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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. |
gull
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response 75 of 384:
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Jan 6 15:40 UTC 2004 |
Re resp:52: Neither your mail spool nor your home directory are
guaranteed to be backed up on a regular basis. If you care about the
contents, copy them to your own computer. I'm lax about doing that too,
but when I do I usually just tar everything up and then FTP it to my
home computer.
Re resp:67: Many thanks, kip, for resurrecting the disk. :>
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slynne
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response 76 of 384:
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Jan 6 15:48 UTC 2004 |
Yeah, staff here are awesome. Staying up all night for email! Wow. That
is very much appreciated.
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tod
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response 77 of 384:
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Jan 6 16:50 UTC 2004 |
This response has been erased.
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rcurl
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response 78 of 384:
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Jan 6 17:27 UTC 2004 |
Do I understand correctly that it is only the INBOX that is not backed up,
but that other e-mail folders in ~/mail are?
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ryan
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response 79 of 384:
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Jan 6 17:31 UTC 2004 |
This response has been erased.
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rcurl
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response 80 of 384:
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Jan 6 17:53 UTC 2004 |
Yes, but is it backed-up?
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ryan
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response 81 of 384:
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Jan 6 17:56 UTC 2004 |
This response has been erased.
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mcnally
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response 82 of 384:
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Jan 6 18:03 UTC 2004 |
re #78: On most Unix systems, the basic storage unit for backups is
the disk partition. When staff backs up the system, they probably use
the Unix dump command to back up individual disk partitions.
Your home directory, which contains ~/mail, is on one partition (e.g. /a)
and incoming mail (your inbox) is on another (/var/spool/mail)
To complicate matters further, the most usual unit of catastrophic disk
failure is an entire hard drive, which can contain several partitions.
Grex has six hard drives mounted at the current time, containing the
following filesystems:
sd0: /
/usr
/bbs
/x
/oldbbs
sd2: /rootbak
/suidbin
/oldvar
/tmp
/s
sd4: /c
sd6: /var
/usr/local
sd7: /d
/var/spool/mail
sd11: /a
I'm assuming this partitioning scheme (which doesn't make a whole lot
of sense) grew up as the result of historical necessity and "if it ain't
broke, don't fix it.." I likewise assume that the partitioning on
nextgrex will be a little more organized. In any case, that's a topic
for another conversation..
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mcnally
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response 83 of 384:
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Jan 6 18:08 UTC 2004 |
re #80: it's best to presume that backups are not predictable
or frequent, but occasional. No matter what the backup policy
on any system, I *always* advise people to do their own backups
of information they consider important. (and I don't just mean
this policy to apply to volunteer-run systems like Grex. take
charge of your own data everywhere if it's important to you.)
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mynxcat
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response 84 of 384:
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Jan 6 18:11 UTC 2004 |
Getting past the technicalities, have I lost all the love-emails from
my stalker?
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twenex
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response 85 of 384:
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Jan 6 18:13 UTC 2004 |
Question, is Veritas/Vinum available for OpenBSD, and are we gfoing to use
it?
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tod
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response 86 of 384:
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Jan 6 18:28 UTC 2004 |
This response has been erased.
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keesan
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response 87 of 384:
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Jan 6 18:55 UTC 2004 |
are we still using the (repaired) dying disk for email or has it been
replaced? Was it really dying or just in need of fixing.
It is lovely to get back all my mail through Jan 1. I should go through it
and copy down the parts I want to save, on paper. I wrote someone who
probably sent me mail since then to try again.
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twenex
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response 88 of 384:
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Jan 6 18:56 UTC 2004 |
Sounds like the electronics failed, not the disk, and that the electronics
have been replaced and the disk is back in service.
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gelinas
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response 89 of 384:
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Jan 6 19:11 UTC 2004 |
The failed disk was replaced. After repair, it was mounted long enough to
copy the data from it. It does not seem to be mounted now.
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anderyn
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response 90 of 384:
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Jan 6 19:31 UTC 2004 |
This response has been erased.
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gull
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response 91 of 384:
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Jan 6 19:38 UTC 2004 |
Re resp:77: No one is stopping you from copying your email to somewhere
safe. Your mailbox is simply a plain text file. You can easily
transfer it to your home computer if you want to.
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mynxcat
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response 92 of 384:
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Jan 6 20:03 UTC 2004 |
RE 84> Oh goodie. Forward them so I can spend valuable time deleting
them one at a time.
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naftee
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response 93 of 384:
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Jan 6 21:41 UTC 2004 |
re 86 Isn't the SENT folder a dumb Outlook Express idea?
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albaugh
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response 94 of 384:
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Jan 6 21:48 UTC 2004 |
Certainly Outlook and I assume Outlook Express *have* a Sent Items folder.
So do other e-mail systems (Juno, hotmail, yahoo). I don't consider it a
dumb idea. At least with Outlook, you have the ability to specify (and set
as an option) whether or not sent messages get saved in the Sent Items folder.
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naftee
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response 95 of 384:
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Jan 6 22:09 UTC 2004 |
Whoops, I was thinking of the outbox. Mybad.
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willcome
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response 96 of 384:
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Jan 6 22:25 UTC 2004 |
lol
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cross
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response 97 of 384:
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Jan 6 23:20 UTC 2004 |
This response has been erased.
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gull
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response 98 of 384:
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Jan 7 00:10 UTC 2004 |
Re resp:95: An 'outbox' (or similar structure) is necessary for any mail
client that has an offline mode. Where else would you queue up sent
messages that can't be transmitted yet?
Re resp:97: I think a better argument, in Grex's case, is there's no
convenient way to back up the mail spool often enough to matter. People
aren't really *supposed* to let old mail linger there anyway, so any
data in the mail spool ought to be transient. It'd be like backing up /tmp.
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mynxcat
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response 99 of 384:
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Jan 7 01:04 UTC 2004 |
Re 97> Eh, no biggie. Just this person who sent me long emails and said I was
second on his list to marry (yeah, I was flattered :P). Petered off when he
said he couldn't continue corresponding if I didn't answer. I'm not
complaining. :)
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