Ram-Ashwin@cs.yale.edu (Ashwin Ram) (11/16/88)
I'm using NNTP 1.3 under GNEWS (an RRN lookalike for GNU Emacs). The problem
is that if you post a new message (either using the POST command in NNTP, or
using INEWS), the new message does not show up in subsequent GROUP commands
within the same NNTP session. This is true for newly arrived messages from
other sources too. Essentially this means that you have to quit out of your
news reader (GNEWS or RRN) and restart it.
To test this, I posted a test message yale.test (the local test newsgroup)
and tried to execute some nntp commands by hand. The results:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
group yale.test
returns
211 1 89 89 yale.test
list
returns a list of newsgroup, including
yale.test 00090 00089 y
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note that the newsgroup info for yale.test is inconsistent; my message
(number 90) shows up on LIST but not on GROUP YALE.TEST. I also tried
running NNTP by hand in a separate shell at the same time, and executed the
two commands again:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
group yale.test
returns
211 3 89 90 yale.test
list
returns a list of newsgroup, including
yale.test 00090 00089 y
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note that the new message has been recorded correctly here. This was using
direct posting within NNTP using the POST command.
The second test I tried was similar but using INEWS instead. Basically the
same thing happens, except that I found that the new message shows up on the
LIST command (using the independent NNTP call in a separate shell) a few
minutes before it shows up on the GROUP command. So INEWS-posted messages
are recorded on the LIST command much before they are recorded on the GROUP
command.
I don't know if this is an NNTP bug but it sure looks like the GROUP command
is acting funny. In particular, it looks like newly arrived messages don't
affect the GROUP command listings within the same NNTP session. This means
you have to restart your news reader to get new messages, which is painful.
Has this been fixed in later versions of NNTP, or is anyone working on this?
Is a fix available?
Thanks a lot.
-- Ashwin.
ARPA: Ram-Ashwin@cs.yale.edu
UUCP: {decvax,ucbvax,harvard,cmcl2,...}!yale!Ram-Ashwin
BITNET: Ram@yalecs
ARPA: Ram-Ashwin@cs.yale.edu
UUCP: {decvax,ucbvax,harvard,cmcl2,...}!yale!Ram-Ashwin
BITNET: Ram@yalecsricks@shambhala.Berkeley.EDU (Rick L Spickelmier) (11/16/88)
The NNTP server reads the newsgroup information once on startup and does not look at it again. So the GROUP information is consistent with the state of the news system on NNTP start up. The LIST command goes directly to the 'active' file rather than dumping the internal list. This is the inconsistency. In XRN we have a 'rescan' button that drops the connection and restarts it (keeping XRN's internal state, but getting a new NNTP server) so the new information can be seen.... Maybe the NNTP server should stat the 'active' file on each NNTP request and 'rescan' if necessary. Rick Spickelmier UC Berkeley ricks@berkeley.edu