[news.sysadmin] news.sysadmin

fox@marlow.uucp (Paul Fox) (12/03/88)

This is a little (large) moan at the News software (2.11 pl 14).
I have something wrong with my news installation, i think i
may be having the same problem as others but it does concern me.

The problem is that occasionally the 'powers that be'
somewhere out in net land pick up my 'sys' file and send me mail
messages telling me I have invalid newsgroups, etc, etc.

They are either requesting a file, I didnt explicitly give
them permission to access (tell me how I can stop it), or
they are executing a shell script on my system I have not given
them permission to. Either way it is WRONG.

My system is my business, not anybody elses. With all this
netland talk of virus's, worms, bacteria, etc, etc people
are doing things to my system I do not understand or have time
to look into.

The reason I mention this is that one of the 'news' control
messages causes my news system to hang. It causes 'rnews' to
hang whilst news is being unbatched. The eventual sypmtom
is that uuxqt runs later on and keeps spawning rnews until
we run out of processes/swap space. This really p**ses
me off.

It p**ses me off because people do things to my system when
I havent explicitly let them and it p**ses me off because
the news software is not bug free.

I hope C-news or News 3.0 is MUCH MUCH better.


=====================
     //        o      All opinions are my own.
   (O)        ( )     The powers that be ...
  /    \_____( )
 o  \         |
    /\____\__/        Tel: +44 628 891313 x. 212
  _/_/   _/_/         UUCP:     fox@marlow.uucp

clarke@acheron.UUCP (Ed Clarke) (12/04/88)

From article <501@alice.marlow.uucp>, by fox@marlow.uucp (Paul Fox):
[stuff deleted]

> them permission to access (tell me how I can stop it), or
> they are executing a shell script on my system I have not given
> them permission to. Either way it is WRONG.
> 

Not quite true, you're mistaken about what is happening.  The 'owner' of
some series of newsgroups ( i.e. bionet.xxxxx ) sends out a posting to
the 'control' group.  In the example that I'm looking at, Eliot Lear
( lear@NET.BIO.NET ) has sent out a message to the bionet.molbio.ctl
group containing the lines:

Control: checkgroups
Distribution: bionet

in the header.  The remainder of the message is a list of official bionet 
newsgroups.  The purpose of this message is to notify everyone about
new groups that may have been added ( and missed at your site ), and
about groups that may now be obsolete.  'inews' sees the control message
and executes the 'checkgroups' shell script that comes with news 11.14b.
This seems to be failing for some reason at your site.

You might try renaming the 'checkgroups' script to something else and
having your upstream site send you a checkgroups message.  If that fails,
try having a 'checkgroups' script that does nothing - just exits.

[ Note: it's not merely 'bionet' that sends out these messages.  I think
  that backbone sites send out 'comp' checkgroups, also 'gnu' etc.  The
  sender is usually just doing her/his job and not simply trying to be
  a pain. ]
-- 
Ed Clarke
uunet!bywater!acheron!clarke

pcg@aber-cs.UUCP (Piercarlo Grandi) (12/06/88)

In article <501@alice.marlow.uucp> fox@marlow.uucp (Paul Fox) writes:

    The problem is that occasionally the 'powers that be' somewhere out
    in net land pick up my 'sys' file and send me mail messages telling
    me I have invalid newsgroups, etc, etc.

Other powers-that-be (or maybe the very same ones!) also mix obscure,
nasty fluorides with your drinking water!  THEY are trying to
compromise the purity of your fluids, as well as your machine's News!
Contact Dr. Strangelove for more details (unfortunately I cannot give you
his address, it is still classified...) on how to stop THEM! (nuke them
until they glow, then ...)

    They are either requesting a file, I didnt explicitly give them
    permission to access (tell me how I can stop it), or they are
    executing a shell script on my system I have not given them
    permission to. Either way it is WRONG.

