HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: barrett@daisy.ee.und.ac.za (Alan P Barrett)
Newsgroups: news.software.b
Subject: Re: C News or INN for a UUCP site?
Date: 29 Sep 92 12:04:51 GMT
Article-I.D.: daisy.1a92n3INNdg5
Organization: Dept. Elec. Eng., Univ. Natal, Durban, S. Africa
NNTP-Posting-Host: daisy.ee.und.ac.za

In article <1992Sep28.161054.21902@meaddata.com>,
dem@meaddata.com (David Myers) writes:
>    UUCP batching with INN is (understandably) less easy to administer
> than that for C News.

Not if you use newsxd.  Writing a newsxd.conf file is about as much work
as writing a C News batchparms file (one line per site, after overheads).

--apb (Alan Barrett)
Newsgroups: news.software.b,news.software.nn
From: dietrich@dxsw01.cern.ch (Dietrich Wiegandt)
Subject: Re: Article cross-posted to moderated group 'escapes'.
Reply-To: dietrich@dxcern.cern.ch
Organization: CERN European Lab for Particle Physics
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 10:17:08 GMT

In <BvnMyA.BCA@zoo.toronto.edu> henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes:

>In article <1992Oct5.091933.6559@dxcern.cern.ch> dietrich@dxcern.cern.ch writes:
>>this may be a well known feature of Cnews (1991 version including
>>patch of 22-Dec-1991).
>>
>>When a news article is posted to several news groups including a moderated
>>one, it is NOT mailed to the moderator of that news group, but simply
>>distributed the usual way...

>Your system is misconfigured.  C News does *not* do this.

>Most probably, your system does not know that the group in question is
>moderated, even if you do.  The fourth field of the /usr/lib/news/active
>line for it should be "m", not "y".

>On seriously-old C Newses, there is a bug that can cause this:  if the user,
>or the posting software, incorrectly puts blanks after commas in the
>Newsgroups line, old C Newses can misunderstand this and overlook the
>presence of a moderated group.  I'm pretty sure that was fixed before
>Dec 1991, though.
>-- 
>There is nothing wrong with making      | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
>mistakes, but... make *new* ones. -D.Sim|  henry@zoo.toronto.edu  utzoo!henry

Apologies to the authors of C News - I have been beating the wrong horse,
because my analysis of what had happened was wrong. (Maybe I have just
made a *new* mistake :-).

Here are the facts again:

A news article was posted at dxcern to several groups, one of which was,
according to the moderator's complaint, a moderated group, and the
posting did not generate any mail from dxcern to the moderator, but
from some other host the article passed through.

Looking at the original article in the non-moderated groups it was
posted to I realized that it was posted as well to a group that no longer
existed and NOT to the moderated group in question. So it seems that
the host generating the mail to the moderator had aliased the defunct
group to the moderated group.

The fact that the article contained a defunct group in its Newsgroups:
line is due to the fact that the GROUPS file of nn is not modified
when a newsgroup is deleted and nnpost rejects only posts to newsgroups
not in the GROUPS file.

It seems that some maintenance of the nn GROUPS file is required from
time to time. Are there any tools available for this?

Dietrich Wiegandt
CERN CN Division
CH-1211 Geneve 23
Switzerland
From: xcea@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu (Chad Adams)
Subject: bfrclose couldn't find an open descriptor to close
Organization: Educational Computing Network
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 14:16:14 GMT

Two of my feed sites have been getting these error messages.  The only
thing I can think of that I have changed is I put in the performance
releace of c-news.  Has anyone else seen these errors or know what to
do about them?

