---
name: "lurker-prune"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "lurker"
version: "2.3-6+b1"
release: "Debian 11 (Bullseye)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/lurker-prune"
---

# lurker-prune(1)

prunes the web-server cache

## NAME

lurker-prune — prunes the web-server cache

## SYNOPSIS

**lurker-prune** \[-c \<config-file\>\]  \[-f \<frontend\>\]  \[-m \<days\>\]  \[-a \<days\>\]  \[-p -v\]

## DESCRIPTION

**lurker-prune** prunes obsolete or stale files  from the web-server accessible cache. This command must be run at  regular intervals from eg. a cronjob. If it is not run, then the  lurker web interface will appear to not be receiving new mail or have  contradictory links between pages. A good interval is every 15 minutes  and should not exceed one hour.

Be aware that it is possible for an attacker to use up a large  amount of disk space through lurker. An attacker could request many  distinct lurker web pages each of which is cached, thus using disk  space. Please setup a quota for the lurker user, read your logs, and  follow whatever site-specific policies you have for denial of   service.

A good script to run in parallel with normal lurker-prune use is   one similar to:   if test \`du -s /var/www/lurker \| cut -f1\` -gt 32768; then lurker-prune -p; fi  This might help guard against a potential denial-of-service attack.

## OPTIONS

- **-c config-file**

  Use this config file for lurker settings.

- **-f frontend**

  The directory of the lurker frontend cache to clean. You can  selectively purge cache with this option. By default, lurker-prune   will clean all frontends specified in the config file.

- **-m days**

  Keep cached files for at most this many days. Any cached  file regardless of last access will be deleted after the specified  number of days (defaults to 7). Files which are obsolete due to  new mail, config changes, or no accesses will be deleted earlier.  Deleted files will be automagically regenerated if needed.

- **-a days**

  Kill cache files not accessed for this many days. Any cached  file which has not been read from for the specified number of days  (defaults to 1) will be deleted. Files which are obsolete due to  new mail or config changes will be deleted earlier.  Deleted files  will be automagically regenerated if needed.

- **-p**

  Purge mode. Delete all cache files even if they do not appear  to be expired. This will only deletes files that are generated by  lurker, and is thus preferable to rm \*/\*.

- **-v**

  Verbose operation. Indicate which files are being deleted  and the reasoning behind lurker's decisions. This can help in  tracking down why some files are deleted and not others.

## SEE ALSO

[lurker-index(1)](/lurker-index/1.md), [lurker-params(1)](/lurker-params/1.md), [lurker-list(1)](/lurker-list/1.md)

lurker documentation on http://lurker.sourceforge.net/

## COPYRIGHT

Copyright (C) 2002: Wesley W. Terpstra \<terpstra@users.sourceforge.net\>

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify  it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by  the Free Software Foundation; version 2.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,  but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of  MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the  GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License  along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software  Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330,  Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.

## BUGS

Before reporting a bug, please confirm that the bug you found is  still present in the latest official release. If the problem persists,  then send mail with instructions describing how to reproduce the bug to  \<lurker-users@lists.sourceforge.net\>.
