bent@lccinc.UUCP (Ben Taylor) (01/16/91)
Thanks to all the people who sent mail regarding my last post, I got the B News to post an ihave message to my machine running C News, however it wont talk back with a sendme message. However, the machine running C News gets the ihave message and appears to just drop it on the floor. I get mail "rnews completed successfully" and nothing happens. No sendme message, no nothing. Is there some problem with SCO B News that I'm missing here? I've built the C News using the patches/suggestions posted on comp.unix.xenix.sco and have the cnews speedups installed. I can post news to the machine running C News, I've even been able to forward news to the machine running C News so the connection has the appearance of being functional? Any one have any ideas? I'm wide open to suggestions. Tahnks in Advanse Ben Taylor Systems Administrator LCC Incorporated uunet!lccinc!bent
davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.COM (Wm E Davidsen Jr) (01/17/91)
In article <315@lccinc.UUCP> bent@lccinc.UUCP (Ben Taylor) writes: | However, the machine running C News gets the ihave message and appears to | just drop it on the floor. I get mail "rnews completed successfully" | and nothing happens. No sendme message, no nothing. I have not seen any site I feed get ihave working under C news. I may be that this feature isn't quite functional yet. -- bill davidsen (davidsen@crdos1.crd.GE.COM -or- uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen) A system without MS-DOS compatibility is like a rock without mayonnaise
henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) (01/17/91)
In article <3130@crdos1.crd.ge.COM> davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.com (bill davidsen) writes: > I have not seen any site I feed get ihave working under C news. I may >be that this feature isn't quite functional yet. Works fine for us, and for many people around here. It does take very careful attention to the documentation and examples; trying to "wing it" will not work. -- If the Space Shuttle was the answer, | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology what was the question? | henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry
jmaynard@thesis1.hsch.utexas.edu (Jay Maynard) (01/17/91)
In article <3130@crdos1.crd.ge.COM> davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.com (bill davidsen) writes: > I have not seen any site I feed get ihave working under C news. I may >be that this feature isn't quite functional yet. I have fed another site via an ihave/sendme link with C news. (My system sent the ihaves, and the other one sent the sendmes.) The documentation seems a bit obscure to my foggy memory of looking it up, but the necessary info is there. I'll try to get how I got it working out on the net, but it may be a while. -- Jay Maynard, EMT-P, K5ZC, PP-ASEL | Never ascribe to malice that which can jmaynard@thesis1.hsch.utexas.edu | adequately be explained by stupidity. "Fahrvergnugen, y'all." -- Volkswagen billboard in Houston
schnoebe@convex.com (Eric Schnoebelen) (01/17/91)
davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.com (bill davidsen) writes in <3130@crdos1.crd.ge.COM>:
-In article <315@lccinc.UUCP> bent@lccinc.UUCP (Ben Taylor) writes:
-
-| However, the machine running C News gets the ihave message and appears to
-| just drop it on the floor. I get mail "rnews completed successfully"
-| and nothing happens. No sendme message, no nothing.
-
- I have not seen any site I feed get ihave working under C news. I may
-be that this feature isn't quite functional yet.
We in Dallas/Ft Worth have had great success running
ihave/sendme with C news. We use it with a delaying script, to make
sure the news propagates well around the city.
A nice thing about C news is that it requires an explicit set
up for processing a "sendme" message, so people can't just pull
articles from your machine. This also allows uni-directional
ihave/sendme links with out any great hassles.
Now for some meat! Below are the sys file and batchparms file
entries for doing ihave/sendme with C news.
sys file:
#
# sample ihave/sendme sys file entry
#
# send the message ids for the articles we have
#
sys-ihave:\
{group list},to.sys/all,!to,!local,!ihave,!sendme:I:sys.ihave/togo
#
# respond to the sys's ihave message (turn their ihave into a sendme)
#
sys-sendme:to.sys/ihave:I:sys.sendme/togo
#
# process sys's sendme message, and send the requested articles
# and any articles posted to.sys via compressed batching
#
sys:to.sys/sendme:f:sys/togo
#
# I frequently use a variation of the above, to send locally
# posted articles to the other site, along with control messages
#
# sys:\
# {group list},to.sys/all,!to,!local,!ihave:fL1:sys/togo
#
batchparms file:
#
# site size queue builder muncher sender
# ---- ---- ----- ------- ------- ------
/default/ 10000 20 batcher compun viauux
#
# sample ihave/sendme link
#
# sys below could be handled by the default rule above
# queue size is 60 so it will handle more of the ihave and sendme
# messages per run
#
sys-ihave 10000 60 batchih nocomp viainews
sys-sendme 10000 60 batchsm nocomp viainews
sys 10000 20 batcher compcun viauux
#
Comments:
Right now, C news assumes that all articles sent via sendme are
3000 bytes long, which causes batch sizes to fluctuate wildly. I
believe that the routine that handles the sendme message could do a
size look up on the article, to give the batcher a more reasonable idea
of what the article sizes are.