Sep 29 01:06:59 psuvax1 nntpxmit[28004]: uxa.ecn.bgu.edu xfer: explode: bfrclose couldn't find an open descriptor to close
Sep 29 01:20:10 psuvax1 nntpxmit[28535]: uxa.ecn.bgu.edu xfer: explode: bfrclose couldn't find an open descriptor to close
Oct  1 17:03:07 mp nntpxmit[31761]: uxa.ecn.bgu.edu. xfer: explode: bfrclose couldn't find an open descriptor to close
Oct  1 17:32:38 mp nntpxmit[15845]: uxa.ecn.bgu.edu. xfer: explode: bfrclose couldn't find an open descriptor to close
Oct  1 18:02:07 mp nntpxmit[21285]: uxa.ecn.bgu.edu. xfer: explode: bfrclose couldn't find an open descriptor to close
Oct  1 18:31:29 mp nntpxmit[22933]: uxa.ecn.bgu.edu. xfer: explode: bfrclose couldn't find an open descriptor to close
Oct  1 18:54:14 mp nntpxmit[28790]: uxa.ecn.bgu.edu. xfer: explode: bfrclose couldn't find an open descriptor to close
Oct  1 19:42:09 mp nntpxmit[9566]: uxa.ecn.bgu.edu. xfer: explode: bfrclose couldn't find an open descriptor to close
Oct  1 20:04:40 mp nntpxmit[18373]: uxa.ecn.bgu.edu. xfer: explode: bfrclose couldn't find an open descriptor to close
Oct  1 22:37:53 mp nntpxmit[14975]: uxa.ecn.bgu.edu. xfer: explode: bfrclose couldn't find an open descriptor to close
Oct  1 23:27:41 mp nntpxmit[17072]: uxa.ecn.bgu.edu. xfer: explode: bfrclose couldn't find an open descriptor to close

Chad Adams
-- 
Chad Adams              __               Educational Computing Network
Systems Programmer     /  ) /         /  University Park, IL  USA
1-708-534-0200        /    /_  __, __/   ECN, networking in IL since 1975
c-adams@bgu.edu      (__/ / /_/_/_(_/_   "Wherever you go, there we are."
Newsgroups: news.software.b
From: stoodt@cis.umassd.edu (Michael Stoodt)
Subject: Re: Article cross-posted to moderated group 'escapes'.
Keywords: cross-posting, moderated group
Organization: University of Massachusetts Dartmouth
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 14:47:30 GMT

In <1992Oct5.091933.6559@dxcern.cern.ch> dietrich@dxcern.cern.ch (Dietrich Wiegandt) writes:

>When a news article is posted to several news groups including a moderated
>one, it is NOT mailed to the moderator of that news group, but simply
>distributed the usual way.  The Newsgroups: line still contains the
>moderated news group, and some system the article passes through may
>realize that this group is in fact moderated and therefore sends the
>article to the moderator.  When the moderator receives this mail he sees
>that mail and news do not come from the same system and hence asks the
>news administrator at the site where the article was posted to fix the problem.

I see in a later message you've found the reason for this situation;
but another way this kind of problem might arise is if an article is
crossposted to _two_ moderated groups (perhaps among others).  One
moderator approves it, not noticing the other moderated group, and by
magic it appears in the second group without that moderator's
approval...  Since current news software doesn't tend to care who
approves an article, the only way to prevent this is for moderators to
be diligent and to cooperate with each other (not being a moderator, I
don't know how this works, but I assume it's something like mail from
one moderator to the other saying "I've approved this; if you don't,
then post it to the other groups including mine anyway...").
-- 
Michael A Stoodt  [MaS]      |        mumble mumble disclaimer mumble...
stoodt@cis.umassd.edu        | "Will the last person to leave the planet
Comp&InfoSci, UMassDartmouth |  please turn off the sun?" - Mike Resnick
From: rsalz@rodan.UU.NET (Rich Salz)
Newsgroups: news.software.b
Subject: Re: C News or INN for a UUCP site?
Date: 28 Sep 1992 13:48:02 -0400
Organization: UUNET Technologies Inc, Falls Church, VA
NNTP-Posting-Host: rodan.uu.net

In <1992Sep28.161054.21902@meaddata.com> dem@meaddata.com (David Myers) writes:
>   I have a test INN system up and running, and it looks quite good.
Gee, thanks!  Glad you like what you've seen.  There are a few people
running INN on UUCP-only machines, and they like it.

