.TH brag 1 "" "" \" -*- nroff -*-

.SH NAME
brag \- Grab multipart binaries from news server

.SH SYNOPSIS
.B brag
[\-s server] [\-P port] [\-g group] [\-l user] [\-p pass] [\-q] [\-u]
[\-o dir] [\-n num] [\-c] [\-C] [\-X] [\-a pattern [\-a pattern] ...]
[\-r pattern [\-r pattern] ...] [\-A file] [\-R file] [\-t n] [\-b break]
[\-m max]

or

.B brag
-L [\-s server] [\-P port] [\-l user] [\-p pass]

.SH DESCRIPTION
.BR brag
downloads and assembles multipart binaries from an NNTP server.
Attachments encoded with uuencode, Base64 or yenc are supported.

.SS OPTIONS
.TP
.I "\-L"
Just print a list of groups available at the server
.TP
.I "\-s server"
Set news server to 
.I server
.TP
.I "\-P port"
Set TCP port to
.I port
.TP
.I "\-g group"
Set newsgroup to
.I group
.TP
.I "\-l user"
Set user name to
.I user.
Setting this option turns NNTP authentication on. The password can be
specified using the
.I \-p
command line option, or using a passwod file (see later)
.TP
.I "\-p pass"
Set password to 
.I pass.
.TP
.I "\-q"
Be silent: do not display progress information
.TP
.I "\-u"
Save subjects together with the assembled binaries. Subject files have
the same name as the binary, with 
.I ".sub"
extension added
.TP
.I "-k"
Keep original file names when possible, only rename when necessary to
avoid a collission with existing files
.TP
.I "\-o dir"
Set output directory to
.I "dir"
.TP
.I "\-n num"
Start with message number
.I "num"
.TP
.I "\-c"
Combine parts, even if they are from different newsgroups. Also, an article
will be downloaded only once, even if it was crossposted to more than one
newsgroups
.TP
.I "\-C"
Combine parts, even if they are from different news servers
.TP
.I "\-X"
Process single-part messages, too
.TP
.I "\-a pattern"
Add 
.I pattern
to the list of accept patterns. See next section on accept/reject patterns
.TP
.I "\-r pattern"
Add
.I pattern
to the list of reject patterns
.TP
.I "\-A file"
Read accept patterns from this file
.TP
.I "\-R file"
Read reject patterns from this file
.TP
.I "\-t n"
Use n number of parallel connections to the server. Default: 2. Set to 4 or
more if you have a high speed network connection
.TP
.I "\-b break"
Specify "break factor": the number of milliseconds to wait between retrieving
lines from the server. Useful to share a low-speed connection with other
applications
.TP
.I "\-m max"
Specify the maximum number of messages to download

.SH ACCEPT AND REJECT PATTERNS
The subjects of the messages to be downloaded are matched against the
list of accept and/or reject patterns if specified on the 
command line or in the accept/reject files (see later). Only articles
matching at least one of the accept patterns will be accepted. Similarly,
articles matching one of the reject patterns will be rejected.
.PP
Match operations are performed as in
.IR csh (1).
For example, to accept all files with extension 
.I "mp5",
specify

\ \ \ \ 
.I "\-a \'*.mp5*'"

on the command line. Note the quotes (we do not want the shell to process
the pattern) and the second "*" (we are matching against subject lines,
not file names).

.SH FILES

.SS DOWNLOADED FILES
Grabbed files are collected in
.I ~/.brag/<server>/<group>/finished
(if not specified otherwise using the 
.I "\-o"
command line option). If combining parts from multiple servers ("\-C"
option), the results are collected in
.I ~/.brag/all-servers/<group>/finished.

.SS WORK FILES
Work files are kept in
.I ~/.brag/<server>/<group>/unfinished
or in
.I ~/.brag/all-servers/<group>/unfinished
if the "\-C" option is used.
It is recommended to regularly purge these directories by
removing old files and subdirectories. What "old" means depends on the 
newsgroup's traffic; one week can be a good approximation. 

.SS PASSWORD FILES
Passwords can be specified on the command line, or for extra security, 
in password files. Each server can have its own password file, named
.I ~/.brag/<server>/passwd.
The format of these files is:

\ \ \ \ 
.I "user1:password1"

\ \ \ \ 
.I "user2:password2"

\ \ \ \ 
.I "..."

Passwords are not encoded. Take care of the file ownership and permissions.

.SS ACCEPT AND REJECT FILES
If a file called
.I accept
is present in
.I ~/.brag/<server>/<group>,
its lines are added to the list of accept patterns. Empty ones and 
comments starting with "#" are ignored. Similarly, the contents of the 
file named
.I reject
will be added to the list of reject patterns.

.SH EXIT CODES

.TP
0
Success
.TP
1
Usage errors
.TP
2
Network errors
.TP
3
File system errors

.SH ENVIRONMENT
If not specified on the command line, the environment variable 
.B NNTPSERVER
identifies the server, while
.B NNTPGROUP
the group to read the news from.

.SH DEPENDENCIES
.BR brag
is written in Tcl; you need 
.IR tclsh (1)
version 8.0 or later. For the actual decoding of dowloaded parts
.IR uudeview (1)
(http://www.fpx.de/fp/Software/UUDeview) is used. 

.SH AUTHOR
Akos Polster (akos@pipacs.com) and many others \- see README for the
complete list of contributors.