From: tweek@netcom.com (Michael D. Maxfield)
Subject: Re: problems with the UUCP maps--duplicate n
Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest)
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 03:32:11 GMT

In article <1993Jan26.010957.28527@til.til.com> erik@til.com writes:
>In article 25032@blilly.uucp, bruce@blilly.uucp (Bruce Lilly) writes:
>>
>>Would you like to be on the receiving end of 10,000+ such
>>monthly cron jobs?
>
>Not if I had to weed through them by hand.  To what extent can this entire
>procedure be automated?  To what extent are the current map entries checked
>by the rutgers team?  I suspect that they aren't checked at all - for
>evidence of this, look at the latitude and longitude values.  If this is the
>case, it's pretty easy to automate the job.  It's still a lot of email to
>handle, but only a computer needs to look at it.

I just recently received a reminder from the u.usa.ca map coordinator to
send in a new version of my map as my current one was two years old.  I
don't know if this was an automated request, or the coordinator hand
addressed all the requests, but I would assume that since he (or she??) was
updating the entire sequence of u.usa.ca.* maps (about 1.5meg) that it was
an automated request...  so, onto part b......

>
>>If it's a cron job, and the person administering the machine
>>leaves, but the obsolete entry continues to be submitted by
>>cron (the assumption is that the replacement admninistrator is
>>either ignorant about the cron job or the maps, or incompetent),
>>how is the problem solved? 
>
>Automatic submission by cron handles the problem of making the map entry for
>machine <x> die when machine <x> leaves the uucp network - because either the
>machine is no longer executing *at all*, or because it's disconnected and the
>automatically emailed map entry no longer makes it off the machine.  It does
>not *automatically* handle the job of updating the map entries list of sites
>that machine <x> talks to.  I think that this could be done, at least partially,
>by an sed script looking at the /etc/uucp/poll file (for a Sun, at least).
>

A site specific cron job does raise some concerns.  If a specific system
chose to have the system automatically make up an accurate map listing,
then that, if guranteed to be a correct entry, should be possible... but
why have cron send out the map monthly.  If the maps are not updated but 
once every two or three months, then you are adding 200-300% more data then
is needed and wasting bandwidth and system time (esp. at the sites near the
coordinaring site.)

A cron job also could lead to confusion at sites where the sysadmin changes
over (as stated by Bruce), however, if there was a basic standard set 
throughout the UUCP world that had an optional cron tier standard for
compiling the map (if so desired by a particular site) then at least a
new sysadmin would have a data trail to follow.......

The standard I suggest... a simple mail account on every uucp system.
Instead of limiting system accounts to root, postmaster, newsadmin, etc.,
add one more called something like mapper/mapping/uumaper (or whatever.)
That account could be set up to send out the current map for the site to
any person/daemon that mails the account.  All it should take would be a
few simple lines on most UN*X systems.  It should be able to work on
Waffle systems as well with the alias file.  I would assume that UUPC,
FSUUCP, and the other DOS packages can handle this too.  

If a sysadmin then wanted to have cron automate the map creation process,
there is at least a hook there for a new sysadmin to be able to grab onto
and see what is happening.

So?  Do I make sense, or do I speak crazy like?  It sure makes sense to me.

       tweek@netcom.com  tweek@tweekco.uucp  WWIVNet 5@5058  4@5056 
          I'd rather get my cable service from the phone company,
                than my phone service from the cable company.


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