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Path: utzoo!mnetor!lsuc!dave
From: dave@lsuc.UUCP (David Sherman)
Newsgroups: tor.news
Subject: Re: Usenet map of Toronto
Message-ID: <1528@lsuc.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 22-Jan-87 12:43:37 EST
Article-I.D.: lsuc.1528
Posted: Thu Jan 22 12:43:37 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 22-Jan-87 21:48:34 EST
Sender: dave@lsuc.UUCP
Organization: Law Society of Upper Canada, Toronto
Lines: 55

>> Hmm. Thanks, Don. I didn't even suggest anyone try doing
>> a UUCP map, because (1) pathalias can give routings and (2)
>> the map would be so complex. Your attempt is nice, but is
>> (just for example) missing lsuc's connections to parkridge,
>> hcr, nrcaer, toram, maccs and sickkids,
>
>First of all, both your points are perfectly correct.  But I think there
>is room for another point of view, too.  Pathalias is okay, but there are
>a lot of sites which don't have it, don't use it, don't keep it up to date

Incidentally, if you don't have pathalias or can't run it because
of machine size, a neighbour may be able to help. mnetor very
kindly runs "pathalias -l lsuc" once a week for us and uucp's the
result over. (We have "only" 1Mb of memory, which means we haven't been
able to run pathalias for over a year now.)

>or any combination of the above.  And there are even more users who don't
>know how to use it.  And I personally happen to like a pictorial approach
>better.  Besides, if pathalias tries to send me through lsuc, and I happen
>to know that lsuc is (perish the thought!) down, then I can look on the
>map for an alternate path.  Pathalias isn't good at that.

You're right about that.

>As to the sites you name, I actually had a reason for all of them.  You
>will recall I said in my first posting that I wanted to include only "good"
>paths (HOURLY or better).  I grant lsuc's connection to most of the sites
>you name is DIRECT.  However, parkridge lists lsuc as EVENING, hcr lists
>it as WEEKLY, maccs is DAILY/4, and toram and sickkids don't list lsuc at
>all.  You see my dilemma.  You may say this just proves your point (and it
>does :-)), but I think there is *some* method in my madness.  I should
>possibly qualify "good" as meaning "HOURLY or better in both directions".

Aha. Interesting question. If we poll a given site every hour (subject
to dialer availability), which we do for all our local sites, and if
that site polls us once a day PLUS calls us whenever it has traffic,
what should be the weighting?

There's a problem built in to the pathalias weighting system, and
I don't know of a solution. Most systems will call their mail
neighbours on demand, except for some long-distance links which
are restricted to evenings. So if A calls B daily plus on demand,
is that DIRECT (local calls, according to the mod.map README) or
something worse than the case where A calls B hourly plus on demand?

I think machines that have dialers available should normally
list their local connections as DIRECT; but they don't always
do that.

So, Don, you picking up the gauntlet and doing a Usenet map
of Toronto too? :-]

David Sherman
-- 
{ ihnp4!utzoo  seismo!mnetor  utai  watmath  decvax!utcsri  } !lsuc!dave