Also, the awk script in $NEWSBIN/batch/batchsplit could be a
little more intelligent about how big to make the ihave and sendme
messages. I have added the following patch to batchsplit, to allow it
to size the ihave and sendme batches better. It basically sizes the
articles as the size of the message id, rather than 3000 bytes, as it
would before.
*** batchsplit.orig Mon Dec 17 15:21:07 1990
--- batchsplit Mon Dec 17 15:29:23 1990
***************
*** 68,74 ****
batch = "togo." bno ; nbatches = 7 }
{
if (NF == 1)
! size = 3000 # Arbitrary guess.
else
size = $NF
if (total + size > limit && ninbatch > 0) {
--- 68,77 ----
batch = "togo." bno ; nbatches = 7 }
{
if (NF == 1)
! if ( $1 ~ /^<.*>$/ )
! size = length( $1 )
! else
! size = 3000 # Arbitrary guess.
else
size = $NF
if (total + size > limit && ninbatch > 0) {
All in all, I think that Henry and Geoff have provided us with
a great transport mechanism with C news. It is very versatile, and
very configurable, as well as being very fast! Thanks guys!
If anyone has any questions reguarding ihave/sendme with C
news, I believe I understand it well enough to try and help. Please
feel free to send email to me with questions. Please send them to me
as eric@cirr.com.
--
Eric Schnoebelen eric@cirr.com schnoebe@convex.com
Churchill's Commentary on Man: Man will occasionally stumble over the
truth, but most of the time he will pick himself up and continue on.davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.COM (Wm E Davidsen Jr) (01/17/91)
In article <1991Jan16.182335.4237@zoo.toronto.edu> henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes: | In article <3130@crdos1.crd.ge.COM> davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.com (bill davidsen) writes: | > I have not seen any site I feed get ihave working under C news. I may | >be that this feature isn't quite functional yet. | | Works fine for us, and for many people around here. It does take very | careful attention to the documentation and examples; trying to "wing it" | will not work. Let me clarify, so we're talking about the same thing. I have not been able to feed a C news site from a B news site, where the B news site is running on SCO Xenix. I have been able to feed B news to BSD, SunOS, Xenix, and AT&T V.3.2 sites, so I assume the ihave end is working. How this relates to feeding one C news site from another I can't say. It may be that all the sites running C news are staffed with people who can't make it work, or that the documentation is less than clear. Your "very careful attention to the documentation and examples" leads me to believe that it's at least somewhat tricky, and feeding from a B news site may or may not be related. -- bill davidsen (davidsen@crdos1.crd.GE.COM -or- uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen) A system without MS-DOS compatibility is like a rock without mayonnaise
david@dhw68k.cts.com (David H. Wolfskill) (01/17/91)
In article <3130@crdos1.crd.ge.COM> davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.com (bill davidsen) writes: >In article <315@lccinc.UUCP> bent@lccinc.UUCP (Ben Taylor) writes: [Description of apparent failure of C News ihave/sendme to function as expected elided -- dhw] > I have not seen any site I feed get ihave working under C news. I may >be that this feature isn't quite functional yet. This (C News) site is not one that bill feeds; it also has neither Intel processors nor SCO software. However, it does feed another site via ihave/sendme, and may thus be used as a counter-example to the above conjecture. Originally, both sites involved were running ihave/sendme with B News; this site converted to C News (for which I had somewhat of a learning curve). Ihave/sendme worked, once I followed the directions. Subsequently (after several months -- and a change in SA), the other site converted to C News (for which the other SA had somewhat of a learning curve). Once again, ihave/sendme worked, once he followed the directions. Ihave/sendme has been working for us for quite a while now, without incident. If you're trying to get C News ihave/sendme to work, I strongly suggest re-checking your configuration against the supplied instructions. If you still have problems, please feel free to send me a note, & I'll see if I can figure out what's up (or at least send a copy of my setup as a known working example). Cheers, david -- David H. Wolfskill uucp: ...{spsd,zardoz,felix}!dhw68k!david InterNet: david@dhw68k.cts.com CompuServe: >internet:david@dhw68k.cts.com
ken@opusc.csd.scarolina.edu (Ken Sallenger) (01/17/91)
In article <1991Jan16.182335.4237@zoo.toronto.edu> Henry writes:
=>
=> Works fine for us, and for many people around here. It does take very
=> careful attention to the documentation and examples; trying to "wing it"
=> will not work.
