Re: Moving servers

Hi James,

this probably comes too late, but since I didn't see another reply and
just in case:

> When I run innxmit I get the following error:
> 
> root <at> morpheus:/var/lib/news# /usr/lib/news/bin/innxmit 192.168.0.3 list
> innxmit: cannot authenticate with 192.168.0.3: Numerical argument out of domain

The error message occurs after innxmit has made the initial connection,
at the point where it scans the file passwd.nntp to see if it can find a
username/password combination for the server it is connected to, and
whether it can authenticate using those details.

My guess would be that either you've got something funny in your
passwd.nntp, and/or your new server is replying with some very confusing
stuff. You could try connecting and authenticating via telnet. Also,
innxmit might have written more to the news syslog.

Florian

Hi James,

this probably comes too late, but since I didn't see another reply and
just in case:

> When I run innxmit I get the following error:

Re: Moving servers

On Wed, Mar 02, 2011 at 01:54:39PM +0100, Florian Schlichting wrote:
> Hi James,
> 
> this probably comes too late, but since I didn't see another reply and
> just in case:
> 
> > When I run innxmit I get the following error:
> > 
> > root <at> morpheus:/var/lib/news# /usr/lib/news/bin/innxmit 192.168.0.3 list
> > innxmit: cannot authenticate with 192.168.0.3: Numerical argument out of domain
> 
> The error message occurs after innxmit has made the initial connection,
> at the point where it scans the file passwd.nntp to see if it can find a
> username/password combination for the server it is connected to, and
> whether it can authenticate using those details.
> 
> My guess would be that either you've got something funny in your
> passwd.nntp, and/or your new server is replying with some very confusing
> stuff. You could try connecting and authenticating via telnet. Also,
> innxmit might have written more to the news syslog.

Hi Florian, 
Thanks for the reply, but this doesn't seeem to be my issue. I'm not using any 
user/pass for auth, and can telnet fine to both servers from both servers.

deathray:/home/funlocal# telnet 192.168.0.2 119
Trying 192.168.0.2...
Connected to 192.168.0.2.
Escape character is '^]'.
200 morpheus InterNetNews NNRP server INN 2.4.4 (20070806 snapshot) ready 

innfeed.conf documentation

Hi all,

I have just (at last) finished to double-check our documentation for
innfeed.conf (source code, man page and sample configuration file).

I wanted to do this before going on integrating Florian's patches about
inncheck & other files.
It is true that innfeed.conf seriously needs to use the new INN parser
because it is not easy at all to know what are the required parameters,
the optional ones, the default values, etc.
Dieter Stussy once spotted that.
The sample file and the documentation now mention all the possible
parameters and their default (or recommended) values.  Confusions
between default/recommended may still exist in the man page but anyway,
it is better than nothing 

The reasons why I am writing are the following:

> * Add fast-exit, debug-shrinking and initial-sleep in both the
> documentation and the sample file.

These are "new" (previously undocumented) parameters for they who want
to use them.
The documentation I suggest is the following one.  I am still wondering 
whether initial-sleep is really necessary to have.  One can of course 
set it to 0 if wanted 

=item I<fast-exit>

This key requires a boolean value and defaults to false.  If set to 

Re: Moving servers

Hi James, 

I was hoping somebody else would chime in with a pertinent reply...
Just two more things from me:

> Thanks for the reply, but this doesn't seeem to be my issue. I'm not using any 
> user/pass for auth, and can telnet fine to both servers from both servers.

You did make sure there's not some weird garbage in passwd.nntp, and
that the file actually exists in pathetc and is readable?

Otherwise, all I can suggest is manually debugging the source. Your
error occurs in backends/innxmit.c on line 1158:

    if (NNTPsendpassword(REMhost, From, To) < 0 || GotAlarm) {

GotAlarm would be a timeout, which would be noted in the syslog.
NNTPsendpassword() is lib/sendpass.c, that's where you'd want to find
out exactly where things go wrong in your case...

> And here is some tcpdump output that seems to suggest it's the old server 
> (morpheus) that's breaking off the connection:

Yes, that's by design, and also visible from the "readclose" in your new
server's syslog ("Don't send quit; we want the remote to print a
message." backends/innxmit.c:1163)

One more thing: if you just can't get on, you might consider "the uucp
way": batch up all your articles in one file (with batcher?), transfer
that manually, and inject the batch on the new server with rnews.

Re: Moving servers

On Thu, Mar 03, 2011 at 09:58:03PM +0100, Florian Schlichting wrote:
> Hi James, 
> 
> I was hoping somebody else would chime in with a pertinent reply...
> Just two more things from me:
> 
> > Thanks for the reply, but this doesn't seeem to be my issue. I'm not using any 
> > user/pass for auth, and can telnet fine to both servers from both servers.
> 
> You did make sure there's not some weird garbage in passwd.nntp, and
> that the file actually exists in pathetc and is readable?

