I've been having some trouble with the faq-server@rtfm.mit.edu.
It seems to me that if you're having problems with the FAQ server, you
should contact the maintainers of the server
(news-answers-request@mit.edu) and ask them to log into the problems
before bothering the entire faq-maintainers mailing list with them,
Well, I have submitted a new posting (taken over from JIK) to the server
which accepted it no problem. But for the past week, it's been telling
me (when I do a status request) that my posting has not yet been posted
and that as a result, it should be posted automatically within a day or so.
That is somewhat of an exaggeration. The FAQ server's log entries for
alt-sources-intro, the posting you took over from me:
Jan 31 13:34:13 BLOOM-PICAYUNE.MIT.EDU FAQ server frontend: ADD for "alt-sources-intro" (interval 14) by "Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond <o.crepin-leblond@ic.ac.uk>"
Feb 1 07:52:25 BLOOM-PICAYUNE.MIT.EDU FAQ server frontend: STATUS for "alt-sources-intro" by "Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond <o.crepin-leblond@ic.ac.uk>"
Feb 2 10:31:35 BLOOM-PICAYUNE.MIT.EDU FAQ server frontend: STATUS for "alt-sources-intro" by "Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond <o.crepin-leblond@ic.ac.uk>"
Feb 2 10:44:07 BLOOM-PICAYUNE.MIT.EDU FAQ server frontend: UPDATE for "alt-sources-intro" by "Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond <o.crepin-leblond@ic.ac.uk>"
Feb 2 10:58:09 BLOOM-PICAYUNE.MIT.EDU FAQ server frontend: STATUS for "alt-sources-intro" by "Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond <o.crepin-leblond@ic.ac.uk>"
Feb 2 10:58:27 BLOOM-PICAYUNE.MIT.EDU FAQ server frontend: FORCE for "alt-sources-intro" by "Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond <o.crepin-leblond@ic.ac.uk>"
In other words, you submitted it to the FAQ server on January 31. It
has been a little over two days since you submitted it; that's hardly
"for the past week."
Is there a problem with the FAQ-server since Jon Kamens has moved it back
to rtfm.mit.edu from the site GZA.COM ?
The problem is that rtfm.mit.edu is quite hosed by all the services
running on it. I don't suppose anyone on this list is willing to
donate hardware to the MIT SIPB to run the *.answers moderation tasks,
the FAQ archive, the mail server, the WWW server, the Gopher server,
the usenet-addresses server, and God knows what other services are
running on rtfm.mit.edu?
More specifically, rtfm.mit.edu has a Perl script,
/etc/nightly_jobs.pl which runs every morning and executes the jobs
that need to happen every day. It uses the script rather than cron so
that (a) the jobs are run sequentially, rather than overlapping each
other and hosing the machine and (b) errors in jobs are caught and
send to the appropriate address. Furthermore, the script notices if
last night's nightly jobs are still running and, if so, refuses to
start running jobs until it finishes. Furthermore, if last night's
nightly jobs are still running, when the new script finally gets
around to running jobs, it only runs the "important" jobs, to ensure
that it will finish within a day.
The fact that rtfm.mit.edu, along with our news server, which
rtfm.mit.edu talks to while doing the nightly FAQ archive update, is
hosed, implies that often nowadays, the nightly jobs take more than 24
hours to run. In fact, sometimes they take more than 48 hours to run
(gives a new meaning to "nightly", eh?). Since the FAQ server is not
considered one of the "important" jobs, because I consider it not such
a big deal when an FAQ gets posted a couple days late (especially
since the Expires header automatically inserted by the server is
fourteen days later than when the FAQ is next scheduled to be posted)
it doesn't get run on the subsequent night when the jobs take more
than 24 hours to run. In summary, because rtfm.mit.edu is so hosed
right now, the FAQ server posting script doesn't run every night. I
wish this weren't happening, but there isn't much that can be done
about it without more/better hardware for the SIPB (which, believe me,
they're trying to get).
Indeed, I have noticed that there
is now a lack of postings from the FAQ-server; does that mean that everybody
prefers to post the FAQs themselves, or is something wrong ?
I'm not sure what "lack of postings" you've noticed; the FAQ server
posted at least the following articles successfully on January 31:
<books/basement-full-of-books_759992941@rtfm.mit.edu>
<fleas-ticks_759992941@rtfm.mit.edu>
<gambling-faq/part1_759992941@rtfm.mit.edu>
<games/videoarcade/faq_759992941@rtfm.mit.edu>
<journalism-net-resources_759992941@rtfm.mit.edu>
<movies/bladerunner-faq_759992941@rtfm.mit.edu>
<movies/trivia-faq_759992941@rtfm.mit.edu>
<net-anonymity/part1_759992941@rtfm.mit.edu>
<net-anonymity/part2_759992941@rtfm.mit.edu>
<net-anonymity/part3_759992941@rtfm.mit.edu>
<net-anonymity/part4_759992941@rtfm.mit.edu>
<us-govt-net-pointers_759992941@rtfm.mit.edu>
And these on January 27:
<cats-faq/part2_759694670@rtfm.mit.edu>
<cats-faq/part3_759694670@rtfm.mit.edu>
<cats-faq/part4_759694670@rtfm.mit.edu>
<groupware-intro_759694670@rtfm.mit.edu>
<msdos-archives/part1_759694670@rtfm.mit.edu>
<msdos-archives/part2_759694670@rtfm.mit.edu>
<music/performing/welcome_759694670@rtfm.mit.edu>
<ren-n-stimpy/encyclopedia_759694670@rtfm.mit.edu>
<ren-n-stimpy/faq_759694670@rtfm.mit.edu>
<ren-n-stimpy/guide_759694670@rtfm.mit.edu>
<net-community/orgs-list_759694670@rtfm.mit.edu>
It probably posted more, too (for example, it probably posted
cats-faq/part1, even though it's not listed above), but rtfm.mit.edu
is so hosed that syslogd is dropping some log messages, so not all of
the messages that get posted are logged.
Jonathan Kamens | OpenVision Technologies, Inc. | jik@security.ov.com
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