Xref: utzoo comp.mail.uucp:4013 news.sysadmin:2805
Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!snorkelwacker!apple!sun-barr!newstop!sun!amdahl!dgcad!gary
From: gary@dgcad.SV.DG.COM (Gary Bridgewater)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp,news.sysadmin
Subject: Re: Questions about smail.
Message-ID: <1429@proa.SV.DG.COM>
Date: 27 Feb 90 07:27:41 GMT
References: <58@dynasys.UUCP> <298@pallas.athenanet.com>
Reply-To: gary@proa.SV.DG.COM ()
Followup-To: comp.mail.uucp
Organization: Data General SDD, Sunnyvale, CA
Lines: 44

In article <298@pallas.athenanet.com> kabra437@pallas.UUCP (Ken Abrams) writes:
>In article <58@dynasys.UUCP> jessea@dynasys.UUCP (Jesse W. Asher) writes:
>>....  Is there any way I can have [rn]
>>give uucp addressing?  Ex:  dynasys!jessea   or even the full path
>>name?  Thanx in advance.
> ...
>I would like to see a periodic (monthly) post similar to those in newuser
>explaining this address mess but so far haven't been able to locate
>anyone able (or willing) to do it.

To fix reply addresses you must grep the news sources and find the hard
coded occurance of the .UUCP. You must then stare at the code for a good
long while and then carefully edit it to hard code in something else. See
what happens, re-edit, loop until correct or acceptable.
I have seen posting that explain this and even show the code. However,
doing it this way gives one a sense of accomplishment and teaches a
method for problem solving.

Being a news admin, I have found, is very much an "Aha!" experience. I have
had the usual news admin training (previous news admin wisked off to Oz by
tornado, etc. with no notice) and my news stopped being there.
So I jumped in and started breaking it in BIG ways. Eventually, a few
batches stayed around long enough to get refused due to broken active file
and another Star* was born. :-}

Anyway - monthly postings of commmon news problems may not be all that useful
since the audience for them either 1) doesn't know they are in the audience
yet or 2) already knows enough to fix it anyway. As a B news admin and as
a watcher of C News' birth it occurs to me that every single system running
news is unique, to a greater or lesser degree, and will need specific care
and feeding (oops) to function. So, you have to hack something and you
might as well learn to do it on a small scale. Getting .UUCP fixed is
a good start.

None of this applies to backbones and/or other heavily manned sites. I speak
to the sites with 1-100 users and a news admin whose Real Job is something
other than administering that goofy system in the corner.

I could be wrong.

(* Capricorn - the Goat)
-- 
Gary Bridgewater, Data General Corporation, Sunnyvale California
gary@sv.dg.com or {amdahl,aeras,amdcad}!dgcad!gary
The impossible we understand right away - the obvious takes a little longer.