Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watnot!watmath!clyde!rutgers!seismo!rick
From: rick@seismo.UUCP
Newsgroups: news.software.b
Subject: Re: Patch #6 for news 2.11 source
Message-ID: <43223@beno.seismo.CSS.GOV>
Date: Tue, 24-Mar-87 14:04:49 EST
Article-I.D.: beno.43223
Posted: Tue Mar 24 14:04:49 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 26-Mar-87 06:16:30 EST
References: <43222@beno.seismo.CSS.GOV>
Organization: Center for Seismic Studies, Arlington, VA
Lines: 56
Summary: how to use GENERICPATH/GENERICFROM


   The patches try to support maximum naming choice, providing
independently a local system name, USENET node name, and generic From:
address.  As far as I can tell, they implement both the previous naming
system (with or without HIDDENNET) as well as Stephen Muir's naming
behaviour, which he recently have propagated for in news.software.b.
Essentially, what they do is to divide the dual purpose that HIDDENNET
presently is being used for (generic UUCP/USENET nodename and generic
From:-address), into GENERICPATH and GENERICFROM.  The former being the
name of the local UUCP gateway and the latter being the preferred user
From:-address for mail replies etc.

Or more specifically,

   If GENERICPATH is defined, it is used as the site's PATHSYSNAME.  If
   not, PATHSYSNAME is set to the site's local hostname (as returned by
   GETHOSTNAME or eqiv).

   If GENERICFROM is defined, it is used as the site's FROMSYSNAME.  If
   not, FROMSYSNAME is set to the site's local hostname concat- enated
   with the value of mydomain().

Both GENERICPATH and GENERICFROM are being sprintf'ed through, thus
being subject to %s interpretation.  The first %s will be substituted
for the node's hostname (ubuf.nodename), the second for the value of
mydomain().  (Use a %0.0s pattern to ignore the hostname.)

   The GENERIC macros are essentially only used in pathinit, where they
form LOCALSYSNAME, FROMSYSNAME and PATHSYSNAME.  These replace the
former LOCALSYSNAME and FULLSYSNAME and the use of mydomain() in the
rest of the code.  Note that LOCALSYSNAME now has the site's complete
name (with domain) and that the ifdef's for HIDDENNET are no more
necessary and thus have been removed.

   An example:  We currently have all our machines in the "ida.liu.se"
domain, but plan to put all the university's hosts within the same
"liu.se" domain.  We will still use "ida.liu.se" as a generic
From:-address, though, as the same time as we hold on to our "liuida"
UUCP/USENET node name.  In the old naming system, this was not possible
to implement.  With the proposed patches, this will be done by defining
GENERICPATH to "liuida", GENERICFROM to "ida.liu.se" and MYDOMAIN to
".liu.se".  The articles produced will then have header lines like:

	From: lenlo@ida.liu.se (Lennart Lovstrand) Path: liuida!lenlo
	Message-ID: <123456@prefix.liu.se>
	...

If one rather would like to emulate the old behaviour of HIDDENNET, one
would define GENERICPATH to "liuida", GENERICFROM to "liuida.UUCP" and
MYDOMAIN to ".UUCP".  As before, if neither GENERIC macro is defined,
the site's hostname will be used in both cases.

   To make the transition easier, the code will still use the value of
HIDDENNET if the GENERIC macros have not been defined.

	Lennart Lovstrand (enea!liuida!lenlo)