HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: lane@duphy4.physics.drexel.edu
Newsgroups: news.software.anu-news
Subject: looping in RMS, V6.0-3
Date: 16 Oct 92 16:05:30 GMT
Distribution: all
Organization: Drexel University Physics

Had an interesting problem here yesterday...maybe some of you have
seen it before.  We were running ANU-NEWS V6.0-3 with VMS 5.4 and
Multinet.

Reading through items in misc.consumers, suddenly the system in
non-responsive.  (control-Y doesn't interrupt, only control-O seems to
do much of anything).  Went to another terminal, and the login hangs
just after the password prompt.  No disk activity.

It was looking like a classic `system looping at high priority'.  I took
the system down with a crashdump.  Yes, indeed the looping process was
NEWS, and the looping was occuring up in system address space.   After bringing
the system back up, I tried reading news again to see if it was some sort
of timing-deadlock problem (reading vs. skimming, for example)  Same hang.
The news item files in question seemed unexceptional.

All of this prompted me to install V6.1-beta5 :-) In the process I
copied the NEWS.ITEMS file to a different disk, and later did a DIFF
with the old NEWS.ITEMS just to make sure that incoming NNTP
connections hadn't messed with it.

Well, that DIFF is still running, control Y's don't affect it, it uses cpu
but does no i/o, and is looping along in the RMS part of the system address
space.  I haven't done a STOP/ID on it yet, because I figure that it could
crash the system, but I did set it's priority to zero.

Somehow it seems that NEWS.ITEMS got so seriously munged that it can make
RMS hang in a loop.  Wierd.  This is probably an RMS bug rather than a
NEWS bug, but it certainly makes you wonder.

--

 Drexel University       \V                     --Chuck Lane
----------------->--------*------------<--------lane@duphy4.hepnet
     (215) 895-1545      / \  Particle Physics  lane@duphy1.bitnet
FAX: (215) 895-5934        /~~~~~~~~~~~         lane@duphy4.physics.drexel.edu
From: jeh@cmkrnl.com
Newsgroups: news.software.anu-news
Subject: Re: Checkgroups?
Date: 15 Oct 92 22:41:58 GMT
Organization: Kernel Mode Consulting, San Diego, CA

In article <01GPXWAUYTSO9GVRB7@WVNVMS.WVNET.EDU>,
 Doug Saunders <CC007001@WVNVMS.BITNET> writes:
> Are there still checkgroups control messages being generated on USENET?
> I'm receiving newgroup and rmgroup but I need to do a major update of
> my newsgroups.  Is there something that I must do to get these?

They are posted every month or so to news.admin and news.announce.newgroups.  
They are NOT posted directly as "control" messages because some sites don't
take well to checkgroups postings.  Rather, you extract the message and edit 
it to form a "control" message which you then feed to your own news system.

I'm appending the most recent 'checkgroups' received here.

	--- Jamie Hanrahan, Kernel Mode Consulting, San Diego CA
uucp 'g' protocol guru and release coordinator, VMSnet (DECUS uucp) W.G., and 
Chair, VMS Programming and Internals Working Group, U.S. DECUS VAX Systems SIG 
Internet:  jeh@cmkrnl.com, hanrahan@eisner.decus.org, or jeh@crash.cts.com
Uucp:  ...{crash,eisner,uunet}!cmkrnl!jeh

Relay-Version: VMS News - V6.1 24/02/92 VAX/VMS A5.5; site cmkrnl.com
From: sloane@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu (Bob Sloane)
Newsgroups: news.software.anu-news
Subject: Re: Tuning and X-Window Questions
Date: 7 Oct 92 09:01:59 CDT
Organization: University of Kansas Academic Computing Services

In article <1992Oct6.220809.1@keego.gici.com>, laut@keego.gici.com writes:
> Is there an X-Windows client for ANU-NEWS?  If not, is somebody developing
> one?

Mxrn and dxrn are available from gatekeeper.dec.com, but they have
nothing to do with ANU News.

> 	2)  Modify the source code in NEWSUTILITY, NNTP_SERVER, and
> 	    NNTP_XMIT to modify the "util_dir/util_undir/util_cnvrt" routines,
> 	    so that the periods in the directory name are substituted for
> 	    dollar signs.  This has the effect of placing all of the
> 	    newsgroups into the same root directory, instead of having
> 	    multiple tiers of subdirectory trees.

