Aduke.1436
net.news
utzoo!decvax!duke!trt
Tue Dec  1 22:58:22 1981
Re: watmath.1128: user numbers
The "A" version of news handles re-assigned uids fairly painlessly.
Each time an article is inserted the .uindex file is matched
with /etc/passwd to drop deleted entries and add new ones.
The only problem occurs if a uid is deallocated and then reallocated
with no intervening article submission--an unlikely event these days.
Almost any version of A news handles uids up to 4000,
and some (like at Berkeley) handle them up to 64k.
I am sure B news is equally proficient in this matter.

News is handled on a strictly per-uid basis for several reasons,
one of them being security in identification
(it is easy to fake your login name, for example).

I object to a .msgsrc file cluttering up everyone's home directory.
It is a constant drain on the efficiency of the filesystem.
It is also relatively wasteful of disk space.
I would much prefer to hash .uindex.
               Tom Truscott (duke!trt)

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