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Grex > Coop8 > #116: Other mail programs for Grex? | |
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| Author |
Message |
| 17 new of 66 responses total. |
mdw
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response 50 of 66:
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Oct 9 08:56 UTC 1996 |
China is not a danger to us unless there is a very bloody revolution
over there. At present, however, China is far more scared about us
(things like grex) than we are of them.
Actually, I don't believe a 96 pty system would be any harder to
adminster than a 64 pty system. The kinds of problems and limits
we're running up against on grex have almost *NOTHING* to do with
pty's or terminal sessions at all. Some of the things that
take up staff time include matters like dealing with mail sent
from badly configured mail sites, finding the *big* piece of mail
or ftp file that slowed the link down, & so forth.
A link dedicated to email would indeed be a cool thing. There
are some (modest) expenses here, such as phone lines, modems, etc.
This may be a very doable project, at least once grex is moved.
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ajax
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response 51 of 66:
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Oct 9 09:10 UTC 1996 |
More ptys doesn't directly require more maintenance, but indirect
effects of having 50% more users online around the clock would
require more maintenance. More users on all the time could cause
more mail problems, more ftp problems, more help requests, and so on.
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steve
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response 52 of 66:
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Oct 9 16:38 UTC 1996 |
Exactly, Rob. Thats what I was thinking of.
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popcorn
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response 53 of 66:
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Oct 9 22:44 UTC 1996 |
Yup. Metoo. I'm stretched pretty thin as it is, trying to keep up with all
kinds of staff stuff. If Grex had 50% more users, we would need to find some
new structure to staff, something other than "Valerie answers 85% of all
questions mailed to staff, answers more 'write help' requests than anybody
else on Grex, and spends hours each week unclogging the mail queue". I can't
*do* 50% more of this stuff, but I do think that a lot of that stuff would
rise proportionately to the number of users.
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ladyevil
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response 54 of 66:
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Oct 10 03:31 UTC 1996 |
my last response was a joke.. I just forgot the ;).. *sighs from scott's
nastyish reply*
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krj
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response 55 of 66:
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Oct 10 06:20 UTC 1996 |
What I'm getting from this discussion is that mail has *got* to be
throttled and simplified. Giving mail its own machine and network
link seems to be a real simple, brutal way to go.
"hours unclogging the mail queue..." *shudder*
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tsty
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response 56 of 66:
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Oct 10 09:00 UTC 1996 |
hope it is a rarity that some dweeb leaves 20+ Meg of snarfed meil
in /tmp, as *just * happended over on the m-b0x.
file system is full, nothing works.
what, if any, protections exist here?
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scott
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response 57 of 66:
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Oct 10 10:56 UTC 1996 |
(Well, it was a nasty sarcastic response, based on Selena's response. A
smiley would have made a big difference in how I interpreted that.)
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davel
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response 58 of 66:
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Oct 10 13:59 UTC 1996 |
Get a life, Valerie!
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popcorn
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response 59 of 66:
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Oct 10 17:41 UTC 1996 |
I'd really like to. But Grex is important to me.
Re 55: The mail queue is in much better shape now. I played with the sendmail
configuration a few days ago. It used to stop delivering mail when the load
average was still fairly low. I set it to keep delivering mail until the
load average is a good deal higher; now mail isn't backing up anymore.
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davel
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response 60 of 66:
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Oct 10 21:23 UTC 1996 |
Re #58-59: I failed to add the smiley I meant. Honestly. I add it here
in token of that intention: 8-{)]
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steve
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response 61 of 66:
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Oct 11 14:40 UTC 1996 |
I think Valerie has done something with the queue that might
have made an actual change to Grex. Valerie has raised the sendmail
processing limts beyong what any other staff ever dared, and I think
she hit that magical point where the mail coming in is more or less
balanced with the processing ability of Grex to handle it.
Overall I'm very pleased. It means that the load averages here
might be more consistently higher (I'm not sure about that; will
have to check the uptime log), but things are more consistent
speed wise and mail gets through without hge logjams in the queue.
Given that Grex has little in the way of resources I think
Valerie did something pretty neat.
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mdw
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response 62 of 66:
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Oct 12 11:18 UTC 1996 |
A fair amount of staff overhead is created by a smallish # of users.
Users aren't all the same, but many behave very differently.
A lot of that has to do with how poeple find this system,
and what they are expecting to do once they get here.
For instance, in
http://xp1.dejanews.com/getdoc.xp?recnum=10899324&server=dnserver.db96q4&C
ONTEXT=845117188.3181&hitnum=1
there is a very nice descriptoin of how to telnet into grex, run newuser,
and then either access news directly, or telnet to many other places.
It was posted to alt.torture as part 2 of 4, "Getting banned newsgroups".
These people are all doomed to disappointment. At best, they
will cause increased net lag as they telnet in, run newuser, find
out that we don't have usenet news, decide the lag bodes ill, and go away.
At worst, they'll create an account anyways (which has to be reaped),
discover they can't telnet anywhere, & go away. Or, they decide
this is a wonderful place to post things to news groups. Joy. More mail lag.
Often, problems go in spurts. Someboy figures out they can
use grex as a stepping stone for large files, and tells several
friends. &etc.
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ladyevil
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response 63 of 66:
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Oct 12 20:40 UTC 1996 |
Valerie- way cool! *hugs and pats on back*
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tsty
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response 64 of 66:
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Oct 13 08:11 UTC 1996 |
[that's one helluva url .....<gasp for air>]
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janc
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response 65 of 66:
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Oct 15 21:01 UTC 1996 |
I'm inspired by this month's "System Problems " Item. Let's modify the mail
program so that all outgoing mail that doesn't rhyme gets rejected. Only
members would be allowed to send non-rhyming mail. I think this would
significantly reduce Grex's mail conjestion.
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brighn
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response 66 of 66:
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Oct 15 21:51 UTC 1996 |
Filter mail so all of articles are eliminated. Yossarian is alive and weoll
on Internet! Then filter mail so only articles are left. Makes mail hard to
read, butit's fun. =}
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