MAILPOST(1) General Commands Manual MAILPOST(1)NAME
mailpost - feed an email message into a news group
SYNOPSIS
mailpost [ -r addr ] [ -f addr ] [ -a addr ] [ -d distribution ] [ -m mailing-list ] [ -b database ] newsgroups
DESCRIPTION
The mailpost program reads a properly formatted email message from stdin and feeds it to inews for posting to a news server. Before feeding
the article to inews it checks that the article has not been seen before, and it changes some headers (cleans some address headers up and
puts ``X-'' in front of unknown headers).
If the article has been seen before (mailpost records the message-id of all articles is handles), the the article will be silently dropped.
Other errors will cause the article to be mailed to the newsmaster.
Normally mailpost is run by sendmail via an alias entry:
local-mail-wreck-bikes: "|<PREFIX specified with --prefix at configure>/bin/mailpost
-d local local.mail.rec.bicycles.racing"
newsgroups cannot be multiple groups. Only one newsgroup name is allowed.
OPTIONS -r If the ``-r'' flag is used the program will use the given address as the Path header, if no other value can be determined.
-f The ``-f'' flag is a synonym for the ``-r'' flag.
-a If the ``-a'' flag is used the value given is added to the article as an Approved header.
-d If the ``-d'' flag is used the value given is added to the article as a Distribution header.
-m If the ``-m'' flag is used the value given is added to the articles in a Mailing-List header, if a Mailing-List header doesn't
already exist.
-b IF the ``-b'' flag is used, then it defines the location of the database used to store the message ids of articles sent on. This is
to prevent articles looping around if a news to mail gateway sends them back here. This option may be required if the mailpost
process doesn't have write access to the news tmp directory (the value of pathtmp in inn.conf(5).
HISTORY
Written by Paul Vixie long ago and then hacked up by James Brister for INN integration. This is revision 1.2.2.3, dated 2001/09/22.
FILES
<pathdb in inn.conf>/mailpost-msgid.db database file
BUGS
Is lacking in configurability.
SEE ALSO active(5), inn.conf(5), nnrpd(8), wildmat(3).
MAILPOST(1)
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INEWS(1) General Commands Manual INEWS(1)NAME
inews - send a Usenet article to the local news server for distribution
SYNOPSIS
inews [ -h ] [ -D ] [ -O ] [ -R ] [ -S ] [ header_flags ] [ input ]
DESCRIPTION
Inews reads a Usenet news article (perhaps with headers) from the named file or standard input if no file is given. It adds some headers
and performs some consistency checks. If the article does not meet these checks (for example, too much quoting of old articles, or posting
to non-existent newsgroups) then the article is rejected. If it passes the checks, inews sends the article to the local news server as
specified in the inn.conf(5) file for distribution.
OPTIONS -h In the standard mode of operation, the input consists of the article headers, a blank line, and the message body. For compatibility
with older software, the ``-h'' flag must be used. If there are no headers in the message, then this flag may be omitted.
-O The default Organization header will be provided if none is present in the article or if the ``-o'' flag is not used. To prevent
adding the default, use the ``-O'' flag.
-D As a debugging aide, if the ``-D'' flag is used, the consistency checks will be performed, and the article will be sent to the stan-
dard output, rather then sent to the server.
-A -V -W
For compatibility with C News, inews accepts, but ignores, the ``-A'', ``-V'' and ``-W'' flags.
-N The C News ``-N'' flag is treated as the ``-D'' flag.
-S If a file named .signature exists in the user's home directory, inews will try to append it to the end of the article. If the file
cannot be read, or if it is too long (for example, more than four lines or one standard I/O buffer), or if some other problem
occurs, then the article will not be posted. To suppress this action use the ``-S'' flag.
-R If the ``-R'' flag is used then inews will reject any attempts to post control messages.
header_flags
Several headers may be specified on the command line, shown in the synopsis above as header_flags. Each of these flags takes a sin-
gle parameter; if the value is more than one word (for example, almost all Subject lines) then quotes must be used to prevent the
shell from splitting it into multiple words. The options, and their equivalent header, are as follows:
a Approved
c Control
d Distribution
e Expires
f From
w Followup-To
n Newsgroups
r Reply-To
t Subject
F References
o Organization
x Path prefix
If the ``-x'' flag is used, then its value will be the start of the header. Any other host will see the site in the header, and
therefore not offer the article to that site. The Path will always end not-for-mail.
NOTES
If an unapproved posting is made to a moderated newsgroup, inews will try to mail the article to the moderator for posting. It will query
the remote news server for a moderators listing. If that doesn't succeed, it will fallback to using the local moderators(5) file to deter-
mine the mailing address. If no address is found, it will use the inn.conf file to determine a ``last-chance'' host to try.
If the NNTP server needs to authenticate the client, inews will use the NNTPsendpassword(3) routine to authenticate itself. In order to do
this, the program will need read access to the passwd.nntp(5) file. This is typically done by having the file group-readable and making
inews run setgid to that group.
Inews exits with a zero status if the article was succesfully posted or mailed, or with a non-zero status if the article could not be
delivered.
Since inews will spool its input if the server is unavailable, it is usually necessary to run rnews(1) with the ``-U'' flag on a regular
basis, usually out of cron(8).
HISTORY
Written by Rich $alz <rsalz@uunet.uu.net> for InterNetNews. This is revision 1.27, dated 1996/10/29.
SEE ALSO moderators(5), inn.conf(5). rnews(1).
INEWS(1)