Even worse than that! they are sending you dozens of megabytes of files
that swamp your machine every week! Control messages appear
mysteriously! curse all the damn UUCP users, whenever they send you a mail
message, uuxqt is executed, files get created, inodes get
consumed (or disappear entirely) on YOUR machine!  LET'S STOP THOSE
VERMIN!!!

    My system is my business, not anybody elses. With all this netland
    talk of virus's, worms, bacteria, etc, etc people are doing things
    to my system I do not understand or have time to look into.

If one does not understand something he is doing, it is either because
he is quite dumb or knows he is lucky. I wish I had as much luck as you
know to have. I envy you for your luck, that surely is as great and
well founded as your confidence that you don't understand how the News system
and software works.

    The reason I mention this is that one of the 'news' control
    messages causes my news system to hang. It causes 'rnews' to hang
    whilst news is being unbatched. The eventual sypmtom is that uuxqt
    runs later on and keeps spawning rnews until we run out of
    processes/swap space. This really p**ses me off.

It would p**s me off as well! If I were not dumb and ignorant as I am,
and I were in your place, I would look at the sources and fix the
problem, instead of wasting my time and that of many network people by
posting this article. Too bad I am doing it!

    It p**ses me off because people do things to my system when I
    havent explicitly let them

I thouroughly agree! So much so that I would suggest that There Ought
To Be A Law that makes sending electronic mail or news articles of any
contents (not just disgusting, surely Anti-American news syncronization
messages) to a system, without having previously requested by electronic
mail the permission of that system's administrator, be a criminal offense.

    and it p**ses me off because the news software is not bug free.

I understand you fully. You have been conned with one of the very few
remaining pieces of buggy software around, peddled by a very small but
obnoxious irresponsible minority of low caste programmers. This is
unfortunate, as they hurt the reputation of the majority of reliable
suppliers, that have been producing bug free software for many years
now, just like you have been doing for sure.

I know that advertising is frowned upon here, but I cannot resist
mentioning that I have for sale, at very interesting prices, a slew of
guaranteed bug-free software packages, among them a full fledged
program verifier/prover as well as a distributed real time battle
management system for ICBM interdiction, and a very interesting
property in New York, a prime investment opportunity, a bridge with a
lot of guaranteed traffic, in excellent state.  If you are interested,
contact my attorneys and agents, Stanley, Ollie, Send & Mail, 280
Sun3set Boulevard, Hollywood, CA, for details.

    I hope C-news or News 3.0 is MUCH MUCH better.

Well, I know that but for your extremely busy schedule, full of much
more important tasks, you would have already managed to improve a lot
the News package. Too bad that those that sold you B-News swindled you
of A LOT OF MONEY for an obviously inferior product. Sue them unwashed
hackers!  Call the Software Fraud Squad!

Now for the serious part: even if fox@marlow.co.uk and myself have not
liberally sprinkled with :-) our postings, they are not to be taken
seriously. fox@marlow.co.uk clearly posted a caricature of the worries of a
paranoid system administrator, one scared to death in his ignorance and
inflated ego by an innocent triggering of the checkgroups script on his
machine by a checkgroups synchronization message from the net, and so
dumb not to understand that mail can be sent by daemons running
locally, instead of humans from remote sites.

Even if the parodistic nature of the posting is clearly revealed by
some obviously unrealistic exaggerations (nobody would believe that any
real system administrator out there is so dumb and irresponsible
to expect a (complex) package like News to be bug-free, and then
complain that it isn't; especially if he runs UUCP), the caricature is
frightenengly like, only just a bit exxxxagerated, many people out
there in the net.

I hope that the original posting, and my own, (less subtle) parody of a
sympathetic reply, have amused you, and made the less alert, more
readily scared sysadmin think that it is time to RTFM, be it News's or
whatever...
-- 
Piercarlo "Peter" Grandi			INET: pcg@cs.aber.ac.uk
Sw.Eng. Group, Dept. of Computer Science	UUCP: ...!mcvax!ukc!aber-cs!pcg
UCW, Penglais, Aberystwyth, WALES SY23 3BZ (UK)