buffindexed.conf(5)

1BUFFINDEXED.CONF(5)           File Formats Manual          BUFFINDEXED.CONF(5)
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NAME

6       buffindexed.conf - configuration file for buffindexed ovmethod
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DESCRIPTION

9       The file <pathetc in inn.conf>/buffindexed.conf is required if buffind‐
10       exed ovmethod is used.
11
12       Buffindexed is one of ovmethod which is specified in inn.conf.  It uses
13       preconfigured  buffer files to store overview data and index, and never
14       needs more disk space other than those files.  The  files  are  divided
15       into  8  KB  blocks  internally;  a given block is allocated for either
16       overview index or overview data.  A block is never shared among  multi‐
17       ple    newsgroups.     There   is   a   database   file:   <pathdb   in
18       inn.conf>/group.index that includes information about each   newsgroup:
19       the pointer to the index block for the group, high mark, low mark, flag
20       of the group, the number of articles, and etc.  This  file  is  created
21       automatically  when  all buffers are initialized and must not be edited
22       manually.  If all buffers are  filled  up,  innd(8)  throttles  itself.
23       Note  that  the  buffer files are never rolled over and overwritten the
24       way CNFS does.  You need to append another buffer file in  this  event.
25       You can see the buffer usage with inndf(8) with ``-o'' option.
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27       The file consists of a series of lines; blank lines and lines beginning
28       with a number sign (``#'') are ignored.  There is only one kind of con‐
29       figuration line.  The order of lines in this file is not important.
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31              index:file_name:buffer_size
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33       ``Index''  is an index of overview buffer.  ``Index'' must be between 0
34       and 65535.  ``File_name'' is the path to  overview  buffer  file.   The
35       length  of  this  path  should  be not more than 63 characters.  ``Buf‐
36       fer_size'' is the length of buffer file in kilobytes in decimal (1 KB =
37       1024  bytes).  If the ``file_name'' is not a special device, the actual
38       file size must be buffer_size * 1024 bytes.  You can  NOT  use  buffers
39       over 2 GB even if you specify <--with-largefiles at configure>, or buf‐
40       fers will be broken.  It'll be fixed in the future.
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42       When creating new overview buffer, there are two different methods  for
43       creating the files.
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45       1. Create a big file on top of a standard filesystem.
46
47              Use  "dd"  to  create  the  overview  buffer  files, such as "dd
48              if=/dev/zero of=/path/to/ovbuff bs=1024 count=N" where N is  the
49              buffer_size.
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51       2. Use block disk devices directly.
52
53              If  your  operating  system  will allow you to mmap() block disk
54              devices (Solaris does, FreeBSD does not),  this  is  the  recom‐
55              mended  method.   But  note that Solaris (at least 2.6) seems to
56              have a problem in regional locking of block  disk  devices,  and
57              should not be used as overview data will be corrupted.
58
59              Partition  the  disks  to make each partition slightly larger (a
60              few MB larger) than the intended size of each  overview  buffer.
61              It  is  not  recommend  to  use  the  block device files already
62              located in ``/dev''; instead, use "mknod" to create a new set of
63              block  device files.  In order to do this, do an "ls -Ll" of the
64              /dev/dsk partition.  The major and minor device numbers  are  in
65              the  fifth  and  sixth  columns (right before the date), respec‐
66              tively.  This information should be fed to  "mknod"  to  make  a
67              "block-type  special  file"  (b).   Here  is a short script that
68              accomplishes this when fed the name of the partition  as  listed
69              in ``/dev/dsk/'':
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71                   #!/bin/sh
72                   disk=$1
73                   major=`ls -l /dev/dsk/$disk | awk '{print $5}' | tr -d ,`
74                   minor=`ls -l /dev/dsk/$disk | awk '{print $6}`
75                   mkdir /ovbuff
76                   mknod /ovbuff/$disk b $major $minor
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78              The created device files themselves consume very little space.
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80       In either case, make certain that each overview buffer file is owned by
81       <USER specified with --with-news-user at configure>,      <GROUP speci‐
82       fied with --with-news-group at configure>, and has read/write modes for
83       the owner and group (mode ``0664'' or ``0660'').
84
85       When you first start innd(8) and everything is configured properly, you
86       should  see  messages  in  <pathlog in inn.conf>/news.notice which look
87       like:
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89            Aug 27 00:00:00 kevlar innd: buffindexed: No magic cookie found for buffindexed 0, initializing
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91       You MUST entirely recreate overview if you remove or  relpace  buffers.
92       You need not recreate if you just append new buffers.  And whenever you
93       recreate the overview data base, you need to clean all the buffers.
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HISTORY

96       Written by Katsuhiro Kondou <kondou@nec.co.jp> for InterNetNews.   This
97       is revision 5909, dated 2002-12-03.
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NAME

DESCRIPTION

HISTORY

SEE ALSO