Hi All

We're switching an existing email system to Gmail with about 25k users. Alex wrote us an excellent transfer script... but I was having problems keeping it running on the server. We would have our shell dropped automatically, yet our server loads were fine... and our memory at low %.

The problem was by not piping the script to a log file, or to /dev/null.... it was filling up the shell buffer, and dropping the shells. It was also hindered by the speed of our ISDN too, so when we piped it properly, the script sped up by 75%!

Also, if you add the & sign at the end of your script, it will run in background, and not die if you lose your shell. Isn't that sweet?

Rianda

Diversity by Design

Hi,

What were you using as a terminal client? We use Secure CRT and Putty, and neither of them will have any problems with large amounts of data (shell buffers).

But yes, if the program is outputting data faster then you can download it, then directing it to a file and is a much better idea. You can always add:

some unix command > /tmp/file.txt 2>&1 &

to the end of a command and it will output the data to /tmp/file.txt. You can then just tail the file every now and then to see how things are going.

Cheers,

Alex
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Gossamer Threads Inc.