clay@drutx.UUCP (04/23/87)
I seem to be getting news articles with negative article numbers (i.e. <-4@uokmax.UUCP>, for one example). Has anyone else seen this, and does anyone know where it comes from? Our 2.11 (Patchlevel 8) rnews says the articles are too old and puts them in the junk directory. Clay Lambert ihnp4!drutx!clay P.S. I've only seen this in the past day or so.
shor@sphinx.uchicago.edu (Melinda Shore) (04/24/87)
In article <3673@drutx.ATT.COM> clay@drutx.ATT.COM (Clay Lambert) writes: > > I seem to be getting news articles with negative article > numbers (i.e. <-4@uokmax.UUCP>, for one example). Has > anyone else seen this, and does anyone know where it comes > from? Our 2.11 (Patchlevel 8) rnews says the articles are > too old and puts them in the junk directory. I've seen the same thing. They're all destined for sci.astro, and they've all have notes headers on them. While most have low-degree negative numbers, some of the numbers have been quite surprising, for example <-3915066@bbimg>. Most of them are about three weeks old (we expire after a week). -- Melinda Shore ..!ihnp4!gargoyle!sphinx!shor University of Chicago Computation Center shor@sphinx.uchicago.edu
rct@occrsh.ATT.COM (04/24/87)
Perhaps I can explain the negative article IDs. The primary feed site
for uokmax (occrsh.ATT.COM) is running a NEWS <--> notes gateway.
Although the notes software is not directly involved in any of the traffic
between uokmax and upstream sites, many of the sites fed by occrsh are
running notes and receive articles posted at uokmax.
Approximately two weeks ago, I made the decision to recompile the
notes software on occrsh to reflect the proper domain name. In the
following days, many old articles were suddenly unleased by downstream
notes sites that were a bit slow to edit their notes support files and
rename the sequencer files for occrsh (to Sy:occrsh.ATT.COM from
Sy:occrsh.UUCP). Most of the old articles never made it across the
NEWS <--> notes gateway because I'm running the latest news software
which correctly places such articles in "junk". Unfortunately, a
few appear to have made it through: I can only hope that the number
of such articles was minimal.
Why the negative article IDs? Notes cannot deal with article IDs of
the format <x@y.z> where 'x' is not all digits, so the local gateway
software takes all article IDs where 'x' is not all digits and passes
'x' through a 32-bit crc generator. The resulting number is unique
enough to satisfy USENET standards, and is reproducible for identical
'x'. (The reason that the articles you mentioned ended up in junk was
not because of the negative article ID per se, rather, it was because
of the posting date of the article).
In summary, although the notes software makes it all too easy for
such things to happen, the direct cause of the old articles being
re-released was cockpit error, mostly on my part for failing to
correctly identify all the notes support files that needed changing.
One of the contributing factors that should be considered before
flaming anyone is the fact that most of the notes sites involved
are administered by folks that get paid to do other things. Thus,
their failure to update the appropriate support files immediately
should be understandable, even if some folks would consider it
unforgivable. For my part, all I can do is apologize and tell you
that many lessons were learned from a bad experience that should
prevent a reoccurence of this kind of thing from my end of the net.
--Bob Tracy
{most AT&T sites}!occrsh!rctmsb@sq.UUCP (04/27/87)
> I seem to be getting news articles with negative article > numbers (i.e. <-4@uokmax.UUCP>, for one example). It should perhaps be pointed out, in case anyone else is confused, that the Message-ID in news is simply a string, and any site is allowed to generate it in any format they like. For instance, check out the Message-ID on THIS article. It was generated by C news (the as-yet- unreleased system described by Geoff Collyer and Henry Spencer at the last USENIX conference). I presume they use this format because it is easy to generate reliably in sh. Mark Brader
fair@ucbarpa.Berkeley.EDU.UUCP (05/01/87)
In article <1987Apr27.131502.8062@sq.uucp> msb@sq.UUCP (Mark Brader) writes:
It should perhaps be pointed out, in case anyone else is
confused, that the Message-ID in news is simply a string, and
any site is allowed to generate it in any format they like.
This is absolutely, flatly FALSE. There is a standard for USENET
message headers, defined in the document RFC850, which is included in
the B news 2.11 distribution. It cites that the message-id should be in
RFC822 syntax, excepting that a USENET message-id should never contain
linear white space (spaces or tabs). RFC822 is even more grindingly
specific about the format and content of a message-id; I once wrote a
parser/syntax checker for it.
For instance, check out the Message-ID on THIS article. It was
generated by C news (the as-yet-unreleased system described by
Geoff Collyer and Henry Spencer at the last USENIX conference).
I presume they use this format because it is easy to generate
reliably in sh.
It does happen that the message-id that you cite (reproduced in the
first line of this article) is legal according to the specifications.
Knowing both Henry & Geoff as I do, I really doubt that it was an
accident that the format is legal (and, as you note, trivially
generated from a shell script).
When I get around to recoding the USENET to ARPANET side of the gateway
on ucbvax (the process in that direction is mostly an AWK script, and
it will be handling increasing volumes as time goes on, so it is now
time to recode it in C; going the other way, it's already in C: a new
version of recnews), the message-id syntax checker will be included in
that program, and it will refuse to gateway any USENET article that
does not conform to spec.
where is Mr. Protocol when I need him?
Erik E. Fair ucbvax!fair fair@ucbarpa.berkeley.edugrr@cbmvax.cbm.UUCP (George Robbins) (05/02/87)
In article <1987Apr27.131502.8062@sq.uucp> msb@sq.UUCP (Mark Brader) writes: >It should perhaps be pointed out, in case anyone else is confused, >that the Message-ID in news is simply a string, and any site is allowed >to generate it in any format they like. It should also be pointed out that arbitrarily long Message-ID's and Message-ID's containing slashes will cause various problems on various verisons of news still in wide usage. The minus signs do, however appear harmless. A good place to let common sense, rather then the letter of the law rule, huh? -- George Robbins - now working for, uucp: {ihnp4|seismo|rutgers}!cbmvax!grr but no way officially representing arpa: cbmvax!grr@seismo.css.GOV Commodore, Engineering Department fone: 215-431-9255 (only by moonlite)
billw@wolf.UUCP (Bill Wisner) (05/05/87)
But, I have noticed negative IDs appearing on ALL articles, even though the
site originally generated it positive. It happened in one of the sci groups,
I remember not which. And I know they SHOULDN'T be that way because I posted
one of them myself.
--
Bill Wisner
..{sdcsvax,ihnp4}!jack!wolf!billw
--
You had mail, but the superuser read it and deleted it.rees@apollo.uucp (Jim Rees) (05/09/87)
But, I have noticed negative IDs appearing on ALL articles, even though the
site originally generated it positive. It happened in one of the sci groups,
I remember not which. And I know they SHOULDN'T be that way because I posted
one of them myself.
This used to happen a few years ago. There was a bug in the notes <-> news
interface (are you surprised?) that made this happen. It was fixed long
ago, but maybe someone is running an old notes system.