[news.sysadmin] old files in uucp map

mark@cbosgd.UUCP (03/26/87)

For those of you using the mod.map UUCP map, I've just been warned
that there are some old files you may still have, possibly causing
some problems.

If you still have files with the following names:
	u.top.1
	u.glue.1
	u.country.1

	u.path.top.1
	u.path.uucp.1
you should delete them.  The top group was replaced with upper cased
versions such as u.Top.1, the bottom is even older.

In particular, you should grep your database for "registry".  If you see
a line like
	cbosgd = registry
or
	cbatt = registry
it is in an old file that should be removed, and in any case the line
should be removed.  The name registry should be equivalneced to "stargate"
only.  If it's set to both stargate and cbosgd, pathalias thinks that
stargate and cbosgd are the same machine, and mail to stargate.com is
send to cbosgd.  This is Not Good.

	Mark Horton

jeff@necntc.UUCP (03/26/87)

In article <3481@cbosgd.ATT.COM> mark@cbosgd.ATT.COM (Mark Horton) writes:
>For those of you using the mod.map UUCP map, I've just been warned
>that there are some old files you may still have, possibly causing
>some problems.
>
>If you still have files with the following names:
>	u.top.1
>	u.glue.1
>	u.country.1
>

These files were found on our system - thanks...

The names were:

u.top
u.glue
u.country

There were no extentions on any of these files - 
The dates showed these files to be at least several months old;
Hope they were the correct files to remove!


-- 
Jeff Janock - NEC Electronics +1 617 655 8833
(MX) jeff@necntc.NEC.COM          gatech!gt-eedsp!\
{mit-eddie, ames, decvax, pyramid, husc6, mirror}!necntc!jeff
                                  

owen@dg_rtp.UUCP (03/27/87)

In article <3481@cbosgd.ATT.COM> mark@cbosgd.ATT.COM (Mark Horton) writes:
>For those of you using the mod.map UUCP map, I've just been warned
>that there are some old files you may still have, possibly causing
>some problems.
>
> [...]

>In particular, you should grep your database for "registry".  If you see
>a line like
>	cbosgd = registry
>or
>	cbatt = registry
>it is in an old file that should be removed, and in any case the line
>should be removed.
> [...]

I looked and found the following files dated 1986:

U.Path.1	Sep 17 1986
U.Path.2	Sep 17 1986
U.Path.top.1	Jul 29 1986
U.Path.uucp.1	Jul 29 1986
u.usa.nj.bcr.1	May 21 1986

both u.Path.2 and u.Path.uucp.1 had cbosgd = registry.
I moved all 5 files out.  Should I have done that?

						Karl

-- 

				Karl M. Owen
				Data General, RTP, NC
				...!seismo!mcnc!rti-sel!dg_rtp!owen

mcb@styx.UUCP (03/29/87)

In article <3481@cbosgd.ATT.COM> mark@cbosgd.ATT.COM (Mark Horton) writes:
> For those of you using the mod.map UUCP map, I've just been warned
> that there are some old files you may still have, possibly causing
> some problems.
> 
> If you still have files with the following names:
> 	u.top.1
> 	u.glue.1
> 	u.country.1
> 	u.path.top.1
> 	u.path.uucp.1
> you should delete them.  The top group was replaced with upper cased
> versions such as u.Top.1, the bottom is even older.

Mark's remarks are somewhat opaque here. Does he mean to KEEP u.Top.1
if you have it (doubt, it, given the existence of the d.* files)?
How about the d.country, d.glue, d.top, which were replaced this month
with d.Country, d.Glue, and d.Top respectively? Did I miss the
announcement of this? What about d.att? It appears to be replaced by
AT&T entries in the individual regional files, but (for example) the
info for akgua does NOT appear in the domain file for Georgia. Should
it be removed?

More importantly, the file DONE distributed with the March maps is
totally bogus; it still lists the u.Path.1 files but makes no mention
of the d.* files.

Could we have a list of the files that constitute an up-to-date map
(and then be able to discard, without worrying, all others)?

Thanks in advance,

Michael C. Berch
News/mail admin -- styx
ARPA: mcb@lll-tis-b.arpa
UUCP: {ames,ihnp4,lll-crg,lll-lcc,mordor}!styx!mcb

rick@seismo.UUCP (03/30/87)

cd to the directory you unshar the maps in. Do an ls -lt and
see what files look suspiciously old. Anything over 6 weeks is suspect.
Anything over 10 weeks is almost certainly no longer valid.

---rick

mark@cbosgd.UUCP (03/30/87)

The files distributed each month are intended to be a complete map,
although you may have local additions.  As Rick says, anything more
than 6 weeks old is bogus.  A simple solution is to move everything
to a spare directlry (or just rm it) and let the next posting fill
in a correct map.

Any current valid netwide file will have a name that's either
	u.country.*
	d.country.*
	d.[A-Z]*	(e.g. d.Top, d.Country, d.Glue .)

The file d.att is for internal AT&T distribution, and not intended
for the outside world.  The AT&T domain map entry can now be found in
d.usa.oh.1 - this applies to all of AT&T, but it had to go somewhere,
and the first contact person is in Ohio.  That entry lists enough
information to reach any AT&T machine through the gateways.

	Mark

tower@bu-cs.UUCP (03/30/87)

I would like to reiterate a suggestion I made a while back about this
old files in the uucp map problem.

The suggestion is based on some assumptions, that appear to reflect
the reality of the way people use the data, instead of the way the
uucp map maintainers intend people to use the data.  Note that I feel
the map maintainers are doing a good job, otherwise.  They are quite
dedicated volunteers.

Assumptions:
  - Admins have a minimum amount of time to maintain the map database.
  - At many sites, the map files are always stored in the same
directory.
  - One of the reasons this is done is that map postings often are
incomplete at many receiving sites, and admins prefer to have a
database that is as complete as possible, so they set things up so
they have can easily use the old files.

Suggestion:
  - Filenames that are dead, be retained in the map distribution for a
reasonable period of time (at least for 3 or 4 COMPLETE postings).
Their contents should be replaced with a single comment line, saying
that the file was declared dead on "date", and why.  For example:

# u.Foo.1 was replaced on 1 Feb 87 by filename u.Bar.1

This solves the problem, at low cost in usenet transmission costs and
maintainer time.  It also prevents problems, when old files aren't
deleted at some sites.  And will save the uucp map maintainers from
having to post requests like <3481@cbosgd.ATT.COM>, which will take
months for some sites to implement.

enjoy -len
-- 
Len Tower, Distributed Systems Group, Boston University,
     111 Cummington Street, Boston, MA  02215, USA +1 (617) 353-2780
Home: 36 Porter Street, Somerville, MA  02143, USA +1 (617) 623-7739
UUCP: {}!harvard!bu-cs!tower		INTERNET:   tower@bu-cs.bu.edu

mark@cbosgd.UUCP (03/31/87)

Len's suggestion is a good one.  In fact, I nearly did that, but it
happened after the rm's went around, and it seemed questionable to
create new tiny files that weren't already there.

Nonetheless, I suspect it's the only answer.  So if people don't object,
I'll start doing that (and it will mean I'll send out such stubs for
old files that we recently stopped using, such as d.att.)
It is always safe to remove such stubs if you want to clean up your dir.

	Mark