Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!wuarchive!bcm!convex!schnoebe
From: schnoebe@convex.com (Eric Schnoebelen)
Newsgroups: news.software.b
Subject: Re: SCO Bnews, C News, and ihave/sendme woes
Message-ID: <1991Jan16.195408.21695@convex.com>
Date: 16 Jan 91 19:54:08 GMT
References: <3130@crdos1.crd.ge.COM>
Sender: usenet@convex.com (news access account)
Reply-To: eric@cirr.com
Followup-To: news.software.b
Organization: Convex Computer Corporation, Richardson, Tx.
Lines: 117
Nntp-Posting-Host: orion.convex.com

davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.com (bill davidsen) writes in <3130@crdos1.crd.ge.COM>:
-In article <315@lccinc.UUCP> bent@lccinc.UUCP (Ben Taylor) writes:
-
-| However, the machine running C News gets the ihave message and appears to
-| just drop it on the floor.  I get mail "rnews completed successfully"
-| and nothing happens.  No sendme message, no nothing.
-
-  I have not seen any site I feed get ihave working under C news. I may
-be that this feature isn't quite functional yet.

	We in Dallas/Ft Worth have had great success running
ihave/sendme with C news.  We use it with a delaying script, to make
sure the news propagates well around the city.

	A nice thing about C news is that it requires an explicit set
up for processing a "sendme" message, so people can't just pull
articles from your machine.  This also allows uni-directional
ihave/sendme links with out any great hassles.

	Now for some meat!  Below are the sys file and batchparms file
entries for doing ihave/sendme with C news.

sys file:

#
#	sample ihave/sendme sys file entry
#
#	send the message ids for the articles we have
#
sys-ihave:\
	{group list},to.sys/all,!to,!local,!ihave,!sendme:I:sys.ihave/togo
#
#	respond to the sys's ihave message (turn their ihave into a sendme)
#
sys-sendme:to.sys/ihave:I:sys.sendme/togo
#
#	process sys's sendme message, and send the requested articles
#	and any articles posted to.sys via compressed batching
#
sys:to.sys/sendme:f:sys/togo
#
#	I frequently use a variation of the above, to send locally
#	posted articles to the other site, along with control messages
#
# sys:\
#	{group list},to.sys/all,!to,!local,!ihave:fL1:sys/togo
#

batchparms file:

#
# site				size	queue	builder	muncher	sender
# ----				----	-----	-------	-------	------
/default/			10000	20	batcher	compun	viauux
#
# sample ihave/sendme link
#
#	sys below could be handled by the default rule above
#	queue size is 60 so it will handle more of the ihave and sendme
#	messages per run
#
sys-ihave			10000	60	batchih	nocomp	viainews
sys-sendme			10000	60	batchsm	nocomp	viainews
sys				10000	20	batcher	compcun	viauux
#


Comments:

	Right now, C news assumes that all articles sent via sendme are
3000 bytes long, which causes batch sizes to fluctuate wildly.  I
believe that the routine that handles the sendme message could do a
size look up on the article, to give the batcher a more reasonable idea
of what the article sizes are.

	Also, the awk script in $NEWSBIN/batch/batchsplit could be a
little more intelligent about how big to make the ihave and sendme
messages.  I have added the following patch to batchsplit, to allow it
to size the ihave and sendme batches better.  It basically sizes the
articles as the size of the message id, rather than 3000 bytes, as it
would before.

	*** batchsplit.orig	Mon Dec 17 15:21:07 1990
	--- batchsplit	Mon Dec 17 15:29:23 1990
	***************
	*** 68,74 ****
			batch = "togo." bno ; nbatches = 7 }
		{
			if (NF == 1)
	! 			size = 3000	# Arbitrary guess.
			else
				size = $NF
			if (total + size > limit && ninbatch > 0) {
	--- 68,77 ----
			batch = "togo." bno ; nbatches = 7 }
		{
			if (NF == 1)
	! 			if ( $1 ~ /^<.*>$/ )
	! 				size = length( $1 )
	! 			else
	! 			    size = 3000	# Arbitrary guess.
			else
				size = $NF
			if (total + size > limit && ninbatch > 0) {

	All in all, I think that Henry and Geoff have provided us with
a great transport mechanism with C news.  It is very versatile, and
very configurable, as well as being very fast!  Thanks guys!

	If anyone has any questions reguarding ihave/sendme with C
news, I believe I understand it well enough to try and help.  Please
feel free to send email to me with questions.  Please send them to me
as eric@cirr.com.
--
Eric Schnoebelen		eric@cirr.com		schnoebe@convex.com
    Churchill's Commentary on Man: Man will occasionally stumble over the
    truth, but most of the time he will pick himself up and continue on.