cudcv@warwick.ac.uk (Rob McMahon) (08/11/86)
<munch> A little tale to tell: I was putting up the next release of news on two machines, one a leaf and the other just feeding the leaf. Not having a sensible active file around I thought I'd have a look to see how bad the one I'd got was. I only had an old checkgroups around, but this was only really a test. I ran this checkgroups on the leaf machine, and it mailed me about all the groups it thought was wrong, so my confidence went up. I went to the other machine and ran it ok too. The next day I got a whole series of newgroup messages from my news feed, for things like the fa.all groups, and net.bizarre. I was cursing him for a while, and then when I went home I started wondering ... in the log file it says it sent this checkgroups message up to my feed, although I've checked the control message and it definitely says Distribution: local. I am now having nightmares about my poor little checkgroups message working its way through the entire usenet system, being multiplied by several newgroups of old expired groups at each site along its path, until the whole system crumbles into a heap under its own weight. I still don't know what I did wrong - I'm just off to hide under my asbestos blanket and suck my thumb until the world seems a friendlier place to be. (The offending message is 166@daisy.warwick.ac.uk) -- UUCP: ...!mcvax!ukc!warwick!cudcv JANET: cudcv@uk.ac.warwick.daisy ARPA: cudcv@daisy.warwick.ac.uk PHONE: +44 203 523037 Rob McMahon, Computer Unit, Warwick University, Coventry CV4 7AL, England