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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!caip!ut-sally!pyramid!hplabs!hplabsc!taylor
From: taylor@hplabsc.UUCP (Dave Taylor)
Newsgroups: net.news.adm
Subject: Re: Line eater again (mod.comp-soc)?
Message-ID: <21500004@hplabsc.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 29-Jun-86 00:16:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: hplabsc.21500004
Posted: Sun Jun 29 00:16:00 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 2-Jul-86 06:23:09 EDT
References: <317@maynard.UUCP>
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Laboratories - Palo Alto, CA
Lines: 62


			The Problem is Fixed!!!
		       -------------------------

	Well, some time has passed and we've managed to figure out what the
 problem was with the mod.comp-soc postings!  As it turns out, I've written
 a set of scripts that allow me to post news to our news machine (hplabsc)
 while actually running on my workstation...

	Unfortunately, it appears that inews/RFA has a bit of a problem 
 when stdin is redirected to a remote machine.  The symptoms, strangely
 enough, are exactly what we were seeing in the group (namely that a piece
 of the artile was gulped up).  My suspicion is that we're sending data
 faster than the inews (version 2.10.3) program can absorb it, so while it's
 off fussing with headers, it drops the beginning of the article.
	
	NOTE that this doesn't mean that news 2.10.3 is bad or messed up or
 anything - we're still planning on running it at our site - just that it 
 might exhibit strange behaviour when used in a heavily networked environment.


----- more details for those really interested;

	
 on my workstation, I invoke a script that does..

	echo "Subject:\\nFrom:\\nReply-To:\\nApproved:\\n" > /tmp/pnews.$$

	cat $file >> /tmp/pnews.$$

	/usr/hosts/hplabsc /usr/local/lib/news/inews -h < /tmp/pnews.$$

	echo article posted

 [This isn't the real script by any means, but it's indicative of the 
  functionality.  Note that the 'inews' program is being run on the remote
  machine while the file being fed to it is on the local machine...]

 This is what caused the problems with 2.10.3 inews.  To test that it was
 indeed inews and not the networking software itself, we tried the following
 test;

	/usr/hosts/hplabsc cat - < /tmp/pnews.$$

 which faithfully listed every character in the file to the screen.

 Then we tried the following sequence;

	cp /tmp/pnews.$$ hplabsc:/tmp/rpnews.$$
	/usr/hosts/hplabsc "/usr/local/lib/news/inews -h < /tmp/rpnews.$$"
	
 This met with success, so that's what my script does now!  In fact, I've
 already reposted all the articles that were trashed...

 I'd like to than Mike Rodriquez and Greg Fowler for their help in tracking
 down the problem - without them we might just have folded as a news-site
 entirely!  (Just joking!  Don't get so enthused!! *chuckle*)

------
					-- Dave Taylor

  facilitator of mod.comp-soc and mod.conferences and G-d knows what else!