[comp.mail.uucp] comp.mail.maps -> pathalias -> map

roberson@aurs01.uucp (Charles "Chip" Roberson) (01/11/91)

I have what I'm sure is an absolutely dumb question, but I haven't
seen any easy way to do this.  How do people automate the updating of
their maps from comp.mail.maps to their map file using pathalias?  I
thought it would be in the pathalias documentation but I didn't see
it.  Any pointers to locations in TFM would be appreciated.  Any
examples (e.g. rn macros, shell scripts, etc) would be greatly
appreciated.

Thanks,
 -chip
* Work:  2912 Wake Forest Road, Raleigh, NC 27609  (919) 850-5011
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#include <disclaimer.h>

jpr@jpradley.jpr.com (Jean-Pierre Radley) (01/13/91)

In article <59425@aurs01.UUCP> roberson@aurs01.uucp (Charles "Chip" Roberson) writes:
>I have what I'm sure is an absolutely dumb question, but I haven't
>seen any easy way to do this.  How do people automate the updating of
>their maps from comp.mail.maps to their map file using pathalias?  I
>thought it would be in the pathalias documentation but I didn't see
>it.  Any pointers to locations in TFM would be appreciated.  Any
>examples (e.g. rn macros, shell scripts, etc) would be greatly
>appreciated.

I was using plain old 'sh' to crack open the articles, until someone
pointed out that this was a dangerous procedure. Now I use "unsharmap",
which comes from the smail3.1 distribution.

I leave the lcasep, pathalias, and unsharmap executables in my
/pub/lib/maps directory. There, I also have a script which is run nightly
from root's crontab:

	: remap -- if new articles are in 'list', extract and process

	[ -s list ] &&
	{ unsharmap < list > log 2> error
	  mv list list.o ; } ||
	exit

	pathalias -i d* u.* | lcasep | sort -o paths
	chgrp uucp paths
	chown uucp paths

	mv paths /usr/lib/uucp/paths

The "list" file is created by this line in /usr/lib/news/sys:

	map:comp.mail.maps/all:F:/pub/lib/maps/list

Since I extract every twenty-four hours, I force the map articles
to expire that fast too.
-- 

 Jean-Pierre Radley	    NYC Public Unix	jpr@jpr.com	CIS: 72160,1341

jpr@jpradley.jpr.com (Jean-Pierre Radley) (01/20/91)

In article <212@raysnec.UUCP> shwake@raysnec.UUCP (Ray Shwake) writes:
>jpr@jpradley.jpr.com (Jean-Pierre Radley) writes:
>
>>I was using plain old 'sh' to crack open the articles, until someone
>>pointed out that this was a dangerous procedure. Now I use "unsharmap",
>>which comes from the smail3.1 distribution.
>
>	I've been using a miniscule shell script to break up and install the
>maps, but run that script as an ordinary, not a priviledged, user. Thus,
>were someone to "taint" the map submissions, any damage done by this
>script would be minimal. Since the submissions are shell scripts, I wonder
>what additional integrity checks are performed by unsharmap as compared to
>our local script.

Since you don't spell out what integerity checks your script performs, how
could anyone compare it to the unsharmap program?
-- 

 Jean-Pierre Radley	    NYC Public Unix	jpr@jpr.com	CIS: 72160,1341