Kees van Eeten wrote to Roy Witt about MakeNL v3.4.1 Release:
          No pseudo-French spellings, please!

 RW>> You can test this by attempting to connect to 2:292/907...a PVT
 RW>> -Unpublished- IP capable node.

 KvE>  The point is, that when IP only nodes came into life, a choice had
 KvE> to be made what to put into the phone number field. Some were in
 KvE> favour of an all zero number, others were in favour of a specific
 KvE> pattern to specify an ip address. If a hostname was given an all
 KvE> zero's ip address was put in the phone number field.

AFAIK, Janis and the other ZCs worked that out among themselves. I know
that all zeros or the Static IP of a node was recommended here in the
phone field a long time ago.

 KvE>  Some with knowledge in the international phone world were against
 KvE> the use of the tree zero preable, as this preable appears to be used
 KvE> for emegency services in some countries.

The only zone in which that is used for emergencies is Z3...They use a
different method of indicating an IP node.

 KvE> Therefore some zones prefer the use of -Unpublished-. The nodelist
 KvE> compiler makenl by Ben Baker and its clone makenl_ng, has an
 KvE> internal test, that requires that where -Unpublished-
 KvE>  is used, the Pvt tag should be placed at the beginning of the line.

Except that the keyword Allowunpub in a CTL file now allows the -Unpub'd-
to be there without the PVT tag.

 KvE>  This is inconvenient for listings, that should start with Region,
 KvE> Host, Hub or Down.

Using Host doesn't seem to make MNL balk with an -Unpub'd- in the phone
field.

 KvE>  Then there are mailers like your, that gathers a lot of
 KvE> intelligence from the nodelist. It behaviour stems from POTS times
 KvE> and I think correctly refuses to directly to Pvt tagged zones.

Yes, but that can be over-ridden in DB by making your own MYLIST.xxx to
show the node with a PVT in a ZC published nodelist as an IP only node.
Been there and have done that. It works just fine with that MYLIST.

 KvE> As a consequence it will also not connect to IPonly nodes that fly
 KvE> the Pvt tag.

If you use only the ZC published NODELIST.xxx, else you have to make your
own private list and have DB read that into it's configuration. As I
mentioned above.

 KvE>  To solve this almost ten years ago start was made to add an option
 KvE> to makenl_ng the only nodelist compiler with availble source code.
 KvE>  The option would disable the test that when -Unpublished- was noted
 KvE>  as phnone number, the Pvt tag was not required.

8^)

 KvE>  The ten years were used to convince many that makenl_ng was safe to
 KvE> use, but as the hardware and software environments are divers in
 KvE> Fidonet, bugs surfaced, that were only in specific environments.

I've toyed with MNL since v2.5...only recently (two or three years now)
have I had the opportunity to put it into operation.

 KvE> It is a shame that it has taken so long, but it is as it is.

Yeup.

 KvE>  So when this whole exercise comes to an end, the nodelist line for
 KvE> the system that Bart runs, will have the Pvt tag removed, and your
 KvE> mailer will happily connect.

It does already, as he will attest to in his own time.

 KvE>  As for me connecting to Bart's system, my mailer has no other other
 KvE>  knowledge of what is in the nodelist, then I tell it. So if I
 KvE> provide the hostname or IP address that Bart uses, my mailer will
 KvE> connect.

As above...

 KvE>  So to make a long story even longer, my interest in Allowunpub is
 KvE> to allow Region, Host and Hub together with -Unpublished-. For you
 KvE> it will open the possibillity for a direct connect to many system
 KvE> now having Pvt at the start of their nodelist line.

I can do that for those I want to connect to, but it shouldn't require
that I have to do that. If Bart would put zeros in his listing rather than
-Unpublished-, that would speed things up ten fold. That he's not allowed
to because of bad software used by his ZC/NC shouldn't be a wall in
connecting to his system.


        R\%/itt


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--- D'Bridge 3.92
 * Origin: South Texas Hub - Gulf Coast Backbone (1:387/22)