Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!bbn!mit-eddie!bloom-beacon!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cs.utexas.edu!milano!bigtex!james
From: james@bigtex.uucp (James Van Artsdalen)
Newsgroups: news.software.b
Subject: Re: Grading of UUCP news traffic
Keywords: Different UUCP grades for articles vs control messages?
Message-ID: <3122@bigtex.uucp>
Date: 2 Jul 88 03:02:45 GMT
References: <7182@elroy.Jpl.Nasa.Gov>
Reply-To: james@bigtex.UUCP (James Van Artsdalen)
Organization: F.B.N. Software, Austin TX
Lines: 39

IN article <7182@elroy.Jpl.Nasa.Gov>, stevo@elroy.Jpl.Nasa.Gov (Steve Groom) wrote:
[ using uucp grading to give ihave/sendme priority ]

> The mechanism I would propose to implement this would be to use
> different UUCP grades for control messages and article batches.  Since
> news uses the same uux flags (which include the UUCP grade
> specification) for everything it sends, setting this up requires more
> than just a header fix and recompile.

This last statement is not necessarily the case.  For example:

bigtex:world,comp,news,sci:IF:
bigtex:world,to.bigtex:U:

Note: order is important here: when using sendme, the first entry for
a give system *must* have the F flag, or news will send the articles
unbatched, one by one.

Now set UUXFLAGS in the makefile to use a lower priority than UXMIT in
defs.h.  You can use a different priority for DFTXMIT yet, giving a
third priority.  My assumption is that the lack of compression for
just the ihave/sendme control messages is not a major issue.

Another variation on the ihave/sendme theme is to delay the ihave
messages.  This is useful to build redundancy into an existing
distribution topology.  The change is near the end of sendbatch:

	(     echo /usr/local/lib/news/inews -t \"cmsg ihave \
		 $DOIHAVE\" -n to.$rmt.ctl '<<END_IHAVES'
	      cat /usr/spool/batch/$rmt.$$
	      echo END_IHAVES
	) | at now + 2 days 2>/dev/null

Here, instead of simply feeding the message IDs to inews, I queue them
to be fed two days later.  This gives the remote site a chance to get
the articles via normal routes.
-- 
James R. Van Artsdalen   ...!ut-sally!utastro!bigtex!james   "Live Free or Die"
Home: 512-346-2444 Work: 328-0282; 110 Wild Basin Rd. Ste #230, Austin TX 78746