*BSD News Article 74141


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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!munnari.OZ.AU!spool.mu.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!gatech!news.mathworks.com!news.kei.com!nntp.coast.net!dispatch.news.demon.net!demon!awfulhak.demon.co.uk!awfulhak.demon.co.uk!awfulhak.demon.co.uk!not-for-mail
From: brian@awfulhak.demon.co.uk (Brian Somers)
Newsgroups: demon.ip.support,demon.tech.unix,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: Batch FTP and Web Pages
Followup-To: demon.ip.support,demon.tech.unix,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Date: 17 Jul 1996 11:39:06 +0100
Organization: Coverform Ltd.
Lines: 103
Message-ID: <4sifsa$d8@anorak.coverform.lan>
References: <4schgu$7t@anorak.coverform.lan> <837555317snz@dsl.co.uk>
NNTP-Posting-Host: localhost.coverform.lan
X-NNTP-Posting-Host: awfulhak.demon.co.uk
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2]

Brian {Hamilton Kelly} (bhk@dsl.co.uk) wrote:
: In article <4schgu$7t@anorak.coverform.lan>
:            brian@awfulhak.demon.co.uk "Brian Somers" writes:

: > Brian Blackmore (bnb@looking-glass.org) wrote:
: > : Your knowledge of this subject shows up as being totally crap, by the
: > : statement you said above and also by the fact that your news setup
: > : breaks RFC1036 (message ID's must have a valid internet domain name
: > : after the @ anorak.coverform.lan is *not* a valid internet domain
: > : name, if everyone choose stupid domain names and didn't register them
: > : there would be clashes all over the place and a Message-Id would not
: > : be unique.)
: > : </Reality>
: > 
: > Yeah, so you go patch tin so that it allows you to configure
: > your article names.

: It doesn't require any "patching" of tin; merely that you configure your
: system correctly.  looking at other headers in your postings, we find:
: NNTP-Posting-Host: localhost.coverform.lan
: X-NNTP-Posting-Host: awfulhak.demon.co.uk

: Now the second line is added by Demon's news posting software.  It
: identifies unequivocally the machine through which the article was
: received by Demon.  This, amongst other things, prevents Demonites from
: forging articles.

: The first line was inserted by tin; it reflects the configuration options
: that you (or your sysadmin) provided to tin (it's so many years since I
: last looked at tin that I cannot remember what this is called).

That's innd's inn.conf file.  It says:
server: localhost

Ok, I now realize this is wrong.

:                                                                  So
: *someone* has selected localhost.coverform.lan as the name of the node
: from which the posting occurred --- we wouldn't have a situation here
: where a corporate LAN was being interfaced to the Internet as a Demon
: node, would we?

No - you havn't considered your options (sometimes known as talking out
your ass - but you did give a disclaimer above saying that it's been a
while;).  What If I choose to have a local domain name that's not on the
internet.  I *may* have a machine (awfulhak.demon.co.uk) who's host name
(sethostname) is awfulhak.coverform.lan.  If "server:" is specified in
inn.conf, but isn't fully qualified (as above), my DNS stuffs "coverform.lan"
at the end.  If "server:" isn't specified in inn.conf, the innd sources
use gethostname.... Remember, a hostname on a machine that supports more
than one interface is not a good thing to use - it's just *one* of many
possible host names.

IMO, inn should force the user to specify a fully qualified server.

:                  If so, you *are* paying Demon the extra GBP200pa for the
: networking option, aren't you?

Not applicable of course.

:                                 If you're a basic TAM customer, all users
: must read and post e-mail and news on just the one machine, and not any
: machine on a corporate LAN.

: It boils down to the fact that tin has been misconfigured, and is issuing
: onto the 'net host names which cannot, and must not, exist (except on a
: *completely* local basis).  I'm beginning to have suspicions about why you
: chose awfulhak as your Demon node name!

Ok, I appreciate this.  Let me tell you the *real* reason that the names
are screwed up.  I have a home machine (awfulhak.demon.co.uk) that connects
to the net and uploads/downloads news & mail etc (through cron).  I have a
laptop called anorak.coverform.lan that I plug into the awfulhak.coverform.lan
side of my home machine each night - to upload/download news & mail etc.  The
laptop is the machine that gets used.  awfulhak is just a "relay".

At one point, I had server: set to "awfulhak.demon.co.uk" on my laptop.
This got the article headers right (albeit with two awfulhak entries -
one from anorak and the other from awfulhak itself), but left the article
name ending with anorak.coverform.lan.  I looked into it, and figured
that things were ok for the time being - *nobody* is likely to pick that
name.... and even if they did, I post at most about 20 articles a day -
hardly likely to clash....  I changed server: to localhost so that I'd
get an immediate posting (visible to my reader).  With awfulhak as server:,
I would only see my postings after exchanging news & mail that night (and
getting the news sent back from awfulhak to anorak again).

My "correct" solution to my problem (and please, don't give me a lecture
about downloading to my laptop through awfulhak being *wrong*) is to change
the name of my subnet from "coverform.lan" to "awfulhak.demon.co.uk".  I'll
have to try this - I don't know if I'll be able to get sendmail to
understand what I mean.

As a matter of interrest, "Coverform" *is* the name of my company - so
you were (by chance) pretty close in your original acquisation.  However,
I am the only employee of this company, and I am the only user of the
news that's downloaded from Demon through awfulhak.demon.co.uk.  So, I
believe that even if what I'm doing is not "to the letter" of my
contract with Demon, it's "in the spirit".  One account, one user.

--
Brian <brian@awfulhak.demon.co.uk>
Don't _EVER_ lose your sense of humour....