.\" =()<.ds a @<NEWSARTS>@>()=
.ds a /var/news
.\" =()<.ds b @<NEWSBIN>@>()=
.ds b /usr/local/libexec/cnews
.\" =()<.ds c @<NEWSCTL>@>()=
.ds c /var/lib/news
.TH RELAYNEWS 8CN "10 October 1993"
.BY "C News"
.SH NAME
relaynews \- store and forward netnews articles
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B \*b/relay/relaynews
[
.B \-hsux
]
[
.B \-a
dupsite
]
[
.B \-b
xrefsite
]
[
.B \-c
currdir
]
[
.B \-d
.B fhlmt
]
[
.B \-o
days
]
[
.B \-n
notefile
]
.SH DESCRIPTION
.I Relaynews
installs locally
and
broadcasts (network) news articles
read from its standard input.
Typically the articles will be in a batch
(see
.IR news (5)),
which must
.I not
be compressed
(see
.IR compress (1)).
Articles are usually
queued for transmission to one's netnews neighbours via
.IR newsbatch (8CN)
and thence via
.IR uux (1)
or
.IR snntp (1).
.PP
.B \-d
turns on debugging of
.BR f iling,
.BR h eaders,
.BR l ocking,
.BR m atching,
.BR t ransmission.
.B \-h
prevents generation of history entries for rejected articles;
the default behaviour
generates larger history files that allow NNTP
receivers to more efficiently reject offered articles.
.B \-s
makes discarding an article a serious matter,
justifying a non-zero exit status (for the benefit of
.IR inews ).
.B \-c
is an optimisation:
.I currdir
is assumed to be the current directory;
in the absence of this option,
.B pwd
is invoked.
.B \-u
unlinks
(removes)
any filename arguments after successful processing;
they are assumed to be relative to
.I currdir
(\c
.B `pwd`
if none).
.B \-o
causes articles with dates
(in
.B Date:
headers)
more than
.I days
old to be dropped
(usually to stop accidentally-retransmitted old articles).
.B \-n
causes the current time (as decimal ASCII) to be written into
the
.I notefile
(which should be an absolute pathname) once if
.I relaynews
finds it necessary to use symbolic links when filing articles.
.PP
.B \-x
prevents generation of
.B Xref:
headers in articles filed in exactly one newsgroup;
use of this option will interfere with generation of
news overview data
and
mirroring via
.BR \-b .
.B \-b
causes
.I relaynews
to
not update
.I active
and
file articles
received directly from
.I xrefsite
under the groups and article numbers
found in incoming
.B Xref:
headers.
.B \-b
provides the basis for a news mirroring facility.
.B \-a
similarly causes
.I active
to not be updated
and
duplicate articles
received directly from
.I dupsite
to be accepted,
but filed under the filenames found in their
existing
.I history
entries.
It may be used to recover a news spool,
given recent
.I active
and
.I history
files.
.PP
.IR "Control messages" ,
recognised by their
.B Control:
headers
are filed under the
.B control
pseudo-group only,
but are forwarded as usual,
by examining their
.B Newsgroups:
and
.B Distribution:
headers.
Note that posting to the
.B control
pseudo-group
will not cause a message to be treated as a control message;
.B control
is not a real newsgroup.
.PP
An article which contains an
.B Also-Control:
header is treated normally
except that the contents of the header
are executed as if they were the contents of a
.B Control:
header.
Such an article is a form of
.I "hybrid message"
since it functions as an ordinary article
yet also causes control functions to be executed.
The
.B Supersedes:
header is a special case
and is rewritten internally
.I only
to
.BR "Also-Control: cancel" .
.PP
Articles which contain no locally-known
(to the
.I active
file)
newsgroups
yet accepted by the local subscription list
are filed exactly once,
in the
.B junk
pseudo-group,
and forwarded as usual.
If all newsgroups in the article are refused by
the local subscription list
or
are refused by an
.B x
in
.I active
file entries,
then the article will be
.I discarded
and not filed in
.BR junk .
