Very Computer

Slackware INN package worked for me.  Just comment out the
nntp line in /etc/inetd.conf.
--

I've been using Linux as a news server for several months now and have
been having increasing difficulties keeping up to the volume of incoming
news.

I'm running:
        - 486/66 ASUS PCI with 48 MEG memory, 256K cache, PCI video.
        - 1542CF SCSI with 512 MEG HD (root drive and holds news history)
          and tape backup
        - NCR PCI 53c810 SCSI (onboard) with two 2 GIG HDs
        - 2 3C509 ethernet (1 is rarely used)
        - 2 serial ports (1 often sending at 115200 other usually idle)
        - Various Linux kernels from 1.2.6 thru 1.3.32 (currently in use)

The news feed itself is supplied over the Ethernet.

The news spool is set for 3 gigs (one entire 2 gig drive and half of the other)
The 2 GIG drives are relatively new with good transfer rates and access of
8 to 9ms.  (Note, all file systems are ex2fs)

'top' indicates that the CPU is normally 50 to 75% idle and that 25 MEG
is being used for buffers (and no swap in use), so it would appear that slow
downs are I/O bound.

Originally, I was only using the one SCSI card and two hard drives but
tried splitting it across two scsi busses and using more drives to increase
the number of heads in action to get faster I/O.  This worked somewhat but
still falls behind of the full news feed.

I seem to be limited to only being able to process about 220,000 messages
a day and my in.coming spool keeps growing.  I've considered a faster
processor but the statistics available to me seem to indicate that this would
not help -- but more cache memory might??.

        One strange situation I do come across ocassionally is that the
deletion of the history.o will not free up drive space if the system has
been running for a few days.  It will erase and free up space correctly if
done a few hours after a reboot.  The free space can also be freed by
overwriting the history.o with a small file and then deleting it.
I've re-formatted the drive and still have the same problem.  The only way to
regain the missing drive space is to force a file system check on the
drive (rebooting without a file system check is not good enough)

        Any suggestions to get things going faster or pointers as
to what area to upgrade would be appreciated.

                                        Drew