piet@mcvax.UUCP (Piet Beertema) (07/31/84)
<...>
Consider the following problem: you want to frequently exchange mail
with a site, but you don't want to place too heavy a load on your
system by exchanging news (especially when batched) in the same sessions.
So you want to exchange news only e.g. during nighttime.
In fact uux (and uucp) already provide you with the basic feature to do
so, viz. by using the grading option '-g'. So you can already assign
different grades to mail and news files, but all that uucico does with
that is send the files in the sequence determined by the grading. So
what's needed next is to add a grading option to uucico too, so it will
transfer only files upto a certain grade. This has been implemented in
the European EUUG uucp distribution, but as far as I know in no other
uucp software, including the honey danber version. The only problem
here is that the option used for it ('-p') is inconsistent with uux
and uucp. The reason is that '-g' is used in all sources for starting
up the kernel packet driver when in g-proto debugging mode. But as far
as I can tell no one really ever uses the kernel packet driver. And it
seems that in the honey danber (will it ever be distributed?) version
'-g' has been thrown out altogether.
Questions are now:
- are there other sites that feel the need for such an option?
- would you prefer to use '-g' for it or something else?
Furthermore I would like to make a proposal:
One day the version as we run it here clashed with some other version,
that had taken '-p' for other purposes. In order to avoid such problems
in the future I would suggest that before anyone starts to use some
as yet unused option he should post/discuss it on the net.
BTW, I took unix-wizards to post this article to, since I know of no
other group for this purpose; net.bugs.uucp is the only alternative,
but that should really be reserved for bug reports. Suggestions?
net.uucp? net.uucp.announce?
--
Piet Beertema, CWI, Amsterdam
...{decvax,philabs}!mcvax!piethoney@down.FUN (code 101) (08/03/84)
Piet Beertema, CWI, Amsterdam proposes adding an option to uucico that disables low priority work requests. (The priority of a request is given by the grade character in the work files.) Brian, Dave and I (i.e. honey danber) considered this option (i.e., at least one of us gave it some thought) and rejected it, for the same reason we rejected several other proposed features: other tools can provide the same functionality. (If you read between the lines, you can glean some of our basic philosophy.) In fact, the princeton -> astrovax connection has the characteristics described: princeton passes mail on demand but batches news and prepares the file transfer during off-peak hours (out of crontab). I suspect this is a general solution to Piet's problem. Some asides: grade characters have full support in honey danber; low grade jobs (e.g., news) are transmitted last by the sender and executed last by the receiver. (A tip of the honey danber hat to Mark Horton.) Yes, we shed the kernel packet driver support. Bugs.uucp has traditionally served a broader function than just bug reports, but unix-wizards seems a reasonable place as well. Finally, I am informed that honey danber will be released this summer. Peter Honeyman
piet@mcvax.UUCP (Piet Beertema) (08/06/84)
<...> >....passes mail on demand but batches news and prepares the >file transfer during off-peak hours.... That's the scheme we follow, but still... Basically you're right, Peter, that this could solve the problem. However, it doesn't in all cases. It will only work when you can be sure to handle the news stuff every night. Almost the opposite is the case here at mcvax: we can never be sure that setting up a link to decvax/philabs will succeed every night or even get as far as transferring news. So there we are: news has been batched up at the other side for us to transfer during nighttime, but we don't succeed in getting it; so the next try (during daytime, meant for mail only) will get us that news, without us having a possibility to prevent that. That's why I added that grading in uucico and kept it after switching to batching. -- Piet Beertema, CWI, Amsterdam ...{decvax,philabs}!mcvax!piet
donn@hp-dcd.UUCP (donn) (08/11/84)
It would seem to me that grade information belongs in L.sys. Since there can be multiple lines for a system, the grade, if included in L.sys, could be used so that certain grades only went at night, or via a slower, cheaper route. Unlike scheduling the transmission at night, this would have the characteristic that if the link went down and then came back at an inconvienient time, you could set it up so it would go at the next appropriate time. Each system would have a line allowing prime time connections for "high grade" files, and a "cheap time" entry for lower grades. You could then address, effectively, the concept of "night letter" with mail, where you sent it at a cheaper rate over night. You could avoid irritating internal phone system managers because you overload their system. You could use the "after 5" or "after 11" phone rates (reliably). You wouldn't have to worry about coming in at 8:30 and have lots of irritated users because uucp is hogging the system (on a small system) or the lines (on any system). Donn Terry HP Ft. Collins Co. hplabs!hp-dcd!donn
lee@west44.UUCP (Lee McLoughlin) (08/12/84)
The UK - UUCP can also be asked to transfer work for particular grades. It has the old -g<char> flag to queue work at a particular grade, the grade is honoured at both the sender and reciever ends. It also has the -O<char> flag which can be given to uucp, uux, uucico and uupoll which will cause only files queued at that grade to be transfered. Also since it was the UKUUCP which clashed with Piet's I second discussing any additional flags on the net but we may as well keep all uucp discussions in net.bugs.uucp. Finally a plug for UKUUCP. It is available, hopefully at least one neighbour of most sites will have a copy and should be willing to pass it on. It should prove to be particularly usefull to JANET sites since they can use the net to transfer over. LMCL. -- -------------- Lee McLoughlin <UK>!ukc!lmcl, west44!lee UKUUCP support.