Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site rochester.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!harpo!seismo!rochester!lee
From: lee@rochester.UUCP (Lee Moore)
Newsgroups: net.news
Subject: Re: automatic path finding
Message-ID: <2463@rochester.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 2-Aug-83 22:13:18 EDT
Article-I.D.: rocheste.2463
Posted: Tue Aug  2 22:13:18 1983
Date-Received: Wed, 3-Aug-83 05:12:29 EDT
References: <1872@utcsrgv.UUCP>
Organization: U. of Rochester, CS Dept.
Lines: 24

One of the problems with using nmail is that is doesn't take into account the
quality of the connection.  When I use nmail, I regularly find I have to edit
the path to make it faster.  Unfortuately, there isn't a generalized version
of uuname that also give the quality of the connection.  The main problem of
implementing such a program is the distributed nature of the information needed
to rate the quality of a connection.  Typically this information is spread
over L.sys, crontab, uucp.hourly and so on.  It would be nice if there were
a central UUCP configuration program that would take a list of connections
and build the appropriate files.  For example one might say:

	allegra		hourly	123-4576 
	decvax		polled
	ucbvax		direct	/dev/tty0
	dagobah		polled	SECRET

Then a program would be run over this and the various files would be created.
In addition a "quality of connection" value would be assigned to each
connection.  Neigboring sites could then execute a modified uuname call and
get this information which would then be used as fodder to pathalias.  Note
that some connections could be secret so that they won't be distributed to
other sites.
-- 
	 = lee@rochester
	       rochester!lee =