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From: bart@videovax.tv.Tek.com (Bart Massey)
Newsgroups: news.software.b
Subject: rn hostname comparison bug(s) (Re: Cancelling articles)
Message-ID: <5545@videovax.tv.Tek.com>
Date: 29 Aug 89 17:34:38 GMT
References: <428.24E71AB9@tlsi.FIDONET.ORG> <1348@abaa.UUCP> <30748@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <1989Aug20.025847.3430@twwells.com> <1563@abaa.UUCP> <14580@bfmny0.UUCP> <1989Aug26.213711.16326@twwells.com> <13950@nuchat.UUCP>
Reply-To: bart@videovax.tv.tek.com (Bart Massey)
Organization: Tektronix TV Measurement Systems, Beaverton OR
Lines: 44

In article <13950@nuchat.UUCP> steve@nuchat.UUCP (Steve Nuchia) writes:
> In article <1989Aug26.213711.16326@twwells.com> bill@twwells.com (T. William Wells) writes:
> >Much to my great dismay, it seems that many installations are set up
> >so that cancellations do not work. Why, I don't know. I do know that
> >my standard installation of rn does *not* allow me to cancel articles.
> >Maybe I screwed something up or maybe there is something incompatible
> >in the various pieces of software I use.
> 
> This seems to be pretty common.  Someone posted and explanation of
> what combination of configuation options leads to it, but it isn't
> obvious to the average news installer.

Both times I've found rn's cancel broken, it's been a problem with comparing
hostnames, very much like the problem with xrefs I posted a fix to earlier.
Essentially, rn examines the headers of the article the user is cancelling
and decides the user didn't author it, postnews having tacked on some
domain-qualified hostname which doesn't match rn's idea of the current
hostname.

I have a fix for this, but I don't like it very well, so I'm not going to
post it yet.  What probably *should* be done is a fairly thorough rework of
all the code in rn which compares hostnames.  The basic problem is that,
when comparing hostnames,

 videovax == videovax.tv.tek.com		(domain stuff)
 videovax.tv.tek.com == videovax.tv.Tek.com	(case insensitive domains)
 videovax.tv.tek.com == videovax.tv		(partial domains)
 videovax ?== Videovax				(case insensitive hosts??)
 videovax != videovax.mil			(can't just strip domain)

It's the last case that's the real killer.  The reason these problems occur
is that hostnames were very different back when rn was written.  Anybody
offering a cure, or will I have to fix it myself?  Mr. Wall, are you
listening?

Of course, an argument might be made that since anyone smart enough to
invoke inews can create a cancel message for any article they please
anyhow, the 'security' feature of rn is just a nuisance anyhow and should
be removed...  Whether this is true or not, I suspect the above-cited bug
is not the last symptom of incorrect hostname comparisons in rn.

					Bart Massey
					..tektronix!videovax.tv.tek.com!bart
					..tektronix!reed.bitnet!bart