Ubuntu Manpage: news.daily - Perform daily Usenet maintenance tasks

NAME

       news.daily - Perform daily Usenet maintenance tasks

SYNOPSIS

       news.daily [delayrm] [expctl=path] [expdir=path] [expireover] [expireoverflags=args] [flags=args]
       [lowmark] [mailto=address] [noexpire] [noexpireover] [noexplog] [nologs] [nomail] [noprocbatch]
       [norenumber] [norm] [norotate] [nostat] [notdaily] [postexec=program] [procbatchdir=path] [tmpdir=path]
       [/path/to/a/program]

DESCRIPTION

news.daily performs a number of important Usenet administrative functions. This includes:

• producing a status report with innstat;

• removing old news articles (with expirerm if the delayrm keyword is specified);

• purging the overview database with expireover (if the corresponding eponym keyword is specified or if
enableoverview is true in inn.conf);

• processing log files and rotating the archived log files with scanlogs;

• processing innfeed dropped files with procbatch;

• processing spooled messages with rnews invoked with the -U flag;

• renumbering the active file with ctlinnd;

• rebuilding the history file with expire;

• removing any old socket files found in the pathrun directory;

• collecting all the output and mailing it.

Please note that this program should be run under the news administrator's account (usually "news"), not
as root. By default, news.daily performs all of its functions and mails the output to the news
administrator, which is the user specified with --with-news-master at configure time (it is "usenet" by
default). You can also change this behaviour with the mailto keyword.

By specifying keywords on the command line, it is possible to modify the functions performed, as well as
change the arguments given to expire(8) and expireover(8). news.daily should be run once a day,
typically out of cron(8). Since it will slow the server down while it is running, it should be run
during periods of low server usage, such as in the middle of the night. To run it at 3am, for example,
add the following entry to the news user's crontab file:

0 3 * * * <pathbin in inn.conf>/news.daily expireover lowmark

If you're using any non-CNFS storage methods, add the delayrm keyword to the above option list for
news.daily.

It may be run more often, but such invocations should at least use the norotate keyword (or perhaps the
notdaily keyword) to prevent the log files from being processed and rotated too fast. The shlock(8)
program is used to prevent simultaneous executions.

The program specified by the given path /path/to/a/program is executed just before any expiration is
done. A typical use is to specify an alternate expiration program and use the noexpire keyword.
Multiple programs may be specified; they will be invoked in order.

KEYWORDS

The following keywords may be used:

delayrm
This uses the -z flag when invoking expire and expireover. The names of articles to be removed are
written to a temporary file, and then renamed after expiration by calling expirerm which in turn
calls fastrm.

expctl=path
Specify the file to use as the expire.ctl file for expire.

expdir=path
By default, expire builds the new history file and database in the same directory as the current
files. Using this keyword specifies a different location to build the new files (by passing the -d
flag to expire), which will then be moved to the right location when finished.

expireover
The expireover program is called after expiration to purge the overview database. If no overview
data is created, the expireover keyword is not needed. This is the case when the server runs only
for feeders (no reader). By default, expireover is not called by news.daily unless enableoverview is
set to true in inn.conf.

expireoverflags=args
If the expireover keyword is used, this keyword may be used to specify the flags to be passed to
expireover. If the delayrm keyword is used, then the default value is -z and the list of deleted
files; otherwise, the default value is -s.

flags=args
By default, expire is invoked with argument -v1. Using this keyword changes the arguments to those
specified. Be careful to use quotes if multiple arguments are needed. This keyword has no effect if
the noexpire keyword is used.

lowmark
If the lowmark keyword is used, "ctlinnd lowmark" is used for renumbering active. Normal "ctlinnd
renumber" operation will take long time. With the lowmark keyword, this will take less time. If the
lowmark keyword is used, the norenumber keyword is not needed since news.daily specifies it
implicitly.

If the lowmark keyword is given to news.daily, then the expireover keyword must also be given;
otherwise, that kind of renumbering will not be taken into account.

mailto=address
By default, news.daily mails the report to the newsmaster address specified with --with-news-master
at configure time. The mailto keyword can specify a different address to which to mail the report.
Note that using this keyword has no effect if the nomail keyword is also specified.

noexpire
By default, expire is invoked to remove old news articles. Using this keyword disables this
function.

noexpireover
By default, expireover is invoked to remove old overview database if enableoverview is set in
inn.conf. Using this keyword disables this function.

noexplog
expire normally appends information to pathlog/expire.log (see newslog(5)). Using this keyword
causes the expire output to be handled as part of news.daily's output. It has no effect if the
noexpire keyword is used.

nologs
After expiration, scanlogs is invoked to process the log files. Using this keyword disables all log
processing functions.

nomail
news.daily normally sends a mail message containing the results to the administrator. Using this
keyword causes this message to be sent to stdout and stderr instead. Normally, all utilities invoked
by the script have their stdout and stderr redirected into a file. If the file is empty, no message
is sent.

noprocbatch
This keyword disables the run of procbatch on innfeed dropped files generated in its spool directory.
These files contain a list of articles which were not correctly sent to peers. By default, they will
be processed and removed afterwards.

norenumber
This keyword disables the "ctlinnd renumber" operation. Normally, the low water marks for all
newsgroups are reset in the active file.

norm
By default, any ctlinnd socket that has not been modified for two days will be removed. Using this
keyword disables this function.

norotate
By default, log processing includes rotating and cleaning out log files. Using this keyword disables
the rotating and cleaning aspect of the log processing: the logs files are only scanned for
information and no contents are altered. This keyword has no effect if the nologs keyword is used.
The norotate keyword is passed on to scanlogs if it is invoked.

nostat
This keyword disables the status report generated by innstat. Without this keyword, the status
report is the first function performed, just prior to obtaining the news.daily lock.

notdaily
By default, news.daily expects to be run only once a day, and it does various things (like rotating
logs) that normally should only be done on daily basis. Use this keyword any extra times news.daily
is run in the day and the normal log files processing (and rotation) will not be done. This keyword
implies nologs.

postexec=program
The program specified by the given path program is executed just after all expiration is done.
Multiple programs may be specified; they will be invoked in order.

procbatchdir=path
news.daily tries to find the backlog directory of innfeed in innfeed.conf and innfeed-delayed.conf.
In case several instances of innfeed are running or when its configuration file is not the default
one, the procbatchdir keyword can be used to specify the path of the backlog directory. This keyword
can be used more than once in the command-line, permitting specifying several backlog directories.

tmpdir=path
Overrides the pathtmp setting in inn.conf by setting the environment variable "$TMPDIR" to the
specified path. Various parts of the expire process, such as sort, will then use this path as the
directory for temporary files.

HISTORY

       news.daily and this manual page were  written  by  Landon  Curt  Noll  <chongo@toad.com>  and  Rich  $alz
       <rsalz@uunet.uu.net> for InterNetNews.  It was converted to POD by Julien Elie.

NAME

SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION

KEYWORDS

HISTORY

SEE ALSO