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Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!cornell!batcomputer!itsgw!steinmetz!uunet!eda!jim
From: jim@eda.com (Jim Budler)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp,comp.mail.misc
Subject: Re: foo   .bar.com(LOCAL) in pathalias.
Message-ID: <252@eda.com>
Date: 27 Oct 88 07:03:23 GMT
References: <211@obie.UUCP> <292@lakart.UUCP>
Reply-To: jim@eda.com (Jim Budler)
Organization: EDA Systems,Inc. Santa Clara, CA
Lines: 68

In article <292@lakart.UUCP> dg@lakart.UUCP (David Goodenough) writes:
>From article <211@obie.UUCP>, by wes@obie.UUCP (Barnacle Wes):
>> In article <2164@stpstn.UUCP>, aad@stpstn.UUCP (Anthony A. Datri) writes:
>>> There are several lines of my pathalias output that I know better
>>> (geographically, at least) paths for, and after attempting various
>>> more "elegant" methods, I just have my pathalias script that runs nightly
>>> pipe the output through sed, replacing the desired lines.  Ugly, but
>>> it works.
>> 
>> Another, perhaps slightly more elegant :-) way to do this is to have the
>> sed script lower the cost on the links you want to use to some
>> (ridiculously) low value.  Obie, myth, and wsccs all use this to force
>> certain paths that sp7040 allows us to use, but does not broadcast to
>> the net.at.large :-).

[other suggestions omitted]

When I was wandering through the archive list 'GNU.how-to-get' (approx.
title, it is from memory) describing how to annon. UUCP from osu-cis
I found, in addition to pathalias9, the 'release' version, an entry
for 'a newer, but unreleased' pathalias. Being a curious chipmunk, I grabbed
it. Two new features were 'adjust' and 'delete'.

I have a Path.fixes in addition to Path.local, which I use as follows
for smail 2.5:

	pathalias -c Path.local [du].* Path.fixes | ...

In this file I have:

delete {amd,ixpierre}

Guess what that does?

I know amd doesn't exist anymore, but lingers in the maps, and ixpierre
was announced gone in news.config.

I don't use it, but

adjust {site1, site2(LOW), site3(-1)}

where site1 would be given the default 4000, is also in the manual.
this also seems appropriate for Path.fixes.

This feature is *great*, and I wonder when it will be 'released', and
I hope nobody is upset at me letting the cat out of the bag.

This version does appear to use a different algorithm. The resulting
paths file is different in that the resulting paths are shorter. I
tested it a month ago, and reran the test just now (not using Path.fixes).
Same results. I like the shorter paths, and *love* the features I put in
my Path.fixes file.

Before I get extra flames:

	1) I DO NOT actively reroute.
	2) I talk to only decwrl and uunet, why would ANYONE route things
	*through* my site?
	3) Our own mail volume is low, and the returns after a month have
	been extremely low (usually due to site!@site2:joe@site3 type return
	paths, where do they come from?)

Cheers.


-- 
uucp:     {decwrl,uunet}!eda!jim        Jim Budler
internet: jim@eda.com                   EDA Systems, Inc.