NAME¶
active - List of newsgroups carried by the server
DESCRIPTION¶
The file
pathdb/active lists the newsgroups carried by INN. This file is
generally maintained using
ctlinnd(8) to create and remove groups, or
by letting
controlchan(8) do so on the basis of received control
messages; this file is then updated and a backup stored in
pathdb/active.old. Note that the
newsgroups(5) file normally
contains the descriptions of the newsgroups carried by the news server.
The
active file should not be edited directly without throttling
innd, and must be reloaded using
ctlinnd before
innd is
unthrottled. Editing it directly even with those precautions may make it
inconsistent with the overview database and won't update
active.times,
so
ctlinnd should be used to make modifications whenever possible.
Each newsgroup should be listed only once. Each line specifies one group. The
order of groups does not matter. Within each newsgroup, received articles for
that group are assigned monotonically increasing numbers as unique names. If
an article is posted to newsgroups not mentioned in this file, those
newsgroups are ignored.
If none of the newsgroups listed in the Newsgroups: header of an article are
present in this file, the article is either rejected (if
wanttrash is
false in
inn.conf), or is filed into the newsgroup "junk"
and, when "Aj" is not set in the
newsfeeds feed pattern, only
propagated to sites that receive the "junk" newsgroup (if
wanttrash is true).
Each line of this file consists of four fields separated by a space:
<name> <high> <low> <status>
The first field is the name of the newsgroup. The newsgroup "junk" is
special, as mentioned above. The newsgroup "control" and any
newsgroups beginning with "control." are also special; control
messages are filed into a control.* newsgroup named after the type of control
message if that group exists, and otherwise are filed into the newsgroup
"control" (without regard to what newsgroups are listed in the
Newsgroups: header). If
mergetogroups is set to true in
inn.conf, newsgroups that begin with "to." are also treated
specially; see
innd(8).
The second field is the highest article number that has been used in that
newsgroup. The third field is the lowest article number in the group; this
number is not guaranteed to be accurate, and should only be taken to be a
hint. It is normally updated nightly as part of the expire process; see
news.daily(8) and look for "lowmark" or "renumber"
for more details. Note that because of article cancellations, there may be
gaps in the numbering sequence. If the lowest article number is greater than
the highest article number, then there are no articles in the newsgroup. In
order to make it possible to update an entry in-place without rewriting the
entire file, the second and third fields are padded out with leading zeros to
make them a fixed width.
The fourth field contains one of the following status:
y Local postings and articles from peers are allowed.
m The group is moderated and all postings must be approved.
n No local postings are allowed, only articles from peers.
j Articles from peers are filed in the junk group instead.
x No local postings, and articles from peers are ignored.
=foo.bar Articles are filed in the group foo.bar instead.
If a newsgroup has the "j" status, no articles will be filed in that
newsgroup. Local postings are not accepted; if an article for that newsgroup
is received from a remote site, and if it is not crossposted to some other
valid group, it will be filed into the "junk" newsgroup instead.
This is different than simply not listing the group, since the article will
still be accepted and can be propagated to other sites, and the
"junk" group can be made available to readers if wished.
If the <status> field begins with an equal sign, the newsgroup is an
alias. Articles cannot be posted to that newsgroup, but they can be received
from other sites. Any articles received from peers for that newsgroup are
treated as if they were actually posted to the group named after the equal
sign. Note that the Newsgroups: header of the articles is not modified. (Alias
groups are typically used during a transition and are typically created
manually with
ctlinnd(8).) An alias should not point to another alias.
Note that
readers.conf can be configured so that local posts to
newsgroups with status "j", "n" or "x" are
accepted.
MINIMAL ACTIVE FILE¶
For
innd to be able to start, the three groups "control",
"control.cancel" and "junk" need to be in the
active file. Besides, if
mergetogroups is set to true in
inn.conf, the newsgroup "to" also needs to exist.
The minimal
active file shipped with INN is:
control 0000000000 0000000001 n
control.cancel 0000000000 0000000001 n
control.checkgroups 0000000000 0000000001 n
control.newgroup 0000000000 0000000001 n
control.rmgroup 0000000000 0000000001 n
junk 0000000000 0000000001 n
(Note that the second and the third field may differ if the news server has
already been in use.)
There are more control.* pseudogroups here than needed by
innd to start;
the corresponding control messages will be filed into them. The "n"
status is so that users cannot post directly to these groups (control messages
should only be posted to the groups that they affect). If you do not want
these groups to be visible to clients, do not delete them but simply hide them
in
readers.conf(5).
To create additional groups after the server is running, you can use
"ctlinnd newgroup". You can also synchronize your newsgroup list to
that of another server by using
actsync(8) or get the
active
file of another NNTP server with
getlist(1). And do not forget to
update your
newsgroups file, which can be automatically done thanks to
docheckgroups called with the
-u flag.
HISTORY¶
Written by Rich $alz <rsalz@uunet.uu.net> for InterNetNews. Converted to
POD by Russ Allbery <rra@stanford.edu>.
$Id: active.pod 9031 2010-03-23 18:31:55Z iulius $
SEE ALSO¶
active.times(5),
actsync(8),
controlchan(8),
ctlinnd(8),
docheckgroups(8),
getlist(1),
inn.conf(5),
innd(8),
mod-active(8),
news.daily(8),
newsgroups(5),
readers.conf(5).