[Cdash] [CDash 1.6.2] AutoRemove old builds + growing database

[Olivier Pierard]

Dear all,

I'm wondering the best way to limit the DB size under CDash 1.6.2.

We faced yesterday a full disk partition so that no more submissions
were allowed.  In project configuration - miscellaneous tab - AutoRemove
timeframe was set to 60 days and AutoRemove Max builds set to 300. 
Maybe these properties were not set when starting using the project but
after a few weeks of using CDash.  The number of submissions per day is
about 15.  The DB is more than 9 months old.

So, what we noticed:
- AutoRemove was not working.  Maybe because this was not set at the
beginning of the project and that the number of builds to remove was
already higher than 300 ?  Should we let this option empty ?
- Our IT supervisor used the var/www/CDash/autoRemoveBuilds.php  script
to remove the first 8 months.  However, size of the DB was still 4 Gb;
entries in the DB were emptied but not removed so that size remains
constant !  Is it normal that DB size is not reduced by doing so ?  When
setting up auroRemove in project configuration, is CDash using this
script at the first submission of the day ?
- Our IT supervisor then optimized the DB manually through a MySQL
console and the size shrink down to 1Gb instead of 4.

So now, we would like to automatize this procedure.  Easiest would be to
do it from the project configuration in CDash, but how exactly ?  I
cannot imagine that we should use a cron to launch auroRemoveBuilds
script and DB optimization.

Thanks for any advice.

Olivier