Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ucbvax!husc6!hao!woods
From: woods@hao.ucar.edu (Greg Woods)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: Path files
Keywords: "Best" vs. "Fastest"
Message-ID: <1101@hao.ucar.edu>
Date: 22 Jan 88 04:06:04 GMT
References: <13506@pyramid.pyramid.com>
Reply-To: woods@hao.UUCP (Greg Woods)
Organization: High Altitude Obs./NCAR, Boulder CO
Lines: 25

In article <13506@pyramid.pyramid.com> wendyt@pyrps5.UUCP (Wendy Thrash) writes:
>I've always believed that the costs we put in our map entries
>should reflect not only the frequency and speed of the link, but
>also our willingness to forward mail over it.

   I really would have thought that this was self-evident, but the
fact that we are actually having this discussion proves me wrong.
The pathalias cost is inversely proportional to the likelihood of
other sites using that link if you publish it. And if you really
don't want anyone but locals using a link, then don't put it in 
your map entry at all.

>The use of two different
>versions of one's map file is inelegant, but effective.

   You actually don't need two versions of the entire map. Only the
links that you want different locally then in your official map entry
(we have several like that) need to be in your second copy. If 
pathalias finds two different costs for the same link, it assumes
the cheaper one. Therefore you can have an official map file
and a set of local changes (as long as those changes all reflect
new links or cheaper costs for existing links) both in the
pathalias input and it will work out fine.

--Greg