couple of questions about servers and agent

couple of questions about servers and agent

[NAGY Andras]

Here are the relevant parts of my configuration:

,----[ .gnus ]
| (setq gnus-select-method '(nnnil))
| (setq gnus-secondary-select-methods
|       '((nnml "mail"
| 	      (nnml-directory "~/gnus/mail")
| 	      (nnml-active-file "~/gnus/mail/active")
| 	      (nnml-newsgroups-file "~/gnus/mail/active")
| 	      (nnml-get-new-mail t))
| 	(nntp "news"
| 	      (nntp-address "ludens.elte.hu"))))
`----

,----[ .newsrc.eld ]
| (setq gnus-server-alist '(("archive" nnml "mail")))
`----

Latest CVS Gnus.



And the questions:

In the Server buffer, why do {nntp:news} and {nnml:mail} appear twice?


My nntp:news backend became quite unstable recently, so I decided to
agentize it.  Pushed `J a' on it in the Server buffer, and while
online, used `J s' to fetch all unread articles into the cache.  Due
to the server being unstable, the downloading timed out, but the agent
displayed "Finished fetching articles into the Gnus agent", altough it
should have displayed some kind of error message, I believe.  I
decided to go on with the partially downloaded news.

After going offline, Gnus still tried `sometimes' to contact the
(unavailable) server.  May this be related to the server being listed
twice in the server buffer, but only one instance being marked as
`(agent)' ?  Actually, not even the partially downloaded groups were
readable offline.

I'm confused.  Is the Agent such non-robust, or am I doing something
wrong?



Andras

Re: couple of questions about servers and agent

[NAGY Andras]

Some more info:

Quit Gnus, rm -rf ~/News/agent and start up cleanly.  Go to the Server
buffer and mark nntp:news as (agent).  Quit and restart Gnus as
gnus-unplugged, and it still tried to open an nntp connection to the
server.


BTW, is it possible to have the agent remember the last
plugged/unplugged status and start according to the saved state next
time?

Wouldn't it be more feasible to have per-server plugged/unplugged
statuses, rather that a global one?


Andras

Re: couple of questions about servers and agent

[Simon Josefsson]

NAGY Andras <nagya@inf.elte.hu> writes:

> In the Server buffer, why do {nntp:news} and {nnml:mail} appear twice?

You probably subscribed to groups on that server and later changed the
server definition.  Gnus then re-create the server, and you get two
servers that looks identical but really isn't.  Solution is to G e on
groups and make sure it is equal to your current server definition, or
a "nntp:news" reference name.

> My nntp:news backend became quite unstable recently, so I decided to
> agentize it.  Pushed `J a' on it in the Server buffer, and while
> online, used `J s' to fetch all unread articles into the cache.  Due
> to the server being unstable, the downloading timed out, but the agent
> displayed "Finished fetching articles into the Gnus agent", altough it
> should have displayed some kind of error message, I believe.  

Exactly how did the server fail?  If you can track it down to the Gnus
function that failed, it would help.

> I decided to go on with the partially downloaded news.

IMHO this should work just fine.  Gnus should never bail out because
disk structures are corrupt, it should just cope.

> After going offline, Gnus still tried `sometimes' to contact the
> (unavailable) server.  May this be related to the server being listed
> twice in the server buffer, but only one instance being marked as
> `(agent)' ?  

I think so.  You only agentized one of the servers, most likely.

> Actually, not even the partially downloaded groups were readable
> offline.

Hm.  What happened?  Were there any information in the
~/News/agent/server/group directory?

> I'm confused.  Is the Agent such non-robust, or am I doing something
> wrong?

I'm not sure, every time I try to use the agent I feel like running
into some limitation or other, but I usually tell myself it is because
I'm using the agent differently than what was intended.

