kids, like he
does, shows real commitment! I hope some of the mail can be restored, I did
have unsorted old mail in my inbox. I hadn't realized that if it wasn't all
sorted into other folders, and the mail disk drive crashed, it would be lost.
oh well.
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janc
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response 64 of 384:
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Jan 6 03:12 UTC 2004 |
Kip has been able to repair the disk. We'll be shutting down Grex to restore
the mail for a while later this evening. Or rather, Kip will.
When things are going well, backups get done on Grex about once a month. When
the are going less well, we can go months without a backup. I don't have or
want to have anything to do with this. I don't know if the mail spool is
backed up, and if it is, I don't know how old the last backup was. Probably
at least a couple weeks.
I think restoring from an old backup tape would have been pretty awful. Mail
people had deleted would reappear. Weeks of mail would still be missing.
I'm glad we didn't have to go there.
If you want to gripe, you should notice that in the last board meeting minutes
STeve said that the mail disk was dieing and we should get a replacement.
I said in the item afterwards that we didn't need to buy a new disk as we had
plenty of unused ones waiting in the wings. So if we knew this disk was
on its last legs and we had a replacement disk, why didn't we do anything
about it?
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janc
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response 65 of 384:
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Jan 6 03:13 UTC 2004 |
Oh, in case you haven't heard it mentioned, Grex staff does not advise storing
any irreplacable data on Grex.
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albaugh
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response 66 of 384:
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Jan 6 05:53 UTC 2004 |
Regardless of all discussion issues, OUTSTANDING JOB!!! for merge-restoring
old e-mail with new. Re: e-mail inboxes, I guess that forewarned is forearmed
(forlegged? ;-). This should probably be pointed out prominently in newuser
and elsewhere, if not already.
(i.e. GREX MAKES NO GUARANTEES ABOUT STABLE LONGEVITY OF E-MAIL or some such)
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