Xref: utzoo news.software.nntp:417 news.software.b:3559
Path: utzoo!utstat!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!coolidge
From: coolidge@brutus.cs.uiuc.edu (John Coolidge)
Newsgroups: news.software.nntp,news.software.b
Subject: Survey: C News batching vs. nntplink
Summary: How are people handling it?
Message-ID: <1989Nov20.002159.26404@brutus.cs.uiuc.edu>
Date: 20 Nov 89 00:21:59 GMT
Sender: news@brutus.cs.uiuc.edu
Reply-To: coolidge@cs.uiuc.edu
Organization: U of Illinois, CS Dept., Systems Research Group
Lines: 34

There's an obvious problem that many people have remarked upon
involving the contradicition between the C News batching code in
nntpd vs. the continuous transmissions of nntplink. Since the
batching code relies on only writing articles every so often, lots
of articles are received when nntplink is run but aren't passed on
to relaynews until later, while nntpxmit-style transfers send the
article later but get it processed later. The end result is slower
article propagation and lots more dups.

I'm wondering what the various C News sites running NNTP have done
to get around this problem. My solution has been to force nntpd to
write each article as a separate batch and change the article-naming
code to avoid collisions. There are some other solutions being worked
on, I know (in fact, I'm working on one of them), and I'm interested
in seeing what people are doing.

Another side of the coin is this: if you're going to run nntplink
to someone, make sure they're not doing C-style batching. Otherwise
you're not helping either yourself or your connection any. I've had
this problem with a few connections, since I'm now switched over to
using nntplink for just about all my connections (with varied sleep
times in nntplink --- this, perhaps, should be a flag). As a
workaround, I've implemented a flag to nntplink that says "Always
break connection". I _could_ just run nntpxmit, but I'd rather keep
things consistently one way or the other.

--John

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
John L. Coolidge     Internet:coolidge@cs.uiuc.edu   UUCP:uiucdcs!coolidge
Of course I don't speak for the U of I (or anyone else except myself)
Copyright 1989 John L. Coolidge. Copying allowed if (and only if) attributed.
You may redistribute this article if and only if your recipients may as well.
New NNTP connections always available! Send mail if you're interested.