Virtual server/major confusion

Virtual server/major confusion

[Harry Putnam]

Attempting to create a second nnml server.  A place to store old messages
from Newsgroups now stored under ~/News/agent.

I want to go thru those agentized groups and split out the messages by
mnth to nnml groups of similar names.  That part is not a problem.  I
know how to do that.

However, I want to store these nnml groups in a directory on a separate
partition, in this case /mnt/bak/news2nnml

Following along in the info pages (Creating A Virtual Server) which
say the "nnspool" example could just as well be an "nnml" example.

I've created an nnml server named "news2nnml" that looks like so:

(nnml "news2nnml"
      (nnml-directory "/mnt/bak/news2nnml")
      (nnml-nov-directory "/mnt/bak/news2nnml")
      (nnml-active-file "/mnt/bak/news2nnml"))

Leaving the select method in ".gnus" like so:

(setq gnus-secondary-select-methods '((nnml "")))

Also tried it like so:

(setq gnus-secondary-select-methods 
  '((nnml "")
     (nnml "/mnt/bak/news2nnml")))                               

The first setting gives errors that say either IO error
Or
/mnt/bak/news2nnml is a directory

The second shows all my nnml groups as before but duplicates with the
name nnml+news2nnml:GROUP  and nothing from /mnt/bak/news2nnml

I moved 4 small nnml groups to /mnt/bak/news2nnml for this
experiment. During my experimenting, gnus did see these groups at one
point when pressing <RET> on the server but would not let me in them
even after pressing "g" on the server to regenerate, and g in group
buffer to get new stuff.  Not sure what I did to cause this much to
happen ... but cannot get the groups to show up again.

This seems to  be hopelessly confusing and might need to be explained
in a simplified manner in info.

Re: Virtual server/major confusion

[Kai Großjohann]

Harry Putnam <reader@newsguy.com> writes:

> (nnml "news2nnml"
>       (nnml-directory "/mnt/bak/news2nnml")
>       (nnml-nov-directory "/mnt/bak/news2nnml")
>       (nnml-active-file "/mnt/bak/news2nnml"))

/mnt/bak/news2nnml cannot be both a directory (nnml-directory) and a
file (nnml-active-file)!  I think the customary choice is a file
`active' in the nnml-directory, ie /mnt/bak/news2nnml/active.

Does this work?

kai
-- 
Life is hard and then you die.

Re: Virtual server/major confusion

[Harry Putnam]

Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE (Kai Großjohann) writes:

> Harry Putnam <reader@newsguy.com> writes:
> 
> > (nnml "news2nnml"
> >       (nnml-directory "/mnt/bak/news2nnml")
> >       (nnml-nov-directory "/mnt/bak/news2nnml")
> >       (nnml-active-file "/mnt/bak/news2nnml"))
> 
> /mnt/bak/news2nnml cannot be both a directory (nnml-directory) and a
> file (nnml-active-file)!  I think the customary choice is a file
> `active' in the nnml-directory, ie /mnt/bak/news2nnml/active.

Yes,  I caught that shortly after posting and tried a number of other
arrangements.  The current one that seems to work looks like this
(shortened the directory  name too):

(nnml "n2m"
      (nnml-directory "/mnt/bak/n2m/")
      (nnml-active-file "/mnt/bak/n2m/active"))


No nov files are generated with the above so added:

(nnml "n2m"
      (nnml-directory "/mnt/bak/n2m/")
      (nnml-nov-directory "/mnt/bak/n2m")
      (nnml-active-file "/mnt/bak/n2m/active"))

Still pressing "g" on n2m server doesn't generate nov files.

There are  some other  problems to:

The server buffer now shows several n2m servers:
(five total... I only created one) The others are read only.


