0000259: 'Smart Delete' features

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0000259

aMule

Feature Request

public

2005-01-18 17:45

2005-03-04 01:55

Reporter

andvaranaut

Assigned To

Priority

normal

Severity

feature

Reproducibility

N/A

Status

closed

Resolution

open

Platform

OS Version

Product Version

2.0.0-rc8

Target Version

Fixed in Version

Summary

0000259: 'Smart Delete' features

Description

I think that a cool and innovative feature which could be added to aMule is a way to selectively delete shared files (y'know, no matter how big your HD is you'll eventually fill it up; I myself have 25G+ of shared files but download about 4Gb per day).

The feature requested would be a kind of 'smart sweep'. You'd ask aMule to free up a specified amount of space, and aMule would select the best candidates to be deleted (and allow you to confirm which ones you really want to nuke). The main criteria could be:

- Time since being downloaded (set a minimum 'safety' period for the files, say a fortnight, and make them more likely to get deleted as time goes by).
- Availability. Files with lots of sources would get deleted more often, whereas scarce files would stay longer, making them more easily spread.
- Popularity. Frequently asked for files would be preserved over not-so-popular ones. This could be refined so that the files requested by the people you are downloading from are not deleted, so that you have more chances of earning credits with them, and of course trying not to delete files you are uploading or that you are about to upload (it sucks to wait 6h in a queue to find out that the file has been deleted when you are about to get the slot...)
- Completeness. Partially downloaded files which have never been seen completed for a few weeks could also be cancelled. As a side effect this would prevent these files from spreading somewhat.
- Fake (delete)/ Excellent (preserve) comments.
- Category the file came from.
- Whatever comes to mind ;)

Technically, the idea doesn't seem very difficult to implement. Most information is already available from the shared files tab (the only one I don't know about is age). It would only be a matter of establishing a sensible enough formula to give a score to the files according to these criteria, and deleting those with the highest (or lowest) score.

Why (I think) this feature would be useful:

- Deleting files by hand is a nightmare if you want to be a little careful, specially if you run aMule in a dedicated server. You have to ensure that you delete the least popular files but not those which don't have many sources, and also need to free up a given space. This would make life much simpler for me ;) (I run aMule via Xvnc in my router PC)
- It would encourage good community practices, such as not deleting files you are uploading ATM, keeping the least spread files until there are enough clients with them completed to make it safe to delete them, and nuking the 'incomplete-files-of-death' which sometimes appear.
- You could even set files as 'safe to delete' in the Shared window once you have burned them to CD or something, so that instead of whining when no diskspace is left, aMule would automatically pick the best file to delete to make room for the new download. That would make unattended operation of aMule easier, and would avoid the frustration associated to waking up at 10am to find out that the whole night has been wasted because of a full drive...

I realize that this is not a trivial change and that definitely it will not come in 2.0.0, but I think that it might be an good addition to aMule, specially as running dedicated aMule servers seems common. Comments welcome.

Take care, CP

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Notes
(0000604) phoenix (developer) 2005-02-03 13:35	Seems a nice idea, I like the "safe to delete" flag. Maybe we can put this after 2.0.0 release.

(0000611) Kry (manager) 2005-02-07 05:21	No if I can avoid it.

(0000695) Xaignar (manager) 2005-03-04 00:58	IMHO we should never, ever, add the ability for amule to delete anything but files in the .aMule folder. Otherwise we open up for a potentially huge security issue, in that a mule compromised (say though a poorly passworded amulecmd) could be made to delete any files the user has access to.

(0000697) Kry (manager) 2005-03-04 01:55	And, as 2 admins agree, I close it :)

Issue History
Date Modified	Username	Field	Change
2005-01-18 17:45	andvaranaut	New Issue
2005-02-03 13:35	phoenix	Note Added: 0000604
2005-02-03 13:35	phoenix	Status	new => acknowledged
2005-02-07 05:21	Kry	Note Added: 0000611
2005-03-04 00:58	Xaignar	Note Added: 0000695
2005-03-04 01:55	Kry	Status	acknowledged => closed
2005-03-04 01:55	Kry	Note Added: 0000697