Awatmath.1554
net.news
utcsrgv!utzoo!decvax!watmath!bstempleton
Wed Jan 20 16:48:51 1982
Automatic USENET directory - details and code
OK, here goes - a new idea for automating some of the work done by news
administrators on the USENET.
I propose the setting up of a set of control newsgroups called net.adm.*, which
will primarily be for computer rather than human consumption. Messages posted
to these groups will all be fed by lines in the SYS file into programs that
interpret them, as well as forwarding them to other systems.
The first of these programs I include below. It is for a group to be called
net.adm.site, and implements automatic USENET directories. There are two
programs. One prompts a news administrator for information concerning his
site, and builds a file of it. This file is posted to net.adm.site.
The second file reads articles posted to net.adm.site. It takes the system
name off the article-id and creates an entry for that site. Included in
that entry is a path to that site derived from the 'from' line in the
header. This article is appended to the USENET directory file, in this
case called /usr/lib/news/usenetdir, and deletes the old entry for that
site.
This is a simple description, but the shell scripts are simple and easy to
read if you want to know what is going on. The scripts use A format so
that both A and B news users can take advantage of them. To install this
at your site:
1) Put the 'siteform' shell script somewhere hand so that you can execute
it when you like. If you run B news, it is probably a good idea to NOT
have net.adm groups in your ngfile, but rather manually, temporarily put
them in when the time comes to make an entry, to avoid accidental posting
to these groups by other users.
2) Put the 'recsite' shell script somewhere, and make it executable. I
suggest /usr/lib/news as a fine place for it, but anything will do.
(A sites don't have this directory, they can use another)
3) If you like, make recsite run setuid to the newsuser (and setgid if you
also desire) so that the usenet directory will not have to be generally
writable
4) Alter the variables in 'recsite' as you need regarding files and
directories to use. If you run A news, change the mentions of inews -t
to 'news -i' as you like.
5) add a line to your sys or .sys file to handle recsite. A typical line
might be:
siterec:net.adm.site:A:/usr/lib/news/recsite
This depends on what directories you have used etc.
Note also that the name 'siterec' is just a dummy name that should not
match any existing or likely uucp system name.
You are now ready to go. I will be posting the watmath entry in a short
time. Entries are put in the usenetdir file with each line prepended with
"sitename;" so you can conveniently grep for info on a given site.
In addition, each entry contains a line called 'Best Path:'. You will probably
want to alter this line when a new site entry comes in, since it will contain
the rather roundabout USENET path. This line can eventually be used for
things such as aliasing programs or to answer the user's question:
"How to I get to site X?"
Unfortunately, the Best Path part won't work if an ARPANET like is used,
as for site 'cca'. You'll have to manually alter this.
There are further plans for net.adm.* These groups can be used for all
sorts of control messages that might also be read by humans unlike the
net.*.ctl messages coming out in the B release of netnews. It would
be fairly simple to set up programs to create a uucp 'phonebook' listing
people on the USENET (net.adm.phone) or a group in which newly created
uucp links are declared if you will allow public use on them.
(thus the wonder programs to do the graph theory on the net have a database
to work on.)
If others have ideas - they can go ahead, all that need be done is to write
the code to enter items and the code to decode them. Post the code to the
net, with installation instructions, and wait for acceptance. In about
a week, assuming this idea is accepted, I will give the go-ahead for all
sites to post their entries. After this, every site that wants one will have
an up to date USENET directory in a standard form.
Some further notes on installation:
1) You may desire to make it possible for users to subscribe to and read this
newsgroup. If you don't, and run B news there are a few ways you can stop the
articles from being posted. The first is the built in RESTRICT feature of B
news that lets you exclude newsgroups. Normally this is not turned on. The
second is a kludge involving chown. Allow the newsgroup net.adm.site (and
other net.adm.* groups as they come along) to be created. Once it is created,
chown the directory in which it lives to some user other than the newsuser.
(you will probably wish to chgrp it as well). Once this is done, attempts
to write into the directory by the news program, which is setuid, will fail
because of permissions denied. As far as I can tell, news just handles this
quietly and the article is not written. It is still forwarded however, which
is important.
2) The new release of B news involves control messages of the form all.all.ctl,
which are never put in files on the local system - just interpreted by special
case code. It is possible that once these are fully implemented that automatic
directory entries will switch over to this method, or use a combination of the
methods.
3) When you connect a new site to the USENET, you should send them your current
directory of the net and a copy of these programs for them to use to announce
themselves.
