HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: ken@sycraft.com (Ken Richardson)
Newsgroups: news.software.anu-news
Subject: Stack dumps and path header problems
Date: 10 Oct 92 17:09:38 MDT
Organization: SyCraft Software, Colorado Springs CO

I have two items to ask about:

In article <1992Sep30.001133.8@sycraft.com>, ken@sycraft.com (Ken Richardson)
writes:
> I'm running NEWS V6.0-1.  I sure do love the software, but I sure do hate it
> when this happens:  :-)
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> NEWS> set item/hold=*
> <End of Display>
> %SYSTEM-F-OPCDEC, opcode reserved to DIGITAL fault at PC=00008201, PSL=03C00000

[ register dump deleted ]

It sure would be nice to hear if this is a known bug or has a workaround.
Getting no response makes a guy feel so lonely.  :-(

The second item:  the news that I pass on to adjacent sites has sycraft.com in
the path header rather than just sycraft.  All the news is bouncing back
because they've got sycraft in their news.sys file.  I know that they could
change news.sys, but it seems like my system is the one at fault.  Is it
possible to get my system to leave out the .com part?  Here are the logicals
that seem pertinent:

  "NEWS_ADDRESS" = "sycraft.com"
  "NEWS_NODE" = "sycraft"
  "UUCP_DOMAIN_NAME" = "sycraft.com"
  "UUCP_HOST_NAME" = "sycraft"

The manual indicates that NEWS_NODE should control this, but that's apparently
not happening.

Thanks in advance.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Ken Richardson  | SyCraft Software | When wealth is lost, nothing is lost;
 ken@sycraft.com | Colorado Springs | when health is lost, something is lost;
                 | CO, USA          | when character is lost, all is lost.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: news.software.anu-news
Subject: RE: Articles overflow directory limit
From: "G. Del Merritt" <del@GIANT.INTRANET.COM>
Date: 13 Oct 1992 14:32:20 -0400
Reply-To: "G. Del Merritt" <del@GIANT.INTRANET.COM>
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT
X-VMS-Mail-To: UUCP%"imhw400@INDYVAX.IUPUI.EDU", uucp%"ANU-NEWS@VM1.NoDak.EDU"
X-VMS-Mail-CC: DEL

>Date: 13 Oct 1992 10:21:30 -0500
>From: imhw400@INDYVAX.IUPUI.EDU
>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       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...
 
Interesting.  Beware that there are some timing related problems with
the librarian (at least for object modules).  We let DEC know about
these simetime in 4.x, and it's still not "fixed".
 
We do mongo application builds with MMS, and we've tried to optimize
this process through parallelism.  Sometimes we get a message along
the lines of "library locked" and then MMS detects a failure.  DEC's
suggestion is, "put in a check so that you retry on this kind of
failure".  This, sadly, is painful (though doable) in MMS.
 
A downsideteo the LIBRARY approach is that I have some tools that
allow me to spin through the articles easily; they AssUMe that the
files are "flat" ASCII and are thus readily parseable.  I suppose you
could argue that those who do things based on the "undocumented"
internals deserve what they get :-(
 
 When they talk about taxing the rich, they're really talking about
 taxing the working men and women of this country.
                -- President George Bush.
 
Del Merritt     del@IntraNet.com        ccavax!giant!del
IntraNet, Inc., 255 Washington Street, Newton, MA  02158
Voice: 617-527-7020; FAX: 617-527-6779
From: bruce@ais.com (Bruce C. Wright)
Newsgroups: news.software.anu-news
Subject: Re: new News administrator, problem with postinge
Date: 13 Oct 92 16:53:50 GMT
Organization: Applied Information Systems, Chapel Hill, NC

In article <1992Oct12.102751.43783@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu>, sloane@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu (Bob Sloane) writes:
> First off, I cannot recommend using the V6.1beta5. It has serious
> problem with the search command, and serious problem selecting/showing
> newsgroups.  [...]

Speaking of 6.1, what is the current ETA for the non-beta version?

