[imp] Good Adminstration suggestions.

[Rich Lafferty]

On Thu, Nov 16, 2000 at 03:16:22PM -0600, Chris Crowley (ccrowley@tulane.edu) wrote:
> I am interested in suggestions for how to keep my IMP mailer shining bright
> and running like new.
> 
> I encountered a problem when I migrated from our old server to our new one.
> The imp_addr database was corrupted. After the migration, I spent about one
> hour isamchk'ing the imp_addr database. Finally I was able to dump all the
> records, and import them into the new server. (The users would not have been
> happy if I lost their address books.)
> 
> So, the question is, what measures do you take on a nightly basis?
> 
> Empty the active_sessions table @ 4am?

Hopefully your users are all in your timezone, and keep normal hours!
You shouldn't have to do this, phplib will do it for you.

> Make a backup of the imp_addr and imp_pref databases? How? Select into
> outfile...

Well, that's up to you -- if you back up the *rest* of your data, be
sure to back up your databases as well, keeping in mind that you can't
back up a live database. I suppose you're using mysql? I don't know
what tools they provide, but in Postgres, you use 'pg_dump' or
'pg_dumpall', which creates a file that when executed as SQL will
recreate the database as it was when the dump was made.
  
> Do you perform regular isamchk's?

I've no idea what that is. Here, on Postgres, we've never found
ourselves needing to vacuum the database, though, if that helps.

One thing we *do* do here that wasn't in your list is to remove a
user's addressbook and preferences when their account is removed.

  -Rich

-- 
------------------------------ Rich Lafferty ---------------------------
 Sysadmin/Programmer, Instructional and Information Technology Services
   Concordia University, Montreal, QC                 (514) 848-7625
------------------------- rich@alcor.concordia.ca ----------------------