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Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!munnari!vuwcomp!duncan
From: duncan@vuwcomp.UUCP (Duncan McEwan)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp
Subject: Re: mod.map problems and directions
Message-ID: <12572@vuwcomp.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 11-Dec-86 18:24:56 EST
Article-I.D.: vuwcomp.12572
Posted: Thu Dec 11 18:24:56 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 15-Dec-86 21:36:21 EST
References: <3129@cbosgd.ATT.COM> <6685@decwrl.DEC.COM> <1117@decuac.DEC.COM> <1444@mcvax.cwi.nl>
Reply-To: duncan@vuwcomp.UUCP (Duncan McEwan)
Distribution: world
Organization: Comp Sci, Victoria Univ, Wellington, New Zealand
Lines: 59
Keywords: mod.map
Summary: How about sending out diffs to the map?

Various recent articles have suggested that even as the map gets smaller
due to "domainisation", it would be nice to retain the "#" lines as a
directory of sites.  It was suggested that this info could be circulated
maybe two or three times per year, but...

In article <1444@mcvax.cwi.nl> piet@mcvax.UUCP (Piet Beertema) writes:
>
> > I agree with Brian.  While the UUCP `map' is getting (or has gotten)
> > unwieldy, it does provide useful information.
>
> So do I. And it's information that's often requested and that should be up
> to date.

The domainisation of the map will reduce the size of the routing info
that *has* to be posted regularly, but keeping the "directory" info up to
date by frequent postings would defeat the whole purpose of the exercise.

We are relatively new to the net so I have not seen this brought up
before, though it probably has.  Anyway... 

Would it be possible to post diffs to the directory information, to keep
it as up to date as it currently is, while also reducing the volume of
posting.  Any new sites joining the net should be able to get the whole
directory from their neighbour (if the neighbour doesn't get mod.map,
the new site wouldn't get the current regular monthly posting
anyway...). 

I guess this may mean more work for the map coordinators in generating
the diffs, but this could be reduced by having map updates submitted as
diffs to the previous in the first place.

There need be little extra work for other sys admins, since the directory
postings could be packaged up as shell scripts that automatically applied
the diffs via "patch" (or since not everyone has patch - ed).

> > ...it'd be nice to have a way to eliminate entries for many sites at
> > the same location.
>
> Use the multi-name entries for sites that fall under one
> "administrative" heading:
> #N	foo, bar, xyz
> or "hide" them behind some "main" site, so they won't have
> to show up in addresses (and thus the maps) at all.

The main problem with this is that all the sites don't get to fully
publicise themselves.  When we finally get properly domainised, we will
only need one entry for our campus for routing purposes.  But the map
entry

#N vuwcomp, vuwisor, dsiramd
...
#O Department of Computer Science, Victoria University of Wellington

doesn't really say much about vuwisor and dsiramd ...
--
Duncan McEwan
ACSnet : duncan@vuwcomp.nz
UUCP   : "...!{alberta, ubc-vision}!calgary!vuwcomp!duncan"
"You can always tell when politicians lie ... their lips move!" - Max Headroom