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From: john@xanth.UUCP
Newsgroups: news.sysadmin,comp.mail.misc
Subject: Re: mailers (really connectivity data)
Message-ID: <725@xanth.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 20-Mar-87 12:40:40 EST
Article-I.D.: xanth.725
Posted: Fri Mar 20 12:40:40 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 22-Mar-87 22:45:15 EST
References: <2131@ncoast.UUCP> <554@hao.UCAR.EDU> <1113@ulowell.cs.ulowell.edu> <1482@celtics.UUCP>
Organization: Old Dominion University, Norfolk Va.
Lines: 35
Xref: utgpu news.sysadmin:74 comp.mail.misc:133

I like that idea!  There could be 3-to-6 month full map distributions with
diffs on the base level distributed biweekly, say, and other diffs daily or
so.  I'm still not convinced that there's a real problem with the way they're
done now, as we can see from the "emergency" posting of the ca.[246] maps;
whether or not this plan would be better than monthly full distributions
really depends on the size of the full maps vs. the sizes of the diffs.
Would all the diffs for a month fit in one posting?

All it would take to allow automatic updating from the diffs is adding a copy
of patch to the bin directory used by uuhosts' mapsh, and posting the diffs as
a shell script that ran patch (and having the right names in the diffs so
patch could figure out the right file).

Are there any real UNIX sites that can't (as opposed to don't) use patch?
Are there any non-UNIX sites that would have a use for the UUCP maps?  Eunice
should be able to handle patch; has anyone ported it to native VMS?

Also, to take care of the problems of missed base maps, one of the sites that
has constantly up-to-date maps could set up a mail-based server so that sites
that missed some maps could pick those up between the 3-6 month distributions.
(For example, we still don't have new d. files; we came in in the middle of
the u. files after establishing a good news feed).  This might need a limit of
10 files/site/month or some such, meaning that someone starting from scratch
would need to find the maps from someone closer.

How do the instantaneously-updated sites stay that way?  Mailed diff files?
uucp'd entire map files (with all having direct connections to someone and the
maps in a directory writable by that site)?

Comments?

-- 
John Owens		Old Dominion University - Norfolk, Virginia, USA
john@ODU.EDU		old arpa: john%odu.edu@RELAY.CS.NET
+1 804 440 3915		old uucp: {seismo,harvard,sun,hoptoad}!xanth!john