Bruce C. Wright
From: jeh@cmkrnl.com
Newsgroups: news.software.anu-news
Subject: Re: Confused by distributions...
Date: 12 Oct 92 18:27:03 PDT
Organization: Kernel Mode Consulting, San Diego, CA

In article <1992Oct9.172214.3598@memstvx1.memst.edu>, flowers@memstvx1.memst.edu (Harry Flowers) writes:
> In article <1992Oct8.122428.716@cmkrnl.com>, jeh@cmkrnl.com writes:
>> With NEWS 6.1, NEWS.DISTRIBUTION is obsolete; its functions are
>> available through syntax in the NEWS.SYS entries.  
> 
> I don't see anything different in the syntax of the lines in NEWS.SYS in
> V6.1B5.  Is there another field, as yet undocumented?
> 
> As to why I'm still using a NEWS.DISTRIBUTION file, some of my news
> neighbors are also neighbors with each other, and exchange news faster
> than with my site.  So, anything I get from either of the neighbors
> just wastes time and resources offering it to the other site.  I use
> NEWS.DISTRIBUTION to avoid sending IHAVE messages for news between
> adjacent sites through our system.

From an article by Bob Sloane:

> Newsgroups: news.software.anu-news
> Subject: Re: Help with news.distribution?
> Message-ID: <1991Dec2.105420.36038@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu>
> From: sloane@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu (Bob Sloane)
> Date: 2 Dec 91 10:54:20 CST
> 
> As of V6.0(-??) the NEWS.DISTRIBUTION file is obsolete. Its functionality has
> been replace by the ability to exclude systems in the NEWS.SYS file using the
> construct: 
> 
> remote/system1,system2:
> 
> in NEWS.SYS. The above says to send accepted articles to the system
> remote, unless they have passed through system1 or system2.

[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:...
> 
> and you can get rid of your NEWS.DISTRIBUTION file.  Of course, the
> system names used in NEWS.SYS must match exactly what that system puts
> in the Path: header.
> -- 
> 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 

	--- 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
Newsgroups: news.software.anu-news
Subject: NNTP Server causing PGFIPLHI crashes.
From: kacovert@miavx1.acs.muohio.edu
Date: 12 Oct 92 15:11:26 -0500
Organization: Miami University Academic Computer Service"

We seem to be experiencing a problem with the NNTP Server in ANU NEWS.  Our VAX
6000-410 keeps crashing with a PGFIPLHI, Pagefault with IPL too high error with
the current process being the NNTP Server.  We're running VMS 5.4-3 and ANU
NEWS 6.0-3.  We've tried both UCX 1.3A and UCX 2.0 and both experience the same
problem.  We've tried the NNTP Server that comes with ANU NEWS 6.0-3 and 6.1b5. 
Nothing that we change seems to make a difference.

Has anyone else seen this problem or does anyone have any other things to try
to get this working?

Any help would be appreciated.

                                     Kent Covert
                                     Academic Computer Service
                                     Miami University, Oxford, OH
                                     kacovert@miavx1.acs.muohio.edu  (internet)
                                     kacovert@miavx1                 (bitnet)
Newsgroups: news.software.anu-news
From: fenner@postscript.cs.psu.edu (Bill Fenner)
Subject: Re: Articles overflow directory limit
Organization: Penn State Computer Science
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 20:00:43 GMT

In article <1992Oct13.102130.210@indyvax.iupui.edu> imhw400@indyvax.iupui.edu writes:
|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.

Well, it's kind of silly to have a directory with one file in it.  How about
NEWS_DEVICE:[all.but.last]COMPONENT.TLB, so, for example, the directory
NEWS_DEVICE:[news.software] would have READERS.TLB, B.TLB, ANU-NEWS.TLB, etc.

