🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Apr28.182336.27519@i88.isc.com> mikebe@i88.isc.com (Michael G. Beirne) writes:
>>>>
>>>>Unusual conditions noted by Postmaster Of The Month or clout system 
>>>>administrators for this week:
[
[ much deleted.  I wrote it, I can delete it :-) ]

Mike Beirne writes:

>I have also been disappointed in that the "no unusual conditions" message
>has appeared during weeks when we have: run out of spool space, had "runq"
>lock up and stop delivering mail, had numerous hung sendmail(smail)
>processes running, etc.
>

Please read the text of the notification again.  The message that appears
at the bottom of the stats posting is a default message.  If the _Postmaster
of the Month_ or any other clout administrator becomes aware of an unusual
condition that should be in his or her opinion included in the weekly
posting to the net there is a procedure for including it here.  Since this
series of reports began the Postmaster and/or administrators have requested
such notice exactly two times - one to detail the overflow on March 27 and
one to report that a user at gagme is conducting a usenet vote.

I am not personally certain there is value to reports along the lines of
"there was a problem and it has been fixed," particularly when these
problems are covered in the monthly administrator meetings and the minutes
of these meetings are posted to the net within a few days.

>Is there a way that the other
>administrators can inform you of problems so that they can be included in
>this portion of the message?

Yes, it was detailed in the minutes of the March 2, 1992,  meeting 
<9203031213.AA26541@mwc.com>.  Inasmuch as it is an internal procedure
designed for administrators to use I'll not lay it out here on the net.
Interested parties can email to postmaster@clout.chi.il.us for information
or to report problems.

>I consider the trinity statistics an unusual condition. They tried to ftpmail
>a large package and it failed to get to them in a usuable condition. This is
>in my opinion a failure of our system to be robust enough to handle what
>happened without manual intervention.

Agreed.  Three comments:  

This is a design issue beyond the scope of the administrators group - your 
comments and input will probably be welcomed by the funcspec and/or steering 
committees.  The current clout setup does at least include manual intervention!
A few months ago there was no postmaster of the month and no administrators 
group and Dave and LeMonte were overloaded and over committed.  Now at least
something's being done.

Clout is at present limited by hardware constraints.  Until someone donates
a few gigs of store it will always be possible for someone to fill up the
system and slow us all down.  For the moment we can only ask that people
use this resource carefully and considerately.

The content of email files transferred to/from any site is a private matter.  
I for one would feel much more comfortable with this discussion if we refrained
from pointing fingers at individual sites and concerned ourselves with overall
system load.

--
Doug