Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cbmvax!snark!eric
From: e...@snark.uu.net (Eric S. Raymond)
Newsgroups: news.software.b
Subject: TMNN 7.7 finally lifts off
Message-ID: <1RRhWX#3Ks88w=eric@snark.uu.net>
Date: 15 May 89 14:25:06 GMT
Lines: 219
The TMN-Netnews beta 7.7 kits have been released. We are now redundantly
intercontinental, with two (!) sites in Australia and one in England.
No, you didn't miss 7.[56]. There was a 7.5, but only Ted T'so and the
redoubtable Ambar saw it. Thanks to them for hackery above and beyond the call
of duty (or even sanity); we pinned down and killed some insidious malloc()
related bugs. There should be no more corrupted entries in history files.
7.6 actually made it to uunet, but I didn't announce it because I wanted to
live-test it for a day or two first. One beta site jumped the gun -- so this
is 7.7.
The new tools are *much* faster. The rnews and expire code has been gprofiled
for hot spots (thanks, Ted) and carefully tuned. I think we can compete with C
news in the speed sweeps again :-). In particular, ngfind() now uses a simple
hash-list scheme for name lookup, resulting in a 350% speedup.
WARNING: This release CHANGES the format of news IDs from using a radix-62
to radix-52 packed representation for timestamps and hash values. These will
no longer contain vowels, foreclosing the possibility that Certain Words might
appear in article-IDs and offend delicate-minded people with lawyers on call...
FURTHER WARNING: The TMNN 'F' feeds file option is now 'B' for batch (this
tells sendbatch to use a transmission command given in the fifth field). There
is a new 'F' which acts like the old 2.11 'F', using the fifth field as a
filename to append to; but it appends article IDs rather than file names and
does *not* enable sendbatch (this is an official concession to the NNTP crowd).
A MANIFEST file is now included; the Configure file automatically checks it
agains the unpacked kit contents and will tell you if anything is missing.
Note that there are now 45 kits rather than 23, they average half their former
size; so now you should be able to uncompress them and mail them over SMTP or
other links without problems.
In addition to bugfixes, there are useful new features:
Configure has been drastically simplified, especially in areas touching on
the site ID and mailer configuration.
Also, a complete facility for supporting runtime override of configuration
defaults has been added; this is compiled in if RUNTIME is defined. This
general feature subsumes the old SHARED and HOME kluges, which are now gone.
Configuration now works properly with a yp database.
Patches are included for the nntp1.5 server and xmit programs to make them
work with TMNN. If you want to enable the new RUNTIME feature, they will
need one additional tweak -- a newsinit() call. Interested NNTP hackers are
urged to test and tune these; sadly, I can't.
Finally, a `daemon' mode of rnews is now supported that avoids the high
startup overhead of firing off many rnews instances while supporting use
with NNTP and other message-oriented transport layers (as opposed to UUCP
batching, for which startup cost is not the big issue).
This release (which is being issued as complete kits) includes the following
changes:
To documentation:
* Minor typos and glitches in doc/install.mn.
* In expire.8, corrected documentation for -s option.
* Added man page for grpw(1) tool.
* Changes doc/news.5 to show that : is now a valid separator in the flags file.
* Changed misc/READ.ME to list nntp1.5 patches.
* Significant rewrite of Hacker's Guide and Installation sections re Configure.
To Configure:
* Addition of MANIFEST checking.
* Addition of features to support RUNTIME configuration.
* Major simplification, nuking HOME, SHARED, DOMAIN, GENERICPATH, GENERICFROM,
ENCODE, DECODE, BCNVT, ZAPNOTES, INTERNET, DOMAINIST, HIDDENNET, V7MAIL and
MAILPROG.
* Adds of FROMNAME/PATHNAME/TRUENAME and SMARTHOST questions for mail config.
* Changes to use grpw for account information extraction.
* Changes to handle Sun4/SVr4 revised system directory structure.
* Fixes for bugs in mail delivery program detection.
* Detects presence of more mail front ends (mush, elm).
* Move of XREFS question to where it belongs in user-interface section.
* Added -LARGE to default flags for 286 XENIX.
To other auxilliary scripts:
* Minor fixes to ConfigureMap.
* Fix for broken 'test' question in ConfigureSys.
* Move `hostname' try to before `uuname -l' in ConfigureSys (it works better).
* Generalized Sun check in ConfigureSys.
Code changes:
* Runtime configuration is now fully supported.
* Global fix of uninitialized static intern ints (avoid XENIX-cc lossage).
* Fixes for incomplete signal-handling in expire.c.
* expire -h and -u options are gone, -r is now more robust in the presence
of trashed active files.
* Added RFC-977 definitions to D.network/nntp.h.
* Change format of article-IDS.
* Defaults for feeds-file flex fields corrected from "all" to empty.
* Enchancements rdhistory.c to accept C news ~-separated date format.