>   The standard NNTP distribution lets you have the server time out
>after some period of inactivity. ... 
>  I browsed the nnrpd code, and I didn't notice such a
>timeout feature ...
Most definitely.  The READline routine takes three parameters, and the
third is called "timeout" -- there's a clue. ;-)  Anyhow there are two
timeout config variables:
    ##  NNRP exits if inactive this long (seconds).
    #### =()<CLIENT_TIMEOUT		@<CLIENT_TIMEOUT>@>()=
    CLIENT_TIMEOUT		(2 * 60 * 60)
Also if a client starts a POST command then the default timeout comes
into effect:
    #### =()<DEFAULT_TIMEOUT		@<DEFAULT_TIMEOUT>@>()=
    DEFAULT_TIMEOUT		300

>   UUCP batching with INN is (understandably) less easy to administer
>than that for C News.   ...
>It would be nicer to have something like batchparms (batch.ctl?).  Is
>anyone planning on doing this?
>anyone using the C News batching subsystem with INN?
<Christophe.Wolfhugel@grasp1.univ-lyon1.fr> recently posted his
"sendbatches" that uses the C News viarnews, viaemail, etc., scripts.
It's pretty nice.  You can also get it from his machine as
pub/unix/news/inn/contrib/sendbatches.tar.Z; those without FTP could try
writing to him.

I am beginning to think about better UUCP handling -- Chris's stuff is
definitely a good start (send-uucp is a moderate hack that works for up to
a "few" feeds.)
	/r$
Newsgroups: news.software.b,comp.sys.3b1
From: jwa@yog-sothoth.dcrt.nih.gov (James W. Adams)
Subject: Re: error compiling tin 1.1p6 on a 3B1 with stock compiler
Keywords: tin 3B1 unixpc 3b1 att7300
Organization: National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1992 20:14:54 GMT

In article <1992Sep22.015507.28891@cfctech.cfc.com> kevin@cfctech.cfc.com (Kevin Darcy) writes:
>In article <Buxwyn.C7C@hico2.westmark.com> query@hico2.westmark.com writes:
>>Well, this project didn't last long:
>>
>>Compiling for hico2 (System V...)
>>Assembler: active.c
>>aline 1648	: branch offset is too remote
>>*** Error code 1
>>Stop.
>>I'm not even sure what to try to track down in the original code. *sigh*
>>Anybody know what this means?
>
>The stock 3B1 optimizer and stock assembler sometimes conflict with each
>other, although thankfully it's rather rare. The optimizer miscalculates
>some address arithmetic, and throws in an opcode for an illegal short branch,
>and the assembler justifiably barfs on it. I've seen the same syndrome when 
>trying to compile NetHack 3.0 on a 3B1.
>[...]

If I recall correctly, the stock 3B1 assembler had an option to force
mid/longjmp optimization.  This might help.  As I no longer have access
to a 7300, I can only refer you to the as(1) man pages and also recommend
gcc/gas as another option.

--
        James W. Adams   --   NIH Scientific Computing Resource Center
        Building 12A, Room 1050              phone: (301) 402-3488
        National Institutes of Health        uucp: uunet!nih-csl!jwa
        Bethesda, MD 20892                   Internet: jwa@alw.nih.gov
From: Christophe.Wolfhugel@grasp.insa-lyon.fr (Christophe Wolfhugel)
Newsgroups: news.software.b
Subject: Re: C News or INN for a UUCP site?
Date: 28 Sep 1992 20:52:10 +0200
Organization: INSA Informatique, Lyon, France
NNTP-Posting-Host: grasp1.univ-lyon1.fr

In article <1a7ggiINNis7@rodan.UU.NET> rsalz@rodan.UU.NET (Rich Salz) writes:
><Christophe.Wolfhugel@grasp1.univ-lyon1.fr> recently posted his
>"sendbatches" that uses the C News viarnews, viaemail, etc., scripts.
>It's pretty nice.  You can also get it from his machine as
>pub/unix/news/inn/contrib/sendbatches.tar.Z; those without FTP could try
>writing to him.

