Quarantine problem: Ext3 directory limit to 32000 files

[Paulo Roncon]

On 09/08/2010 13:04, Paulo Roncon wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> Yesterday I got a problem with my mailscanner server. The messages stopped being processed and the mailscanner would crash attempting to process the messages.
> Some troubleshooting later and: The problem was with the file per directory limit = 32000 of the ext3.
> I'm going to upgrade to ext4.
> 
> Any ideias? Change the quarantine function to create directories per hour also?
> 
> 	  	  	
>  Paulo
>

I think I need to clarify things:
-The 32000 messages ARE PER DAY
-I DO have a very, very, very busy server
-I DO have Bayes, AV, etc, etc, etc in place
-I have to obey to client rules as to what to do with spam - the delete a message the threshold must be very high
-End users DO NOT have access to the quarantine

My post was more a warning to all of you who might have a server as busy as mine.

-A watchdog for this problem could be:
cron.d:
ls /var/spool/MailScanner/quarantine/[TODAY] | wc -l 
if > 25000 then move all subdirs between 0h00AM - 4h00AM to other DIR and send notification

-Other solutions, as I already proposed would be to extend the structure to /var/spool/MailScanner/quarantine/[TODAY]/[HOUR] 
But this would have impact in MailWatch (I think... not sure) and every other script buildt around quarantine management
-The best, I think would be to upgrade to EXT4.

Thanks,
Paulo