Subject: Re: adding a large number of users
To: John Maier <jmaier@midamerica.net>
From: David Maxwell <david@vex.net>
List: netbsd-users
Date: 12/05/2000 14:10:09
On Tue, Dec 05, 2000 at 11:34:51AM -0600, John Maier wrote:
> I am setting up NetBSD as a mail server.
> 
> I will be adding 2000+ email accounts and have a logistics question.
> 
> Which way would be better for a user home directory structure?
> 
> one global directory (i.e. /usr/home/) were all the user in one place?
> Or breaking them up alphabetically (i.e. /usr/home/a/ /usr/home/b/ etc)?
> 
> I want to keep the performance hit for disk accesses down, including
> fragmentation.

Are you concerned about /home, or /var/mail ? If the users don't have
shell accounts, /home isn't going to get a lot of traffic. Depending on
your choice of MTA, and its config, users may not even need home dirs.

At 2000, the hassle would outweigh the performance concerns (IMO) and I'd
leave it all as one dir.

-- 
David Maxwell, david@vex.net|david@maxwell.net -->
(About an Amiga rendering landscapes) It's not thinking, it's being artistic!
					      - Jamie Woods