  Bill
From: sloane@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu (Bob Sloane)
Newsgroups: news.software.anu-news
Subject: Re: Problems using fastload with skim
Date: 12 Oct 92 10:18:59 CDT
Organization: University of Kansas Academic Computing Services

In article <1992Oct9.111107.989@dragon.com>,
 cts@dragon.com (Charles T. Smith, Jr.) writes:
> We currently carry about 1,500 newsgroups;  running ANU News 6.03.  The
> amount of time news takes cranking up is becoming a problem, especally
> for the batch jobs that add the entries.  My feeds already send very
> large batches; I don't see getting a lot out of appending batches together
> as some users have outlined. 

Before starting up NEWS do:

$ DEFINE NEWSRC NL:

> How much does 6.1 improve things performance wise?  And where do I find
> the lasest version?

In my experience, V6.1 can add articles about 3.5 times as fast as
V6.03.  I used to add about 1000 articles per hour. With V6.1 I can
process about 3500 per hour. If your problems are disk throughput,
then V6.1 will probably help. If you are CPU bound, then I don't know
if it will help or not.
-- 
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: jonathan@ucsvc.ucs.unimelb.edu.au
Newsgroups: news.software.anu-news
Subject: NEWSSKIM_ALT.COM - New version in 7 VMS_SHARE parts.
Date: 15 Oct 92 03:05:24 GMT
Organization: The University of Melbourne

Several days ago I posted the following to newsgroups news.software.anu-news and
vmsnet.sources, and the corresponding VMS_SHARE files to vmsnet.sources.  I'm
not sure what has happened to the items since then (after 4 days - am I being
too impatient ?).  So, I thought I'd post them again directly to
news.software.anu-news to avoid the moderation step of vmsnet.sources (not to
avoid moderation, rather, in case there is a news problem associated with
items reaching the moderator ???).  Anyway, I hope the package is of interest
and use to some ANU-NEWS users.  My apologies if the original posting eventually
turns up.

Jonathan.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As the author of the original NEWSSKIM_ALT.COM, I felt that users might want the
latest version, given that the version distributed with ANU-NEWS is over 3 years
old.  I have posted a 7-part VMS_SHARE package of NEWSSKIM_ALT.COM.  Included
below is the README.TXT file from that package.

If it is considered generally to be an improvement on the current offering,
perhaps Geoff might replace the old with the new in future distributions?


                          NEWS_ROOT:NEWSSKIM_ALT.COM
                          --------------------------

This VMS_SHARE package contains the latest version of

  NEWS_ROOT:NEWSSKIM_ALT.COM

This is an alternative News_Skim procedure provided with ANU-NEWS.

This package also contains some supporting files:

  LIB_DAY.PAS and LIB_DAY.EXE	! Can be used "as is".

  SETUSER.MAR			! MUST be modified and assembled locally.

  FORCEX.CLD, FORCEX.EXE, FORCEX.HLP and FORCEX.MAR	! Can be used "as is".

The supporting files are useful in, but not essential to, the running of
NEWSSKIM_ALT.COM.  Only minor changes to the procedure may be required if
the supporting programs are not used.  The supporting files are (hopefully)
self-explanatory.

Comments, criticisms, bug-fixes, improvements, etc. are always welcome.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jonathan Ridler,                     Telephone:  +61 3 344 7994
Information Technology Services,     Fax:        +61 3 347 4803
The University of Melbourne,         Internet: jonathan@ucsvc.its.unimelb.edu.au
Parkville, Vic., AUSTRALIA, 3052.    PSI:      050523343000305::jonathan
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: sloane@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu (Bob Sloane)
Newsgroups: news.software.anu-news
Subject: Re: Stack dumps and path header problems
Date: 12 Oct 92 10:31:28 CDT
Organization: University of Kansas Academic Computing Services

In <1992Oct10.170938.17@sycraft.com>, ken@sycraft.com (Ken Richardson) writes:
> It sure would be nice to hear if this is a known bug or has a workaround.
> Getting no response makes a guy feel so lonely.  :-(

V6.01 is so old that I can't recall if this is a known bug or not. It
certainly doesn't happen in V6.0-3, the current productional version.

> The second item: the news that I pass on to adjacent sites has sycraft.com in
> the path header rather than just sycraft.

Upgrade to V6.0-3 and use the NEWS_PATHNAME logical. It does what you
want it to.  Personally, I would recommend using your FQDN in the
use it.
-- 
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: jeh@cmkrnl.com
Newsgroups: news.software.anu-news
Subject: Re: Articles overflow directory limit
Date: 11 Oct 92 15:08:34 PDT
Organization: Kernel Mode Consulting, San Diego, CA

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.  

As others have pointed out, VMS has no such limit.  

I have one more thing to add to the other responses to this thread: Directories
on VMS must be contiguous.  When VMS needs to extend a directory it asks for a
single extent, big enough to hold the original directory plus the size
increment, and then the contents of the old directory are copied to the new
one.  So naturally if you have a directory that's larger than any of the pieces
of free space on the disk, VMS will be unable to extend the directory. 

What this points to is the need for a redesign of the news data base.  

	--- 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
From: mark@infocomm.com
Newsgroups: news.software.anu-news
Subject: Re: Problems using fastload with skim
Date: 13 Oct 92 13:21:17 PDT
Organization: INFO COMM - Computer Consulting, Redwood City, Ca

In article <1992Oct12.101859.43781@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu>, sloane@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu (Bob Sloane) writes:
> In article <1992Oct9.111107.989@dragon.com>,
>  cts@dragon.com (Charles T. Smith, Jr.) writes:
>> We currently carry about 1,500 newsgroups;  running ANU News 6.03.  The
>> amount of time news takes cranking up is becoming a problem, especally
>> for the batch jobs that add the entries.  My feeds already send very
>> large batches; I don't see getting a lot out of appending batches together
>> as some users have outlined. 
> 
> Before starting up NEWS do:
> 
> $ DEFINE NEWSRC NL:
> 
>> How much does 6.1 improve things performance wise?  And where do I find
>> the lasest version?
> 
> In my experience, V6.1 can add articles about 3.5 times as fast as
> V6.03.  I used to add about 1000 articles per hour. With V6.1 I can
> process about 3500 per hour. If your problems are disk throughput,
> then V6.1 will probably help. If you are CPU bound, then I don't know
> if it will help or not.
> -- 
> 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 

When implementing the processing methods that are employed during adding of
batches for V6.1, I explored many avenues to increase it's performance.  While
most of the gains that are realized are from substantial reduction in I/O load,
the CPU load has also gone down significantly.  This might not be immediately
aparrent since ADD processing that used to be I/O bound, now may actually be
CPU bound due to more efficient I/O, but the total CPU cycles to perform the
add task has also been reduced.  I think the reduction is about 25%, but this
varies wildly depending on how many downstream sites you feed.

--
Mark Pizzolato - INFO COMM Computer Consulting, Redwood City, Ca
PHONE:	(415)369-9366	UUCP:  decwrl!infopiz!mark or uunet!lupine!infopiz!mark
DOMAIN:	mark@infocomm.com
From: sloane@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu (Bob Sloane)
Newsgroups: news.software.anu-news
Subject: Re: news.items corrupted
Date: 15 Oct 92 10:07:53 CDT
Organization: University of Kansas Academic Computing Services

In article <1992Oct14.154528.1073@vax1.utulsa.edu>,
 newsmgr@vax1.utulsa.edu (Beelzebub) writes:
> Our NEWS device crashed over the weekend right in the middle of running
> NEWSPACK.  As a result, my news.items file was corrupted.  When NEWSSKIM
> came on, it deleted EVERYTHING.  We have a full backup on Oct 10, 1992,
> which I have restored.  The problem:  An incremental caught anything after
> Oct 10, but if I restore this new news.items file, the same calamity will
> occur.  Is there any easy way to restore all the items from the
> incremental?  The only solution I can think of is using ADD BATCH, which
> is long and time consuming.