This might save some I/O if you don't have many groups. When you have
more than about 1000 groups, the top level directory will be too large
to be cached and performance will go WAY down.  Also, you will
probably run into the VMS file name size limits one some groups. As
long as you only have a limited feed, you might be OK doing this.

> 	3)  I also stripped off the NEWS subdirectory from NEWS_ROOT:[PUBLIC],
> 	    since the subdirectory does not accomplish anything (that I can
> 	    determine).

What sub-directory?  There is nothing in the normal NEWS distribution
like this.  Is it perhaps part of DECUS UUCP or something like that?

> Suggestion:  Could you make the ADD BATCH command multi-threaded, so that
> NEWS will process more than one batch file simultaneously?  In tinkering
> around, I've noticed an improvement if you run three or four posting jobs
> simultaneously (with appropriate renaming of the filename types to separate
> the streams) instead of running just the one.

On any system faster than an MicroVax you will quickly run into disk
I/O bottlenecks running more than one ADD procedure at a time. I doubt
that this would help on any but the most CPU bound systems. Even on an
MV, I suspect that you wouldn't gain much, since the process creation
overhead would be pretty high.
-- 
USmail: Bob Sloane, University of Kansas Computer Center, Lawrence, KS, 66045
E-mail: sloane@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu, sloane@ukanvax.bitnet, AT&T: (913)864-0444
Newsgroups: news.software.anu-news
Subject: RE: new News administrator, problem with postinge
From: Geoff Huston <G.Huston@AARNET.EDU.AU>
Date: 14 Oct 1992 10:34:21 +1000
Reply-To: Geoff Huston <G.Huston@AARNET.EDU.AU>
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT

Bruce,
 
> Speaking of 6.1, what is the current ETA for the non-beta version?
 
 
speaking of all the things I do in my real job, I really don't have
an ETA right now.
 
(It will also be my last version - I can't give it the time it needs
unfortunately)
 
Geoff
From: jimkirk@news.uwyo.edu
Newsgroups: news.software.anu-news
Subject: more POST woes
Date: 9 Oct 92 13:19:15 MST
Distribution: world
Organization: University of Wyoming - Laramie, WY

I did a tiny bit of poking around in NEWS.C to see if I could at least
partially explain the problems I noted yesterday about NEWS and long
DCL command lines.  I note that in NEWS.C there is a line:

  if ((lib$get_foreign(&tempdsc,0,&temp_len,0) & 1) && temp_len) {

which I presume gets the DCL command line (I'm no C guru) into the string
pointed to by tempdsc, with the resulting length put into temp_len.
Tempdsc is declared:

  $DESCRIPTOR(tempdsc,temp);

and temp is declared:

  char temp[132]

Now, this seems to say that while DCL allows 255 characters maximum, NEWS
only allows 132 (actually, 131 since NEWS appends \0).  Why?  Oversight?
Further, it is not clear how NEWS behaves if the text is too long; it appears
from experience that the command is simply ignored if it is too long, with no
warning as to what happened or why!

My (strong) suggestions:

1.  Increase the size of temp to 256 (to allow a 255-character command plus
    the \0 terminator);
2.  Include some diagnostics if the get_foreign fails, rather than just
    setting sts == CLI$_NEGATED and nntp_sts = -1.

Would I risk breaking anything if I just changed temp[132] to temp[256]
and rebuilt NEWS?

Hopefully the above analysis is correct; as I mentioned, I'm C-challenged.

Jim Kirkpatrick
jimkirk@corral.uwyo.edu
From: sloane@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu (Bob Sloane)
Newsgroups: news.software.anu-news
Subject: Re: Articles overflow directory limit
Date: 13 Oct 92 14:47:48 CDT
Organization: University of Kansas Academic Computing Services

In <1992Oct13.102130.210@indyvax.iupui.edu>, imhw400@indyvax.iupui.edu writes:
> o	NEWS.ITEMS goes away.  This eliminates a large, volatile indexed file.
> 	All of this information is stored in the module headers.

