Problem with C news under ISC 1.0.6 with history file size

[Gary Heston]

I've run into a problem the last couple of days. C news is tossing every
batch with a "unable to write history file" error (in errlog). My first
guess at the reason is the good 'ole ulimit--history is now 8388608 bytes
in size. 

My initial work-around is to rebuild history. This should reduce the file
quite a bit.

Next, I'll reinstall with a shorter history maintainence time (I don't
recall what it's set to; probably 30 days).

Unfortunantly, this problem will recurr, in my case, as news volume keeps
increasing. I'm going to need a better workaround. (Note that I don't 
consider this to be a fault of C news, I'm posting in news.software.b
in part to let other people be aware of this.) I'm going to need either
a way to increase the default ulimit for non-root users about 16384, 
(I've inquired about this in the past, with no response) or a way to
set up relaynews (I think) to run as root, so it can write the larger
file.

2.x is not an option--it's not available for MultiBus machines. The
comp.unix.sysv386 FAQ lists a method for upping the default ulimit,
under 2.x. This does not work under 1.0.6 (lots of stuff got changed).

I'd really rather not have C news running as root; while it's fine 
software, it shouldn't be necessary to do that because of an OS 
shortcoming. I have, in the past, conducted a couple of extensive 
searches for upping ulimits' default, without success (we have
a system in another plant with the same problem, with a large database).

Any suggestions?


-- 
Gary Heston   System Mismanager and technoflunky   uunet!sci34hub!gary or
My opinions, not theirs.    SCI Systems, Inc.       gary at sci34hub.sci.com
I support drug testing. I believe every public official should be given a
shot of sodium pentathol and ask "Which laws have you broken this week?".