* Changes to sysmail.c to generate From lines with the proper gateway name.
* Addition of : to allowed field separators for flags file.
* Removal of unused paglen extern from D.read/browse.h.
* Wrapping for a test that needed it in #ifdef DEBUG/#endif inside checkinit.c.
* Numerous small fixes and additions to makefiles.
* Fix for termination error in dispatch.c's batch xmit handling.
* Addition of expire.c check for 0-len articles.
* Fixes for insert.c initialization-time check for DBHISTORY case.
* Fixes for a nasty core-dump bug in the DOXREFS code.
* A nonl() for use on BSD systems using CURSES has been added.
* The nntp interface library now uses the NNTP 1.5 patchlevel 4 extensions.
* Fix to a signedness bug in articleid that could produce invalid IDs.
* Inews now saves asrticle text correctly on interrupts.
Here is the current distribution list:
amdahl!gam G. A. Moffett (408)-746-8287 X* Amd5890 SVr3.1
anise!pst Paul S. Traina (XXX)-XXX-XXXX I 68020 A/UX 1.1
apollo!brian Brian R. Holt (508)-256-5694 I* 68030 Apollo Domain
asi!metro Metro T. Sauper (215)-592-8900 U* 3B2 SVr3
ateng!chip Chip Salzenberg (813)-885-4420 X* 80386 XENIX 2.3.1
athena!tytso Ted T'so (617)-253-7788 I mVaxII 4.3BSD
att!tgt Tim Thompson (614)-860-7026 I* 3B1 3.56
b-tech!zeeff Jon Zeeff (313)-995-1271 I 80386 SV/386
barris!tim Tim Tegtmeier (701)-282-5750 I 68020 SVr2
belltech!norris David Norris (415)-659-9097 - 80386 SVr3.2
bigtex!james ~ Van Artsdalen (512)-338-8789 X* 80386 ix/386
bpa!espo Bob Esposito (215)-466-6831 I* VAX 785 SVr2v2
cbmvax!grr George Robbins (215)-431-9836 X* VAX 750 Ultrix 1.2
cheers!exodus Gregory Onufer (209)-957-3963 -* 68000 SunOS 4.0
cocktrice!mdm Mike Mitchell (505)-471-7639 U* 80286 SVr2
cooper!mayer Mayer Ilovitz (212)-353-4350 - I310 XENIX3.0
crdos1!davidsen Bill ~ (518)-387-6489 I* 80386 SCO XENIX V
creation!wpl Bill Loftus (215)-648-7248 I* 68000 AmigaDos
daver!dlr Dave Rand (408)-721-7099 U* 32000 V.[23]
devon!paul ~ Sutcliffe Jr (717)-295-5478 U* TRS16 XENIX 3.2
drivax!davison Wayne Davison (408)-646-6293 X VAX780 4.2BSD
dukcds!ggw Greg Woodbury (919)-684-6126 I* 32332 SVr3.0
ficc!peter Peter da Silva (713)-274-5180 U* [23]86 XENIX 3.5
flatline!erict J. E. Townsend (713)-863-9137 I 3B1 3.0
hc!siegel Josh Siegel (505)-667-8495 - VAX 785 4.3BSD
hoptoad!gnu John Gilmore (415)-221-6524 X* Sun 4 SunOS 4.4
hpausla!brian Brian Coogan 011 613 8791999 I HP9000 HP-UX
inco!mack David W. Mack (703)-883-3911 X Sun 386i SunOS4
killer!wisner Bill Wisner (208)-286-7335 I* 3B2/500 SVr3.1.1
ksuvax1!tar Timothy Ramsey (913)-539-4977 I 3B15 SVr2.1.2
libove!libove Jay Libove (412)-362-8983 I 80286 SCO XENIX
lilink!mikej M. R. Johnston (XXX)-XXX-XXXX U 80386 XENIX
marob!clifford Robert ~ (212)-924-2812 U* 80386 XENIX 2.3.1
mcdurb!darrell ~ McIntosh (217)-384-8509 X 68020 UTX 2.0
mcf!shan Sharan Kalwani (313)-833-0710 I VAX750 4.3BSD
mips!koblas David Koblas (408)-991-0287 - MIPS 4.3BSD
mjbtn!root Mark J. Bailey (615)-895-6311 U* 80386 XENIX 2.3.1
mstar!karl Karl Fox (614)-451-1883 U* 680x0 RTU 4.0
mts-cs!icsu6000 Jaye Mathison (406)-994-4780 I mVAX II Ultrix 2.3
nanovx!dennis ~ J. Boylan (404)-923-8017 I 80386 XENIX 2.3.1
ncc!lyndon ~ Nerenberg (403)-421-8181 X Sun 3 SunOS 3.[45]
nucleus!jeff Jeff Marraccini (313)-370-HELP I* VAX 780 VMS4.6+EUNICE
nucsrl!gore Jacob Gore (312)-491-8141 I VAX 785 Mt. Xinu 4.3BSD
obdient!blair Doug Blair (312)-653-5527 - 80386 Microport SVr3
oracle!jdiaz Jean Diaz (415)-598-5798 X* Sun4 SunOS 4.0.1
polyof!john ~ Buck (516)-755-4206 I Gould UTX 1.2
