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Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watnot!watmath!clyde!cbatt!gatech!spaf
From: spaf@gatech.UUCP
Newsgroups: news.software.b
Subject: Re: Why distributions don't work
Message-ID: <13089@gatech.EDU>
Date: Sun, 1-Mar-87 13:18:39 EST
Article-I.D.: gatech.13089
Posted: Sun Mar  1 13:18:39 1987
Date-Received: Mon, 2-Mar-87 20:28:10 EST
References: <2421@mtgzy.UUCP>
Reply-To: spaf@gatech.UUCP (Gene Spafford)
Organization: Software Engineering Research Center (SERC), Georgia Tech
Lines: 29
Keywords: routing

I've waited for someone to post the obvious answer to this, but haven't
seen it.

For regional distributions to work, the sites in the region have to
exchange articles posted with that distribution.  Furthermore, they
should *not* pass articles with that distribution outside the region
unless someone at the receiving site explicitly wants them (that is,
"sys" file lines consisting of "all" are frowned upon for non-local
sites).

Thus, to ensure propagation of regional newsgroups, you establish
limited feeds with other sites in your region to pass only the regional
articles.  The cost should be negligible, and it will help prevent
passing your regional articles to inappropriate places.

Let me give an example sys file for one site in NJ to pass news
articles with NJ distributions to a NJ site but not regular net
articles.  Meanwhile, it will pass net-wide articles (but not NJ!) to
ihnp4.  This works for 2.11.

ME:all:B:
njsite:nj,news,comp,sci,misc,rec,soc,talk,!world,!usa,!na:B:
ihnp4:world,news,comp.sci,misc,rec,soc,talk,mod,usa,na,!nj:B:

-- 
Gene Spafford
Software Engineering Research Center (SERC), Georgia Tech, Atlanta GA 30332
CSNet:	Spaf @ GATech		ARPA:	Spaf@gatech.EDU
uucp:	...!{akgua,decvax,hplabs,ihnp4,linus,seismo,ulysses}!gatech!spaf