>>>>> "Ty" == Ty Sarna <tsarna@endicor.com> writes:

	[a sup-replacement design deleted]

	Maybe I'm showing my true (origional) colours again, but an
old Amiga solution might be relevant here.  BMS is a system (that is
currently only in place under AmigaOS to my knowledge) that transfers
files through email.  Unlike other similar systems, it required the
systems involved to first register with each other --- thus
alleviating the problem of large chunks of lost mail.  Secondly, it
handled all transfers automagically.  I must admit that I really hate
putting things together after a large number of parts have arrived.

	In it's design, BMS had the following strengths:

1. Ability to limit the number of bytes per day per user and overall
    (there was an additional limit on bytes per week).  This would
    have greatly aided in the problems we had when everyone hit the
    sup machine at once... for all of the archive.

2. Ability to transfer files or directories with one simple command.
    Modern ftp's let you get foo.tar.gz for a directory foo, but bms
    let you just get 'foo'.  Files and directories would be expanded
    as they arrived where specified --- idential to the host.

3. Transfer details fully intermodal and transparent.  By using email,
    any type of connection works.  It also allowed transfers to be
    batched at certain intervals and accurately given precedence on
    networks that support it.  The details of forming mail messages
    (encoding splitting and partial files) are all handled internally
    as are the details of retrying missed or damaged parts.

	Now... in it's present state, I don't think BMS is 100%
suitable.  However, a look at it's operation may prove valueable
before a replacement for sup is generated.  Like the previous writer,
I favor the MD5 sum solution for determining both file and directory
status for an update.

	My most recent experience with sup was the 4 days of online
time it took me to upgrade (while my uucp site languished and jobs
piled up for it) since my Sun4/260 seems only to run happily at 9600.
I'd be seriouly thinking of running sup here and carrying tapes home
--- if it weren't for the fact that it seems rather unnecessary in
usual practice and sup doesn't run on the machines we have here.

Dave.

-- 
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|David Gilbert, PCI, Richmond Hill, Ontario.  | Two things can only be     |
|Mail:      dgilbert@pci.on.ca                |  equal if and only if they |
|http://www.pci.on.ca/~dgilbert               |   are precisely opposite.  |
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