mcm (03/01/83)
Have you ever wondered what to do with the Usenet map files Mark Horton send down net.news.map? Well, here is the answer. You use them as input to a program called mkpath. The output of mkpath is a list of sites and a printf-type string that shows the shortest path to the site. There are several options to mkpath, one to select the starting point, one to force all connections to be two-way, one to delete an arbitrary site or connection, and one to add a connection. This program runs under V7 UN*X or 4.1BSD with no modifications. Our PDP-11/60 (non split I/D) took two minutes to run through the data, so a VAX will be somewhat faster. What do you do with the output of mkpath? Simple - you use it as input to a program called nmail! Nmail takes as arguments the mail address of who you'd like to send mail to. It strips everything up to the first '!', and replaces the rest by using the printf string for the site described by the address up to the first '!'. It then exec's the normal mailer, passing it the new arguments. How do I get my copy? You take it off net.sources. The programs plus their manual pages will be sent down net.sources shortly. If you have any questions/comments, send them to: Mike Mitchell decvax!duke!mcnc!ikonas!mcm Better yet, use the mkpath and nmail, and just say ikonas!mcm. Mike Mitchell
lauren (03/02/83)
I would strongly recommend *against* using Mark's map lists to generate mail path data. Mark's data generally only shows NETNEWS distribution paths, which usually does not represent reasonable/optimal mail paths in most cases. Some sites that pass along netnews do not accept/forward mail, and many sites are at the end of extremely long netnews delivery paths, but actually have very short possible delivery paths for mail. Until the distributed map data shows up-to-date listings in the "UUCP" field as well as in the "Usenet" field, the listings are really unsuitable for regular use as mail path generators. --Lauren--
mclure (03/09/83)
#R:vortex:-3100:sri-unix:8200013:000:272 sri-unix!mclure Mar 6 12:30:00 1983 It seems clear that an announcement should be posted to net.general exhorting sites to send in updated entries for the map with correct UUCP information. This should have been done a long time ago. I've sent sri-unix's to cbosgd!map. Will you (all) send yours? Stuart
mark (03/13/83)
Please send updated UUCP connection info to cbosgd!uucpmap, NOT to cbosgd!map. Send updated Usenet (e.g. netnews) connection informaton to cbosgd!map. Different people maintain the maps. (Karen Summers-Horton the USENET map, Steven Bellovin the UUCP map.) I get a copy of mail to either list, and I've received several UUCP updates recently. I've forwarded them all to uucpmap. Please do not interpret the UUCP: info in the USENET map as the official or most recent UUCP info that smb has. It is not the master copy in any sense. Mark Horton