bms@mitisft.Convergent.COM (Bruce Schlobohm) (03/23/89)
I'm sure this problem has been solved before, but I don't recall seeing
the solution...
I've just recently tried to use a distributed file-system (RFS/NFS,
it shouldn't matter which I use) for my /usr/spool/news and /usr/lib/news
filesystems. The newsreader and poster programs are executed on the
client side. The newsreaders work just fine, but posting news fails.
The error in the errlog is:
inews: Cannot find my name 'client' in /usr/lib/news/sys
('client' is the name (uname -n) of the client machine.)
/usr/lib/news/sys doesn't have the name 'client', as client isn't a newsfeed.
The only machines listed are the names of the server and it's newsfeed.
If it matters this is on a SVr3.1 based machine.
How do I use a distributed file system to handle this situation?
Is GENERICFROM the answer? Do I need to write a postnews-style front-end
that passes the message to the server machine for remote execution?
Any help in this area would be appreciated.
As this might be a problem that others have struggled with, posted
replies might be best, however I'll also summarize mailed replies.
--
Bruce Schlobohm
bms@Convergent.COM -or- {pyramid,sri-unix,pacbell}!ctnews!bmskarl@triceratops.cis.ohio-state.edu (Karl Kleinpaste) (03/24/89)
bms@mitisft.Convergent.COM (Bruce Schlobohm) writes:
I'm sure this problem has been solved before
Yup.
I've just recently tried to use a distributed file-system (RFS/NFS,
it shouldn't matter which I use) for my /usr/spool/news and /usr/lib/news
filesystems. The newsreader and poster programs are executed on the
client side. The newsreaders work just fine, but posting news fails.
The problem is that your host where the discs physically reside has to
be in control of hacking on the history file and all that sort of
thing. You have a couple of possibilities.
Install NNTP. Under SysVRel3.1 as you say you have, this may be
something of a challenge. But it may be workable. You need an NNTP
server running on the discfull host, and the miniature NNTP inews for
use on the clients. You may have to play some games with how the
news-posting interfaces are compiled so that they know to look in The
Right Place, on the assumption that /usr/lib/news is actually one
single place on both the discfull and client systems.
Alternatively, mess about with recnews, recmail, and other mail-
related things in combination with how the news-posting interfaces try
to post an article, so that a newly-posted article is instead mailed
to the discfull host, and on receipt at that host, it is turned back
into news and posted appropriately.
There are probably other possibilities, but these are some obvious
ones. We take the first route, being a BSD shop. We do symlink
things to fool the various systems into executing the right inews.
--Karl