.PP
Locally-generated articles
need not be permitted by the local subscription list
but are otherwise processed normally;
this is for backward compatibility
and perhaps to keep the local subscription list short
by not requiring
.B general
and the like to be named.
.SH EXAMPLES
.ft B
.nf
cd \*a/in.coming
relaynews \-uc \*a/in.coming \-o 7 nntp.* >>\*c/log 2>>\*c/errlog"
.fi
.ft
.in +0.5i
File and forward articles in batches that arrived by NNTP,
and remove each batch upon successfully processing it.
Discard any articles more than a week old.
.in -0.5i
.SH FILES
.PD 0
.TP 2i
.B \*a
netnews article tree
.TP
.B \*a/comp/unix/wizards
example newsgroup directory
(for
.BR comp.unix.wizards );
such directories and their ancestor directories will be
created automatically as needed
.TP
.B \*a/comp/unix/wizards/12564
example article file name
.TP
.BI \*a/out.going/ system /togo
default
.B sys
file
.BR F ,
.BR f ,
.B n
and
.B I
flags batch file name
(N.B.:
.BI \*a/out.going/ system
will
.I not
be automatically created as needed)
.TP
.B \*c/sys
determines who receives broadcast netnews articles,
which ones,
and
how they are to be sent articles
.TP
.B \*c/active
contains locally-legal newsgroups and (un)moderated flag
.TP
.B \*c/history
record of articles received
and mapping of message-ids to file names
.TP
.B \*c/history.{dir,pag}
.IR dbm (3Z)
index into
.B history
by message-ids
.TP
.B \*c/whoami
if present,
contains news system's site name,
overriding any other host names
.TP
.B \*c/log
conventional log of incoming articles
.TP
.B \*c/errlog
conventional log of errors,
should be empty
.TP
.B \*c/headers
article headers of the last
.I relaynews
invocation;
consumed to generate overview data
.TP
.B \*c/bin
system-specific directory of programs to
override
.B \*b
and its subdirectories
.TP
.B \*b/ctl
directory of programs to implement control messages
.TP
.B \*b/relay/relaynews
the lean, mean news-relayin' machine
.TP
.B \*b/newsreply
generates a return address from article headers
.B \*c/replyusepath
tells
.I newsreply
to use the Path header rather than the From header for the return address
.PD
.SH "SEE ALSO"
compress(1),
snntp(1),
uux(1),
dbm(3Z),
news(5),
newsdb(5),
newsbatch(8CN),
rnews(8CN)
.br
ARPA Internet RFCs 1036 and 850
.SH DIAGNOSTICS
Usually found in
.BR \*c/errlog .
.br
.IR Relaynews 's
exit status is 0 for successful completion,
1 if at least one batch was bad and worth manual inspection,
and
2 if the news system needs human attention.
.br
If
.I relaynews
cannot establish safe
standard file descriptors
and
standardise its environment
(notably PATH,
SHELL
and IFS),
probably due to failure of
.IR malloc (3),
it will exit with status of 1
and without writing any complaints on standard error
(\c
.BR errlog ),
as a (possibly-obsolete) security precaution.
.SH HISTORY
Written by Geoff Collyer
at the University of Toronto
as part of the C news project.
.SH BUGS
A control message which cannot be filed in the
.B control
pseudo-group
and
which cannot be filed in the
.B junk
pseudo-group because
.B junk
is not in the
.I active
file will generate an error message
which refers to the groups in its
.B Newsgroups:
header instead of referring to the
.B control
pseudo-group.
.PP
.I Relaynews
could run faster in some circumstances
and would be simpler
if
.B Control:
were required to be the first header,
if present,
and if
.B Newsgroups:
were required to be the next.
.PP
The whole control message and hybrid message situation
is a festering bug.
Either control messages should be eliminated,
or all forms of backward compatibility should be dropped
(including
.B Control:
and
.BR Supersedes: )
and only
.B Also-Control:
should be supported.