On 8 Jan 2013, at 00:25, Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com> wrote: On 01/07/2013 09:57 PM, Ian McLaughlin wrote: Yeah more and more of us are using Ciscos to do this. We really need to find a way around this issue that doesn't involve manual maintenance of routing info. Perhaps an agreed-upon entry in INFO.TXT ? That's still manually managed, but it's managed by the individual link owners. Well Brian raised the good point of "on which host?" ...I think the problem here is that INFO.TXT really looks like, to me as a relative HECnet n00b, a per-"domain" file...but there's no clear delineation of administrative domains here. We've been using areas, but we're running out of those, and there's no consistency in the node numbering within each area. We could all agree to have "an info node" with a particular node number within each area, but that won't work when we start having multiple administrative domains within a single area. Johnny talked about exactly this just today, in the context of Sampsa's relocation. Dividing lines between regions of administrative control will not correspond to area numbers for much longer, its sounds like. Yeah, I've been noticing that...I've up-to-now used a specific "info node" approach...but it DOES get a bit wonky when I divide my stuff, or skip a node number or re-use a node number. (On a semi-related note...I might implement personal node-number schemes: separating PDP-11 sims from DEC-20 sims from VMS sims from physical hardware and so on.) Perhaps a centralized database that maintains per-NODE info, not per-AREA info. Then that database could have a field that denotes the point of administrative control that is responsible for each node. Centralising the NODE info could solve a lot of problems and make data mining easier. ;) I'd also like basic (Geographic location(s) (see below for further comments), owner, that kind of stuff) per-area info to be defined in this central database. (To be honest, I'd then break it down in to sub, and sub sub areas but at times I can go a bit overboard with creating subcategories...I doubt anyone other than myself would like breaking down their areas /that/ much.) Then, some mechanism (either automated, manual, whatever) would then populate that database. Perhaps there could be several population mechanisms...a program that runs under VMS, RSX, RSTS/E, or whatever, and something over IP for everything else. A web interface to the database would also be nice. How would it be done? Flatfile and having Johnny or someone add all node info by hand? ;) -Dave -- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA