ietf-nntp Issue: number range rollover

[Clive D.W. Feather]

>> (4) Make article numbers be modulo 2^32. Actually, this idea can be
>> improved on. Divide the number space into 4 quadrants:
[...]
> "It's not that simple."

Probably not.

> (1) If anyone's reading news via NFS or direct local spool access on the
> server (yes, it still happens!), the news server has no way of knowing 
> when clients have stopped using the old numbers.
[...]

True. I don't know if these all kill the idea.

Perhaps clients should be required to treat article numbers in Q1 and Q3 as
equivalent. But how the hell do you word that ?

> And finally ... a random potential problem of a different sort - there might
> not be sufficient free inodes to double up all the directory entries... and
> that would be messier to handle than running out while accepting a new
> article.

On Unix you don't need new inodes - they're just new directory entries
pointing to the *same* inodes.

-- 
Clive D.W. Feather    | Associate Director  | Director
Tel: +44 181 371 1138 | Demon Internet Ltd. | CityScape Internet Services Ltd.
Fax: +44 181 371 1150 | <clive at demon.net>   | <cdwf at cityscape.co.uk>