* Crossposted in area TUB, NET_DEV

06 Nov 96 09:22, Rowan_Crowe wrote to Paul Edwards:

 PE>> One other one I have is that people are running with Squish
 PE>> messagebases, with Squish's auto-maximum-limit-pruning feature, and
 PE>> not doing one-pass tossing, the end result being that a large number
 PE>> of messages on a single day will cause messages to be lost.

 > You mean this causes local mail loss?

Assuming you mean "local" as in the local messagebase, yes,
that's the intended function of the auto-purge feature.  That's okay.

 > Or that Squish imports and exports "in-transit" echomail in separate
 > runs (I always thought this was a rather strange way to process
 > echomail), but the import is automatically pruning the messagebase?

There are two `modes' of processing incoming mail with SquishMail.  The
first is in one-pass mode, where mail pending export is sent to the
outbound mail queue during inbound mail processing all in the same
execution.  The other mode is two-pass mode, where SquishMail is actually
executed twice - once to toss incoming mail into the message base, and
again to scan any previously-tossed mail from the local message base out to
the big wide world.

Combine two-pass mode with the Squish auto-purge feature and there lies a
potential problem.  Suppose I'm running a hub, executing SquishMail in
two-pass mode, am tossing the NET_DEV conference into a message area being
stored in Squish format, and am exporting NET_DEV to one of my downlinks. 
Now, if I configure the auto-purge feature to store a maximum of just 5
messages in the NET_DEV message base at any one time, it's only logical
that a maximum of 5 messages will be exported to my downlink when I scan
the message base with the `SQUISH OUT' command.  If I receive 8 messages in
NET_DEV from my uplink, run `SQUISH IN', have the auto-purge feature store
only the last 5 messages posted in NET_DEV, then run `SQUISH OUT', only
those 5 messages that were stored will be scanned (exported).  The first 3
messages (8 - 5 = 3) will never be exported to my downlink.  Instant mail
loss.

So if you need to run SquishMail in two-pass mode  and the mail feed for
one or more systems, don't use the auto-purge feature.  Alternatively, if
you use the auto-purge feature and are the mail feed for one or more
systems, ensure you run SquishMail in one-pass `SQUISH IN OUT' mode.

Regards
Andrew

-- randy{at}zws.com

--- Msged/2 4.00