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Date: Fri, 8 Dec 1995 08:48:57 -0600 (CST)
From: Guy Helmer <ghelmer@alpha.dsu.edu>
To: Joe Greco <jgreco@brasil.moneng.mei.com>
cc: John Beukema <john@gateway.net.hk>, hackers@FreeBSD.org,
        freebsd-isp@FreeBSD.org
Subject: Re: newsserver configuration
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On Thu, 7 Dec 1995, Joe Greco wrote:

> [... sample news server config ...]
> I typically recommend a MINIMAL setup:
> [... lots o' disks ...]
> News Rule 1:  You would rather have LOTS of slightly slower, smaller disks
> than a few large, fast drives.  This fact has been lost on so many people.
> If I had a nickel for every time I've told somebody this and they've ignored
> me, I could be Bill Gates.

What has always bothered me about multiple-disk news spools is the warning
about using makehistory on a news filesystem that uses symlinks.  Just a
little over a month ago, I completely lost a history file, and it seems I
could have followed the advice on the news-recovery man page (to use
find(1) to remove all the symlinks in the news spool).

Now, after a few minor crashes apparently due to a new disk on my SCSI
chain interacting badly with the other, I probably need to run a
makehistory -bu (but I sure wouldn't want to remove all the symlinks in
the news spool before I would do the makehistory!).  What are the thoughts
on this, or are there patches to makehistory to handle symlinks? 

> ... Joe

Thanks,
Guy Helmer

Guy Helmer, Dakota State University Computing Services - ghelmer@alpha.dsu.edu