     {nnfolder:archive} (opened)
     {nnml:n2m} (opened)
     {nnml:n2m+nnml+n2m:Dan} (opened)
     {nnml:n2m+nnml+n2m:JimH} (opened)
     {nnml:n2m+nnml+n2m:Rhoskins} (opened)
     {nndir:~/News/agent/nntp/enews.newsguy.com/gnu/emacs/gnus/} (opened)
     {nndir:~/News/agent/nntp/enews.newsguy.com/comp/lang/awk/} (opened)
     {nndir:~/tmp/Edited-core/} (opened)
     {nndir:~/tmp/Edited-cp/} (opened)
     {nndir:~/spool/backup/} (opened)
     {nndoc:gnus-help} (opened)
     {nndraft:} (opened)
     {nnml:n2m} (opened)
     {nnml:} (opened)
     {nntp:enews.newsguy.com} (opened)


Restarting gnus results in a server buffer showing two n2m servers:
(one opened one closed)

     {nnfolder:archive} (opened)
     {nnml:n2m} (closed)
     {nndir:~/News/agent/nntp/enews.newsguy.com/gnu/emacs/gnus/} (opened)
     {nndir:~/News/agent/nntp/enews.newsguy.com/comp/lang/awk/} (opened)
     {nndir:~/tmp/Edited-core/} (opened)
     {nndir:~/tmp/Edited-cp/} (opened)
     {nndir:~/spool/backup/} (opened)
     {nndoc:gnus-help} (opened)
     {nndraft:} (opened)
     {nnml:n2m} (opened)
     {nnml:} (opened)
     {nntp:enews.newsguy.com} (opened)

The groups have now appeared in "group" buffer, but they still don't
have nov files.

Seems like lots of crazy behavior for something that should be kind of
easy to do.

Re: Virtual server/major confusion

[Kai Großjohann]

Harry Putnam <reader@newsguy.com> writes:

> Still pressing "g" on n2m server doesn't generate nov files.

Hm.  Does M-x nnml-generate-nov-databases RET help?

>      {nnml:n2m} (closed)
>      {nnml:n2m} (opened)
> 
> The groups have now appeared in "group" buffer, but they still don't
> have nov files.
> 
> Seems like lots of crazy behavior for something that should be kind of
> easy to do.

Hm.  Maybe one of the servers is secondary, and the other is foreign?
Does the .newsrc.eld file contain one of the servers?

Please generate the NOV files and then copy and move around articles
to see if the NOV files are kept up to date.  Depending on how the
articles got into the server, I can understand NOV problems (you did
have the wrong file name in the parameters), but once that's cleared
up, the NOV data should be kept up to date automatically.  If it
isn't: maybe a bug?

kai
-- 
Life is hard and then you die.

Re: Virtual server/major confusion

[Harry Putnam]

Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE (Kai Großjohann) writes:

> Harry Putnam <reader@newsguy.com> writes:
> 
> > Still pressing "g" on n2m server doesn't generate nov files.
> 
> Hm.  Does M-x nnml-generate-nov-databases RET help?

Yes...I have .overview files now
> 
> >      {nnml:n2m} (closed)
> >      {nnml:n2m} (opened)
> > 
> > The groups have now appeared in "group" buffer, but they still don't
> > have nov files.
> > 
> > Seems like lots of crazy behavior for something that should be kind of
> > easy to do.
> 
> Hm.  Maybe one of the servers is secondary, and the other is foreign?
> Does the .newsrc.eld file contain one of the servers?

One appears in .newsrc.eld along with the n2m groups:
("n2m" nnml "n2m" (nnml-directory "/mnt/bak/n2m/") (nnml-active-file "/mnt/bak/n2m/active"))))

> Please generate the NOV files and then copy and move around articles
> to see if the NOV files are kept up to date.  Depending on how the
> articles got into the server, I can understand NOV problems (you did
> have the wrong file name in the parameters), but once that's cleared
> up, the NOV data should be kept up to date automatically.  If it
> isn't: maybe a bug?

After moving a few files around and seeing the nov files keep pace and
another restart I now have a single n2m server in server buffer and
all seems to be hunky dory.

Thanks again Kai