Path: utzoo!utstat!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!math.lsa.umich.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!newstop!sun!amdcad!dgcad!gary From: gary@proa.sv.dg.com (Gary Bridgewater) Newsgroups: news.software.b Subject: Re: Duplicate articles from B news site - would C news help ?? Message-ID: <659273548.2803@proa.sv.dg.com> Date: 22 Nov 90 11:32:28 GMT References: Organization: Data General SDD, Sunnyvale, CA Lines: 24 In article ianh@bhpmrl.oz.au (Ian Hoyle) writes: >... I've noticed lots of duplicated >articles being fed to us from our single, upstream newsfeed. They currently >batch news to us using B news 2.11.17 (I think thats the patch level they're >using) but they also have multiple feeds to themselves. > >My question: does B news simply pass all messages on to hosts they feed as >defined in the sys file without checking that they've sent the same file >twice ??? ... No - B news keeps a history file and should only forward "new" articles. BUT - if they are running the broken DBM or using some flavor other than the current C news heuristic DBZ then they may have experienced hash key overflow. The unbelievable increase in article postings may have pushed them over whatever carefully tuned values they were using ( speaking from experience) and they either haven't noticed it or haven't had time/motivation to fix it (or their news guru went on vacation, etc.). When the hash key overflows duplicates are no longer detected, for the most part. This can result in spool/news partition overflow, extremly long expire times and general havoc on the system (which can also cause them to consider duplicates a minor inconvenience for the nonce). -- Gary Bridgewater, Data General Corporation, Sunnyvale California gary@sv.dg.com or {amdahl,aeras,amdcad}!dgcad!gary C++ - it's the right thing to do.