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Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!hao!woods
From: woods@hao.UUCP (Greg Woods)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp
Subject: pathalias bug?
Message-ID: <486@hao.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 8-Jan-87 18:40:02 EST
Article-I.D.: hao.486
Posted: Thu Jan  8 18:40:02 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 9-Jan-87 00:03:46 EST
Organization: High Altitude Obs./NCAR, Boulder CO
Lines: 55
Keywords: help needed, bizarre situation
Summary: Appears to ignore specified cost in @{}(COST) networks


 I believe that after beating my head against the wall all day over this, I
have found what appears to be a bug in pathalias. I know the authors have
said that this is an unsupported program so there's no point in asking them
for help, but I'm hoping someone on the net has seen this and either has
a fix or even just a kludge in our map entry to get around the problem.
The trouble comes because we are on three different networks (including UUCP), 
and no one machine is on all 3. I am trying to get a database on our UUCP host
(which is also on the second network) together so that I can correctly route 
mail destined for the third network via a machine that is on both the second 
and third networks. Here is a simplified version of the problem: 

first @second(LOCAL)
second .third(LOCAL)

when run through "pathalias -c -l first", produces (cost "LOCAL"=25):

0	first	%s
25	second	%s@second
4050	.third	%s@second     # Where the HELL does the extra 4000 come from???

while if I use a right-! connection, I get:

first second!(LOCAL)
second .third(LOCAL)

which, when run through the same "pathalias -c -l first", procudes:

0	first	%s
25	second	second!%s
50	.third	second!%s

In my actual case, the "second" on the first line is really a local network,
and the "second" on the second line is a local host on that network, but
I see the same cost variance either way. So, why the cost difference? Have I 
done something stupid, or is this a bug or an undocumented feature? And most
importantly, how can I kludge my map entry so that I get the first case
syntax with the second case cost? The cost is critical, because the first
case cost is so high that when I blend our map entry in with the full mod.map
database, pathalias does not want to use our local connection to .third but
rather tries to use someone else's (which happens to be over a long-distance
uucp link!)  In order for the second case syntax to be acceptable I'd have
to make hacks to our sendmail.cf file, which I am trying to avoid because
it would probably come back to bite me later. I checked the map entry for
the people who had a connection to .third, and their cost is normal because
all they have is

theirsite  .third(LOCAL)

and the generated path to .third is "LDlink!theirsite!%s".

--Greg
{hplabs, seismo, noao, nbires} !hao!woods

CSNET: woods@ncar.csnet  ARPA: woods%ncar@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA