snsend,v0.3.8(8)					      System Manager's Manual						  snsend,v0.3.8(8)

NAME

       snsend - distribute articles
       snstore - store articles locally

SYNOPSIS

       snsend [-rvcna]
       snstore [-rvcna]

DESCRIPTION

       snsend reads articles from descriptor 0 and distributes each one into each newsgroup they are posted to, like inews.  snstore does the same
       but stores them all locally.  The input articles are expected to be in wire format (lines end with CRLF,  leading  dots	are  doubled,  and
       articles are terminated with a lone dot).

       Control messages are not treated specially.

       The newsgroups list is taken from the X-sn-Newsgroups field if it exists; otherwise it is taken from the Newsgroups field, which must exist
       or the article will be junked.  All fields whose names begin with X-sn- (case insensitive) are always removed.

       If Date or Message-ID are not present, these are created.  The local hosts name is prepended to the Path field.

       If an article is to be junked, it is sent to the junk newsgroup if it exists, otherwise it is discarded.

ROUTING

       This applies only to snsend.  snstore does not route; it treats all news.groups as though they were local (see  Nonexistent  newsgroup  and
       Local newsgroup below).	If any of the following fails, snsend aborts:

       For each news.group an article is (cross-) posted to, snsend routes the article as follows, aborting if any action fails:

       Nonexistent newsgroup
	      If /var/spool/sn/news.group is not a directory, snsend ignores this news.group.  If all news.groups are thus ignored, the article is
	      junked.

       Global newsgroup
	      If /var/spool/sn/news.group/.outgoing is a (symlink to a) directory, snsend stores the article into a file in that directory, if the
	      same article does not already exist there (so news.group's upstream feed doesn't get multiple copies of the same article.)  Such in-
	      transit article files are given names that begin with a $ sign.

       Local processing via script
	      Otherwise if /var/spool/sn/news.group/.outgoing is a regular file, it is taken to be a script or program and is run with the article
	      available on its input.  See /var/spool/sn/dot-outgoing.ex.

       Local processing via fifo
	      Otherwise if /var/spool/sn/news.group/.outgoing is a fifo, the article is written into it.  It is an error if nothing is reading the
	      fifo.

       Local newsgroup
	      Otherwise if /var/spool/sn/news.group/.outgoing does not exist, the article is stored into news.group.

OPTIONS

       Options apply to snsend and snstore equally.

       -r     The article stream is in rnews batch format, rather than wire format.  Only the #! rnews form is understood.

       -c     If an article already exists in the local newsgroup it is destined for, don't store it there.  For snsend, this option has no effect
	      on newsgroups that are not local.

       -a     (Aliases	not  allowed.)	 When  storing	to multiple local newsgroups, do not alias subsequent copies to the first, instead, make a
	      copy.  Aliasing saves disk space, but when the original expires, so do all aliases to it.  This option has no effect  on	newsgroups
	      that are not local.

       -n     Don't actually do anything with the article, just dump it back onto descriptor 1.

       -v     For  each  article  stored  in each newsgroup, output a line to descriptor 1 similar to what snscan would emit, except that for non-
	      local newsgroups the serial number will always be 0.

FILES

       /var/spool/sn/news.group.name/
	      This includes /var/spool/sn/=junk newsgroup if it exists.  Each such directory represents the newsgroup of the same name, and  arti-
	      cles are stored in files 1, 2, 3, etc. beneath it.  Each such file contains 1 or more articles.  This is contrary to the traditional
	      form of /var/spool/sn/news/group/name.  news.group.name.

       /var/spool/sn/news.group/.outgoing
	      See also ROUTING above.  The presence of this directory indicates that news.group is global, and articles posted to  news.group  end
	      up here in files named $*.  These files are linked in already complete, so all such files are ready to be uploaded.

       /var/spool/sn/news.group/.compress
	      If this file exists, articles stored in news.group are candidates for compression.  The content of the file is a number representing
	      a minimum article body size below which compression won't be applied.  If the file is empty this threshold defaults to 1024 bytes.

       /var/spool/sn/.me
	      If this file exists, it's contents are taken to be the local hosts name for purposes of the  Path  field.   Otherwise  the  name	is
	      obtained from gethostname(2).

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

       See also /usr/sbin/dot-outgoing.ex for other variables exported when snsend invokes a .outgoing program.

       SNROOT If this is set, its value is used in place of /var/spool/sn.

EXIT CODES

       snsend	and   snstore	exit   0   on	success,   1  on  usage  error,  2  on	system	error,	3  on  article	format	error,	and  9	if
       /var/spool/sn/news.group/.outgoing (snsend only) exits with other than 0.

SEE ALSO

       /usr/sbin/dot-outgoing.ex, snscan(1)

N.B.								    Harold Tay							  snsend,v0.3.8(8)