I just setup a distribution via email.  To get it:

echo "get inn sendbatches.uue" | mail listserv@grasp1.univ-lyon1.fr

(the command must not be in the subject line).

>I am beginning to think about better UUCP handling
                                      ^^^^
Batches Rich, batches... importance should be given at openness
to other transports. Some people use batches with non UUCP.

-- 
Christophe Wolfhugel    |    Email: Christophe.Wolfhugel@grasp.insa-lyon.fr
   "No keyboard, press F1 to continue"
Xref: sparky news.software.b:3093 news.software.nntp:1263
From: rsalz@rodan.UU.NET (Rich Salz)
Newsgroups: news.software.b,news.software.nntp
Subject: Re: bfrclose couldn't find an open descriptor to close
Date: 5 Oct 1992 11:08:32 -0400
Organization: UUNET Technologies Inc, Falls Church, VA
NNTP-Posting-Host: rodan.uu.net

In <BvnKxp.BoG@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu> xcea@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu (Chad Adams) writes:
>  Our users have desided that
>they will die if they can not post to a newsgroup in a live demo and
>have it show up there in under a minute.
You might prefer the performance characteristics of INN.  One of them is
synchronous postings:  when inews returns, your article has been written
to the spool directory.  It also seems to be faster and more efficient
then the standard C News+NNTP Reference Implementation combination.
	/r$
Xref: sparky news.software.b:3092 news.software.nntp:1262
From: xcea@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu (Chad Adams)
Newsgroups: news.software.b,news.software.nntp
Subject: Re: bfrclose couldn't find an open descriptor to close
Date: 5 Oct 92 14:44:12 GMT
Organization: Educational Computing Network

In article <BvKGHw.LFG@zoo.toronto.edu> henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes:
>In article <BvIK7q.11u@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu> xcea@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu (Chad Adams) writes:
>>I was thinking that real frequent running of newsrun (cound be more
>>then one at once) cound be doing it...
>
>Newsrun does internal locking to make sure only one copy is running at once.
>
>Incidentally, there really isn't a lot of reason to have a perl program as
>a front end just to decide whether it's worth running newsrun.  Newsrun
>itself will decide whether there's anything for it to do quite quickly
>and fairly efficiently (it surprised me, in fact, how quickly it decides
>that there's no work to do).
>-- 
>There is nothing wrong with making      | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
>mistakes, but... make *new* ones. -D.Sim|  henry@zoo.toronto.edu  utzoo!henry

We check so offten (every 30 sec) I think it is a real savings to have
the perl script run all day and just do the test every 30 sec instead of
starting a shell each time to do newsrun.  Our users have desided that
they will die if they can not post to a newsgroup in a live demo and
have it show up there in under a minute.

I got a new error message:
Oct  4 19:15:44 mp nntpxmit[3754]: uxa.ecn.bgu.edu. xfer: explode: had to
close a descriptor to reuse it; this should not happen!

And more of the old ones:
Oct  4 19:40:26 mp nntpxmit[13327]: uxa.ecn.bgu.edu. xfer: explode: bfrclose
couldn't find an open descriptor to close
Oct  4 19:50:12 mp nntpxmit[5753]: uxa.ecn.bgu.edu. xfer: explode: bfrclose
couldn't find an open descriptor to close

Chad Adams
-- 
Chad Adams              __               Educational Computing Network
Systems Programmer     /  ) /         /  University Park, IL  USA
1-708-534-0200        /    /_  __, __/   ECN, networking in IL since 1975
c-adams@bgu.edu      (__/ / /_/_/_(_/_   "Wherever you go, there we are."
Newsgroups: news.software.b
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: cnews perf. release doesn't quite like SunOS 4.1.3... I think.
Date: Sat, 3 Oct 1992 22:19:11 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology

In article <1992Oct3.010738.29977@panix.com> alexis@panix.com (Alexis Rosen) writes:
>... I just commented out the declaration of umask in libc and
>all seemed well. Is this the correct response?

