deathmtn

Since the beginning, I've had trouble with Matomo, the server-log-based web analytics tool.

Today, I couldn't post here because of an `ENOSPACE` error, which turned out to be accurate. My server's hard drive was full.

In the past when I saw low space, I assumed it was the media files from the posts to various weblogs. So, I built this thing that mirrors the web sites on server over at an S3-like storage service, and nginx is a proxy to that for some of the sites. (I then delete the media from the server once in a while because it's mirrored and also backed up on my home Pi.)

Turns out that media files were only 40% of the problem. When I run `dust` as a non-root user, it can't see `/var/lib/mysql`.

Matomo by default retains everything it ever ingests. So, the MySQL had 30 GB of Matomo stuff in it. I tried the things their web site suggested to purge it, and of course it didn't, as it is so often the case for me with UI and console commands suggested by their site.

So, I just got rid of the whole thing. I dropped Matomo's db table, purged the binary logs, deleted the PHP files, unhooked nginx from php-fhm, and removed a ton of stuff from the crontab.

I had no idea it would feel like such a relief.

Now that I have usage alerts, when the server gets bombed, I get an email, and I can just grep the nginx logs. I have no serious need for analytics.