Re: couple of questions about servers and agent

[Simon Josefsson]

NAGY Andras <nagya@inf.elte.hu> writes:

> Quit Gnus, rm -rf ~/News/agent and start up cleanly.  Go to the Server
> buffer and mark nntp:news as (agent).  Quit and restart Gnus as
> gnus-unplugged, and it still tried to open an nntp connection to the
> server.

G e on all groups should help.

> BTW, is it possible to have the agent remember the last
> plugged/unplugged status and start according to the saved state next
> time?

No.

> Wouldn't it be more feasible to have per-server plugged/unplugged
> statuses, rather that a global one?

This has been suggested before, I think, and I think it wouldn't be
that hard to add.  The biggest problem is probably to work out how a
UI for it would look like.

Re: couple of questions about servers and agent

[NAGY Andras]

On Mon, 08 Jul 2002, at 15:40, Simon Josefsson <jas@extundo.com> wrote:

> NAGY Andras <nagya@inf.elte.hu> writes:
>
>> In the Server buffer, why do {nntp:news} and {nnml:mail} appear twice?
>
> You probably subscribed to groups on that server and later changed the
> server definition.  Gnus then re-create the server, and you get two
> servers that looks identical but really isn't.  Solution is to G e on
> groups and make sure it is equal to your current server definition, or
> a "nntp:news" reference name.

Hm.  I have `(nntp "news")' and `"nntp:news"' mixed together.  I'm
going to change everything to "nntp:news" and give the whole thing
another try.  :-)



Andras

Re: couple of questions about servers and agent

[Kai Großjohann]

Simon Josefsson <jas@extundo.com> writes:

> This has been suggested before, I think, and I think it wouldn't be
> that hard to add.  The biggest problem is probably to work out how a
> UI for it would look like.

Add an "(un)plug a server" command which asks for a server name and
then does like `J j' on that server.  (Maybe `C-u J j' could do this.)

kai
-- 
A large number of young women don't trust men with beards.  (BFBS Radio)

Re: couple of questions about servers and agent

[NAGY Andras]

On Mon, 08 Jul 2002, at 15:52, NAGY Andras <nagya@inf.elte.hu> wrote:

> Hm.  I have `(nntp "news")' and `"nntp:news"' mixed together.  I'm
> going to change everything to "nntp:news" and give the whole thing
> another try.  :-)

Eliminated the duplicate nntp:news, but the double nnml:mail
persisted.  Tracked it down to this line in my .newsrc.eld:

   (setq gnus-server-alist '(("archive" nnml "mail")))


I'm using "nnml:mail" everywhere, but with

   (setq gnus-server-alist '(("archive" . "nnml:mail")))

in .newsrc.eld Gnus signals and error ("nnml:mail" is not a list).


I've put this line here to prevent Gnus automatically creating an
(nnfolder "archive") group upon startup, which I do not need.

Removing this line eliminates the duplicate nnml:mail in the server
list, but then Gnus will create an nnfolder "archive" group and the
corresponding Mail/archive directory, despite I have the following
line in my .gnus:

   (setq gnus-message-archive-method "nnml:mail")


[...Time goes by...]


Hm, the following in .newsrc.eld did the trick:

   (setq gnus-server-alist '(("archive")))

No nnfolder group and no duplicates.  :-)


Auto creating this nnfolder thingie independently of what select
method the user chooses for archiving should not be done, I think.


Andras

Re: couple of questions about servers and agent

[Bjørn Mork]

Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE (Kai Großjohann) writes:
> Simon Josefsson <jas@extundo.com> writes:
>
>> This has been suggested before, I think, and I think it wouldn't be
>> that hard to add.  The biggest problem is probably to work out how a
>> UI for it would look like.
>
> Add an "(un)plug a server" command which asks for a server name and
> then does like `J j' on that server.  (Maybe `C-u J j' could do this.)

How would this be different from doing 'L' and 'O' on a server in the
server buffer?


Bjørn
-- 
Ban random frobs!  

