MODERATORS(5) File Formats Manual MODERATORS(5)
NAME
moderators - submission addresses for moderated newsgroups
DESCRIPTION
When an unapproved article is posted locally to a moderated newsgroup, rather than being passed off to innd(8) for normal handling, it's
instead sent via e-mail to the submission address for that newsgroup. The file <pathetc in inn.conf>/moderators lists the submission
addresses for moderated newsgroups. This file is used by nnrpd(8), inews(1), and any other program that uses the GetModeratorAddress()
routine (see libinn(3).)
The moderators file is a list of associations between wildmat(3) patterns matching newsgroups and the submission address for those news-
groups. Blank lines and lines starting with a number sign (``#'') are ignored. All other lines should consist of those two fields sepa-
rated by a colon.
The second field, the submission address, may have at most one %s anywhere in it; if present, this will be replaced by the name of the
newsgroup with periods replaced by dashes. If there is a literal ``%'' in the submission address, it must be written as ``%%'' (even if
not followed by an ``s'').
Here is a sample file:
example.important:announce-request@example.com
example.*:%s@smtp.example.com
gnu.*:%s@prep.ai.mit.edu
*:%s@moderators.isc.org
Using the above file, postings to the moderated newsgroup in the left column will be sent to the address shown in the right column:
example.important announce-request@example.com
example.x.announce example-x-announce@smtp.example.com
gnu.emacs.sources gnu-emacs-sources@prep.ai.mit.edu
comp.sources.unix comp-sources-unix@moderators.isc.org
Periods are converted to dashes for historical reasons, from back in the days when periods in the local part of addresses may not be han-
dled correctly. It's probably no longer necessary, but so much now depends on it that it can't be easily changed.
It's intended that the sample moderators file included in the INN distribution always be sufficient for all world-wide newsgroups. The
hosts behind moderators.isc.org have graciously volunteered to handle forwarding tasks for all world-wide newsgroups so that individual
sites don't have to keep track of the submission addresses for moderated groups. The forwarding database used by moderators.isc.org is
coordinated by moderators-request@isc.org; if you know of a world-wide newsgroup hierarchy that is not correctly handled by modera-
tors.isc.org, please send the details to that address.
Given that, the only thing you should have to add to the sample file under normal circumstances are the forwarding addresses for local or
limited distribution moderated groups.
HISTORY
Written by Rich $alz <rsalz@uunet.uu.net> for InterNetNews. This is revision 1.6, dated 1999/05/09.
SEE ALSO
inews(1), inn.conf(5), libinn(3), wildmat(3).
MODERATORS(5)
