DISTRIBUTIONS(5)					    InterNetNews Documentation						  DISTRIBUTIONS(5)

NAME

       distributions - Recommended values for the Distribution: header

DESCRIPTION

       The file pathetc/distributions contains a list of relevant distributions and their descriptions.  It provides local information for posters
       who wish to add a Distribution: header to their articles so as to restrict their propagation, although it does not guarantee that such
       articles will not leak elsewhere because of a misconfiguration of a news server to which they are fed.  See newsfeeds(5) for more
       information about how a news server handles the Distribution: header.

       Each line of this file consists of a distribution area followed by its description (encoded in UTF-8) after at least a whitespace.  For
       instance:

	   fr	   Local to France.
	   local   Local to this news server.
	   nj	   Local to New Jersey.
	   usa	   Local to the United States of America.

       Blank lines and lines beginning with a number sign ("#") are ignored.

       Any client that issues the LIST DISTRIBUTIONS command obtain these recommended values, if available.  However, be aware that use of the
       LIST DISTRIBUTIONS command is not widespread and most news clients will never ask for this file.

       If this file is empty, it is not an error.  The server will just send the client an empty response.  And if the file is missing, the server
       will also send the client an appropriate response to indicate that the distributions list is not maintained on the server.

       The Distribution: header can also be automatically set by nnrpd if distrib.pats(5) is correctly configured.

HISTORY

       Written by Julien Elie for InterNetNews.

       $Id: distributions.pod 8830 2009-11-29 16:49:59Z iulius $

SEE ALSO

       distrib.pats(5), newsfeeds(5), nnrpd(8).

INN 2.5.2							    2010-02-08							  DISTRIBUTIONS(5)