reid@Glacier.ARPA (Brian Reid) (07/28/85)
Over the years it is pretty common to see an embarassing control message sent out by an SA, followed by a hurried apology. I've just combed the documentation for 2.10.2 news and can't find a word on this topic. Stanford's cluster of netnews machines has grown to the point where it is no longer reasonable for me to log on to each of them and manually create new groups. Our distribution code is "su"; I'd like to be able to send out newgroup control messages creating "su.news", "su.forsale", and that kind of thing, and make sure that the right thing happens. The "right thing" is that I want this control message to go to every machine in the "su" distribution, but nowhere else, and I want it to create a new newsgroup on every machine in the "su" distribution. From reading the 2.10.2 documentation, it seems to me that the way I would do this would be to post a message like this: Newsgroup: net.ctl Distribution: su Subject: newgroup su.news However, before I actually do this, I'd like to check with some of you wiser wizards to make sure this will not dump an embarassing newgroup message all over the universe. -- Brian Reid decwrl!glacier!reid Stanford reid@SU-Glacier.ARPA
clewis@mnetor.UUCP (Chris Lewis) (07/30/85)
In article <10090@Glacier.ARPA> reid@Glacier.UUCP (Brian Reid) writes: >Over the years it is pretty common to see an embarassing control message >sent out by an SA, followed by a hurried apology. I've just combed the >documentation for 2.10.2 news and can't find a word on this topic. > >Stanford's cluster of netnews machines has grown to the point where it is no >longer reasonable for me to log on to each of them and manually create new >groups. Our distribution code is "su"; I'd like to be able to send out >newgroup control messages creating "su.news", "su.forsale", and that kind of >thing, and make sure that the right thing happens. It's even simpler than your suggested solution - because you have your own "su" newsgroup qualifier. First, ensure that your "sys" file only forwards "su" newsgroups to your own sites. Then, do: inews -C su.<newsgroup> It works because inews sends the control message out as su.<newsgroup>.ctl and the forwarding mechanism will only send it out to systems that are supposed to receive su newsgroups. That seems to be all you need. We have been doing the same with our multiple internal sites, and as far as I know, none of the creates have ever gotten outside. We're running 2.10.2 too. -- Chris Lewis, UUCP: {allegra, linus, ihnp4}!utzoo!mnetor!clewis BELL: (416)-475-8980 ext. 321
spaf@gatech.CSNET (Gene Spafford) (08/01/85)
In article <10090@Glacier.ARPA> reid@Glacier.UUCP (Brian Reid) writes: >.... Our distribution code is "su"; I'd like to be able to send out >newgroup control messages creating "su.news", "su.forsale", and that kind of >thing, and make sure that the right thing happens. The "right thing" is that >I want this control message to go to every machine in the "su" distribution, >but nowhere else, and I want it to create a new newsgroup on every machine >in the "su" distribution. > >From reading the 2.10.2 documentation, it seems to me that the way I would >do this would be to post a message like this: > Newsgroup: net.ctl > Distribution: su > Subject: newgroup su.news >However, before I actually do this, I'd like to check with some of you wiser >wizards to make sure this will not dump an embarassing newgroup message all >over the universe. Sigh. If only other system news admins were as responsible as Brian. Thank you, Brian, for being considerate and asking for advice when you weren't sure of the answer. To create a local newsgroup, you can use the "inew" feature for creating newsgroups and let your distribution as set in your "sys" files do all the work. That is, type: /usr/lib/news/inews -C su.news and the "inews" program will create an appropriate control message that will only go to sites that normally would get the "su" distribution, as stated in your "sys" file (assuming you have your "sys" file set up right). The other way is to hand-build an article to do the work for you. For instance, the following would work: Newsgroups: net.general.ctl,control Distribution: su Control: newgroup su.news Subject: cmsg newgroup su.news Make *SURE* you have the "distribution" header in place! A minimal article like so would also work: Newsgroups: su.general.ctl Subject: cmsg newgroup su.news Good luck! -- Gene "4 months and counting" Spafford The Clouds Project, School of ICS, Georgia Tech, Atlanta GA 30332 CSNet: Spaf @ GATech ARPA: Spaf%GATech.CSNet @ CSNet-Relay.ARPA uucp: ...!{akgua,allegra,hplabs,ihnp4,linus,seismo,ulysses}!gatech!spaf