Re: couple of questions about servers and agent

[NAGY Andras]

On Mon, 08 Jul 2002, at 15:40, Simon Josefsson <jas@extundo.com> wrote:

>> Actually, not even the partially downloaded groups were readable
>> offline.
>
> Hm.  What happened?  Were there any information in the
> ~/News/agent/server/group directory?

I managed to have gnus-agent-fetch-session run successfully.  It
created the following files in News/agent:

lib/servers:
  ("nntp:news")

nntp/news/agent.lib/history:
  an entry for each article downloaded

nntp/news/group/name/and/articles/1122:
  usual spool format

(No `active' file or similar.)



When unplugged and trying to open a group on the nntp:news server, I
get:

  Couldn't activate group nntp+news:elte.prog-mat: No such group: elte.prog-mat
  

  
When starting gnus with gnus-unplugged, I get:

  Cannot read partial active file from nntp server.

but the bootstrap goes on, and the previous behaviour continues.
  

When trying to switch to plugged mode, checking for new news, noticing
that the server is down and pressing C-g, I'm asked

  Unable to open nntp:news, go offline? (y or n)

If I answer yes, I get

  Cannot read partial active file from nntp server.

and the agent remains online.


It seems to me that the agent misses some active file.  Any ideas?



Andras

Re: couple of questions about servers and agent

[Bjørn Mork]

NAGY Andras <nagya@inf.elte.hu> writes:

> I managed to have gnus-agent-fetch-session run successfully.  It
> created the following files in News/agent:
>
> lib/servers:
>   ("nntp:news")
>
> nntp/news/agent.lib/history:
>   an entry for each article downloaded
[..]
>   Cannot read partial active file from nntp server.
>
> and the agent remains online.
>
>
> It seems to me that the agent misses some active file.  Any ideas?

There's supposed to be a partial active file in the nntp/news/agent.lib/
directory in addition to the history file.


Bjørn
-- 
I mean, I firmly believe that everything is really a whale.  

Re: couple of questions about servers and agent

[NAGY Andras]

On Mon, 08 Jul 2002, at 16:45, NAGY Andras <nagya@inf.elte.hu> wrote:

> It seems to me that the agent misses some active file.  Any ideas?

Another gnus-agent-fetch-session created the active file.  If you
click on it and it does not work, click on it again.  ;-P


Andras

Re: couple of questions about servers and agent

[Kai Großjohann]

Bjørn Mork <bmork@dod.no> writes:

> Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE (Kai Großjohann) writes:
>>
>> Add an "(un)plug a server" command which asks for a server name and
>> then does like `J j' on that server.  (Maybe `C-u J j' could do this.)
>
> How would this be different from doing 'L' and 'O' on a server in the
> server buffer?

The UI is obviously different.  I don't know if the effect is
different, as well, since I don't grok the new "offline" status.

Anyone?

kai
-- 
A large number of young women don't trust men with beards.  (BFBS Radio)

Re: couple of questions about servers and agent

[Kai Großjohann]

NAGY Andras <nagya@inf.elte.hu> writes:

> I'm using "nnml:mail" everywhere, but with
>
>    (setq gnus-server-alist '(("archive" . "nnml:mail")))
>
> in .newsrc.eld Gnus signals and error ("nnml:mail" is not a list).

Don't put the dot there:

(setq gnus-server-alist '(("archive" "nnml:mail")))
;                dot removed here --^

kai
-- 
A large number of young women don't trust men with beards.  (BFBS Radio)

Re: couple of questions about servers and agent

[Paul Jarc]

NAGY Andras <nagya@inf.elte.hu> wrote:
> I've put this line here to prevent Gnus automatically creating an
> (nnfolder "archive") group upon startup, which I do not need.

You can also prevent that by:
(setq gnus-message-archive-method nil)
But this would mean that you would have to set Gcc headers by means
other than gnus-message-archive-group.  (gcc-self parameters, posting
styles, etc.)


paul