gst@gnosys.UUCP (Gary S. Trujillo) (10/04/89)
Recently, the following was posted: |Path: gnosys!spdcc!bloom-beacon!shelby!mcnc!gatech!emory!skeeve!arnold |From: arnold@skeeve.UUCP (Arnold D. Robbins) |Newsgroups: unix-pc.sources |Subject: Patch #18 to B News 2.11 |Message-ID: <253@skeeve.UUCP> |Date: 17 Sep 89 04:08:30 GMT |Distribution: unix-pc |Organization: The Basement Computer, Atlanta GA |Lines: 2254 | |Well, believe it or not, B News is NOT dead! (Merely on heavy life support.) |Despite the release of C News and the imminent release of B News 3.0 |(TMN-Netnews), Rick Adams has released the following patch to B News. | |Skeeve is still at 2.11.14. I haven't decide yet which news I'm going |to switch to, or when. At the moment, it ain't broke so I ain't fixing it. |------------------------------- |Path: emory!gatech!udel!wuarchive!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!rick |From: rick@uunet.UU.NET (Rick Adams) |Newsgroups: news.software.b |Subject: patch 18 for B news 2.11 |Message-ID: <67503@uunet.UU.NET> |Date: 12 Sep 89 23:10:59 GMT |Organization: UUNET Communications Services, Falls Church, VA |Lines: 2232 | |Description: | This is patch 18 for news 2.11. It addresses the following problems: | | Small changes to work around various compiler bugs. | fixed batch to return to BATCHDIR before renaming work file. | checkgroups no longer mails you a message if everything's ok | Fixed active file to handle a maximum of 9,999,999 messages | to avoid wraparound problem at current 99,999... Well, I naively patched my sources, which were at patchlevel 17, and got a very corrupted situation in my /usr/spool/news/* directories. Here's the sort of thing I found: 2 -rw-r--r-- 2 news 1022 Oct 3 15:34 41414 5 -rw-r--r-- 1 news 2093 Oct 3 15:33 414 3 -rw-r--r-- 1 news 1330 Oct 3 15:33 4 4 -rw-r--r-- 1 news 1580 Oct 3 15:33 31414 3 -rw-r--r-- 1 news 1490 Oct 3 15:33 314 2 -rw-r--r-- 1 news 808 Oct 3 15:33 3 2 -rw-r--r-- 1 news 530 Oct 3 15:33 21414 2 -rw-r--r-- 3 news 958 Oct 3 15:32 214 2 -rw-r--r-- 1 news 704 Oct 3 15:32 2 4 -rw-r--r-- 1 news 1651 Oct 3 15:31 5714 D'ya see a pattern?? Looks like it's taking the last two digits of the last valid article filename, and plays games with them. Worse yet, rn goes crazy when there's such a wide article-sequence spread (runs out of memory on my 2 meg machine, in fact). Here's what we find in /usr/lib/news/errlog: Oct 3 15:32 <1989Oct2.175907.8836@alberta.uucp> inews: found bad ngsize 359695 ng misc.jobs.misc, setting to 1 Oct 3 15:32 <195@temvax.UUCP> inews: found bad ngsize 292827 ng misc.jobs.offered, setting to 1 Oct 3 15:33 <Oct.2.17.13.00.1989.27704@topaz.rutgers.edu> inews: found bad ngsize 2969695 ng misc.jobs.misc, setting to 1 Oct 3 15:33 <4826@cps3xx.UUCP> inews: found bad ngsize 2141413 ng comp.unix.xenix, setting to 1 Oct 3 15:33 <ROB.89Oct2163903@violet.berkeley.edu> inews: found bad ngsize 2434342 ng soc.men, setting to 1 Oct 3 15:33 <ROB.89Oct2163903@violet.berkeley.edu> inews: found bad ngsize 3969695 ng misc.jobs.misc, setting to 1 Oct 3 15:33 <37@gutarman.UUCP> inews: found bad ngsize 3141413 ng comp.unix.xenix, setting to 1 Oct 3 15:34 <216@hutch.UUCP> inews: found bad ngsize 4969695 ng misc.jobs.misc, setting to 1 Oct 3 15:34 <334@mlfarm.UUCP> inews: found bad ngsize 4141413 ng comp.unix.xenix, setting to 1 Oct 3 15:35 <13915@well.UUCP> inews: found bad ngsize 2282827 ng misc.jobs.offered, setting to 1 I have promptly fallen back to patchlevel 17! -- Gary S. Trujillo gst@gnosys.svle.ma.us Somerville, Massachusetts {wjh12,spdcc,ima,cdp}!gnosys!gst