pyrdc!mike ~ Whitman (703)-848-2050 X* Pyr90x OSx4.4
qst1!bill Bill Cox (714)-631-4452 U* 80386 XENIX V
rambo!tsm Steve Mikes (201)-271-0261 U* 3B1 3.56d
rinc!root Pete Radatti (215)-828-4566 U* 68000 CTIX
rutgers!pleasant Mel ~ (201)-932-2023 I Sun 4 SunOS 4.0
sally!plocher John Plocher (415)-336-4677 I Sun 4 SunOS 4.0
sco!keithr Keith Reynolds (800)-626-4381 X* 80386 XENIX 3.2.2
slxsys!jpp John Pettit +44 1 941 2564 U 80386 XENIX 2.3.1
soup!liz Liz Sommers (201)-214-0832 I 68020 SunOS 3.52
splut!jay Jay Maynard (713)-332-3376 U 80286 Microport 2.3.0
telebit!psk Paul S. Kramer (415)-940-4870 X 80386 XENIX 2.2
telesci!gaa Gary Algier (609)-866-1000 U* Sun 3 SunOS 4.0
tessera!jtc J. T. Conklin (604)-435-9450 U* 80286 SCO XENIX
twitch!tjt Tim Thompson (201)-949-4339 U* VAX 785 SVr2
u1100a!krohn Eric Krohn (201)-699-4501 I U1100 SVr2
uiucuxc!paul Paul Pomes (217)-333-6262 I* Pyr90x 4.3BSD
unisec!dpw Darryl Waggoner (617)-226-1344 - 3B1 3.51
utoday!greenber Ross Greenberg (212)-889-6431 X 80386 XENIX 2.3.2
vader!bcs212 Vince Skahan (215)-591-4116 U* Apollo Ersatz 4.2BSD
versatc!tran Tony Tran (408)-982-4317 -* Sun 3 SunOS 3.4
vijit!madsen Dave Madsen (312)-425-2529 U* WangAPC XENIX V
vu-vlsi!perry Rick Perry (215)-645-4224 U* Pyr90x OSx3.1
wb3ffv!howardl Howard Leadmon (301)-335-2206 U* 80386 AT&T SVr3.2
xanadu!roger Roger Gregory (415)-856-4112 I Sun 4 SunOS 4.0
xyzzy!meissner Michael ~ (919)-248-6250 I* DG MV DG/UX
yarra!bgg Ben Golding +61 3 267 5999 X Pyr98 OSx4.4
zoso!abaddon David Neal (713)-270-6340 U* Sun 4 SunOS 4.0
If you are marked I, you are registered as an Internet site; get sources
from uunet via FTP, under ~/tmnn/beta7.7.
If you are marked X, you are registered as a uunet-connected site; get sources
from uunet via uucp from ~/tmnn/beta7.7/*.
If you are marked U, you are direct-connected to snark and sources are already
queued for you.
If you are marked -, you are expected by prior arrangement to get sources from
a neighbor of yours in one of the above three categories.
If your phone number looks like (XXX)-XXX-XXXX, it got lost in a script glitch.
Please resend it.
If you are *not* on this list but would like to join, please send the following
information:
* Your uucp sitename
* Your username
* Your full name
* A voice phone where you can be reached
* Your machine type
* Your OS type
* Whether you have FTP capability or a uunet link
* If neither of the above, what times you will poll me
With this I can register you on the list.
Future plans -- I anticipate one more release to fold in corrected nntp
support and newsfilter-process communication. After that it's formal
release time!
--
Eric S. Raymond = e...@snark.uu.net (mad mastermind of TMN-Netnews)
Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cornell!batcomputer!sun.soe.clarkson.edu!nelson
From: nel...@sun.soe.clarkson.edu (Russ Nelson)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Apologies to moderators
Message-ID: <NELSON.89May17150109@sun.soe.clarkson.edu>
Date: 17 May 89 19:01:09 GMT
Sender: n...@sun.soe.clarkson.edu
Reply-To: nel...@clutx.clarkson.edu
Organization: Clarkson University, Postdam NY
Lines: 7
In attempting to convince TMNN to work on my Sun system, I find that
it has inadvertantly send out multiple copies of already-posted news
back to the moderators. Many apologies.
--
--russ (nelson@clutx [.bitnet | .clarkson.edu])
I'm a right-to-lifer -- everyone has a right to earn a living sufficient to
feed himself and his family.
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