Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2.fluke 9/24/84; site fluke.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxj!mhuxn!houxm!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!fluke!joe
From: joe@fluke.UUCP (Joe Kelsey)
Newsgroups: net.news
Subject: Re: Many machines, one news system
Message-ID: <1973@vax4.fluke.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 3-Dec-84 13:41:10 EST
Article-I.D.: vax4.1973
Posted: Mon Dec  3 13:41:10 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 4-Dec-84 19:15:05 EST
References: <4643@ukc.UUCP>
Distribution: net
Organization: John Fluke Mfg. Co., Inc., Everett, WA
Lines: 31

I have already replied personally to this article, but I just can't
resist yet another opportunity to plug my favorite modification of the
news system.  I have modified news ever since 2.9 (!) so that it
"hides" the local system name of whatever local network you happen to
have running (way back in 2.9 days we were running Jerknet, now we have
a "real" Ethernet...).  Anyway, the idea is to hide all of those
horrible local system names since they just clutter up the path and
confus everyone anyway.  The only real use for them is in generating
Message-ID's anyway...  So, here is what you do:  pick a domain name
that you want to hide behind.  Here we use "fluke", which is the name
our uucp machine identifies itself as to the outside world (internally
it is known as "vax4").  Then, apply these patches, and all machines
you run news on will identify themselves as this machine, except in
Message-IDs and responses to certain control messages.  You also need
to hack sendmail.cf or whatever your mail delivery agen tis so that the
mail system also cooperates in hiding the grungy details from the
outside world, but this is quite easily done with a master alias
database and a few changes here and there to sendmail.cf.

I have posted these changes several times in the past, and I will post
them again and again until they finally get installed in an "official"
version of the news software.  I encourage everyone who has a local
network with imaginative names like vax1, vax2, vax3, or pucc-a,
pucc-b, pucc-d, or hoxyz1, hoxyz2 to consider this scheme.  I think
that wider use of this kind of system could prevent machnie names like
"x" at CRDS from leaking out onto the network again.  It will also help
tremendously in the UUCP directory since then you won't have to worry
so much about how many unique characters you need, since you only have
to register your gateway name and can call your other machines anything
you want to!

/Joe