Well, you could restore the device and run rebuild_item_file to
rebuild the item file. I would suggest that you not worry about it.
Losing a couple of days worth of news isn't really that big a deal.
-- 
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: Checkgroups?
From: Doug Saunders <CC007001@WVNVMS.BITNET>
Date: 14 Oct 1992 14:00:57 -0400
Reply-To: Doug Saunders <CC007001@WVNVMS.BITNET>
X-VMS-To: IN%"anu-news@ndsuvm1.bitnet"
X-VMS-Cc: CC007001
MIME-version: 1.0
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT

I'm sure this has been asked on here before, but I can not find the
answer to my question in the documentation.
 
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?
 
Doug Saunders
cc007001@wvnvms.wvnet.edu
From: kenc@sol.acs.unt.edu (Ken Corey - Operator)
Newsgroups: news.software.anu-news
Subject: Re: set profile/fastload
Date: 8 Oct 92 21:32:22 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: University of North Texas

sloane@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu (Bob Sloane) writes:

>In article <1992Oct7.210009.3902@dunix.drake.edu>,
> ta2321s@dunix.drake.edu (Terry Asher) writes:
>> ... Why is set profile/fastload undocumented?

>Fastload is undocumented because it doesn work, as you found out.
>-- 
>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 

Bob, you might be interested:

I've got fastload working just fine here.  There's a
trick, though, you gotta pick a number in the patch below that is larger
than the number of groups you have...else, *crack* and it's broken again.

_______________________________________________________________
************
File HSC1$DUA1:[ANU61B.NEWS_SRC]NEWSUTILITY.C;493
 1955   /*
 1956     num_grps = ga[0]->grp_count;
 1957   */
 1958     num_grps = 3000;
 1959     c$cks(smg$create_virtual_display(c$rfi(num_grps + 40),c$ac(devcol),&grp_vd,0,0,0));
******
File HSC1$DUA1:[ANU61B.NEWS_SRC]NEWSUTILITY.C;492
 1955     num_grps = ga[0]->grp_count;
 1956     c$cks(smg$create_virtual_display(c$rfi(num_grps + 40),c$ac(devcol),&grp_vd,0,0,0));
************

Number of difference sections found: 1
Number of difference records found: 4

DIFFERENCES /IGNORE=()/MERGED=1-
    HSC1$DUA1:[ANU61B.NEWS_SRC]NEWSUTILITY.C;493-
    HSC1$DUA1:[ANU61B.NEWS_SRC]NEWSUTILITY.C;492
_______________________________________________________________

Have fun.

-Ken
From: sloane@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu (Bob Sloane)
Newsgroups: news.software.anu-news
Subject: Re: new News administrator, problem with posting
Date: 12 Oct 92 10:27:51 CDT
Organization: University of Kansas Academic Computing Services

In article <00961DB9.32924380.11960@GTEWD>, RON WELKER <welker@GTEWD.MTV.GSC.GTE.COM> writes:
> I finally got ANU-NEWS running (although I picked up the BETA-5 version
> to do it), and have a newsfeed. The news is coming in and going into the
> newsgroups fine, but when I try to post anything, it only shows up on
> my system. I'm running VMS V5.5-1, UCX V2.0 and MX V3.1-C. They all seem
> to work fine, mail is sent and received via MX with no problem. In the
> file NEWS_MANAGER:NEWS_ADDRESS.CNF file, I only had one line:
> *               mx%"\001@\002"

This doesn't make any sense.  The "\001" tells news to put whatever
matched the first "*" here, and the "\002" is replaced by whatever
matched the second "*". Since you only have one "*" in your pattern,
I can't predict what will happen. You probably want something like:

*@*    MX%"\001@\002"
*      \001

This doesn't have anything to do with your posting problems, however.

First off, I cannot recommend using the V6.1beta5. It has serious
problem with the search command, and serious problem selecting/showing
newsgroups.  The search command only works if you specify /NEWSG= on
the command line. I have had problems with V6.1beta4 and beta5
skipping registered groups when doing read/new/follow. In particular,
it refuses to read the group comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d, even though it is
registered. Show newsgroup has problems if the newsgroups are not in
alpha order in your NEWSRC file.

The problem with with articles not getting out is most likely caused by
problems in your NEWS.SYS file.  Without seeing what you have there, I
can't be more specific.
-- 
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