Interesting. How do you plan to find articles by message id?  For
example, when the nntp server sends IHAVE <id...> would you search the
entire news database to see if the article already exists?
-- 
USmail: Bob Sloane, University of Kansas Computer Center, Lawrence, KS, 66045
E-mail: sloane@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu, sloane@ukanvax.bitnet, AT&T: (913)864-0444
From: holliday@csgrad.cs.vt.edu (Glenn Holliday)
Newsgroups: news.software.anu-news
Subject: Articles overflow directory limit
Summary: what's the workaround to files-in-dir limit?
Date: 9 Oct 92 02:20:19 GMT
Organization: VPI&SU Computer Science Department, Blacksburg, VA

My system mgr asked me about this, after getting ANU up but finding
that the # of articles in some newsgroups overflow VMS' limit on
# of files in a directory.  She knows about aging the files to cull
them,
but this apparantly happened during her very first feed.  I haven't
seen it discussed in the FAQ.  Seems like it would be a common
problem to deal with -- what do other sites do with it?

Thanks.  Email is fine, if it looks to be a common problem I'll be
happy to post a summary.
From: imhw400@indyvax.iupui.edu
Newsgroups: news.software.anu-news
Subject: Re: Articles overflow directory limit
Date: 14 Oct 92 07:30:57 GMT
Article-I.D.: indyvax.1992Oct14.123058.220

In article <1992Oct13.144748.43819@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu>, sloane@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu (Bob Sloane) writes:
> In <1992Oct13.102130.210@indyvax.iupui.edu>, imhw400@indyvax.iupui.edu writes:
>> o	NEWS.ITEMS goes away.  This eliminates a large, volatile indexed file.
>> 	All of this information is stored in the module headers.
> 
> Interesting. How do you plan to find articles by message id?  For
> example, when the nntp server sends IHAVE <id...> would you search the
> entire news database to see if the article already exists?

Good point.  That's what I get for mouthing off without going to look at the
application's internals first.

VMS libraries can have multiple indices, but you'd still have to search, on
average, half of the groups' message-id indices.  A single library could be
used, keyed on message-id and groupname||item-number.  Or perhaps a separate
master index of message-ids is still best.
--
Mark H. Wood, Lead Analyst/Programmer    +1 317 274 0749   [@disclaimer@]
Internet:  IMHW400@INDYVAX.IUPUI.EDU     BITNET:  IMHW400@INDYVAX
Celebrate freedom:  read a banned newsgroup.
From: sloane@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu (Bob Sloane)
Newsgroups: news.software.anu-news
Subject: Re: Checkgroups?
Date: 15 Oct 92 10:02:41 CDT
Organization: University of Kansas Academic Computing Services

In article <01GPXWAUYTSO9GVRB7@WVNVMS.WVNET.EDU>,
 Doug Saunders <CC007001@WVNVMS.BITNET> writes:
> Are there still checkgroups control messages being generated on USENET?
> I'm receiving newgroup and rmgroup but I need to do a major update of
> my newsgroups.  Is there something that I must do to get these?

They are not being posted as control messages. Look in
news.announce.newgroups for:

Checkgroups message (with/without INET groups)
Alternative Newsgroup Hierarchies, Part I
Alternative Newsgroup Hierarchies, Part II
-- 
USmail: Bob Sloane, University of Kansas Computer Center, Lawrence, KS, 66045
E-mail: sloane@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu, sloane@ukanvax.bitnet, AT&T: (913)864-0444
From: finkel@sdi.com (Joel Finkel - SDI)
Newsgroups: news.software.anu-news
Subject: Can't delete temporary files
Date: 7 Oct 92 22:31:03 CDT
Organization: Systems by Design of Illinois (SDI), Chicago

Folks,

	I am having a problem with deleting temporary files.  Here's my
	setup:

	--------------------------------------------------------------------

	Username           UIC       Account  Privs Pri Directory
	----------- 	-------	     -------- ----- --- -----------------------
	UUCP_LOGIN      [144,1]      UUCP     Normal  4 Disuser
	UUCP_DAEMON     [144,1]      UUCP     Normal  4 UUCP_DISK:[UUCP.SPOOL]
	UUCP            [144,1]               Normal  4 UUCP_DISK:[UUCP.SPOOL]
	NETNEWS         [144,2]      USENET   All     4 UUCP_DISK:[UUCP.NEWS_MGR]

	--------------------------------------------------------------------

	The files that cannot be deleted are created with the following protection:

	(S:RWED,O:RWED,G:RE,W)

	--------------------------------------------------------------------

	They are owned by:

	[UUCP,*]	

