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Notesfile Reference Manual
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make boot
If all goes well, this should end with a message to the effect that the notesfile system has been installed
(approximately 17 minutes on a VAX-11/780) If anything goes wrong, perusal of the terminal dialogue should point
out the offending steps. The most likely cause of errors will be a missing directory.
To replace the notesfile software any time after these two steps have been run, type:
make install
If at some time you are must change some of the internal constants of the notesfile package (such as string
lengths and blocking factors), all the existing notesfiles on your system will be incompatible with the new instantiation of the program. The ‘‘nfdump’’ and ‘‘nfload’’ programs are useful for converting the data base from one format
to another. The ‘‘nfdump’’ program should be compiled with the old configuration and the ‘‘nfload’’ program
should be compiled with the new configuration. Documentation on these programs can be found in the appendices.
3.4.3 User Subroutines.
The notesfile package contains several routines available to users in general. The nfabort routine generates
a core image, places it in a specified place, logs the fact in a notesfile, and terminates. The nfcomment routine
allows users to log text in a notesfile. These routines are useful for debugging information, and communication
between program developers and users. Users can load these routines by specifying ‘-lnfcom’ on the ‘cc’ or ‘ld’
command lines.
The normal installation procedure (‘‘make install’’) will compile the nfcomment routine and place it in the
library directory. As distributed, the file is placed in the ‘‘/usr/local/lib’’ directory. To change this, modify the
definition of ‘‘LIBDIR’’ in ‘Makefile’.
3.5 Installing the Man(1) Documentation.
Install the man(1) pages for the notesfile with the following commands. They are best done as super-user.
cd man
make install
The nroff sources for the documentation will be installed in the directory /usr/man in subdirectories man1, man3,
and man8.
3.6 Interfacing to News(I).
The notesfile system interfaces to the news(I) system. The newsinput program parses articles from the
news system and inserts them in the appropriate notesfiles. The newsoutput program moves notes from the notesfile
system to the news system. Neither program will move text between the two systems if the notesfile is not enabled
for networking (see section 3.1.5). Newsoutput will not retransmit articles inserted by newsinput. Sites sharing
notesfiles can all run both newsinput and newsoutput.
Appendix B contains instructions on how to interface a notesfile system to a news system. Configurations
for isolated notesfiles sites, notesfile subnetworks, mapping between notesfile and newsgroup names, and a checklist
for the gateway installation are included.
Since the notes system stores the entire text of a single notesfile in a single file, a notesfile system uses less
space than the same scale news system. The notesfile system is generally more space-efficient than B news.