Yes.  Geoff really shouldn't have been declaring umask() at all; it aids
checking, but the only safe and portable way to declare things like that
is to use the system include files (and hope they actually do declare
everything you need).

>Also, various modules produced complaints about "static declaration for xxx
>follows non-static". I didn't bother looking into this. Is there a problem?

Probably not, although this is another dubious programming practice that
we need to spend some time stamping out.

>Last question: I remember seeing a couple of fixes for the perf release, but
>I don't think they were included in the cnews.sh.Z that I picked up...

Check in uunet's news/cnews directory.
-- 
There is nothing wrong with making      | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
mistakes, but... make *new* ones. -D.Sim|  henry@zoo.toronto.edu  utzoo!henry
Newsgroups: news.software.b
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: More on "cancel" setup
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1992 15:22:30 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology

In article <1992Sep30.202215.5321@pony.Ingres.COM> sergio@Ingres.COM (Sergio L Aponte) writes:
>	1) I don't want to have a control group.

Sorry, this is non-negotiable.  The "control" and "junk" pseudo-groups are
required for proper functioning of the news system.  They aren't optional.
-- 
There is nothing wrong with making      | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
mistakes, but... make *new* ones. -D.Sim|  henry@zoo.toronto.edu  utzoo!henry
Newsgroups: news.software.b
From: geoff@world.std.com (Geoff Collyer)
Subject: Re: c news performance release log file
Organization: Software Tool & Die Netnews Research Center
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 22:19:11 GMT

Larry Snyder:
>I'm only getting whole time (ie: hours:minutes:seconds:000 <-
>followed by 3 zeros for fraction of a second) in my cnews log
>file.  How do I get this to correctly display fraction of
>a second instead of 000?

Upgrade away from System V.  Alternately, if you have some means of
getting correct sub-second time resolution from your system somehow,
modify libusg/ftime.c (note that times() probably won't suffice; unless
your vendor has changed it, times() isn't guaranteed to roll over to a new
second when time() does).
-- 
Geoff Collyer				world!geoff, world.std.com!geoff

open, a. admitting visitors or customers; not yet settled or decided (OPD)
Newsgroups: news.software.b,news.software.nntp
From: geoff@world.std.com (Geoff Collyer)
Subject: Re: bfrclose couldn't find an open descriptor to close
Organization: The World @ Software Tool & Die
	<BvnKxp.BoG@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu> <1aplpgINNfjr@rodan.UU.NET>
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 17:01:26 GMT

Rich Salz:
>It also seems to be faster and more efficient then the standard C
>News+NNTP Reference Implementation combination.

That's not surprising; the NNTP reference implementation is terribly
inefficient.  We're going to do something about this.  Please don't call
the combination of C News and the NNTP reference implementation
``standard''; it's an historical accident that will be fixed.
-- 
Geoff Collyer				world!geoff, world.std.com!geoff
``closed is Open'' - not George Orwell on ``Open'' Systems
open, a. admitting visitors or customers; not yet settled or decided (OPD)
``and it's Open For Business like a cheap bordello'' - Bruce Cockburn
Xref: sparky news.software.b:3101 news.software.nntp:1272
From: jmaynard@oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu (Jay Maynard)
Newsgroups: news.software.b,news.software.nntp
Subject: Re: bfrclose couldn't find an open descriptor to close
Date: 6 Oct 1992 03:20:19 GMT
Followup-To: news.software.b
Organization: UT Health Science Center Houston

In article <CKD.92Oct5211259@loiosh.eff.org> ckd@eff.org (Christopher Davis) writes:
>There is a comment above it.  The comment reads "ckd is insane".
>The comment is correct.

