SYS:SITE; A novice adminstrator's question

[barmar@Think.COM (Barry Margolin)]

    Date: Thu, 1 Aug 1991 10:45 EDT
    From: delaney@xn.ll.mit.edu (John R. Delaney)

    This question is for seasoned Symbolics network adminstrators. It pertains
    to managing such a network when you have two (or more) Genera versions
    around. 

    It appears from the instructions for system installation that the file
    "SYS:SITE;SYS.TRANSLATIONS" should translate "SYS: **; *.*.*" into 
    "<some host>:>REL-<majo number>-<minor-number>>SYS>**>*.*.*" using
    SET-LOGICAL-PATHNAME-HOST. Fine. 

    It appears from the namespace description that the site object site
    directory attribute should give the translation for "SYS: SITE;", e.g.,
    "<some host>:>SITE>". It would also appear that this translation take
    precedence over the above. That is, if I copied a file to "SYS: SITE;
    FOO.SYSTEM" some time long after booting, it would end up in "<some
    host>:>SITE>FOO.SYSTEM".

I reported this as a bug several years ago.  Yes, the translation of
SYS:SITE; is done by looking at the namespace, not the translation list.

    Is that correct? Is that what one really wants? I can conceive of cases
    where I want a different .SYSTEM file for different Genera releases. 

The intent is that there should only be one site directory.  All the
standard files in SYS:SITE; are Lisp source files, so they can contain
arbitrary conditionals.  Instead of having different .SYSTEM files for
different releases, have the .SYSTEM file call SCT:GET-RELEASE-VERSION
and base its actions on its values.

                                                barmar