could not symlink

[Nigel Reed]

Hi all,

Sorry for 1001 questions.

Using pullnews, I noticed this in my logs

tradspool: could not symlink
/news/spool/articles/alt/0/infinity/squared/3 to
/news/spool/articles/alt/1/aardvark/3: Not a directory
SERVER cant store article: Not a directory

and then it stopped processing.

How do I get around this?



--
End Of The Line BBS - Plano, TX
telnet endofthelinebbs.com 23

[Julien ÉLIE]

Hi Nigel,

> tradspool: could not symlink
> /news/spool/articles/alt/0/infinity/squared/3 to
> /news/spool/articles/alt/1/aardvark/3: Not a directory
> SERVER cant store article: Not a directory

Wouldn't it be because you have newsgroup names with components
containing only numbers? This does not work well with tradspool, as for
instance you cannot store articles for a newsgroup named
"alt.1.aardvark.3" if "alt.1.aardvark" is also a newsgroup, and has an
article numbered 3... You should either remove that file
(/news/spool/articles/alt/1/aardvark/3), clean your active file to
remove newsgroups with conflicting names or use another storage method
than tradspool if you need storing such articles.

--
Julien ÉLIE

« Le cercle est le plus long chemin d'un point au même point. » (Tom
Stoppard, _Every Good Boy Deserves Favour_)

[Nigel Reed]

On Thu, 25 Jan 2024 22:11:32 +0100
Julien ÉLIE <iul...@nom-de-mon-site.com.invalid> wrote:

> Hi Nigel,
> > tradspool: could not symlink
> > /news/spool/articles/alt/0/infinity/squared/3 to
> > /news/spool/articles/alt/1/aardvark/3: Not a directory
> > SERVER cant store article: Not a directory
>
> Wouldn't it be because you have newsgroup names with components
> containing only numbers? This does not work well with tradspool, as
> for instance you cannot store articles for a newsgroup named
> "alt.1.aardvark.3" if "alt.1.aardvark" is also a newsgroup, and has
> an article numbered 3... You should either remove that file
> (/news/spool/articles/alt/1/aardvark/3), clean your active file to
> remove newsgroups with conflicting names or use another storage
> method than tradspool if you need storing such articles.
>

Ah, I see the problem. It appears to be the unfortunate result of a
typo back in 2008

Newsgroups: talk.abortion,alt,abortion
Xref: wibble.sysadmininc.com talk.abortion:4334 alt:1

That means that alt/1/aardvark couldn't be created.

I'm more inclined to just delete the articles from /news/spool/alt and
that should solve the problem. That said, alt is an actual group so
maybe the alt.1.aardvark has to go.

[Ivo Gandolfo]

I suggest you to switch to cnfs ASAP, I have same problem on my server
paganini, now I'm moving and create a new infrastructure, all my new 3
server use cnfs without this problem, I'm grabbing all history from
various source without big deal (300GB/day).


Sincerely

--
Ivo Gandolfo

[Nigel Reed]

On Thu, 25 Jan 2024 22:35:25 +0100
Ivo Gandolfo <use...@bofh.team> wrote:

>
> I suggest you to switch to cnfs ASAP, I have same problem on my
> server paganini, now I'm moving and create a new infrastructure, all
> my new 3 server use cnfs without this problem, I'm grabbing all
> history from various source without big deal (300GB/day).

I like tradspool since I have direct access to the articles. I did
tried cnfs and couldn't get a long with it. Might also have been
limited disk space I had at the time. I didn't want articles cycling
over. I've only found 4-5 issues so far so I'm not too bothered. I
think the only big issue will be if someone posts article 2600 in alt
then it'd crash wit the alt.2600 group!