Re: noatime on ufs2

On Mon, Jan 08, 2024 at 12:41:02PM -0800, Xin LI wrote:
>On Sun, Jan 7, 2024 at 5:27 AM void <void@f-m.fm> wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> Does /var/mail still need atime?
>>
>> I've installed a ufs2-based -current main-n267425-aa1223ac3afc on
>> rpi4/8BG which installs into one / . If it's mounted with noatime,
>> will it have consequences for /var/mail ?
>
>
>It doesn't matter if you don't normally receive emails locally (nowadays,
>it's rare).

I read the periodic ones locally

>If you do receive emails locally, it depends on what application(s) that
>you are using.  

In this type of context it'll be either exim or dma with mutt used for reading
the emails. It'll be in whatever the default format is (mbox?)

>Most applications nowadays check both mtime and atime plus
>sizes of the mailbox file and do not rely on atime (because they saved the
>previous mtime).  Without atime updates, some application may claim that
>you have new mail when the mailbox is not empty when they first start.
>
>That's said, if I were you and I'm using some flash based storage (with rpi
>it's highly likely) regardless if I'm using mail locally; most of the time
>the data is not really useful for anything, and it does increase the wear
>of your storage.

Good to know. When installing, the opportunity to define partitions
didn't arise because the image was installed by dd to
media that will run the system (in this case a hard disk)

I was concerned that email might not work right without atime.
So far, it seems to be working OK.

My fstab in part looks like this:

/dev/ufs/rootfs / ufs rw,noatime,async  1   1

(async is fine because the system won't be used for data that
needs to be kept locally, and it's connected to a UPS)
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