Hi Florian,

What exactly is the entry supposed to look like? Permissions are set 640 and 
chowned news:news.

Thanks,
James Reilly

> 
> Otherwise, all I can suggest is manually debugging the source. Your
> error occurs in backends/innxmit.c on line 1158:
> 
>     if (NNTPsendpassword(REMhost, From, To) < 0 || GotAlarm) {
> 
> GotAlarm would be a timeout, which would be noted in the syslog.
> NNTPsendpassword() is lib/sendpass.c, that's where you'd want to find
> out exactly where things go wrong in your case...
> 

Re: Moving servers

On Thu, Mar 03, 2011 at 09:08:29PM +0000, James "Reggie" Reilly wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 03, 2011 at 09:58:03PM +0100, Florian Schlichting wrote:
> > You did make sure there's not some weird garbage in passwd.nntp, and
> > that the file actually exists in pathetc and is readable?
> 
> What exactly is the entry supposed to look like? Permissions are set 640 and 
> chowned news:news.

provided you run it as user news, that should be ok...

Florian

On Thu, Mar 03, 2011 at 09:08:29PM +0000, James "Reggie" Reilly wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 03, 2011 at 09:58:03PM +0100, Florian Schlichting wrote:
> > You did make sure there's not some weird garbage in passwd.nntp, and
> > that the file actually exists in pathetc and is readable?
> 
> What exactly is the entry supposed to look like? Permissions are set 640 and 
> chowned news:news.

provided you run it as user news, that should be ok...

Florian

Re: Moving servers

On Thu, Mar 03, 2011 at 09:27:01PM +0000, James "Reggie" Reilly wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 03, 2011 at 10:18:07PM +0100, Florian Schlichting wrote:
> > On Thu, Mar 03, 2011 at 09:08:29PM +0000, James "Reggie" Reilly wrote:
> > > On Thu, Mar 03, 2011 at 09:58:03PM +0100, Florian Schlichting wrote:
> > > > You did make sure there's not some weird garbage in passwd.nntp, and
> > > > that the file actually exists in pathetc and is readable?
> > > 
> > > What exactly is the entry supposed to look like? Permissions are set 640 and 
> > > chowned news:news.
> > 
> > provided you run it as user news, that should be ok...
> > 
> > Florian
> 
> It is indeed. Am I correct in saying that if I'm not using a username or 
> password the entry would just be "<hostname>::"?

no, the default is all lines commented out, but if "<hostname>" doesn't
match your new server's name, that shouldn't hurt

Florian

Re: Moving servers

On Thu, Mar 03, 2011 at 10:18:07PM +0100, Florian Schlichting wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 03, 2011 at 09:08:29PM +0000, James "Reggie" Reilly wrote:
> > On Thu, Mar 03, 2011 at 09:58:03PM +0100, Florian Schlichting wrote:
> > > You did make sure there's not some weird garbage in passwd.nntp, and
> > > that the file actually exists in pathetc and is readable?
> > 
> > What exactly is the entry supposed to look like? Permissions are set 640 and 
> > chowned news:news.
> 
> provided you run it as user news, that should be ok...
> 
> Florian

It is indeed. Am I correct in saying that if I'm not using a username or 
password the entry would just be "<hostname>::"?

Thanks,
James Reilly

Re: Moving servers

Hi Florian and James,

>> Am I correct in saying that if I'm not using a username or
>> password the entry would just be "<hostname>::"?
>
> no, the default is all lines commented out, but if "<hostname>" doesn't
> match your new server's name, that shouldn't hurt

The "Numerical argument out of domain" error reported by innxmit would 
be explained with:
     <hostname>:::

It is exactly EDOM and generated by lib/sendpass.c here, during the 
parsing of the file:

             if (strcmp(style, "authinfo") != 0) {
	                errno = EDOM;
	                break;

but with:
     <hostname>::

I still do not understand the error.

--

-- 
Julien ÉLIE

« Bibere humanum est, ergo bibamus. »

Re: Moving servers

Hello,

On Thu, Mar 03, 2011 at 10:53:56PM +0100, Julien ÉLIE wrote:
> The "Numerical argument out of domain" error reported by innxmit
> would be explained with:
>     <hostname>:::
> 
> It is exactly EDOM and generated by lib/sendpass.c here, during the
> parsing of the file:
> 
>             if (strcmp(style, "authinfo") != 0) {
> 	                errno = EDOM;
> 	                break;

ah, I didn't know that. But it's not a very telling error message, given
that we're not dealing with anything numeric here?! How about E2BIG, 
'Argument list too long'? (EINVAL is already used earlier)

...or just convert passwd.nntp to the new configuration file syntax and
parser, with detailed error messages and line numbers and...

> 
> but with:
>     <hostname>::
> 
> I still do not understand the error.

Well, it could be any line prior to a matching <hostname>, which is not
empty or starts with a hash, but contains a third colon somewhere that
is not followed by "authinfo"