Yup. We feed a cross-campus site, and I failed to get the suggested setup
to work---largely because I was never able to sit down with my opposite
number and hack through it. I'm reasonably sure that we'll work it out
eventually.
We _are_ successfully feeding them with the nntpxmit program included
with the NNTP distribution. This is not batched :-( but it works and
was straightforward to set up from one end. Lack of batching is not
killing us at the moment because the WAN connection is new and lightly
used.
We also had some success with nntpxfer (also from the NNTP dist), set up
from the receiving end. This failed when I broke the NNTP server on
this end, which is another story.
Both of these programs poke the NNTP daemon on the other machine. Xmit
sends an ihave for each of a list of articles, which relaynews has saved;
the other end's nntpd then accepts/rejects it, and it's sent automagically.
Xfer (on the receiving end) asks the sender's nntpd for a list of new
articles since a specified time (of which the receiver keeps track),
and then issues sendme's for those which it wants. This is all a bit
slow, working on a per-article basis. But on our lightly loaded net,
it works well.
* * *
Let me add my thanks to the Henry and Geoff for a mind-bogglingly useful
package. Our aging VAX-11/750 breathed a huge sigh of relief when we
finished setting up C-news.
Thanks also for the remarkable care and alacrity with which they respond
to our (sometimes dumb) questions in this forum! Even when it's just
"Yup, that should work: try it again." [Thanks, Henry. It did :-]
--
Ken Sallenger / ken@bigbird.csd.scarolina.edu / +1 803 777-6551
Computer Services Division / 1244 Blossom ST / Columbia, SC 29208bent@lccinc.UUCP (Ben Taylor) (01/18/91)
henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes: >In article <3130@crdos1.crd.ge.COM> davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.com (bill davidsen) writes: >> I have not seen any site I feed get ihave working under C news. I may >>be that this feature isn't quite functional yet. >Works fine for us, and for many people around here. It does take very >careful attention to the documentation and examples; trying to "wing it" >will not work. >-- >If the Space Shuttle was the answer, | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology >what was the question? | henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry I am definitely not "winging it". I think I am running into problems with Xenix, and possibly the configuration. I've been fooling with this seriously for a week now, and really have not seen much light. I am using the suggestions for batchparms, sys, and the patch to batchsplit. I can get a ihave message from B News to C News. C News processes it and dumps it in news/out.going/lccinc.sendme/togo. Here's where the problems appear to begin. Sendbatches runs, but always fails returning a "./sendbatches batching togo.1 for `lccinc.sendme' failed" error. Then I get a error stating that the process is not attached to the terminal and get a list of options for who. When I tried passing in a LOGNAME, it appears to work, but still fails from sendbatches. Anyone have any comments? Ben Taylor Systems Administrator LCC Incorporated uunet!lccinc!bent
barrett@Daisy.EE.UND.AC.ZA (Alan P. Barrett) (01/18/91)
In article <3132@crdos1.crd.ge.COM>, davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.com (bill davidsen) writes: > It may be that all the sites running C news are staffed with people who > can't make it work, or that the documentation is less than clear. Your > "very careful attention to the documentation and examples" leads me to > believe that it's at least somewhat tricky, and feeding from a B news > site may or may not be related. I run C news here on undeed and talk ihave/sendme to a neighbouring B news site. I have mailed relevant extracts from the sys files of both sites to the original enquirer. On the C news side it required careful RTFM'ing (yes, it is somewhat tricky, but the documentation and examples are perfectly adequate). On the B-news side it required a bit of RTFC'ing (partly because I had deleted the B news docs but accidentally kept the code on line). Neither site cares whether the other is running B or C news. --apb Alan Barrett, Dept. of Electronic Eng., Univ. of Natal, Durban, South Africa Internet: barrett@ee.und.ac.za (or %ee.und.ac.za@saqqara.cis.ohio-state.edu) UUCP: m2xenix!quagga!undeed!barrett PSI-Mail: PSI%(6550)13601353::BARRETT
