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

NAME

       snfetch - fetch articles.

SYNOPSIS

       snfetch [-r] [-t timeout] [-c depth] group [serial [max]]

DESCRIPTION

       snfetch	expects  to  read NNTP from file descriptor 6, and write NNTP to file descriptor 7, which descriptors must have already been open.
       Articles retrieved are written to descriptor 1.	Each article displayed is separated from the next by a dot on a  line  by  itself.   These
       articles are NNTP safe, in the sense that double-dot unquoting is not done, and all lines end in CR-LF.	snfetch expects to begin it's NNTP
       speech by giving the GROUP command.  The upstream server's greeting must have already been read some other way.	Likewise, when snfetch	is
       done, it will not send a QUIT command.

       The output is suitable for feeding to snstore.

       snfetch	always	checks	the  article ID of the prospective article before retrieving it.  If the ID already exists in the ID database, the
       article will not be retrieved.  Note that this does not guarantee that all articles retrieved will be unique.

       snfetch does not guarantee to leave the NNTP conversation in a decent state (there might be more data to read,  but  snfetch  aborted  part
       way).

       You will need to be root or own /var/spool/sn in order to run this program.

       It is not safe to direct the output of several snfetches to the same pipe descriptor, but a file descriptor is all right.

OPTIONS

       -t timeout
	      snfetch will wait only timeout seconds (default 180) for data before giving up, if the server doesn't respond.

       -r     Output  in  news	batch format instead.  All articles will take the #! rnews form only, even if there is just one article, all lines
	      end in bare linefeed, and dot-unquoting is performed.

       -c depth
	      Employ a command pipeline of depth depth.  NNTP command pipelining is not officially sanctioned, so by default no pipeline is  used.
	      However,	a  pipeline  with  a  depth  greater  than  0  will  substantally  reduce transaction latency if the server accepts it.  A
	      respectable value for depth might be between 1 and 5.

ARGUMENTS

       snfetch takes the name of a single newsgroup on its command line.  If serial is given, this is taken to be  the	first  article	number	on
       group  on  the  server  to  fetch.   If	max  is specified, this is taken to be the maximum number of articles to fetch.  The first article
       retrieved may be after serial if max would be violated.	If max is not specified, there is no limit.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

       SNROOT If this is set and is not empty, the value is used in place of /var/spool/sn, the default news spool directory.

FILES

       /var/spool/sn/newsgroup/.serial
	      If serial is not specified, the starting serial number is taken from the file /var/spool/sn/newsgroup/.serial.  This defaults  to  0
	      if the file can't be read.

       /var/spool/sn/newsgroup/.serial.tmp
	      If  snfetch  exits with success (0), the new serial is written into this file.  The original file /var/spool/sn/newsgroup/.serial is
	      readonly by snfetch.

       /var/spool/sn/newsgroup/.max
	      If max is not specified on the command line, max is read from this file.	If the file cannot be read or does not exist, there is	no
	      limit.

EXIT CODES

       snfetch exits 1 on usage error, 2 on system failure, 3 on protocol error, 4 on read timeout, and 0 on success.

SEE ALSO

       snstore (8), snget (8)

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