stuart@bms-at.UUCP (Stuart D. Gathman) (12/04/86)
In article <482@enmasse.UUCP>, guy@enmasse.UUCP (The Computer Guy) writes: > Could someone please enlighten me as to why this entry in > my sys file stopped working when I installed 2.11? > maps:mod.map:F:/usr/spool/maps/mod.map/Batch > I get no error message; no "sent to maps" message in my log > file; nothing. News just ignores this entry completely. > This worked just fine before I installed 2.11, so I'm wondering I had a similar problem, but finally figured it out. Prior to 2.11, a missing 'distribution' field did nothing. In 2.11, a missing distribution defaults to 'world' and 'world' does not appear in the sys file entry above. To work in 2.11 you need: maps:world,mod.map:F:/usr/spool/maps/mod.map/Batch Now, while this change may seem stupid at first, there is a logical reason for it (I think). The intent it to make all articles have a distribution. Before, there was no way to screen articles with no 'distribution' field. -- Stuart D. Gathman <..!seismo!dgis!bms-at!stuart>
dsp@ptsfa.UUCP (David St.Pierre) (12/05/86)
In article <298@bms-at.UUCP> stuart@bms-at.UUCP (Stuart D. Gathman) writes: > >maps:world,mod.map:F:/usr/spool/maps/mod.map/Batch > >Now, while this change may seem stupid at first, there is a logical >reason for it (I think). The intent it to make all articles have >a distribution. Before, there was no way to screen articles with >no 'distribution' field. Fine, let's have an article with no distribution default to "world". But how about having a sys line with NO distribution default to ALL? When Mark first posted the "warning" several months ago, it was slanted towards replacing "net" with a whole lot of things. And yes, I installed 2.11 without reading the Installation instructions - I've installed about 5 versions of netnews and thought that this would be relatively painless (it was). I changed my sys file to reflact what I thought was the intent of Mark's posting. Well, enough grousing. Hopefully patch #2 will provide heuristics which will make sense to new people installing the software and not just the "old hands". -- David St. Pierre 415/823-6800 {ihnp4,lll-crg,ames,qantel,pyramid}!ptsfa!dsp Minister of Disinformation It's a fiat accompli.
mcb@styx.UUCP (Michael C. Berch) (12/09/86)
In article <1910@ptsfa.UUCP> dsp@ptsfa.UUCP (David St.Pierre) writes: > In article <298@bms-at.UUCP> stuart@bms-at.UUCP (Stuart D. Gathman) writes: > > > >maps:world,mod.map:F:/usr/spool/maps/mod.map/Batch > > > >Now, while this change may seem stupid at first, there is a logical > >reason for it (I think). The intent it to make all articles have > >a distribution. Before, there was no way to screen articles with > >no 'distribution' field. > > Fine, let's have an article with no distribution default to "world". > But how about having a sys line with NO distribution default to ALL? I may be particularly obtuse tonight, but doesn't the above sys line distribute ALL articles with "Distribution: world" (or, indeed, with no Distribution: header) to "maps", and thus feed them to the map unpacker? Is this wise? Michael C. Berch ARPA: mcb@lll-tis-b.arpa UUCP: ...!lll-lcc!styx!mcb ...!lll-crg!styx!mcb ...!ihnp4!styx!mcb
jbuck@epimass.UUCP (Joe Buck) (12/13/86)
In article <21063@styx.UUCP> mcb@styx.UUCP (Michael C. Berch) writes: >> >maps:world,mod.map:F:/usr/spool/maps/mod.map/Batch > >I may be particularly obtuse tonight, but doesn't the above sys line >distribute ALL articles with "Distribution: world" (or, indeed, with >no Distribution: header) to "maps", and thus feed them to the map >unpacker? Is this wise? No, it does the right thing: for an article to be passed on to a "site" named on a sys file line, it must pass two checks, one based on the Newsgroups: line and one based on the Distribution: line. In 2.11, any article without a Distribution: line is treated as if it had Distribution: world. In older news, for an article without a distribution line, only the newsgroup was checked. It's not clear to me that the change gains us anything, but it's there. -- - Joe Buck {hplabs,ihnp4,sun}!oliveb!epimass!jbuck HASA (A,S) Entropic Processing, Inc., Cupertino, California
drg@rlvc.UUCP (Duncan Gibson) (12/15/86)
In article <1910@ptsfa.UUCP> dsp@ptsfa.UUCP (David St.Pierre) writes: > >Fine, let's have an article with no distribution default to "world". >But how about having a sys line with NO distribution default to ALL? Why not have the missing distribution default to the the most restricted distribution, ie the local organisation? Certainly no wider than the 'state'! That way, the whole world doesn't get to see articles from novice users about used cars and lost ear rings! -- Duncan Gibson, JANET: drg@uk.ac.rl.vc Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, UUCP: ..!mcvax!ukc!rlvd!rlvc!drg Chilton, Didcot, Oxon OX11 0QX. ARPA: @ucl-cs.arpa:drg@vc.rl.ac.uk
dave@onfcanim.UUCP (Dave Martindale) (12/16/86)
In article <722@epimass.UUCP> jbuck@epimass.UUCP (Joe Buck) writes: >In 2.11, any article without a Distribution: line is treated as if it >had Distribution: world. In older news, for an article without a >distribution line, only the newsgroup was checked. It's not clear to >me that the change gains us anything, but it's there. It does, in fact, buy some additional control. Formerly, it was not possible to select a set of articles that had a particular distribution. For example, if I tried to send all articles in "comp" with a distribution of "can" to a site "ostrich", I'd use a sys line like ostrich:comp,can:: Under 2.10, every article in "comp" that did not have a Distribution: line would also be sent, since the distribution was not checked in that case. With 2.11 defaulting a missing distribution to "world", and always checking that against the list in the sys file, and with the fact that group and distribution names are now disjoint sets, you can now select based on distribution codes. Why might I want to do this? Well, most news going from Montreal to other points in Canada west of here goes into the USA and back into Canada. (This makes sense in general, since Canadian cities are often closer to a large U.S. city across the border than to another Canadian city.) However, if I post something to comp.unix.wizards with a distribution of "can", most of Canada won't see it since it will stop at the border. I can circumvent the problem by sending articles with a distribution of "can" via one of my uucp links to a site in Ontario, but this is feasible only if the volume is small. 2.10 would have sent half the articles in "comp" as well as the ones I really wanted. Essentially, the handling of "distribution" done by 2.10 was useful only to restrict forwarding, and had the hidden assumption that the news distribution networks for a given distribution code (like "can") were connected within the domain of that distribution code. 2.11 makes distributions the equals of newsgroups in the sys file.