The VERS9012 update to BITEARN NODES contains duplicate links for certain nodes (all of them from BITNET), which could have resulted in critical operational problems for LISTSERV if we had not been very lucky. My production server (1.6f) detected an odd number of links in the network and refused to continue, under the assumption that this meant you have a node "hanging off the air" or the like. After writing verification execs and spending 1h trying to understand what was wrong, I discovered that what we have is a number of duplicate links, as in ':adjnodes1.DUPR (...) :adjnodes2.DUPR (...)'. The net effect on release 1.6e is that no error is detected and the server appears to work properly BUT: 1. Any LINKSWT FILE override for the weight of a duplicated link will be ignored if the new weight is higher than the normal one (which is the case most of the time); this is because only the first occurence of the link will be altered. Luckily, none of the affected links had an override in LINKSWT FILE; I will let you imagine what would have happened if transcontinental links had failed to have been weighed properly and EARN traffic had been routed through the US, or vice versa. 2. The server will suffer from a degradation in performance due to the larger amount of possible paths to explore (all leading to the same result). 3. I cannot guarantee that there will be no other problem, the code was simply not designed to handle multiple definitions of the same link. LISTSERV@CEARN crashed with no message whatsoever in the console log during the tables generation procedure. It subsequently started up successfully after having been rebooted, but took an inordinate amount of time (about 10 times longer than normally) to come up. Whether or not this means that the errors in VERS9012 cause 1.5o to crash is uncertain. In any case, ALL LISTSERV sites may want to monitor their servers carefully until the problem is corrected. Here is a list of the affected links: ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3231 nodes in file. Duplicate link: BYUVAX1 -> BYUVM Duplicate link: CUCSC -> CUHKVM Duplicate link: DUVM -> VILLVM Duplicate link: DUVM -> SWATPRM Duplicate link: DUVM -> DUPR Duplicate link: DUVM -> DUPHY1 Duplicate link: JNETC -> JNETB Duplicate link: NCSUMVS -> NCSUVM Duplicate link: NCSUVAX -> NCSUIE Duplicate link: NCSUVAX -> NCSUECE Duplicate link: NCSUVAX -> NCSUCHE Duplicate link: NCSUVAX -> NCSUCE Duplicate link: NER -> FSUAVM Duplicate link: PSUVM -> BKNLVMS Duplicate link: UICVM2 -> UIUCVMD Duplicate link: UNTVAX -> UNTVM1 Duplicate link: UNTVAX -> NTSUVAXA Duplicate link: UTARL -> TAMNET Duplicate link: UTHOU -> UTMDAPH2 Duplicate link: UTHOU -> UTMDAH Duplicate link: UTORDOP -> UTORUGW Duplicate link: VCURUBY -> URVAX Duplicate link: WELLCO -> WHEATNMA Duplicate link: WISCPSLC -> WISCPSLB Duplicate link: WISCPSLC -> WISCPSLA Total: 25 duplicate links. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Two months in a row, now I'm getting curious... What will be UPDATE's Christmas present to the network? I think I'd better not be around when VERS9014 comes out. Eric PS: I have moved the LSTSRV-M list to SEARN so that its subscribers can hope to receive this warning before the end of the month.