Thanks, guys. This is a lot of great information. I will be trying this and I will post my results.
One other question though, are there any advantages to the file store over the spool store? Before this conversation, I had not understood what the spool store was. I had only heard the term mentioned in passing. I have been using older documentation (Kannel 1.4.1 User's Guide) that lists a parameter to the core configuration of "store-file" and that is what is currently in my config file and running on my system. The actual Kannel code I am using is a CVS pull of Kannel from June of this year. Now that I examine the latest, sort of, documentation (cvs-20081125) I no longer see the "store-file" parameter. Instead I see "store-type" and "store-location". I am assuming, now, that the spool storage type is a "recent" addition to Kannel and was added because it worked more effeciently than trying to rewrite a single file containing many messages. Is this assumption correct? Now that I know about the spool storage type I think I will be switching to it. I can't currently see any advantage the file store has over the spool type and I see many disadvantages, the impetus of this entire conversation, to name one. I am now wondering if my June Kannel code has these parameters in it or if I will have to get a more recent code base and recompile. Any thoughts? Thanks again, -Tony 2008/12/3 Nikos Balkanas <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Definitely. I have a test kannel, hooked to fakesmsc, and I would always > try out a copy of the "fixed" store file before commiting it. There is no > header from what I can see, however there is a footer that has a list of all > message ids. This is a bit more complex, not much though. I presumed that > there was no CRC or indexing. It seems that the message has to be removed > both from the body and the footer. > > Tony if you are watching this, a simple cat at the end won't do it, but > something similar should. > > The footer has to be removed and saved in a different file. Then do the cat > and insert the saved footer just before the new footer, so that the right > order is preserved. > > Of course it goes without saying that the procedure has to be tested first > on a test environment with fakesmsc. I could do it, except that i don't have > any real messages. > > BR, > Nikos > ----- Original Message ----- > > *From:* Alejandro Guerrieri <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > *To:* Nikos Balkanas <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > *Cc:* Tony Kirkham <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ; users@kannel.org > *Sent:* Thursday, December 04, 2008 4:20 AM > *Subject:* Re: Removing an erroring message stuck in queue / file store > > Hmm, I'm not 100% sure you can append messages at the end of the store and > get away with it... I'd first try it on a staging server. > > You can surely "merge" new messages on a spool by copying (you need to > restart kannel for it to notice the new messages, though) but I don't know > if is there any "header" or "footer" information on the store files that > would break the format if appended together. > > I'm not saying it's not possible, just that I've never tried it and since > I'm not _that_ fluent on the file store internals I cannot tell for sure. > > Regards, > > Alejandro > > 2008/12/3 Nikos Balkanas <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > >> BTW, Tony. It doesn't seem that you will have significant downtime. If >> Alej is right you can just stop kannel momentarily to grab the store files >> and start it again. Once the problematic store files are fixed you can just >> stop kannel momentarily and "cat kannel.store.fixed >> kannel.store". Do the >> same for kannel.store.back and restart kannel. Just don't change from >> storefile to spool during the process. >> >> So you don't loose any messages and downtime can be minimal. Cool right? >> >> ----- Original Message ----- >> *From:* Nikos Balkanas <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >> *To:* Alejandro Guerrieri <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ; Tony Kirkham<[EMAIL >> PROTECTED]> >> *Cc:* users@kannel.org >> *Sent:* Thursday, December 04, 2008 2:35 AM >> *Subject:* Re: Removing an erroring message stuck in queue / file store >> >> Thanks for pointing that out. Still it is easy to preview in "vim -b" (not >> hex) and can identify *any* of the fields Sender, recipient, text, >> messageID, so if anyone is missing there are a lot of matches in ASCII. The >> binary text is easy and straightforward. One can reasonably find the borders >> (patterns) of the previous and next message (presumably intact) and delete >> the in between. >> >> Tony, if the file is small enough to send through mail (zipped) and don't >> feel like trying it yourself, why don't you send it to me along with the >> message details to see what I can do about it. >> >> Alej from your words it seems that a spool directory is more efficient >> than a storefile. If anytime kannel sends a message has to delete and >> rewrite almost the whole store file, it is a big waste. Isn't so? >> >> BR, >> Nikos >> >> ----- Original Message ----- >> *From:* Alejandro Guerrieri <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >> *To:* Nikos Balkanas <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >> *Cc:* Tony Kirkham <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ; users@kannel.org >> *Sent:* Thursday, December 04, 2008 2:18 AM >> *Subject:* Re: Removing an erroring message stuck in queue / file store >> >> The 20 nulls are probably a lot of empty/unused fields, that doesn't >> necessary means that they'll be always empty... so don't assume that there >> should be that much. It's not a separator, just a pattern in your particular >> message queue set. >> >> When you edit, you have to make sure that you're actually cutting on the >> right places. Alas, if the message is in fact corrupted maybe it's not >> complete, so YMMV. >> >> Using the spool file is way easier, of course. Again, if you have a >> "broken" message (why is that it's another question) it's just a matter of >> determining which one is causing the problem and removing it. >> >> Regards, >> >> Alejandro >> >> 2008/12/3 Nikos Balkanas <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >> >>> Hi, >>> >>> Just out of curiosity I openned a store file and it doesn't seem too >>> difficult. You can edit it easily with "vim -b" and there are a lot of ASCII >>> fields (sender, recipient, messageid), so you can search for your message >>> easily. Each message seems to be bordered by 20 '\0' (NULLS). Can't miss >>> them. Find offending message and delete by hand (assuming that you know >>> which message is the offending one). >>> >>> This again assumes that there is no CRC or indexing of the messages as >>> discussed by Alejandro. In other words, you can safely remove any message. >>> >>> Make a backup, try it and let us know of the result. Stop kannel, and >>> repeat for both files. >>> >>> Cheers, >>> Nikos >>> >>> ----- Original Message ----- >>> *From:* Alejandro Guerrieri <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >>> *To:* Tony Kirkham <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >>> *Cc:* users@kannel.org >>> *Sent:* Wednesday, December 03, 2008 7:14 PM >>> *Subject:* Re: Removing an erroring message stuck in queue / file store >>> >>> Ah, you're using the "file" store, not "spool" maybe? >>> >>> AFAIK, there's no document on the storage format. It's mainly a dump from >>> the "Msg" structure, but the "Octstr" objects can have nulls in the middle, >>> so it's not as easy to parse and, it doesn't have a fixed length and (if >>> you're still willing to venture at it) you'll need an hex editor if you >>> don't want to mess the whole file (the nulls in the middle of the file will >>> probably render any text editor unusable). >>> >>> If you use the "spool" store, each message is stored on an independent >>> file on a directory tree. Removing the file removes the message. >>> >>> The only problem is that kannel only uses the files as a backup mechanism >>> and it doesn't refresh it during runtime. To clarify: >>> >>> * When a message arrives (or is enqueued to be sent), kannel adds it to >>> an in-memory queue and stores a copy on disk. An internal uuid is used to >>> keep track of messages on both places. >>> >>> * When kannel ends processing the message, it removes it from the >>> in-memory queue and deletes the message from disk. Depending on the store >>> type being used, this means removing it from the store file and rewriting >>> the file, or remove an entire file from the spool tree. >>> >>> * If kannel crashes or is shutdown with messages pending, the messages >>> are kept on the file/spool queue. During a shutdown, the in-memory queue is >>> dumped to file again afaik. >>> >>> * When kannel starts, it first load the messages from the file/spool >>> queue. >>> >>> * On the particular case of the file store, a backup file is kept at all >>> times in case the main file is deleted or corrupted. >>> >>> So, from the above, it's clear why you need to stop kannel before >>> deleting the file(s). >>> >>> You can stop kannel, delete the store and store.bak files, or remove the >>> whole spool tree and start again. It will remove ALL your pending messages. >>> If you can figure out which message is causing the problem, you can remove >>> it from the spool (if you're using the spool store) as well. With the file >>> store, you'd need to figure out from the binary, which is near to impossible >>> without some specially crafted tools imho. >>> >>> Regards, >>> >>> Alejandro >>> >>> On Wed, Dec 3, 2008 at 1:15 PM, Tony Kirkham <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>wrote: >>> >>>> How? By hand, in my favorite editor? I have tried this, with bad >>>> results. There are special characters, at least vi displays them that way, >>>> that I can't interpret so I do not know where, exactly, one message stops >>>> and the next starts. Is there a document that describes the store file in >>>> detail? >>>> >>>> -Tony >>>> >>>> >>>> On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 4:08 PM, Alejandro Guerrieri < >>>> [EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >>>> >>>>> And do it without kannel running, of course ;) >>>>> >>>>> If you're using the spool store file, you can remove the individual >>>>> message (assuming that you can find out what's the message causing the >>>>> error). >>>>> >>>>> Regards, >>>>> >>>>> Alejandro >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 5:49 PM, info.ubichip <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> Hello, >>>>>> >>>>>> when you trash the .store file, don't forget to remove the .store.bak >>>>>> as well otherwise, it will retry to send all the remaining message. >>>>>> >>>>>> regards >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> ------------------------------ >>>>>> *From:* Tony Kirkham [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] >>>>>> *Sent:* lundi 1 dĪ¹cembre 2008 21:32 >>>>>> *To:* users@kannel.org >>>>>> *Subject:* Removing an erroring message stuck in queue / file store >>>>>> >>>>>> Is there a way to remove a message from the file store that is >>>>>> erroring continuously allowing the other messages to be sent? >>>>>> >>>>>> If I simply restart Kannel sometimes the other messages get sent and >>>>>> sometimes they do not. Why is that? >>>>>> If they all get sent but the erroring message I can simply replace the >>>>>> file store with another file with a restart of Kannel, but I would like >>>>>> to >>>>>> know if there is a way to remove the message by some other means. >>>>>> >>>>>> Thanks, >>>>>> >>>>>> -Tony >>>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>> >>> >> >
