INSTALLATION
============

First, be sure to customize Makefile for your site.  The variables should
be the same as news 2.10.3 and beyond.

Uucast may have to be customized for you site so that the uucp file
names that are used are recognized by your uucico.  The only real option 
is HDB.  Sites running HDB UUCP should just have to define
HDB in Makefile.  I hope that this works :-).  If you don't have HDB,
the other configuration should work just fine for you.  There are two
GRADE values that are defined in the file uucast.h.  These are the
grade values that can be used by 4.3 BSD to regulate traffic flow.  In
the case of uucast they should be used to guarantee a unique job file
name.  If your uux generates jobs like:

	C.ihnp4AD8471	local command file
	D.mecctsXA8471	remote command file (becomes X. file on ihnp4)
	D.ihnp4BC8471	data to transmit

then the grade is AD.  Choose a grade that doesn't conflict with this.
The defaults are MA and XM.  Uucast would have generated:

	C.ihnp4MA8471	local command file
	D.mecctsXM8471	remote command file (becomes X. file on ihnp4)
	D.ihnp4MA8471	data to transmit

Note that while the grades in the data and local command files are not
different, UUCP doesn't seem to care about this.  If it cares on your
system, you should define a third grade (GRADE3) and use that as well.
Also note that the remote command file usually must have an X in it's
name so that it is recognized as such by the system.  This is a little
curious, but since I don't have source I can't puzzle it out on my
own.

On Ultrix systems the UUCP datafiles are in a strange place, and job
files are in different directories.  This can all be specified by
changing the CDIR, DDIR, and XDIR definitions in uucast.h.  There may
be other systems where this is weird as well.  In any case, you can
specify the location of each type of file individually.  See uucast.h
for more information.

All of this stuff is different for each implementation of uucp, so
I have made it as easy as possible to change.  If you need to hack it for your
system, please send those hacks to ahby@MECC.COM, so I can incorporate them into
future releases.

A word of warning:  you WILL have trouble installing this software.  It
is not perfect, nor is it forgiving.  If you are unsure about the
stability of any of the modules on your system, there are ways in each
of them to preserve the original state of things.  Please be careful
when using this software, as it can be very detrimental to your news
system, as well as all of your downstream sites.

Also note that there is no make install option in the Makefile.  This
is really just laziness on my part.  Move all of the generated files
into LIBDIR.  Remember that uucast MUST be suid to uucp so that it can
generate job files with the correct ownership.


OPERATION
=========

Example sys file.  

meccsd:mod,usa,na,net,world,comp,news,sci,rec,misc,soc,talk,to.meccsd:M:master
karau:net.sources,news.admin,news.software.b,to.karau:M:master
nis:mod,usa,na,net,world,comp,news,sci,rec,misc,soc,talk,to.nis:M:master
zeke:mod,usa,na,net,world,comp,news,sci,rec,misc,soc,talk,to.zeke:M:master
master:all:OF:/usr/spool/batch/master

The M indicates that the site is being multicast to.  The
word master is the name of a dummy entry in the sys file which gives
the information about what to do with these multi cast sites.  Site
"master" is receiving all articles, is the destination of a multicast
(O) and is a batched feed (F).  The file it places things into is
/usr/spool/batch/master, just like a normal batched entry.

In your crontab, replace the sendbatches with something like:

	55 18-5 * * * cat /usr/spool/batch/master >> /usr/spool/batch/hold; /usr/lib/news/multibatch -c master >> /usr/lib/cron/cast-log

This preserves the batch file (just in case) and then multibatches the
articles indicated in file master compressed (-c flag for multisend).

Remember that multibatch calls the script multisend, and expects
multisend to be in the $(LIBDIR) directory for news.  Multisend calls
uucast, which should be in the path or in your $(LIBDIR) directory.

Good luck!  If you have any problems, please drop me a line.

Copyright (C) Shane McCarron, 1987.
