earle@smeagol.UUCP (02/02/87)
Informal survey: You have a script set up to poll systems once each hour, invoked from cron between Midnight and 8 AM. In the script, you only poll a system if there is a workfile for it. Meanwhile, you have your UUCP mailer set up so that it (eventually) calls uux with the "don't start uucico, just queue the job" flag. For example, I have ihnp4 polled this way. Now the problem is, what do you assign to these sites for pathalias cost data? DEMAND only makes sense (to me) if you have it so that *anytime* there is outgoing traffic, uucico is called. Here, it's only allowed in the evening, not anytime. By the same reasoning, EVENING is wrong also, since there's no guarantee that the site will even be called at all (in fact, it might not even be called the whole week, if there's no traffic!) Since DEMAND is 500, and EVENING is 1800, it would seem some value in between would be `correct'. The pathalias man page isn't helpful; in fact, it says : `E.g., if a host calls a local neighbor whenever there is work, and additionally polls every evening, the cost is DIRECT, not DIRECT+EVENING.' whereas *I* would believe a connection like this would be DEMAND+HIGH or something. What do YOU think? Replies to me via email ; I will summarize. Thanks, -- Greg Earle UUCP: sdcrdcf!smeagol!earle; attmail!earle JPL ARPA: elroy!smeagol!earle@csvax.caltech.edu AT&T: +1 818 354 4034 earle@jplpub1.jpl.nasa.gov (For the daring) I'm using my X-RAY VISION to obtain a rare glimpse of the INNER WORKINGS of this POTATO!!
jbs@mit-eddie.UUCP (02/03/87)
In article <804@smeagol.JPL.NASA.GOV> earle@smeagol.JPL.NASA.GOV (Greg Earle) writes: >You [...] poll systems once each hour, [...] >between Midnight and 8 AM. [...] you only poll a system if there >is a workfile for it. > >[...] what do you assign [...] for pathalias cost data? >DEMAND only makes sense [...] if [...] *anytime* there is >outgoing traffic, uucico is called. Here, it's only allowed in the evening, >not anytime. [...], EVENING is wrong also, since there's no >guarantee that the site will even be called at all (in fact, it might not even >be called the whole week, if there's no traffic!) It's EVENING. The pathalias data is bidirectional only in that it assumes a DEAD link exists in the opposite direction. This will be used for routing only as a last resort. Don't make it any lower than EVENING (say DEMAND+LOW), because then mail might be routed through your machine when it could go a different way and not have to wait 10 hours or more (if it arrives in the morning) Suggestion: Set up crontab so the system gets called once every day or two (or more if phone costs are a major factor), to insure at-least minimal connectivity in the reverse directory. Remember though, that the EVENING/DEMAND/etc. labels don't imply anything beyond that minimal level of reverse service. Jeff Siegal