Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!apple!portal!motcad!jtc
From: jtc@motcad.portal.com (J.T. Conklin)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc
Subject: Re: Question about pathalias output.
Message-ID: <1990Aug28.195720.10793@motcad.portal.com>
Date: 28 Aug 90 19:57:20 GMT
References: <344@dynasys.UUCP>
Organization: CADnet Inc., San Ramon CA
Lines: 42

In article <344@dynasys.UUCP> jessea@dynasys.UUCP (Jesse W. Asher) writes:
>I recently got connected to a well connected site and I'm having problems
>with pathalias.  I have other sites that are connected to the outside
>USENET world.  Yet, when I run pathalias, ALL mail goes out through this
>well connected site - even though the cost is much higher to connect to
>this site than my other sites.  The cost for connecting to these other sites
>is 220 (direct+fast), but the cost to the other site is 500.  Why does
>pathalias set up the database to route through this site even though the 
>cost is higher?

Because pathalias computes routes based on the end-to-end costs of
a route.  Pathalias is routing through the well connected site, as
its costs to the rest of the known world are less than your other
connections.

>How can I get it to stop this behavior?

Declare the cost to this site obscenely high.

>Also, I would
>like pathalias to look at the total cost from this site to the end site
>instead of looking at just the connection to the next system.  Can I do
>this?

This is what its doing.

>Here is how I make my paths file:
> [script ommited]
>I take all the maps, cat them into one big file, and run pathalias on it.
>Am I doing something wrong here?

Nothing wrong, but I don't find it necessary to cat everything into one 
file.  I'd just run something like ``pathalias u.* d.* local.*'' and let
shell wildcarding expand the map filenames into command line arguments
for pathalias.

	--jtc
-- 
J.T. Conklin    UniFax Communications, Inc.

                CADnet Inc, San Ramon California
                jtc@motcad.portal.com, ...!portal!motcad!jtc