From: wusel@hactar.hanse.de (Kai 'wusel' Siering)
Date: Fri, 02 Oct 1992 16:29:32 +0100
Organization: Villa Straylight, Hamburg, FRG
Newsgroups: alt.sys.amiga.uucp
Reply-To: "Kai 'wusel' Siering" <wusel@hactar.hanse.de>
Subject: Re: Cnews?  Help!
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In article <bobl.7znt@bobsbox.rent.com>,
	bobl@bobsbox.rent.com (Bob Lindabury - SysAdmin) writes:
% In article <1992Sep27.012941.1538@ckctpa.UUCP> crash@ckctpa.UUCP (Frank "Crash" Edwards) writes:
% > bobl@bobsbox.rent.com (Bob Lindabury - SysAdmin) writes:
[...]

% Ok..maybe I'm missign something here.  Normally (as I understand it)
% when I post something with GRn, GRn calls postnews which then calls
% rnews which posts the article locally and queues it for batching
% which then calls batchnews (if set to autobatch) to batch it for the
% outgoing sites.  Batchnews then uses uux to queue it in the spool
% directory.
%
% When I run CNews GRn calls postnews which then calls rnews (for CNews)
% which then does what?  Doesn't it post the article locally based on the
% sys file?  If not, does it call relaynews to do this?  Unbatch doesn't
% recognize it because it's not compressed and it's not a batch.  It's
% just an article.  Here is my incoming directory listing:

     If `postnews'  calls  `rnews'  (I  haven't run DUUCP's news system for
quite  a  long  time), your article will be stored in `NEWSARTS:in.coming',
waiting  for  some  programm to feed it into `relaynews' - `relaynews' does
all  the  filing  and  relaying  in  CNews  (that  is: storing or rejecting
(because  it's  duplicate,  to  old,  has  mangled format ...) the article,
piping  it into external programs, putting it on the list to be transmitted
to other sites, ...).

% newsarts:in.coming (dir):
% ------rwed--------     2      643 25-Sep-92 14:16 464969760
% ------rwed--------     2      626 25-Sep-92 14:32 464970720
% ------rwed--------     7     3462 25-Sep-92 18:03 464983380
% ------rwed--------     4     1559 25-Sep-92 18:04 464983440
% ------rwed--------     3     1455 25-Sep-92 23:24 465002640
% ------rwed--------     3     1367 26-Sep-92 06:12 465027120
% ------rwed--------     4     1696 26-Sep-92 07:40 465032340
% ------rwed--------     4     1563 26-Sep-92 06:12 nspoolA.518008
% ------rwed--------     5     2508 26-Sep-92 06:12 nspoolB.518008
%
% The files starting with the numbers are articles posted locally via GRn.

     Yupp; just  do a `list newsarts:in.coming/????????? lformat="relaynews
-r  <%s%s*Ndelete  %s%s"  |  execute  in:' (assuming you have installed the
`204hacks')  and  these articles should  be filed in the appropriate places
... Of course, this is a quick and dirty hack, but you should get the idea.

% They are not distributed to the appropriate newsgroups and I can't
% figure out how to do that.  I'm unsure as to what the nspool files are
% but they seem to be news articles that have arrived via mail and run
% through AmigaUUCP's postnews from the mail aliases.

     According to  rnews.c  from  the  CNews  distribution  I have (uunet),
these  are  files  `rnews'  failed  to complete copying. (`rnews' reads the
first  bytes  of  the  batch  and  decides  wheter or not it's a compressed
batch,  then copies the batch to the `in.coming' directory with a temporary
name  starting  with  `nspool'  (so an unbatcher won't try to unbatch these
files  ...)  and  after  completing the copy, renames the `nspool'-file (to
something   like  `sprintf(filename,  "%d%s",  time(NULL),  iscompressed  ?
".Z":"");' - this way, the batches can be unbatches chrononogically).)

% > Concerning the manually created batch_#?.z files:  yes, you must
% > provide the transport interface.  CNews _is not_ a transport, it's a
% > message handling package.  UUCP is a transport agent.  I would suggest
% > either adding a line to DoBatch.e to queue up the transfers at the end
% > of the batching or run a separate program to do it after DoBatch
% > finishes.
%
% Ok..I didn't read the echo statements.  So I guess I have to call uux to
% create the appropriate spool files.  This is something that a CNews
% distribution *for* AmigaUUCP should include.  If I can work it out I
% will certainly make it available.
%
% However, I don't want to reinvent the wheel here if it's already done.
% <grin>  I would *love* to use Christian's ARexx scripts but I haven't
% had any luck finding WShell.  Maybe someone can point me to that as
% well.  Any chance those scripts could be massaged to use the AmigaShell
% under 2.x?? <double grin>

     Well, there  exists  a  `sendbatches'  programm by Walter Mildenberger
<wasp@chumly.ka.sub.org>  (which I use to batch my news), it's written with
the  UNOX  `sendbatches'  in  mind  (let's  you control how to send news no
neighbours  in  terms  of  batch size, max.  number of batches in uuspool:,
compression,  ...).  For  unbatching,  I wrote a C-program (`unbatch') that
handles  normal,  compressed  and  frozen batches, because I wasn't able to
trim  the  scripts  that they work as I wanted them to do =:-> Email me for
the source ...

% > Hmmm.  Sounds like BATCHER is expecting relative pathnames and
% > RELAYNEWS is generating absolute pathnames.  There's a flag in the SYS
% > file or on the RELAYNEWS command line that says what it should do.  I
% > don't recall at the moment.  Perhaps the best fix, however, would be
% > to modify batcher.c so that it only adds "NewsArts:" if there's not a
% > colon already on the line...
%
% Well, I don't do C (yet) so I guess I will see if I can use either a sys
% flag or relaynews flag to strip the additional NewsArts: out of the togo
% files.

     That problems  are  fixed by using the `sendbatches' I mentioned above
(it's  available  from  hactar.hanse.de (nuucp & BMS) - no, I won't post it
as I'm not the author, sorry) ...

% > Sorry for the hassles.  After I sent CNews to Fred Fish for inclusion
% > in the library, I contacted C= about being a developer.  Then I
% > bought an A3000 and started beta testing Amiga Unix, and I've worked
% > on CNews very little since then.  But I suppose it's just as well,
% > since I never hear about anyone using it (except for the 3 or 4 people
% > who sent me shareware donations and to whom I apologize about neglecting
% > support when I jumped into Amiga Unix).  There was little or no reason
% > to continue working on it since I wasn't using it and no one else was
% > either.
%
% Hopefully that will change in the near future.  It will probably be
% pretty simple to setup CNews for AmigaUUCP once some of the kinks are
% worked out, the scripts are completed *FOR* AmigaUUCP specifically and a
% step-by-step installation procedure is included in a distribution.

     As far  as  I am concerned, I would prefer using C-programs instead of
(AREXX-)  scripts,  because  of  problems with I/O-redirection (at least to
ADOS-scripts with C=shell), locking and speed ... (And for my system, I did
so, except for some control-messages there are no more scripts needed ...)
			kai

--  _
 _ //   Kai 'wusel' Siering, Villa Straylight, Hamburg, Germany. Go for MIME!
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"Die allwissende Muellhalde...   Bonzo"
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