Of Large Mailboxes, Elm, and uPort

[Tim Evans]

This is to document a recent experience, and to ask for suggestions for
preventing its recurrence.

First, the nuts-and-bolts:  Microport Sys V/AT, Version 2.4, running on
an AT clone with a 40-meg hard disk (brand names irrelevant); Elm 2.1.

I just returned from a brief vacation and found my mailbox fairly full
(90-odd messages.)  Elm attempted to create its temporary copy of the
mailbox file, but apparently ran out of space in /tmp.  Only the first
half-dozen (the most recent) messages showed any content on Elm's listing;
the rest showed _zero_ line-lengths.  After reading and deleting the first
couple of messages, attempts to read the zero-length messages resulted only
in a blank screen.  When I exited Elm, it told me it was deleting a couple
of messages and retaining 80-some.  When I subsequently went back into
Elm to read mail again, there were *N*O* messages!  Everything had dis-
appeared.  /usr/mail/myname was also empty!

(Anyone who sent me important 8-:) mail during the period 2/15-2/18 might
want to send it again.)

Now, I used uPort's "easyinstall" (no smirks, please--I saw no reason to
do otherwise at install time) script in installing
SysV/AT.  This script has default file system sizes.  In my case (with
the 40-meg disk), it results in file systems as shown below (output of
'df -t'):

/usr      (/dev/dsk/0s2):    18614 blocks    2345 i-nodes
                   total:    56518 blocks    5648 i-nodes
/         (/dev/dsk/0s0):     9964 blocks    1638 i-nodes
                   total:    20000 blocks    2000 i-nodes

As can be seen, the root partition was set up for 20000 blocks, about
half of which is taken up at any given time.  This setup seems to
work fine for most things, but obviously not for the particular situation
of having a large mailbox.

I know that I can reinstall SysV/AT and make changes in the file system 
sizes from the default.  Can _Elm_ be configured to put its temporary
mailbox in the /usr partition, though?  If so, how?

Which would be the better approach?  Thanks.
-- 
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Tim Evans  2201 Brookhaven Court, Fallston, MD  21047   (301) 965-3286