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Path: utzoo!utstat!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!sci34hub!gary
From: gary@sci34hub.sci.com (Gary Heston)
Newsgroups: news.software.nntp,news.software.b
Subject: Re: Posting Problems, receiving is fine...
Message-ID: <1991Jan25.173547.13231@sci34hub.sci.com>
Date: 25 Jan 91 17:35:47 GMT
References: <*|8^+!&@ads.com>
Reply-To: gary@sci34hub.sci.com (Gary Heston)
Distribution: na
Organization: SCI Technology, Inc., Huntsville, Al.
Lines: 54

In article <*|8^+!&@ads.com> awolf@ADS.COM (Andy Wolf) writes:
>I am having problems posting news, but not receiving news.
>We used to have Bnews, but it got trashed, so I built the 
>latest C-news, NNTP, rn, and trn.  I post news and it only
>gets as far as the local machine, no matter what the distribution.
>I must be missing something simple, but I'm not sure what it is.

> [ ... ]

>I have the sys file correct, and the nntp_access correct.
>Posting works, but doesn't get to my 'feeder' site.
>Receiving news works fine, so a posted reply is fine, but
>mail me at awolf@potomac.ads.com if you like.
>Thanks.   I REALLY need to get this up.

Check your /tmp and look for a bunch of little files of the
form "nbxxxxx" where the xxxx is a variable number of digits.

If you see those, there's a glitch in the $NEWSBIN/batch/sendbatches
script, which creates the files (they contain the output from
compress) and then errors if they're present! (At least, that's 
what I found when I set up Cnews here, under ISC 1.0.6... )

The offending line is:

			if test $? -eq 0 -a ! -s /tmp/nb$$

and the fix I found was to delete the additional test:

			if test $? -eq 0

Also, check in $NEWSSPOOL/out.going/* and make sure your togo files
are being generated. You can create one manually (with find or whatever)
and run sendbatches with sh -x to see what's happening. (Try that with
a compiled C program... :-)

Oh--you need to remove the /tmp/nb* files, too. My test system filled 
up the root partition, which was what signaled me something was wrong.
I'm not sure if the above glitch is a bug in the script, something
strange in ISC 1.0.6, or something about my version of compress, so
I haven't filed a bug report. I just patch the script each time I
install it, with no problems.

Otherwise, C news has been running incredibly well. Where a batch of
news (with B 2.11) took 6 minutes to unpack and post, C news takes
less than a minute. So fast, it's difficult for me to time it 
accurately! Count me among the converts... Many thanks to Henry and
Geoff for all the work. Fine job, guys.

-- 
Gary Heston System Mismanager and technoflunky uunet!sci34hub!gary or
My opinions, not theirs.  SCI Systems, Inc.     gary@sci34hub.sci.com
  *   In Memory of White Sox, the family dog, 1975-1/1/1991.   *
  *   Loyal, faithful, and stubborn to the end. We miss him.   *