	--------------------------------------------------------------------

	The UUCP_LOG:UUCP.LOG file show the following:

p:uucp >> h:uunet   [10/07-01:02:26-0000005c]   We want to send (S B.orpheo07K X.orpheoN07K netnews - B.orpheo07K 0666 ) u:netnews 
p:uucp >> h:uunet   [10/07-01:02:32-0000005c]   File sent ok   (70 bytes, 4 secs, 18 Cps) u:netnews 
p:uucp >> h:uunet   [10/07-01:02:32-0000005c] * Can't remove temp file (UUCP_DISK:[UUCP.SPOOL]B.ORPHEO07K) u:netnews 
p:uucp >> h:uunet   [10/07-01:02:32-0000005c] * Can't remove temp file (UUCP_DISK:[UUCP.SPOOL]D.ORPHEO07K) u:netnews 
p:uucp >> h:uunet   [10/07-01:02:33-0000005c] * Can't remove work file (DKA200:[UUCP.SPOOL]C.UUNET_N07K;1) u:netnews 

	--------------------------------------------------------------------

	The proper executables are installed with SYSPRV

	--------------------------------------------------------------------

	My understanding is that UUCP_BIN:NEWS_RNEWS.COM is trying to delete these
	files and is unable to do so.  I added the following, thinking that
	perhaps the protection mask is not being copied to the process that is
	spawned to execute this procedure:

	$ SET PROC/PRIV=SYSPRV

	--------------------------------------------------------------------

	What should I *really* be doing?  Thanks in advance!

/Joel
-- 
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
		     vote for RON DANIELS for president
  Joel R. Finkel   Systems by Design of Illinois (SDI) 	 finkel@sdi.com
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
From: jimkirk@news.uwyo.edu
Newsgroups: news.software.anu-news
Subject: POST woes
Date: 8 Oct 92 16:29:30 MST
Distribution: world
Organization: University of Wyoming - Laramie, WY

I'm having much difficulty posting via ANU-NEWS.  First, the
method described in the manual on page 16 (12 Oct 1990 version)
does not quite work as implied:

   "If as [sic] command is given with NEWS, then this command is executed.
   Normally if this parameter is used then only that command is executed,
   and control is passed back to the calling environment"...
   
   "For example, the VMS DCL command:

   $ NEWS POST/NEWSGROUP=local.messages/SUBJECT="Weekly Msgs" weekly.msg

   posts the file weekly.msg into NEWS, into newsgroup local.messages, with
   the title "Weekly Msgs", then returns to DCL."

That's not quite what happens.  If I type that at the DCL prompt,
interactively, NEWS goes into screen mode, then goes into my default
editor.  I need to type EXIT (I use EDT), then am prompted whether to
post or not.  I don't think we changed the described compile-time switch.
Perhaps its as-shipped default has been changed?

Another problem is that if I botch something, a message to the effect
that the post was canceled is put on the screen, which is then cleared!

But, once I got all this figured out, I tried to post from inside a
command procedure, and received a message about "unrecognized command
verb - check validity and spelling".  Hey, it would be nice to know
*what* was unrecognized.  The main difference between a command
procedure that works and one that doesn't seems to just be the length of
the command line, and how it is continued!

Here's one that works --

      $NEWS POST/NOEDI/NEWSG=(local.test)-
      /SUBJ="test 1" test1.txt
      y

(The trailing "y" is to answer the do-you-want-to-post question)
Here's what I try, but seems to fail --

      $NEWS POST/NOEDI/NEWSG=(news.announce.newgroups,-
      alt.cad,alt.industrial,comp.robotics,-
      rec.aviation,rec.models.railroad,rec.models.rockets,rec.woodworking,-
      sci.engr,sci.engr.mech,sci.materials,trial.rec.metalworking)-
      /SUBJ="RFD: rec.metalworking" m.r
      y

I also tried adding /NOSCREEN, and tried not using continuation, but still
got the same error message.  I know DCL allows commands up to 255 characters
(and the above is close!); does NEWS have problems beyond some other limit?

Note that it is not at all clear whether the file got posted.  I hope it
didn't, as I tried several combinations! :-)

Ideas, suggestions welcome.

