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Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!epiwrl!epimass!jbuck
From: jbuck@epimass.UUCP (Joe Buck)
Newsgroups: comp.os.eunice,news.software.b
Subject: Eunice can't deal with 5-part newsgroup names
Message-ID: <1082@epimass.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 21-Apr-87 21:57:44 EST
Article-I.D.: epimass.1082
Posted: Tue Apr 21 21:57:44 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 23-Apr-87 03:42:27 EST
Organization: Entropic Processing, Inc., Cupertino, CA
Lines: 31
Keywords: Eunice sucks, but so do some of the new names
Xref: mnetor comp.os.eunice:29 news.software.b:523

If you're a Eunice user, and you keep your news in /usr/spool/news,
you can't have five-part newsgroups such as comp.sys.ibm.pc.digest
(do I see Erik Fair's work in that name?).  This is because on VMS,
the directory name would be 

	DISK:[EUNICE.USR.SPOOL.NEWS.COMP.SYS.IBM.PC.DIGEST]

and VMS only allows subdirectories to be eight levels deep.

If your Eunice site is a leaf node, you can cope with the problem
by aliasing the group to a different name.  I suggest

(in aliases)

comp.sys.ibm.pc.digest	comp.sys.ibm-pc.digest

This is because, when you post to the group, it gets converted
to mail by replacing all the dots with dashes, giving an address
of

comp-sys-ibm-pc-digest@backbone-site

Using the above alias, the mailing address will be the same.

As maintainer of the Eunice 2.11 news, I could attempt to hack
something in.  It would also be possible to make SPOOLDIR be
/spool/news.  But do we really need five-level names?  Is it
too late to use a shorter name?  Or the name I suggested above?
-- 
- Joe Buck    {hplabs,ihnp4,sun,ames}!oliveb!epimass!jbuck
	      seismo!epiwrl!epimass!jbuck