4) Use of these programs does not exclude normal, human readable announcement
in the group net.news.newsite. It is possible to change the 'siteform' script
to post to both net.adm.site and net.news.newsite, since the entries are
generally human readable, although they do not contain the uucp name of the
site anywhere. (That is pulled from the article-id)
Here is the shell script for the reading program, called 'siteform'
-------------------------------------------------------------------
san=/tmp/tan$$
SITEGROUP=net.adm.site
echo "Give the institution type name of your site, ie. the name of your company?"
read name
echo Site: $name >$san
echo "Please give the contact userid for uucp and usenet queries"
read contact
echo Contact userid: $contact >>$san
echo "What is the real name of the contact person?"
read realname
echo Contact name: $realname >>$san
echo "What is the postal service address of your site?"
echo "Type as many lines as you like, ending with a null line"
while { read addr; test -n "$addr"; }
do echo Address: $addr >>$san
done
echo "Please give the network names of your USENET partners (the people in your"
echo "sys (or .sys) file (seperated by commas)"
read unpart
echo Usenet partners: $unpart >>$san
echo "Please give the network names of the people that you talk to regularly"
echo "on the network. These would be people you talk call with an autodialer,"
echo "or who poll you on a regular basis. This will normally include your"
echo "USENET partners. If you don't want to make a connection public, don't"
echo "mention it, of course. Also include systems for which you are the only"
echo "network contact, even if you don't talk regularly with them."
read uupart
echo Regular uucp: $uupart >>$san
echo "Give the network names of the sites that you talk to on an irregular"
echo "basis. This generally means sites for which you act as a slave, and"
echo "which do not poll you regularly. You might also wish to include sites"
echo "That you dial manually and irregularly here."
read irpart
echo Irregular uucp: $irpart >>$san
echo "Please give the voice phone number of the contact person at your site."
echo "(nnn) nnn-nnnn format please"
read voiph
echo Voice phone: $voiph >>$san
echo "Please give the data dial-in number of your system if you wish to give it"
echo "Also give the type of modem on these dial in lines."
echo "Type in: (nnn) nnn-nnnn modem type"
read dialno
echo Dial in: $dialno >>$san
echo "Please give the names/classifications of newsgroups that you receive"
echo "at your site. You may want to include local area groups you work with."
echo "Example: net.all,fa.all - internally wat.all"
read ngrps
echo Subscribes to: $ngrps >>$san
echo "Please indicate your willingness to allow other sites to connect to you"
echo "for USENET news and mail. Indicate if you can call other sites, how"
echo "far you can call, or if you will only give news to those who can call you."
read will
echo Willingness: $will >>$san
echo "To help in producing a USENET map, would you please give your latitude"
echo "and longitude on the following line. please type in the figures in the"
echo "form 'deg.min D deg.min D', latitude first, longitude second. For"
echo "example, something like '43.00 N 75.00 W' is in the right format"
echo "Note that if you can't find this information, don't worry about it."
echo "You can always submit the information in a later entry"
read loc
echo Location: $loc >>$san
echo "Please enter any comments you might wish to add to your directory entry."
echo "You may want to describe what hardware you have, or just give additional"
echo "details regarding your site. Enter an EOF to indicate you are done"
while read cline
do echo Comment: $cline >>$san
done
echo "Here is your USENET directory entry. Enter a newline to send it off."
echo "Anything else will abort the sending and leave the entry in $san"
cat $san
read abrt
if test -z "$abrt"
then inews -n $SITEGROUP -t "sitedir \"$name\"" -q <$SAN <$SAN" DESIRE. RECSITE SHOULD $PATH -E LIKE. -Q -R GROUPS ! CALLED ------------------------------------------------------------------------ , SED S/^A// A $DIRTEM DECODING YOU MAY EDIT IT, AND POST IT WITH THE COMMAND: ` TEST $NAME ELSE | AS NOTE ECHO TOUCH RM THE DEFINE SITE="`echo" YOU FILE TO DIRTEM="/usr/lib/news/dirtem" NEEDED, $SITE READ PROGRAM, FI THEN /^$SITE;/D ------------------------------------------------------------------------- /USR/LIB/NEWS DATE TITLE $SAN S/\..*$// YOUR ITEM IS NOW IN FILE $SAN S/^[^!:]*[!:]// GO DIRFILE="/usr/lib/news/usenetdir" TEMPORARY HERE IF IN IS S/[!:]*[^!:]*$// IT INEWS -N $SITEGROUP -T \ $DIRFILE; PATH="`echo" SITEDIR \">$DIRTEM <$DIRFILE ITEM; ECHO DO READ FI $SITE;$ITEM WHILE>>$DIRTEM
done
echo "$site;Best Path: $path" >>$DIRTEM
mv $DIRTEM $DIRFILE
--------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------------------
gopher://quux.org/ conversion by John Goerzen <
[email protected]>
of
http://communication.ucsd.edu/A-News/
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