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From: munnari!csc.anu.oz.au!gih900@UUNET.UU.NET (Geoff Huston)
Newsgroups: news.software.anu-news
Subject: RE: normal users cannot post ??  (V5.9)
Message-ID: <8910121048.AA15958@uunet.uu.net>
Date: 13 Oct 89 00:12:53 GMT
Sender: ANU-NEWS Discussion <ANU-NEWS@NDSUVM1.BITNET>
Reply-To: Geoff Huston <munnari!csc.anu.oz.au!gih900@UUNET.UU.NET>
Lines: 40
X-cc:         GIH900@uunet.UU.NET

The following report on V5.9 of NEWS:
>I cannot seem to get a "normal" user to post ANYTHING.   I am getting
>the following error:
>
>Post:  Cannot add item to Newsitems index file
>
>I've checked the file security on NEWS.ITEMS and NEWS.GROUPS.  Both
>have RWE access to the world, and so does the directorie(s) they live in.
>
     
This message would indicate that the message-id already exists in the news
database. Check the procedure gen_id in NEWSUTILITY.C and confrim that it is
the same as the following (extracted from the 5.9A sources):
     
char genid[132];
     
char *gen_id()
{
  GRP savegrp;
  int seq;
     
  savegrp = newsgrp;
     
  grprab.rab$l_kbf = c$rfi(0);
  grprab.rab$b_ksz = 4;
  grprab.rab$b_krf = 1;
  grprab.rab$l_rop = RAB$M_WAT;
  grprab.rab$b_rac = RAB$C_KEY;
  _c$cks(sys$get(&grprab));
  seq = ++newsgrp.grp_iavd;
  _c$cks(sys$update(&grprab));
  sprintf(genid,"<%d.%X@%s>",seq,time(0),Node_address);
  s_to_lower(genid);
  return(genid);
}
     
The change to the id generator is to include a time stamp to address the
problem you are describing.
     
Geoff