NAME¶
buffchan - Buffered file-writing backend for INN
SYNOPSIS¶
buffchan [
-bru] [
-c lines] [
-C
seconds] [
-d directory] [
-f num-fields]
[
-l lines] [
-L seconds] [
-m map]
[
-p pid-file] [
-s format]
DESCRIPTION¶
buffchan reads lines from standard input and copies the initial fields in
each line to the files named by the remaining fields on the line.
buffchan is intended to be called by
innd as an exploder feed.
The input is interpreted as a sequence of lines. Each line contains a fixed
number of initial fields, followed by a variable number of filename fields.
All fields in a line are separated by whitespace and do not contain any
whitespace. The default number of initial fields is one.
For each line of input,
buffchan writes the initial fields, separated by
a space and followed by a newline, to each of the files named in the filename
fields. The output files are kept open and are only flushed or closed based on
the schedule given by the
-c,
-C,
-l, and
-L
options.
As an exploder feed (see
newsfeeds(5) for an explanation),
buffchan interprets lines beginning with an exclamation point as
commands. Besides "!begin" (which only marks the start of the feed),
there are three supported commands:
- !flush [site]
- The flush command closes and reopens all open files. An optional site can
be specified, in which case buffchan flushes only that file. This
command is analogous to the "ctlinnd flush" command. This
command can be sent via innd using "ctlinnd send
buffchan-site 'flush site'".
Applications can tell that flush has completed by renaming the file before
issuing the command. When the original file name has reappeared, the flush
is complete. If fchmod(3) is available, buffchan also
changes the file to read-only while it's actively writing to it and
changes it back to read/write once it has been closed. It will change the
mode back to read-only only if it reopens the same file.
- !drop [site]
- The drop command is similar to the flush command, except that no files are
reopened. If given an argument, only the specified site is dropped;
otherwise, all sites are dropped. (Note that a site will be restarted if
the input stream mentions the site again.)
When a "ctlinnd drop site" command is sent, innd will
automatically forward the command to buffchan if the site is listed
as a funnel feeding into the buffchan exploder. To drop all sites,
use "ctlinnd send buffchan-site drop".
- !readmap
- The map file specified with the -m option, if given, will be
reloaded.
Once
buffchan opens a file, it keeps it open (in the absence of a drop
command). The input must therefore never specify more files than the maximum
number of files a process may open.
OPTIONS¶
- -b
- Force the output to be buffered. (This is generally the default, but it
may depend on the operating system.) If -b is given, a buffer size
of BUFSIZ (a constant of the system standard I/O library) is used.
- -c lines
- If the -c flag is given, buffchan will close and reopen a
file after every lines lines are written to the file.
- -C seconds
- If the -C flag is given, buffchan will close and reopen a
file if it has been open for more than seconds seconds.
- -d directory
- This flag may be used to specify a directory the program should change to
before starting. If this flag is used, the default for the -s flag
(see below) is changed to be a simple %s (in other words, output files are
considered to be relative to directory).
- -f num-fields
- By default, each line is expected to contain one fixed field followed by
some number of filename fields. If this flag is given, num-fields
will be used as the number of initial fixed fields.
- -l lines
- If the -l flag is given, buffchan will flush the output
after every lines lines are written to a file.
- -L seconds
- If the -L flag is given, buffchan will flush each output
file every seconds seconds.
- -m map
- Map files translate the names in the filename fields on each line into
filenames that should be used instead. It's used primarily when short
names are used in newsfeeds, but the output files should use the
full domain names of remote peers.
In the map file, blank lines and lines starting with a number sign
("#") are ignored. All other lines should have two host names
separated by a colon. The first field is the name that may appear in the
input stream; the second field names the file to be used when the name in
the first field appears. For example:
# This is a comment
uunet:news.uu.net
foo:foo.com
munnari:munnari.oz.au
- -p pid-file
- If the -p option is given, buffchan will write a line
containing its process ID (in text) to the specified file when it
starts.
- -r
- By default, buffchan sends its error messages to
pathlog/errlog. To suppress this redirection and send error
messages to standard error, use the -r flag.
- -s
- The -s flag may be used to specify a format that maps a filename
from the filename fields at the end of each line to an actual filename.
This is a sprintf(3) format string that should contain a single
instance of %s, which will be replaced with the value of the filename
field (possibly after mapping with the map file from -m). The
default value is pathoutgoing/%s.
- -u
- If the -u flag is used, the output will be unbuffered.
EXAMPLES¶
If
buffchan is invoked with "-f 2" and given the following
input:
news/software/b/132 <1643@munnari.oz.au> foo uunet
news/software/b/133 <102060@litchi.foo.com> uunet munnari
comp/sources/unix/2002 <999@news.foo.com> foo uunet munnari
Then the file
foo will have these lines:
news/software/b/132 <1643@munnari.oz.au>
comp/sources/unix/2002 <999@news.foo.com>
the file
munnari will have these lines:
news/software/b/133 <102060@litchi.foo.com>
comp/sources/unix/2002 <999@news.foo.com>
and the file
uunet will have these lines:
news/software/b/132 <1643@munnari.oz.au>
news/software/b/133 <102060@litchi.foo.com>
comp/sources/unix/2002 <999@news.foo.com>
HISTORY¶
Written by Rich $alz <rsalz@uunet.uu.net> for InterNetNews. Converted to
POD by Russ Allbery <rra@stanford.edu>.
$Id: buffchan.pod 7851 2008-05-26 19:33:08Z iulius $
SEE ALSO¶
ctlinnd(8),
filechan(8),
inn.conf(5),
innd(8),
newsfeeds(5).