I asked:
> I have a dec alpha 400 running osf/1 v 3.2. During the last year the number of
> mail users increased a lot and the new mail messages are stored by the mailx
> program in the directory /usr/var/spool/mail.
> A lot of the users are subscribers of mailing lists producing a lot of
> daily messages therefore the amount of messages stored in the
> /usr/var/spool/mail is growing up rapidly. I have only 80 MB left in the usr
> file system and I am afraid that during the summer holidays I can run out
> of space due to the mail messages.
>
> I would like to know if it is possible to push the mailx program to deliver the
> new messages directly in the directory of each user
> or
> if it is possible to link the /usr/var/spool/mail to an other directory in
> a larger file system
> Raffaele
>
>Calogero Raffaele
>Dipartimento di Genetica, Biologia Generale e Molecolare
>Universita' di Napoli, via Mezzocannone 8, 80134 Napoli (Italy)
>Tel ++39 81 55 26 208
>Fax ++39 81 55 27 950
>E_mail calogero_at_chemna.dichi.unina.it
*******************************************************************************
What I did:
I had a 250 Mb empty partition therefore I decided to move the /var/spool/mail
to that partition (suggestion n. 4)
********************************************************************************
Thanks to:
huinink_at_ksta.ktzh.ch
jab_at_wcsmail.com
tpb_at_zk3.dec.com
warren_at_atmos.washington.edu
C_at_Asu.Edu
matthewm_at_sgate.com
Suggestions:
1)You can link /usr/var/spool to a directory in another file system, and
you could just move /usr/var/spool/mail if that's all you wanted to move.
It is even an installation option to make the whole /var hierarchy live in
a disk partition of its own instead of in /usr.
2)Tar all directories in /usr/var/spool to an other filesystem.
Delete directory mail and make a softlink (ln -s)
The tar syntax is: cd fromdir; tar cf - . | (cd todir; tar xf -)
3)You can cause the mail system to deliver each user's mail
into a user-owned directory instead of into /usr/var/spool/mail. This is
particularly useful when you want to have the users mount only their home
directory on a local workstation, and not have all of the mail server's
/usr/var/spool/mail mounted.
To do this, you need to install the MH (Mail Handler) software package, a
part of the base distribution.
In each user directory, set up the .forward file to contain this text:
"|/usr/lib/mh/slocal -user USER"
where "USER" is the user's login name (e.g., "tpb" for me).
Then, you need to set up a .maildelivery file for the user. The key line in
this file is this:
default - > ? Mail/newmail
It's possible to have other lines that specify other things that the slocal
program should do.
Then, the user needs to set up their MAIL environment variable to point to
the real mail drop.
4)I think, would be good to mount another partition or
fileset or whatnot as /usr/var/spool/mail. This will prevent any secondary
problems if the mail partition fills up. If you use advfs, you can always
add to it later if you've got the free disk space.
Avoid links if at all possible, that's just way too ugly.
Received on Fri Jun 28 1996 - 18:20:34 NZST