tlimonce@drew.uucp (01/08/90)
Wow, just about all my problems have gone away now that I have run a CHECKGROUPS message through News. I feel a lot better now. Here is some random info for new ANU NEWS managers. The last paragraph is a question for more experienced news managers. Some notes: -- Those "random" REJECT messages that I was getting were due to the fact that I forgot to list "usa" and "na" in my news.sys file. I don't know why I never noticed that before. I guess I'm blind. Actually, I guess it comes from running NEWS only locally for a year before connecting to the outside world. -- I have an overly complicated news.sys file due to the fact that certain things can only be on certain nodes. I finally was able to sort things out by setting up three terminals next to each other, each with a different NEWS.SYS file in EDT. I edited them all in parallel. I highly recommend this technique when setting things up. -- This editing job made me consider writing a news.sys file generator. It would let you describe what went where and how and then generate the proper news.sys files for all the nodes involved. Then again, it might be more work that needed (and considering that spending some time and *thinking* solved my problems, I don't think I'll write the program :-)) The question: Checkgroups is great but doesn't automatically set WHO the moderator is (just that a group IS moderated). Any way to automatically set that? Thanks in advance! Tom --- Tom Limoncelli The computer industry should spend more time in front of tlimonce@drew.uucp their computers. Remember when "Look & Feel" tlimonce@drew.Bitnet was what you tried to do on a date? limonce@pilot.njin.net
sloane@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu (01/10/90)
In article <19.25a8b428@drew.uucp>, tlimonce@drew.uucp writes: > The question: Checkgroups is great but doesn't automatically set WHO > the moderator is (just that a group IS moderated). Any way to > automatically set that? It shouldn't be necessary to set the moderator address for groups in a checkgroups control message. These groups should have submissions mailed to your nearest backbone site. You set this up in the MAILPATHS file by putting a line at the end that says: backbone %s@ucbvax.berkeley.edu This is much better than maintaining the actual moderator addresses yourself, since the backbone addresses are updated whenever a moderator change is made. If you really want to do it yourself, Spaf posts a list of moderators at the same time he posts the checkgroups messages. Look for an article in news.admin on "how to maintain tha mailpaths file" or something like that. This posting contains the mail addresses of all of the moderators. I wouldn't use it if I were you, though. -- USmail: Bob Sloane, University of Kansas Computer Center, Lawrence, KS, 66045 E-mail: sloane@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu, sloane@ukanvax.bitnet, AT&T: (913)864-0444
gih900@UUNET.UU.NET (Geoff Huston) (01/16/90)
> -- Those "random" REJECT messages that I was getting were due to the >fact that I forgot to list "usa" and "na" in my news.sys file. I >don't know why I never noticed that before. I guess I'm blind. >Actually, I guess it comes from running NEWS only locally for a year >before connecting to the outside world. It's always a source of confusion that the Distribution: filters and the newsgroup filters are the SAME set! - this is a Unix B News "feature" that I copied in VMS for lack of anything better to do. I note from mail from David Morrison that C NEWS supports a different configuration file which contains the distribution keywords (in the same basic format) as the sys file. I am testing out a change to NEWS which allows an optional file NEWS.SYSD which contains only the distribution filters for the local and adjacent nodes. I have made it optional to ensure that the current configs will continue to work correctly without alteration. >The question: Checkgroups is great but doesn't automatically set WHO >the moderator is (just that a group IS moderated). Any way to >automatically set that? In the MAILPATHS skeleton file is a copy of a periodic USENET posting describing the role of the "backbone" mailers - read this file - the information in it IS important to correctly set up moderated newsgroups. In general every individual site does NOT have to maintain a current moderator mail address list (and indeed there is no feasible automatic way in which this can be done, as there is no Control: mechanism describing moderator's mail addresses). The general approach is to look at this posting, and determine the "closest" backbone mailer, and set the mailpaths file appropriately. In my case the closest mailer is in Melbourne, and my MAILPATHS file is as follows: backbone %s@munnari.oz i.e. as I have NO LOCAL moderated newsgroups, all moderated newsgroups are therefore accessible via the closest backbone mailer. Geoff Huston