Jim Kirkpatrick
jimkirk@corral.uwyo.edu
Xref: sparky news.software.anu-news:1432 vmsnet.uucp:764
From: munroe@dmc.com (Dick Munroe)
Newsgroups: news.software.anu-news,vmsnet.uucp
Subject: Confused by distributions...
Date: 7 Oct 92 06:55:50 EDT
Organization: Doyle, Munroe Consultants, Inc., Hudson, MA

All of a sudden, a lot of messages are showing up in JUNK and I don't
have a CLUE as to why.  The only thing I've done is reformatted my
news.sys file (and I've looked at this until my eyes have crossed). 

Here's my news.sys filter for my system:

#
# This entry define what we accept into thehulk (essentially everything.)
#
thehulk/dmc.com:\
alt,bionet,biz,can,comp,control,dmc,general,gnu,jobs,junk,k12,local,mail,\
misc,mtl,ne,news,rec,sci,soc,talk,to,vmsnet
#
# this is where we send our News.  
#
uunet:\
alt,bionet,biz,can,comp,control,!dmc,general,gnu,jobs,!junk,k12,local,mail,\
misc,mtl,ne,news,rec,sci,soc,talk,to.uunet,vmsnet\
:B:NEWS_MANAGER_DEV/[POST_UUCP$CMPRS_UUNET]NEWS.BATCH^B
... Lots of stuff deleted ...

Here's an example of a rejected message:

X-NEWS: thehulk junk: 1
Relay-Version: VMS News - V6.1 24/02/92 VAX/VMS V5.4-2; site dmc.com
Newsgroups: comp.ai.neural-nets
Subject: Re: Noisy backprop- references needed
From: saswss@hotellng.unx.sas.com (Warren Sarle)
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 22:37:51 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: SAS Institute Inc.
Keywords: backprop, noise, simulation, generalization, references
Originator: saswss@hotellng.unx.sas.com


In article <1992Oct5.192307.1387@cbnewsl.cb.att.com>, apr@cbnewsl.cb.att.com (anthony.p.russo) writes:

I have enabled automatic news group creation, e.g.,

(LNM$SYSTEM_TABLE)

  "NEWS_AUTO_CREGRP" = "YES"

And to make things worse SOME things get delivered to the group (in each
case, for delivered messages there is NO distribution header).

I was under the impression from the News documentation (clearly
incorrectly) that in absence of a distribution field in the news.sys
file OR an entry in the news.sysd file, News assumed that distributions
don't matter.

Is this not the case (or just not the case for my node)?

And if not, how do I guarantee that an item will ALWAYS get delivered
independent of distribution setting (like to my newsfeed site).  I'm
using version 6.1a4 (or whatever version was released with DECUS UUCP
2.0.

Dick Munroe
-- 
Dick Munroe				Internet: munroe@dmc.com
Doyle Munroe Consultants, Inc.		UUCP: ...uunet!thehulk!munroe
267 Cox St.				Office: (508) 568-1618
Hudson, Ma.				FAX: (508) 562-1133

GET CONNECTED!!! Send mail to info@dmc.com to find out about DMConnection.
From: imhw400@indyvax.iupui.edu
Newsgroups: news.software.anu-news
Subject: Re: Articles overflow directory limit
Date: 13 Oct 92 15:21:30 GMT

In article <1992Oct11.150834.732@cmkrnl.com>, jeh@cmkrnl.com writes:
[...]
> What this points to is the need for a redesign of the news data base.  

I've been thinking for some time now that there ought to be a way to reduce the
number of (mostly tiny) files used to represent the news database.  What do you
all think of this:

o	Keep the existing directory structure to keep articles in various
	groups segregated.  This is a good fit to the organization of
	the groups, and if you lose one file it's no big deal to restore it.

o	Each group's text is stored in a VMS text library:
	NEWS_DEVICE:[group...group]ITEMS.TLB.  Each item is a module in the
	library.  The VMS librarian is fast, efficient, and makes use of
	deleted storage automatically.  The module header can be used to store
	things like the title, hold time, etc.

o	NEWS.ITEMS goes away.  This eliminates a large, volatile indexed file.
	All of this information is stored in the module headers.
-- 
Mark H. Wood, Lead Analyst/Programmer    +1 317 274 0749   [@disclaimer@]
Internet:  IMHW400@INDYVAX.IUPUI.EDU     BITNET:  IMHW400@INDYVAX
Celebrate freedom:  read a banned newsgroup.
From: ewilts@galaxy.gov.bc.ca (Ed Wilts)
Newsgroups: news.software.anu-news
Subject: Re: Articles overflow directory limit
Date: 9 Oct 92 08:25:37 -0700
Reply-To: EWILTS@GALAXY.GOV.BC.CA
Organization: BC Systems Corporation

In article <3627@creatures.cs.vt.edu>, holliday@csgrad.cs.vt.edu (Glenn Holliday) writes:
> My system mgr asked me about this, after getting ANU up but finding
> that the # of articles in some newsgroups overflow VMS' limit on
> # of files in a directory.  She knows about aging the files to cull
> them,
> but this apparantly happened during her very first feed.  I haven't
> seen it discussed in the FAQ.  Seems like it would be a common
> problem to deal with -- what do other sites do with it?

