checkgroups(8) System Manager's Manual checkgroups(8)NAME
checkgroups - update group descriptions
SYNOPSIS
checkgroups checkgroupsfile
DESCRIPTION
Leafnode is a USENET package intended for small sites, where there are few users and little disk space, but where a large number of groups
is desired.
Checkgroups is the program which parses checkgroup scripts to include new/updated group descriptions into the active file (which is usually
/var/spool/news/leaf.node/groupinfo).
Checkgroups sets its real and effective uid to "news".
OPTIONS
checkgroupsfile
is a file which contains the newsgroup name and the description on one line, separated by whitespace. Checkgroups scripts are some-
times sent out by news administrators (e.g. in the bionet.* hierarchy).
ENVIRONMENT
LN_LOCK_TIMEOUT
This variable is parsed as an unsigned integer value and determines how many seconds checkgroups will wait when trying to obtain the
lock file from another leafnode program. 0 means to wait indefinitely. This variable takes precedence over the configuration file.
AUTHOR
Written by Cornelius Krasel <krasel@wpxx02.toxi.uni-wuerzburg.de>. Copyright 1997-1999.
Modified by Matthias Andree <matthias.andree@gmx.de>. Copyright 2002-2004.
Leafnode was originally written by Arnt Gulbrandsen <agulbra@troll.no> and is copyright 1995-96 Troll Tech AS, Postboks 6133 Etterstad,
0602 Oslo, Norway, fax +47 22646949.
SEE ALSO leafnode(8), texpire(8), RFC 977.
leafnode 1.11.8 checkgroups(8)
Check Out this Related Man Page
DOCHECKGROUPS(8) InterNetNews Documentation DOCHECKGROUPS(8)NAME
docheckgroups - Process checkgroups and output a list of changes
SYNOPSIS
docheckgroups [-u] [include-pattern [exclude-pattern]]
DESCRIPTION
docheckgroups is usually run by controlchan in order to process checkgroups control messages. It reads a list of newsgroups along with
their descriptions on its standard input. That list should be formatted like the newsgroups(5) file: each line contains the name of a
newsgroup followed by one or more tabulations and its description.
docheckgroups will only check the presence of newsgroups which match include-pattern (an egrep expression like "^comp..*$" for newsgroups
starting with "comp.") and which do not match exclude-pattern (also an egrep expression) except for newsgroups mentioned in the
pathetc/localgroups file. This file is also formatted like the newsgroups(5) file and should contain local newsgroups which would
otherwise be mentioned for removal. There is no need to put local newsgroups of hierarchies for which no checkgroups control messages are
sent, unless you manually process checkgroups texts for them. Lines beginning with a hash sign ("#") are not taken into account in this
file. All the newsgroups and descriptions mentioned in pathetc/localgroups are appended to the processed checkgroups.
If exclude-pattern is given, include-pattern should also be given before (you can use an empty string ("") if you want to include all the
newsgroups). Be that as it may, docheckgroups will only check newsgroups in the top-level hierarchies which are present in the
checkgroups.
Then, docheckgroups checks the active and newsgroups files and displays on its standard output a list of changes, if any. It does not
change anything by default; it only points out what should be changed:
o Newsgroups which should be removed (they are in the active file but not in the checkgroups) and the relevant ctlinnd commands to achieve
that;
o Newsgroups which should be added (they are not in the active file but in the checkgroups) and the relevant ctlinnd commands to achieve
that;
o Newsgroups which are incorrectly marked as moderated or unmoderated (they are both in the active file and the checkgroups but their
status differs) and the relevant ctlinnd commands to fix that;
o Descriptions which should be removed (they are in the newsgroups file but not in the checkgroups);
o Descriptions which should be added (they are not in the newsgroups file but in the checkgroups).
The output of docheckgroups can be fed into mod-active (it will pause the news server, update the active file accordingly, reload it and
resume the work of the news server) or into the shell (commands for ctlinnd will be processed one by one). In order to update the
newsgroups file, the -u flag must be given to docheckgroups.
When processing a checkgroups manually, it is always advisable to first check the raw output of docheckgroups. Then, if everything looks
fine, use mod-active and the -u flag.
OPTIONS -u If this flag is given, docheckgroups will update the newsgroups file: it removes obsolete descriptions and adds new ones. It also
sorts this file alphabetically and improves its general format (see newsgroups(5) for an explanation of the preferred number of
tabulations).
EXAMPLES
So as to better understand how docheckgroups works, here are examples with the following active file:
a.first 0000000000 0000000001 y
a.second.announce 0000000000 0000000001 y
a.second.group 0000000000 0000000001 y
b.additional 0000000000 0000000001 y
b.third 0000000000 0000000001 y
c.fourth 0000000000 0000000001 y
the following newsgroups file (using tabulations):
a.first First group.
a.second.announce Announce group.
a.second.group Second group.
b.third Third group.
c.fourth Fourth group.
and the following localgroups file (using tabulations):
b.additional A local newsgroup I want to keep.
The checkgroups we process is in the file test which contains:
a.first First group.
a.second.announce Announce group. (Moderated)
a.second.group Second group.
b.third Third group.
c.fourth Fourth group.
If we run:
cat test | docheckgroups
docheckgroups will output that a.second.announce is incorrectly marked as unmoderated and that its description is obsolete. Besides, two
new descriptions will be mentioned for addition (the new one for a.second.announce and the missing description for b.additional -- it
should indeed be in the newsgroups file and not only in localgroups). Now that we have checked the output of docheckgroups and that we
agree with the changes, we run it with the -u flag to update the newsgroups file and we redirect the standard output to mod-active to
update the active file:
cat test | docheckgroups -u | mod-active
That's all!
Now, suppose we run:
cat test | docheckgroups "^c..*$"
Nothing is output (indeed, everything is fine for the c.* hierarchy). It would have been similar if the test file had only contained the
checkgroups for the c.* hierarchy (docheckgroups would not have checked a.* and b.*, even if they had been in include-pattern).
In order to check both a.* and c.*, you can run:
cat test | docheckgroups "^a..*$|^c..*$"
And if you want to check a.* but not a.second.*, you can run:
cat test | docheckgroups "^a..*$" "^a.second..*$"
In our example, docheckgroups will then mention a.second.announce and a.second.group for removal since they are in the active file (the
same goes for their descriptions). Notwithstanding, if you do want to keep a.second.announce, just add this group to localgroups and
docheckgroups will no longer mention it for removal.
FILES
pathbin/docheckgroups
The Shell script itself used to process checkgroups.
pathetc/localgroups
The list of local newsgroups along with their descriptions.
HISTORY
Documentation written by Julien Elie for InterNetNews.
$Id: docheckgroups.pod 8357 2009-02-27 17:56:00Z iulius $
SEE ALSO active(5), controlchan(8), ctlinnd(8), mod-active(8), newsgroups(5).
INN 2.5.3 2009-05-21 DOCHECKGROUPS(8)