[Pan-devel] Re: Feature Request: More connections per server

[Duncan]

Jared <address@hidden> posted
address@hidden, excerpted
below, on  Thu, 23 Aug 2007 18:15:28 -0500:

> Pan has really come a long way since the last time I've used it.  I'm
> very impressed with the changes made, I've switched to using Pan
> fulltime as my newsreader.

=8^)

> However, I noticed one thing.  There's a maximum connection limit of 4
> connections/server.  I was wondering if you could increase this?  25
> would probably be the ideal number, but 10 would be good too if there's
> a performance hit involved.
> 
> Maximum Connections per server:
> Giganews: 10
> Astraweb: 25
> Usenetserver: 10
> Hitnews.eu: 8

pan already has this feature, but it's deliberately made an advanced 
feature.  Let me explain...

First, you don't mention which version of pan.  If you are using old 
"stable" pan, 0.14.x, I believe you have to modify the code, but that 
version isn't supported any longer.

New-pan (the C++ rewrite, >0.90, currently 0.132) works a bit 
differently.  Keep in mind that pan is 100% GNKSA approved.  It worked 
hard for that and at least the current primary developer, Charles Kerr, 
isn't interested in that changing.  I agree with him.

The problem here is that one of the GNKSA specs is that a news client not 
be abusive of the servers it connects to.  The spec defines that as 4 
connections per server.  That's where the "advanced" I mentioned above 
comes in.  The GNKSA specs are for the GUI, so pan has no way in the GUI 
to set >4 connections per server.  However, as with a few other settings, 
if you edit the (text based) config files directly, in this case 
servers.xml, you can set parameters outside those available in the GUI, 
and pan obeys them.  With pan closed, edit that file to set your desired 
number of connections for each configured server, open pan, and there you 
are. =8^)

So again, the GUI config will never allow setting >4 connections/server, 
but you may edit the config file as you wish, and (new) pan will do it.  
That's deliberate policy due to GNKSA compliance.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman