OT: Using TMPFS on Debian

[Glenn Park <gl...@gmail.com>]

Hello,

I'm new to Debian and am trying to understand the Right way to
configure the standard (aptitude-installed) spamassassin package to
use tmpfs shared memory for its temporary directory.

I see the following in /etc/init.d/spamassassin

          export TMPDIR=/tmp

But this file should not be edited by hand.  I think I have to put my
changes into /etc/default/spamassassin

I'm not sure what the best thing to do would be.  Do I just try to
override by putting "export TMPDIR=/dev/shm" into
/etc/default/spamassassin?

Also, how can I test/verify where SpamAssassin thinks its temporary
directory is?  Right now mail volume is next to nothing, so temp files
seem to get cleaned up faster than I can check /tmp to see if in fact
SA is putting any there.

Thank you!

Re: OT: Using TMPFS on Debian

[RW <rw...@googlemail.com>]

On Sun, 25 Nov 2012 10:45:02 -0800
Glenn Park wrote:

> On Sat, Nov 24, 2012 at 5:02 PM, RW <rw...@googlemail.com>
> wrote:
> > On Sat, 24 Nov 2012 14:03:33 -0800
> > Glenn Park wrote:
> >
> >> Hello,
> >>
> >> I'm new to Debian and am trying to understand the Right way to
> >> configure the standard (aptitude-installed) spamassassin package to
> >> use tmpfs shared memory for its temporary directory.
> >>

> > I don't think it's used for much apart from pyzor and the non-daemon
> > version of DCC.
> 
> Oh really? Is the advice that you find around claiming performance
> improvements by situating SpamAssassin on tmpfs wrong? Outdated?

I've never seen any such claims for spamd. 

It may be true for other software that uses the SpamAssassin libraries,
Amavisd etc, which I don't really follow.

Re: OT: Using TMPFS on Debian

[Glenn Park <gl...@gmail.com>]

On Sat, Nov 24, 2012 at 5:02 PM, RW <rw...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, 24 Nov 2012 14:03:33 -0800
> Glenn Park wrote:
>
>> Hello,
>>
>> I'm new to Debian and am trying to understand the Right way to
>> configure the standard (aptitude-installed) spamassassin package to
>> use tmpfs shared memory for its temporary directory.
>>
>> ...
>> Also, how can I test/verify where SpamAssassin thinks its temporary
>> directory is?  Right now mail volume is next to nothing, so temp files
>> seem to get cleaned up faster than I can check /tmp to see if in fact
>> SA is putting any there.
>
> I don't think it's used for much apart from pyzor and the non-daemon
> version of DCC.

Oh really? Is the advice that you find around claiming performance
improvements by situating SpamAssassin on tmpfs wrong? Outdated?

Re: OT: Using TMPFS on Debian

[RW <rw...@googlemail.com>]

On Sat, 24 Nov 2012 14:03:33 -0800
Glenn Park wrote:

> Hello,
> 
> I'm new to Debian and am trying to understand the Right way to
> configure the standard (aptitude-installed) spamassassin package to
> use tmpfs shared memory for its temporary directory.
> 
> ...
> Also, how can I test/verify where SpamAssassin thinks its temporary
> directory is?  Right now mail volume is next to nothing, so temp files
> seem to get cleaned up faster than I can check /tmp to see if in fact
> SA is putting any there.

I don't think it's used for much apart from pyzor and the non-daemon
version of DCC.

FWIW tmpfs probably isn't any better for short-lived temporary files
anyway.