We all knew that; this is merely additional proof. :-)
-- 
Jay Maynard, EMT-P, K5ZC, PP-ASEL | Never ascribe to malice that which can
jmaynard@oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu      | adequately be explained by stupidity.
    Vote for a REAL change on 3 November: Throw out the check-bouncing,
  tax-and-spend Democrat Congress! (obviously, not an opinion of UTHSCH)
Newsgroups: news.software.b,news.software.nntp
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: bfrclose couldn't find an open descriptor to close
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 15:23:12 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology

In article <BvnKxp.BoG@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu> xcea@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu (Chad Adams) writes:
>We check so offten (every 30 sec) I think it is a real savings to have
>the perl script run all day and just do the test every 30 sec instead of
>starting a shell each time to do newsrun.  Our users have desided that
>they will die if they can not post to a newsgroup in a live demo and
>have it show up there in under a minute.

Hmm, if I had users that frenetic I'd be tempted to just switch off the
every-30-second polling and take a month's vacation.  By the time I got
back, they'd either have died or figured out that it doesn't matter
quite that much. :-)

However, agreed, if your users are that maniacal about instantaneous
results and can't be talked out of it, running newsrun every 30 seconds
is not a good solution.

I should probably note, at this point, that we *do* concede that polling
is a distasteful approach.  For relatively uncommon events, polling is
stupid:  you really want to have the source of the event prod the event-
handling machinery to wake up and process it.  The problem is that it's
so damnably hard to do in a portable way.  Switching to polling wiped
out a terrible tangle of portability problems in one fell swoop... and
most users, once they get used to the idea, don't really care whether
there's a few minutes' delay in article posting.
-- 
There is nothing wrong with making      | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
mistakes, but... make *new* ones. -D.Sim|  henry@zoo.toronto.edu  utzoo!henry
From: clayh@uum1.mn.org (Clayton Haapala)
Newsgroups: news.software.b
Subject: Message-ID munging under Xenix
Summary: remove stripinvis if running Xenix if MessageID problem
Date: 6 Oct 92 23:18:54 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: UNIX Users of Minnesota

A pointer into known problems:

  Sites with the SysV tr need to execute this before building C News:

  rm inject/stripinvis

from several kind souls who emailed me fixed it all up.  Maybe I just wasn't
thinking of Xenix as "SysV".... :-) when I looked at that.

Thanks to all who replied!
-- 
Clayton Haapala (clayh@uum1.mn.org)
Assistant Mail Admin for MN.Org
Newsgroups: news.software.b
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Article cross-posted to moderated group 'escapes'.
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 15:27:45 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology

In article <1992Oct5.091933.6559@dxcern.cern.ch> dietrich@dxcern.cern.ch writes:
>this may be a well known feature of Cnews (1991 version including
>patch of 22-Dec-1991).
>
>When a news article is posted to several news groups including a moderated
>one, it is NOT mailed to the moderator of that news group, but simply
>distributed the usual way...

Your system is misconfigured.  C News does *not* do this.

Most probably, your system does not know that the group in question is
moderated, even if you do.  The fourth field of the /usr/lib/news/active
line for it should be "m", not "y".

On seriously-old C Newses, there is a bug that can cause this:  if the user,
or the posting software, incorrectly puts blanks after commas in the
Newsgroups line, old C Newses can misunderstand this and overlook the
presence of a moderated group.  I'm pretty sure that was fixed before
Dec 1991, though.
-- 
There is nothing wrong with making      | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
mistakes, but... make *new* ones. -D.Sim|  henry@zoo.toronto.edu  utzoo!henry
Newsgroups: news.software.b