[news.software.b] Tired of the recent spate of addgroup and rmgroup messages

news@iddth.id.dk (Nick Sandru (news adm)) (02/06/91)

barnett@grymoire.crd.ge.com (Bruce Barnett) writes:

>In article <1991Feb4.140410.19340@unvax.union.edu> boehme@unvax.union.edu (Eric M. Boehm) writes:

>   1. Why do addgroup messages get executed and not rmgroup messages? Is
>   it because rmgroup is really delgroup?

>I believe it depends on how you set up news on your site.

>   3. How do I verify that addgroup and rmgroup messages are valid?


>I look at the person who sends the message, and if it looks
>reasonable, I manually add/delete the group.
>--
>Bruce G. Barnett	barnett@crd.ge.com	uunet!crdgw1!barnett

I did some other thing:

We use C-News at this site (patch Sep 7,1990). I modified newgroup so that it
filters out all the newgroup control postings coming from outside and mails
them (entirely) to the news admin. If the news admin wants to run the newgroup
control, he/she has to issue it locally (by editing the Control:, Sender: and
Approved: lines and the message-id). The modified newgroup program makes the
new group and collects all the articles which may have come for the new group.
The whole process takes about 1h on our site (~250 groups with 1500-2000
articles daily). It updates also the active and history files. The collection
is done by a program named 'collng' (COLLect New Group) called by the newgroup
script. collng is able to resume the collection after a system crash.

NOTE: the newgroup control issued in order to make the group locally must
have the Distribution: set to 'local' (in order to prevent them for leaking
out on the net).

Maybe there is also need to make possible to disable control postings coming
from certain sites?!

newgroup+collng will soon be available (together with a script which cleans
the news spool directory of old files etc.)

--
Nick Sandru (also known as Long Haired Nick)

News adm at iddth.id.dk (one who doesn't send fake cancel/newgroup/rmgroup
controls...)