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From: lauren@vortex.UUCP (Lauren Weinstein)
Newsgroups: net.news
Subject: Re: How robust will satellite distribution be?
Message-ID: <480@vortex.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 22-Dec-84 18:58:59 EST
Article-I.D.: vortex.480
Posted: Sat Dec 22 18:58:59 1984
Date-Received: Mon, 24-Dec-84 03:21:50 EST
References: <753@sdcsla.UUCP>
Organization: Vortex Technology, Los Angeles
Lines: 20

While it would be possible to get netnews from a nearby site, there
is a better way to deal with longish down periods.  Under normal
conditions, the gateway computers should be able to hold a week
or two of news online (this is an estimate, of course).  So long as the
host down period doesn't exceed this interval (which should be fairly
rare) my plan is as follows:

Part of the information being sent by stargate would include (at
intervals) a list of sequence numbers in the current transmission
sequence, and the earliest sequence number still on disk at
stargate.  If a site discovered that it was missing articles outside
the current sequence but still online, it would send a specially
formatted mail message (via UUCP) to stargate.  Stargate would then reschedule
(as time permits) the retransmission of those missing articles for that
host for their pickup.  In other words, individual sites could request
that stargate temporarily add "old" articles back into the current
sequence for their reception.  I think this should deal with most of the
problems with host down periods.

--Lauren--