Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!julius.cs.uiuc.edu!news.cs.indiana.edu!msi.umn.edu!noc.MR.NET!uc!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cis.ohio-state.edu!karl_kleinpaste From: karl_kleinpaste@cis.ohio-state.edu Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc Subject: Re: CompuServe backlog; mail servers Message-ID: Date: 18 Dec 90 04:37:00 GMT References: <1990Dec13.235726.563@jpradley.jpr.com> Sender: news@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu Organization: OSU Lines: 69 FYI: We gained substantially on the CServe-bound mail queue over the weekend. Unfortunately, at the curent rate of gain, it would take a week to clear completely. So tomorrow morning, we're bringing up SneakerNet: I'm going to dump a dd(1) tape of the current backlog and drive it over to CServe, where my counterpart is going to inhale them The Hard Way for delivery. "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon loaded with magtapes." --Unknown, but possibly Bob Sutterfield (Bob?) jpr@jpradley.jpr.com writes: > I dig it Karl, the overload problem is getting to you. So you post your > message to this group. How will anyone reading your wailings and flailings > help resolve the problems? Have you sent this message to John James or Pete > Holsberg? On the latter, yes, I have. And I'll go check CServe's UNIX Forum in about half an hour to see what's up. On the former, I posted the note here both for the information content so people know why things are delayed, as well as to editorialize on the evils of MBASes. As a result of the posting, I am informed in private mail that [a] Uunet's mail servers will not respond to any but uunet customers. [b] Brian Kantor & Co are working on a mail server which will respond only if there is an IP addr for the origin; or the address is local-to-UCSD-uucp-host!user; or the address is uunet!one-machine-hop!user. I find both of these to be done The Right Way. I find bitftp@pucc.princeton.edu to be done The Wrong Way. (In fairness, I may be picking on Princeton too much. When the queue exploded 10 days ago, and we poked at things to learn what it was that was happening to us, bitftp figured prominently. I no longer know for sure who all the guilty parties are.) > Who's sending multi-megabyte blortfuls? CIS mailboxes can conatain multi- > megabytes? CServe subscriber mailboxes can contain up to 100 messages, each up to 50Kbytes. Or so I was told last time I asked. This doesn't prevent people from _trying_ to send multi-megabyte blortfuls, with one of two effects: [1] The recipient downloads/deletes things as fast as they come in; [2] The excess stuff starts bouncing back at the originator due to a "mailbox full" error. (And yes, there are glitches where it inadvertently returns to the From: on this error rather than the Sender:. CServe folk are aware of the problem and will fix it eventually.) Guess what the latter does to the gateway machine... > Path: jpradley!uupsi!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!cs.utexas.edu! > tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cis.ohio-state.edu!karl_kleinpaste > From your cis, you get to one of your Pyramids, and then the stuff > has to go via texas and california to get to another of your > Pyramids before moving on to Troy? Zaphod is Dave Alden's Sun4 (SS1+, I believe) in Math. It's currently got a hammerlock on the #1 slot in the Top 1000 Influence List, running 11 percentage points above uunet in news propagation. I have no affiliation with that machine, though we exchange a feed, and I'm surprised that Tut didn't feed the article direct to Zaphod before Fletcher et al got a hold of it. --karl