[news.software.b] Why does cnews tell me "relaynews: can't link to `comp/misc/28'"?

afc@shibaya.lonestar.org (Augustine Cano) (09/10/90)

Well, the subject header says it all.  I'm running cnews (latest patch
25-may-90) and every night I get some of those can't link messages.
The news spool directories and all the articles have news.news owner/group.
The specific articles mentioned in the messages are there and have multiple
links.  Obviously, one particular link that should have been made wasn't,
but why?  This is what showed up in /usr/lib/news/err* for 3 consecutive
nights.  Is this caused by something in the incoming articles?

relaynews: can't link to `talk/politics/misc/10'

relaynews: can't link to `comp/misc/28'
relaynews: can't link to `comp/sources/wanted/22'
relaynews: can't link to `comp/lang/perl/5'
relaynews: can't link to `comp/periphs/2'

relaynews: can't link to `comp/misc/12'
relaynews: can't link to `comp/dcom/lans/1'
relaynews: can't link to `comp/unix/xenix/sco/11'
relaynews: can't link to `misc/jobs/misc/60'

This is puzzling.  Any insight will be welcome.  Thanks in advance.

Augustine Cano		afc@shibaya.lonestar.org

smith@groucho (09/12/90)

In article <1990Sep10.160446.3440@shibaya.lonestar.org> afc@shibaya.lonestar.org (Augustine Cano) writes:
>links.  Obviously, one particular link that should have been made wasn't,
>but why?  This is what showed up in /usr/lib/news/err* for 3 consecutive
>nights.  Is this caused by something in the incoming articles?
>
>relaynews: can't link to `comp/lang/perl/5'
>relaynews: can't link to `comp/periphs/2'
>

  etc...

  Check the permissions on your news files. Make sure they are owned by 
  news (or whatever serves that function on your machine). Also check
  control/setnewsids and be sure that it is set uid root.
                                          __        
                                         |  | My employer will disavow any 
-----------------------------            |  | knowledge of my actions. 
William Smith                            |. |  
Microelectronics Research Center         \  | 
University of Idaho                      /   \ 
Moscow, ID  83843                        |    \    
(208)885-6500                            |     \  
                                         |      ---|          
E-mail:   wsmith@groucho.mrc.uidaho.edu  |         |   
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henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) (09/13/90)

In article <1990Sep10.160446.3440@shibaya.lonestar.org> afc@shibaya.lonestar.org (Augustine Cano) writes:
>relaynews: can't link to `talk/politics/misc/10'

Barring the possibility that your system is strange in some way, the most
likely cause is permission problems of some kind.  It's an odd problem and
it's hard to say much more from the information at hand.
-- 
TCP/IP: handling tomorrow's loads today| Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
OSI: handling yesterday's loads someday|  henry@zoo.toronto.edu   utzoo!henry

mjr@decuac.DEC.COM (Marcus J. Ranum) (09/13/90)

In article <1990Sep10.160446.3440@shibaya.lonestar.org> afc@shibaya.lonestar.org (Augustine Cano) writes:
>relaynews: can't link to `talk/politics/misc/10'

	I was going to suggest making libc/warning.c print an error message,
if errno was set, but I took a look at it first. :)  Now I'm wondering why
he didn't get an error message out of sys_errlist[]...

mjr.
-- 

Eagles may soar, free and proud, but weasles never get sucked into jet engines.

henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) (09/13/90)

In article <3321@decuac.DEC.COM> mjr@decuac.DEC.COM (Marcus J. Ranum) writes:
>>relaynews: can't link to `talk/politics/misc/10'
>
>	I was going to suggest making libc/warning.c print an error message,
>if errno was set, but I took a look at it first. :)  Now I'm wondering why
>he didn't get an error message out of sys_errlist[]...

A messy interaction with some other library routines.  This may get fixed;
it certainly would be nice to have a more specific error message.
-- 
TCP/IP: handling tomorrow's loads today| Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
OSI: handling yesterday's loads someday|  henry@zoo.toronto.edu   utzoo!henry

haug@almira.uucp (Brian R Haug) (09/19/90)

In article <1990Sep12.190321.18474@zoo.toronto.edu> henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes:
>In article <1990Sep10.160446.3440@shibaya.lonestar.org> afc@shibaya.lonestar.org (Augustine Cano) writes:
>>relaynews: can't link to `talk/politics/misc/10'
>
>Barring the possibility that your system is strange in some way, the most
>likely cause is permission problems of some kind.  It's an odd problem and
>it's hard to say much more from the information at hand.

Another possible problem which I believe I saw running very old Cnews was that
the active file had not been updated or had been corrupted.  The file
talk/politics/misc/10 probably exists, and is the name of the new directory
to be created.  If I recall properly, running the same batch through again
caused duplicate articles to be stored, this of course also created problems
for expire since, in this case, talk/politics/misc/10 may not be in the
history file.  Hope this helps.

			Share and Enjoy!

			      Brian Haug

laird@slum.MV.COM (Laird Heal) (09/21/90)

In article <1990Sep12.034202.9368@groucho>,  smith@groucho writes:

>In article <1990Sep10.160446.3440@shibaya.lonestar.org> afc@shibaya.lonestar.org (Augustine Cano) writes:
>>
>>relaynews: can't link to `comp/periphs/2'
>>
>
>  etc...
>
>  Check the permissions on your news files. Make sure they are owned by 
>  news (or whatever serves that function on your machine). Also check
>  control/setnewsids and be sure that it is set uid root.
>                                    
Oh, relaynews goes into a loop making sure that either he or setnewsids
can su to news.  I run my cron unbatchers as su news.  I still get the
message.  I'll debug it sometime, the batches run pretty quickly when I
put them in for a second try.  I guess a few articles fall through the
cracks?

I had big problems setting the sticky bit and chowning things root,root!

By the way, my shell scripts are starting to resemble vague remnants of
their former selves...and while expiring stuff goes by in a comparative
flash (10 minutes on a very slow machine for a day of comp and news) it
takes relaynews just about forever:  is this normal, any clues?  I had
to use the supplied dbm...

-- 
Laird Heal	laird@slum.MV.COM	The world is my office.
(Salem, NH)	+1 603 898 1406	<-----I charge for opinions, though.

henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) (09/23/90)

In article <1990Sep21.041737.707@slum.MV.COM> laird@slum.MV.COM (Laird Heal) writes:
>takes relaynews just about forever:  is this normal, any clues?  I had
>to use the supplied dbm...

If you are using the dbm emulation supplied with old C News distributions,
you badly need to update to current software.  That old emulation was a
performance disaster.  You should be using either dbz or your system's
dbm (if any).
-- 
TCP/IP: handling tomorrow's loads today| Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
OSI: handling yesterday's loads someday|  henry@zoo.toronto.edu   utzoo!henry