Is there a bug in Usenet?

Mikel Manitius

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Jun 25, 1986, 11:46:05 PM6/25/86

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I just logged in to find out that both our active and
history files had been wiped out to zero bytes. It was
easy enough to recover, but does anyone know of a bug
in the news software (ver 2.10.2) that bas been known
to do such things?
--
Mikel Manitius @ AT&T-IS Altamonte Springs, FL
...{seismo!akgua|ihnp4|cbosgd}!codas!mikel.ATT.UUCP

One Hip Dude

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Jun 30, 1986, 11:53:57 AM6/30/86

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I have known this to happen when the file system (on which the history
and active files reside) runs out of free blocks or inodes.
--
-- guy k hillyer
{decvax!genrad,harvard!talcott}!panda!enmasse!guy
panda!enmasse!g...@talcott.arpa

Greg Noel

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Jun 30, 1986, 2:01:02 PM6/30/86

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In article <5...@codas.ATT.UUCP> mi...@codas.ATT.UUCP (Mikel Manitius) writes:

>I just logged in to find out that both our active and

>history files had been wiped out to zero bytes. .....

> but does anyone know of a bug

>in the news software (ver 2.10.2) that bas [sic] been known
>to do such things?

Yes, unfortunately. I've been hit by this several times. The usual
cause is running out of space on the filesystem used by sort (i.e.,
/usr/tmp). Except to suggest that you try to avoid running out of
space, I know of no cure.
--
-- Greg Noel, NCR Rancho Bernardo Gr...@ncr-sd.UUCP or Gr...@nosc.ARPA

Edward C. Bennett

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Jul 4, 1986, 8:36:22 AM7/4/86

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In article <5...@codas.ATT.UUCP>, mi...@codas.ATT.UUCP (Mikel Manitius) writes:
> I just logged in to find out that both our active and
> history files had been wiped out to zero bytes. It was
> easy enough to recover, but does anyone know of a bug
> in the news software (ver 2.10.2) that bas been known
> to do such things?

This is getting real wierd. Thing same thing happened here also!
This morning I discovered that my active and history files were gone.
Not just empty, but GONE! Judging by the modify time on oactive I'm
guessing that expire is the culprit. (I'm running 2.10.3 alpha.)

Maybe this is a hidden gotcha in expire.c ;-)

--
Edward C. Bennett

UUCP: ihnp4!cbosgd!ukma!ukecc!edward

Kentucky: The state that needs Japan to bring it into the 20th century.

"Goodnight M.A."

Mikel Manitius

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Jul 9, 1986, 6:55:21 PM7/9/86

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In article <5...@codas.ATT.UUCP>, I wrote:
> I just logged in to find out that both our active and
> history files had been wiped out to zero bytes. It was
> easy enough to recover, but does anyone know of a bug
> in the news software (ver 2.10.2) that bas been known
> to do such things?

I would like to thank all of the people who responded to my original
posting. It turns out that running out of space on the filesystem on
which your active and history files reside, while expire is running,
will cause this to happen.

Perhaps it would be nice to have expire wait for a certain amount of
time, or not run if this condition occurs (assuming the filesystem
will get cleaned up some other way :-).
--
___
/ \ Mikel Manitius @ AT&T-IS Altamonte Springs, FL
| RPI | ...{seismo!akgua|ihnp4|cbosgd|mcnc}!codas!mikel
| . |
\\-------//