mattc@ncr-sd.SanDiego.NCR.COM (Matt Costello) (02/14/89)
In article <1444@vsi1.COM> lmb@vicom.COM (Larry Blair) writes: >Btw, this is one of the reasons that I don't run pathalias via cron. The solution is to get a better map unpacker. The one I wrote will not unpack damaged maps. The script that runs it and pathalias automatically will send me mail when it has a bad map go by. It also logs what has been unpacked and any problems detected. There are two main checks that my map unpacker (in use throughout NCR) does: 1. Verify the structure of the news article. In particular the format put out by Mel is the only one accepted. This also prevents security attacks through the maps. 2. Check the Lines: header to make sure that extra lines didn't get lost or added along the way. This catches the 'lost block' problem that seems to occur when NNTP is used on top of NFS. The maps are always unpacked into a temporary file so that if a problem occurs the original map is still intact. -- Matt Costello <matt.costello@SanDiego.NCR.COM> (CSNET) +1 619 485 2926 uunet!ncrlnk!ncr-sd!mattc