From: ADVAX::"mcnc!VM1.NoDak.EDU!gih900%SAO.AARNET.EDU.AU" 14-JUN-1990 02:12:02.58 To: Multiple recipients of list ANU-NEWS CC: Subj: Re: news.sys & news.distrubtion Received: by ADVAX.DECnet (utk-mail11 v1.5) ; Thu, 14 Jun 90 02:12:20 EDT Received: from mcnc by ge-dab.GE.COM (5.61/GE-DAB 1.12) with UUCP id AA23582 for everhart; Thu, 14 Jun 90 02:12:10 -0400 Received: from VM1.NoDak.EDU by mcnc.mcnc.org (5.59/MCNC/5-16-88) id AA25461; Thu, 14 Jun 90 00:54:34 EDT Message-Id: <9006140454.AA25461@mcnc.mcnc.org> Received: from NDSUVM1.BITNET by VM1.NoDak.EDU (IBM VM SMTP R1.2.1MX) with BSMTP id 0468; Wed, 13 Jun 90 23:54:00 CDT Received: from NDSUVM1.BITNET by NDSUVM1.BITNET (Mailer R2.07) with BSMTP id 0461; Wed, 13 Jun 90 23:53:59 CDT Date: Wed, 13 Jun 90 00:08:09 GMT Reply-To: mcnc!VM1.NoDak.EDU!gih900%SAO.AARNET.EDU.AU Sender: ANU-NEWS Discussion From: mcnc!VM1.NoDak.EDU!gih900%SAO.AARNET.EDU.AU Subject: Re: news.sys & news.distrubtion To: Multiple recipients of list ANU-NEWS In article , JOHNSON@NORTHEASTERN.EDU (I am only an egg.) writes: > > I'm curious about the relation between news.sys and > news.distribution. Right now I have fully quailfied domain names in > both and everything seems to work. Do I need fully qualified domain > names or can I use only unique left-hand portions of host names in both > of these files? Failing that, does news.distribution have line > continuation with a back slash or something? NEWS.DISTRIBUTION was set up to allow directed sending of NEWS feeds. The default action without a news.distribution file was to take incoming news batches and send to ALL entries specified in the NEWS.SYS file (with the exception of any entries whose name is on the Path: line of the item to be redistributed). I thought that this was a bit ineffieicnt when using a more connected mesh topology, and wanted to specify that messages incoming from node A were sent only to B and D, on the assumption that A fed C directly via another channel. After looking at the unix distribution I have added in V6.0 another construct in the news.sys file: # Remote system names may also be specified with the syntax: # # site-name/site1,site2{,...} # # This syntax is interpreted as referring to site-name only if the # item being parsed does _NOT_ contain site1 OR site2 in the Path: line. # i.e., send to site-name only if the item has not been relayed through # site1 or site2 already. this in effect does the same as the NEWS.DISTIRBUTION function - i.e. send to a node only if the item has NOT been through other nodes, and as a consequence the file NEWS.DISTRIBUTION is no longer required with V6.0. The question as to whether fully qualifier node names is required is not one which can be answered globally. The names used in both NEWS.SYS and NEWS.DISTRIBUTION are the names those nodes stamp into the Path: header. Increasingly many news sites are using fully qualified names as the Path: stamp - in such cases you must use the same convention in your sys file when referring to your NEWS network neighbours.... e.g.: if news.sys contains: nodea:..... then NEWS searches the Path: header line for "*!nodea!*" or " nodea!*" for a match - ie the match is an exact match on "!" delimited fields. Geoff Huston gih900@sao.aarnet.edu.au