[net.news.sa] Comments on gatech!spaf's local checkgroups script

bossert@dataio.UUCP (John Bossert) (12/21/84)

A few days ago, gatech!spaf posted a script which would allow local
news administrators to run a local checkgroups on their active file.

I inadvertantly (yes, I'm new at this), moved this file to 
/usr/lib/news/checkgroups and then executed the file.  Suddenly, I
started receiving carriage returns on my screen: the only way to
fix the problem was to log out.

Later, while examining the news log file, I noticed hundreds of
local checkgroup postings.  I had launched an infinite loop by
moving gatech!spaf's script to checkgroup where it kept calling
itself.

My fix(?) was to rename spaf's script to chkgrps.local

Just a warning to other novice news administrators: The cycles you
save may be your own :-)

-- 

			John Bossert
			Data I/O Corporation
			Redmond, WA
			uw-beaver!teltone!dataio!{bossert,usenet}