DEXPIRE(8)

NAME
dexpire - Diablo program to expire article files

SYNOPSIS
dexpire -a|n [ -c0 ] [ -h0|1 ] [ -k ] [ -n ] [ -O[n] ] [ -o ] [ -q ] [ -R nn:# ] [ -Snn ] [ -s[#] ] [ -u ] [ -v ] [ -z ] [ -C diablo.config ] [ -d[n] ] [ -V ]

DESCRIPTION
DExpire does an expire run on the history file, removing expired articles and updating (but not rewriting) the history file as appropriate. DExpire operates in a FIFO manner, removing the oldest spool files first. It will remove spool directories one at a time until one of the expire targets specified in dspool.ctl is reached. This process is run for each spool object and repeatedly until all requirements for all spools are met.

-a

This option tells dexpire to actually remove files. The default is to just print the usage if no other options are used or to make no updates if they are. This options is required to actually do any expire work.

-c0

Tell dexpire to not perform the file removal pass. i.e: Nothing will be done unless the ``-h1'' option is used, in which case only the history update will be done to expire entries not found on the spool.

-h0|1

Tell DExpire to *not* update or to forcibly update the history file. The default is to only update the history files if directories were removed. The ``-h0'' option can be used to run dexpire on a tighter scheduler, such as once an hour, without having to eat the overhead of updating the history file (the overhead is not significant, unless you have a really big history file). You should still run dexpire normally at least four times a day, though. The ``-h1'' option can be used to forcibly update the history file, even if no directories were removed by dexpire. This can be useful if you have another program/script that removes directories, or if you do it by hand.

-k

This option tells dexpire to not make any actual changes to the history entries even if we need to do so. It is useful to get an estimate of how much time a history update will take, without actually making the individual updates.

-n

This option tells dexpire to run through, but not make any updates. It useful for testing what a set of options will do and a status report will be printed (unless disabled with ``-q''). This is the default.

-O[n] This option specifies the number of iterations to run before exiting. The default is to run until all space/age requirements for all spools are met, which means you could have a long running dexpire process if the rate of incoming articles exceeds the rate at which dexpire can remove old articles. If no number is specified, a single dexpire pass is made.

-o

Tell dexpire to write the expired message IDs to a file for later use by dexpireover when expiring overview information. Writes to file specified by path_dexpover_list in diablo.config, defaults to %s/dexpover.dat, path_db based.

-q

Be less verbose about what is happening. The default is to give a status report on what is being done to stdout.

-R nn:#

This option allows you to specify a free space target (in MB) for a particular spool object. This will override the same option in dspool.ctl or peform a check if the option is not specified in dspool.ctl. The parameters are ``spool_number:target''.

-S nn

This option is used to limit which spool objects dexpire works on. It can be used to reduce memory requirements and run multiple, concurrent instances of dexpire on different spools.

-s[#]

This option tells dexpire that it is expiring on a softupdates-mounted filesystem and that it needs to sync/sleep/sync/sleep after removing each directory in order for statfs() to return reasonable values. The sleep time inbetween sync's may be specified. If no number is specified, a sleep of 1 is used. -s2 is suggested for softupdates-mounted partitions.

-u This option marks all expired entries in dhistory as unexpired. It should not be used with other options (except '-a', which is required if changes are to be made). Note that the articles will be expired again during the next normal dexpire run. The option is useful in the case of accidently expired articles (possibly due to a bug).

-v This option turns on verbose mode.

-z This option is used to specify that dexpire should only check the filesystem free space (if required) once through each iteration. By default, dexpire checks during the initial scan and after removing each directory. This could be a slight performance win on systems with a slow statfs().

-C allows the specification of the path of the diablo.config file to use.

-d[n] will set debug mode, at optional level n.

-V will print the version and exit.

After clearing out sufficient disk space, DExpire will scan the spool directory and then update the history file in place. This is relatively self repairing, so you can remove spool files manually without getting things out of synch. However, to be completely safe you should rename a D.xxxxxxxx directory to A.xxxxxxxx prior to rm -rf'ing it if diablo is running.

-s[#]

Tell dexpire to be more verbose (this is the default).

-d[#]

Turn on debugging. The higher the number specified, the more verbose the debugging messages.

SEE ALSO
diablo(8), dicmd(8), didump(8), diload(8), dnewslink(8), doutq(8), dexpire(8), dexpireover(8), diconvhist(8), dilookup(8), dspoolout(8), dkp(8), dpath(8), diablo-kp(5), diablo-files(5)