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To:	MRGATE::"ARISIA::EVERHART"
Subj:	ANU News and NNTP over DECnet between VMS and ULTRIX


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Date: 23 Feb 89 19:05:48 GMT
From: mailrus!wmich!peirce@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu  (Leonard J. Peirce)
Organization: Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI
Subject: ANU News and NNTP over DECnet between VMS and ULTRIX
Message-Id: <658@gumby.cc.wmich.edu>
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In ANU News, there exists a very subtle problem using NNTP over
DECnet between VMS and ULTRIX.  The problem is a result of the
difference between socket types being used on each side.  On the
ULTRIX side, the NNTP implementation uses stream sockets while
the VMS side uses sequenced packed sockets.

This difference between socket types cause problems in that it
can cause NNTP to hang.  We use /SERVED newsgroups and this
problem will cause NEWS to hang about 25% of the time during an
article transfer, complaining that the link to the news server
is lost.  

Fortunately, with VMS V5.0, stream socket support is included.
I have sent the fixes to Geoff and hopefully they will be included
in the next release.  For those of you who can't wait that long,
the fix is very simple.  The IO$M_MULTIPLE modifier needs to be
added to all QIO & QIOW calls that read/write from/to DECnet
channels.  There are a number of places that it needs to be changed
but I won't list them.  I just changed the ones we needed to make
it work here (NEWSREMCLIENT.C and NNTPFEED.C).  Things have been
working fine ever since.

If you want more info about this, e-mail me.

Actually, I can't take all the credit for this fix.  Thanx to
Matt Thomas @ DEC for filling me in on the differences between 
stream and sequenced packed sockets.
-- 
Leonard J. Peirce               Internet:  peirce@gumby.cc.wmich.edu
Western Michigan University                peirce@gw.wmich.edu
Academic Computer Center        Voice:     (616) 387-5430
Kalamazoo, MI  49008