dave@lsuc.UUCP (12/03/86)
This group is designed to allow news system administrators in
Toronto to track news distribution. It will be of assistance
when a site has problems with its feed and isn't sure whether
the problem is with its immediate feed or further upstream.
(The idea for the group came from a comment in a posting by
hoptoad!gnu, mentioning a ba.news in the Bay Area. I then
discussed it by mail with several other Toronto newsadmins,
who agreed it was a good idea.)
To be effective, this group should ideally have daily (automatic)
postings from all non-leaf sites which will indicate the amount
of news transferred.
For now, I will start by having our "Nightly news report" data
posted. This is done with an awk script written by {lsuc,dciem,sq}!msb
which report both news activity and UUCP activity for all sites
we talk to. (News activity which shows 100 articles queued for
sending to site X is meaningless unless we also can see that
100 articles' worth of data was sent by UUCP to site X.)
Anyone who wants our scanlog script, once you see what it posts, should
contact me. If you want to write something more appropriate for
posting to tor.news, that will be welcomed too. Ideally it would be
nice to be able to check tor.news to see whether a particular article
has made it to anywhere in Toronto, but I don't think we want to
end up posting all site's entire history files.
To make this group effective, there should be multiple connectivity.
That way, if your upstream feed is not feeding you anything because
it's down (as opposed to not receiving anything from its feed), you
will stil receive tor.news from someone else in the city, and can
figure out where the blockage is.
* Accordingly, I encourage all non-leaf news admins to modify
* your sys files to feed tor.news to any Toronto sites with which
* you have an existing news connection (even if it's only a to.site
* at the moment). Also, where you have UUCP connections with sites
* with which you don't presently exchange news, I'd suggest you
* contact the other site's news admin and see if they'd like to
* set up a news exchange with you to exchange tor.news.
Working for a better Toronto Usenet,
David Sherman
The Law Society of Upper Canada
947-3466
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{ ihnp4!utzoo seismo!mnetor utai hcr decvax!utcsri } !lsuc!davedan@maccs.UUCP (Dan Trottier) (12/04/86)
The establishment of the tor.news group is a step towards a more
unified and efficient news network for the southern Ontario region. If
properly used, tor.news can be a useful forum for keeping up to date
with the ever changing and improving news network. This group will be
of great help to me as I am quite inexperienced in this area. I will,
however, try to contribute as much as I can.
In order to keep up to date with the most recent news software
and patches, it may be beneficial to establish an archive of news
software in the Toronto region. If such an archive already exists
please NO FLAMES. :-) In this way we need not go begging for this
or that patch which somehow evaded our site. I would like to get
some feedback as to the viability of creating such an archive.
Now I would like to make the first request for assistance, I am
desperately in need of patches 27 thru 31 for rn. We have news 2.11
ready to go but need to have rn patched to at least 31. I have
patches 32 thru 39 but can't install these until patches 27-31 are
installed. Please let me know if you have the patches and we can
arrange a method of transfer.
There once lived a strange old bird | Dan Trottier
The less he spoke the more he heard | Department of Comp. Sci. & Systems
That sure was a wise old bird. | McMaster University, Hamilton.
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{ mnetor!genat mnetor!lsuc }!maccs!danclewis@spectrix.UUCP (Chris Lewis) (12/05/86)
In article <148@maccs.UUCP> dan@maccs.UUCP (Dan Trottier) writes: >..., it may be beneficial to establish an archive of news >software in the Toronto region. Watch out for sites upgrading to 2.11. They should have pretty well the latest. Spectrix is one. lsuc is one. Mnetor has got the official releases, though, due to various reasons (not the least being afraid to blow out most of Southern Ontario), Ron hasn't upgraded yet. As a suggestion, why don't we compile a list of systems having the latest software installed and that are willing to provide pieces to other people starting up? I volunteer to initially compile the list. So, could everybody running 2.11, patch level 1, and/or rn patch level 39 and is willing to give others some level of assistance (from a copy of a patch, assistance with installs/problems, to a full source set) send me a mail message of what you've got, and what you have time for helping with. In a week or so I will post the list of who's up-to-date, and what levels of help can be provided. > Now I would like to make the first request for assistance, I am >desperately in need of patches 27 thru 31 for rn. We have news 2.11 >ready to go but need to have rn patched to at least 31. I have >patches 32 thru 39 but can't install these until patches 27-31 are >installed. Please let me know if you have the patches and we can >arrange a method of transfer. Read the preamble to one of your higher number patches (eg: 39). Larry Wall has installed an automatic patch mailer. It works something like: mail lwall@sdcrdcf Subject: Command @SH mailpatch PATH rn 4.3 PATCHES Where "PATH" is the full bang path from sdcrdcf to you, and PATCHES is a comma separated list of patch numbers. In your case, this is what you want: mail lsuc!mnetor!seismo!hplabs!sdcrdcf!lwall Subject: Command @SH mailpatch hplabs!seismo!mnetor!lsuc!maccs!dan rn 4.3 27,28,29,30,31 It works quite well - I've been using it a lot lately... You can also get patches for patch this way too. -- Chris Lewis, Spectrix Microsystems Inc, UUCP: {utzoo|utcs|yetti|genat|seismo}!mnetor!spectrix!clewis ARPA: mnetor!spectrix!clewis@seismo.css.gov Phone: (416)-474-1955