schnoebe@convex.com (Eric Schnoebelen) (01/19/91)
bent@lccinc.UUCP (Ben Taylor) writes in <339@lccinc.UUCP>: -I've been fooling with this seriously for a week now, and really have not -seen much light. I am using the suggestions for batchparms, sys, and -the patch to batchsplit. - -I can get a ihave message from B News to C News. C News processes it and -dumps it in news/out.going/lccinc.sendme/togo. Here's where the problems -appear to begin. Sendbatches runs, but always fails returning a -"./sendbatches batching togo.1 for `lccinc.sendme' failed" error. I would check the batchsm, and viainews scripts to see if there is anything there that could cause an error. The only time tht sendbatches fails is when one of its subcommands returns either an error value, or something on standard out/standard error (Have I got that right, Henry?) If you try and run sendbatches with the "-x" flag on under sh, sendbatches will always fail, because the error logging file will non-zero in size. The non-zero size of the error file is one of the indications that sendbatches uses to determine that something is wrong. -Then I get a error stating that the process is not attached to the terminal -and get a list of options for who. When I tried passing in a LOGNAME, -it appears to work, but still fails from sendbatches. It sounds like some command in the batchsm or viainews shell scripts are attempting to invoke a program or shell script that uses who(1). If you set $NEWSITE in your environment, you can run the sendme batching scripts by hand. The command would look something like "cat $NEWSARTS/out.going/lccinc.sendme/togo | batchsm | viainews" That takes the compressor out of the loop (it's null anyway), and helps you isolate the problem. To futher isolate it, drop the viainews, and direct the output to a file. When it is in the file, check to see that it looks like a standard control message, then pipe it into viainews. This should give you a good handle on isolating the problem. -- Eric Schnoebelen eric@cirr.com schnoebe@covnex.com Conway's Law: In any organization there will always be one person who knows what is going on. - This person must be fired.
henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) (01/19/91)
In article <1991Jan19.011725.15029@convex.com> schnoebe@convex.com (Eric Schnoebelen) writes: >...The only time tht >sendbatches fails is when one of its subcommands returns either an >error value, or something on standard out/standard error (Have I got >that right, Henry?) Correct. I don't know just what Ben's problem is, but my inclination would be to follow Eric's suggestion: track it through sendbatches and try to reproduce it by running things "by hand". > If you try and run sendbatches with the "-x" flag on under sh, >sendbatches will always fail, because the error logging file will >non-zero in size... *SIGH*. I wish I could fix this, but I can't see any way. I can't even turn off -x in a fully portable way, which would at least dodge the issue. (The obvious thing to do is to filter out lines starting with + before checking the logging file, but this fails because many shells put out the -x lines for a pipeline randomly interspersed with each other.) -- If the Space Shuttle was the answer, | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology what was the question? | henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry
bdb@becker.UUCP (Bruce D. Becker) (01/22/91)
In article <3130@crdos1.crd.ge.COM> davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.com (bill davidsen) writes: |In article <315@lccinc.UUCP> bent@lccinc.UUCP (Ben Taylor) writes: | || However, the machine running C News gets the ihave message and appears to || just drop it on the floor. I get mail "rnews completed successfully" || and nothing happens. No sendme message, no nothing. | | I have not seen any site I feed get ihave working under C news. I may |be that this feature isn't quite functional yet. This system does ihave/sendme with several C news sites with no problems. Although this is a B news system, I know that more than one of the C news systems do ihave/sendme together reliably.. -- ,u, Bruce Becker Toronto, Ontario a /i/ Internet: bdb@becker.UUCP, bruce@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu `\o\-e UUCP: ...!uunet!mnetor!becker!bdb _< /_ "Que es mas macho: moral fiber, o oat bran?" - lala