news(1) General Commands Manual news(1)
NAME
news - Writes system news items to standard output
SYNOPSIS
news [-a|-n|-s] | [item...]
The news command keeps you informed of news concerning the system.
OPTIONS
Displays all news items, regardless of the currency time. The currency time does not change. Reports the names of current news items
without displaying their contents. The currency time does not change. Reports the number of current news items without displaying their
names or contents. The currency time does not change.
DESCRIPTION
Each news item is contained in a separate file in the /usr/news directory. Anyone having read/write permission to this directory can cre-
ate a news file.
If you run the news command without any options, it displays the current files in /usr/news, beginning with the most recent. You can also
specify the items you want displayed.
Each file is preceded by an appropriate header. To avoid reporting old news, news stores a currency time. The news command considers your
currency time to be the modification time of the file named $HOME/.news_time. Each time you read the news, the modification time of this
file changes to that of the reading. Only news item files posted after this time are considered current.
Pressing the Interrupt key sequence during the display of a news item stops the display of that item and starts the next. Pressing the
Interrupt key sequence again ends news.
Most users run news each time they log in by including the following line in their $HOME/.profile file or in the system's /etc/profile:
news -n
EXAMPLES
To display the items that were posted since you last read the news, enter: news To display all the news items, enter: news -a | pg
This displays all the news items a page at a time, regardless of whether you have read them yet. To list the names of the news
items that you have not read yet, enter: news -n
Each name is a file in the /usr/news directory. To display specific news items, enter: news newusers services
This displays news about newusers and services, which are names listed by news -n. To display the number of news items that you
have not read yet, enter: news -s To post news for everyone to read, enter: cp schedule /usr/news
This copies the file schedule into the system news directory ( /usr/news) to create the file /usr/news/schedule. To do this, you
must have write permission for /usr/news.
FILES
System profile. News files. Indicates the last time news was read.
SEE ALSO
Commands: pg(1)
news(1)