Firstly, there is *no* VMS limit on number of files in a directory.  If the
directory exceeds 127 blocks, caching stops, but that's it.  There *is* a limit
on the number of files on a disk and you should make sure that when you
initialize the disk you put your articles on that you give yourself lots of
leeway (depending on the number of groups you carry and item retention time,
you could exceed 100,000 files on your disk).

Secondly, I currently have no directories greater than 127 blocks.  One
extended beyond that at one point (it's showing 250 blocks allocated) but a
previous skim has cleaned that one back down again.

Lastly, the one directory that could get really back if you're not careful is
for the junk newsgroup.  The way I handle this is to create all my newsgroups
prior to any articles coming in (watch them control messages!) and to always
add with /nojunk.  Anyone posting to a bogus newsgroup deserves to have their
articles chucked into the bit bucket.  Do NOT add with the /cregrp qualifier.

-- 

Ed Wilts, BC Systems Corp., 4000 Seymour Place, Victoria, B.C., Canada, V8X 4S8
EWilts@Galaxy.Gov.BC.CA   |   Ed.Wilts@BCSystems.Gov.BC.CA   |   (604) 389-3430
From: jeh@cmkrnl.com
Newsgroups: news.software.anu-news
Subject: Re: Confused by distributions...
Date: 13 Oct 92 18:55:06 PDT
Organization: Kernel Mode Consulting, San Diego, CA

In article <1992Oct13.084129.3633@memstvx1.memst.edu>,
 flowers@memstvx1.memst.edu (Harry Flowers) writes:
> In article <1992Oct12.182703.737@cmkrnl.com>, jeh@cmkrnl.com writes:
> [...]
>> From an article by Bob Sloane:
>>> [...]
>> [e.g., given a NEWS.DISTRIBUTION file containing]
>> 
>>> > 	maccs	pcagena,allin1,hfassc
>>> > 	pcagena	maccs,allin1,hfassc
>>> > 	allin1	maccs,pcagena,hfassc
>>> > 	hfassc	maccs,pcagena,allin1
>>> 
>>> Change your NEWS.SYS file to:
>>> 
>>> maccs/pcagena,allin1,hfassc:...
>>> pcagena/maccs,allin1,hfassc:...
>>> allin1/maccs,pcagena,hfassc:...
>>> hfassc/maccs,pcagena,allin1:...
> 
> I thought that, in NEWS.SYS, the node names were those of news *not* to
> pass news between.  Whereas, in NEWS.DISTRIBUTION, it's a list of nodes
> to send to.  So, in the above example, news is being passed to all nodes
> other than the originator.  So the NEWS.SYS shouldn't need entries for
> 
>>> maccs/pcagena,allin1,hfassc:...
> 
> which would mean that maccs wouldn't get news from pcagena, allin1, or
> hfassc (the opposite of what the NEWS.DISTRIBUTION specified), but, rather,
> 
> maccs/maccs:...
> 
>>> pcagena/maccs,allin1,hfassc:...
>>> allin1/maccs,pcagena,hfassc:...
>>> hfassc/maccs,pcagena,allin1:...
> 
> and likewise for these.

Hmmm... Bob's example does seem to contradict his explanation.  Bob???

Well, either way, you can still get rid of your NEWS.DISTRIBUTION file. 

	--- Jamie Hanrahan, Kernel Mode Consulting, San Diego CA
uucp 'g' protocol guru and release coordinator, VMSnet (DECUS uucp) W.G., and 
Chair, VMS Programming and Internals Working Group, U.S. DECUS VAX Systems SIG 
Internet:  jeh@cmkrnl.com, hanrahan@eisner.decus.org, or jeh@crash.cts.com
Uucp:  ...{crash,eisner,uunet}!cmkrnl!jeh