gst@gnosys.UUCP (Gary S. Trujillo) (10/04/89)
In article <392@gnosys.UUCP> gst@gnosys.UUCP (Gary S. Trujillo) writes: > ...I naively patched my sources, which were at patchlevel 17, and got > a very corrupted situation in my /usr/spool/news/* directories... > the sort of thing I found: Before anyone asks, I thought I should say that I did follow the instructions below: | make update now checks to see if you have defined LINES large | enough to support your existing active file | |Fix: | cd src and make install;make update | | YOU MUST "make update" or your active file will be in the wrong | format -- Gary S. Trujillo gst@gnosys.svle.ma.us Somerville, Massachusetts {wjh12,spdcc,ima,cdp}!gnosys!gst
jcm@mtunb.ATT.COM (was-John McMillan) (10/04/89)
In article <392@gnosys.UUCP> gst@gnosys.UUCP (Gary S. Trujillo) writes: >Recently, the following was posted: : >... Worse yet, rn goes crazy >when there's such a wide article-sequence spread (runs out of memory on my >2 meg machine, in fact). There is little relationship between having 2 Meg of RAM and running out of memory: Virtual Memory means not having to say "You're outta RAM" -- you're just out of Virtual Address [VA] space or out of SWAP space. While it's possible your program porked itself up to the 2.5 MB limit, it's more often the case that swap space has been exhausted. The UNIX(r)-pc kernel requires SWAP space to be allocated for all VA space -- and reports "Out of Memory" if SWAP's not available. (SVR3, on the other hand, only USES SWAP, it doesn't allocate if -- if my brainstem is recalling things correctly.) If you're wasting masses of address space on non-existent entries ... [ obvious comments deleted ]. john mcmillan -- att!mtunb!jcm -- just muttering for SELF, only... not THEM
gst@gnosys.svle.ma.us (Gary S. Trujillo) (10/05/89)
In article <1676@mtunb.ATT.COM> jcm@mtunb.UUCP (was-John McMillan) writes: > In article <392@gnosys.UUCP> gst@gnosys.UUCP (Gary S. Trujillo) writes: > >Recently, the following was posted: > : > >... Worse yet, rn goes crazy > >when there's such a wide article-sequence spread (runs out of memory on my > >2 meg machine, in fact). > > There is little relationship between having 2 Meg of RAM and > running out of memory: Virtual Memory means not having to say > "You're outta RAM" -- you're just out of Virtual Address [VA] space > or out of SWAP space... Yeah, yeah. I just left out the details - that's all. I realize that what got exhausted was swap space. Still, my point was that there was a problem with the situation I encountered. BTW, the story has a happy ending: turns out I accidentally let an old (pre-patch 18) version of rnews deal with a new batch of news. It didn't know how to deal with the new-format active file. Thanks to Gordon Burditt for putting me on the track of the problem: |Date: Wed, 4 Oct 89 10:35:05 cdt |From: ima!harvard!husc6!wuarchive!sneaky!gordon (Gordon Burditt) |Subject: Re: B news 2.11 patch 18 considered harmful |In-Reply-To: <392@gnosys.UUCP> |Organization: Gordon Burditt | |This is the sort of thing I saw while installing patchlevel 18 when I |accidentally let loose the OLD rnews with the NEW active file format. |(A batch sort of snuck in during the installation, and rnews is a copy, |not link, to inews, because they are on different file systems, so |it was a little slower getting both changed). | |Once I cleaned up the mess in the active file, it's been working fine. | | Gordon L. Burditt | ...!texbell!sneaky!gordon Same here. Thanks, Gordon! -- Gary S. Trujillo gst@gnosys.svle.ma.us Somerville, Massachusetts {wjh12,spdcc,ima,cdp}!gnosys!gst