SDF went down over a month ago because they ran out of disk space. I’m calling this a software security bug for needless loss of availability. It should have only been a partial loss of availability.

What should have happened

When the server detects disk space getting low, it should not just crap out. It should switch into a read-only mode. In read-only mode, users can still login and access existing content. New posts, comments, and edits are disabled in this state. The node should signal to other fedi nodes that connect that it is in read-only mode.

Perhaps most importantly, users could then be informed /in band/ that the server still lives. We often see fedi nodes simply vanish out of the pure blue and users are at a spontaneous loss of data and relationships. Logging into a read-only server would settle some nerves… keep ppls blood pressure down.

  • activistPnk@slrpnk.netOP
    2·
    2 days ago

    Interesting that Lemmy server has no disk access (that in effect, it just uses inter-process communication). Apparently it is possible to query a DB for the available remaining space for wherever that DB lives.

    So IMO it is still a Lemmy issue. In the event that Postgres cannot handle the query (which I have not checked), it is still a Lemmy issue because Lemmy should not choose a DB that cannot provide storage info.