A lot of (most) LISTSERV's have BITEARN NODES available to US users.  We
that maintain them (yes, we, you keep leaving me out, Eric :-) ) have an
AFD to NETSERV@BITNIC to get the updates for these files.  Any NAD can
then get their BITEARN NODES from the nearest relevant LISTSERV.  Maybe
we should make provisions to make the last delta (VERSxxxx) available as
well... then the NAD of non-LISTSERV nodes can AFD LISTSERV for the delta
files, and update his master file without getting a whole new copy; it is
more efficient than AFD'ing [log in to unmask]  If that was done, those of
us downwind from BITNIC could AFD the next LISTSERV in line and get *our*
delta's there, and we wouldn't need to AFD NETSERV at all.
 
The same would hold true for mailer tables... perhaps LISTSERV could be
setup for a similar function there.  After all, LISTSERV wants read access
to XMAILER NAMES and DOMAIN NAMES already, so they are 'available' anyway.
Our LISTSERV simply has a read link to MAILER's disk, so it has access to
MAILER/XMAILER/DOMAIN names.  If they were setup in a NAD-like filelist,
they too could be AFD'ed and those of us downwind from BITNIC could drop
our AFD's to NETSERV@BITNIC for these files.
 
That leaves only one other file that I get updates to:  BITNET LINKS,
which is used by several query EXECs.  Is there an EXEC somewhere that
will generate BITNET LINKS from BITEARN NODES?  (excuse my ignorance if
there is one in black-and-white somewhere staring me in the face).
 
If this could be done, there would be no 'en-masse' distribution of the
most common control files from Bitnic other than to nearby nodes and
the first LISTSERV downwind on that path.  This would leave only the
UCLA-generated route table distribution at the beginning of the month,
and that could be reduced if sites used GENROUTS on BITEARN NODES (which
is obviously a hot political issue that I don't want to start up again).
Its just that since Eric added the twist to make BITEARN NODES available
from LISTSERV, it seems that only a minimal effort would be required to
make the mailer files available as well (since they're accessible anyway
in most cases).
 
<Jeff>
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*  "Doctor, should I file my nails?"
*  "No, throw them away like everybody else."
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