NAME¶
news.daily - Perform daily Usenet maintenance tasks
SYNOPSIS¶
news.daily [
delayrm] [
expctl=
path]
[
expdir=
path] [
expireover]
[
expireoverflags=
args] [
flags=
args] [
lowmark] [
mailto=
address] [
noexpire]
[
noexpireover] [
noexplog] [
nologs] [
nomail]
[
noprocbatch] [
norenumber] [
norm] [
norotate]
[
nostat] [
notdaily] [
postexec=
program] [
procbatchdir=
path] [
tmpdir=
path]
[
/path/to/a/program]
DESCRIPTION¶
news.daily performs a number of important Usenet administrative
functions. This includes:
- •
- producing a status report with innstat;
- •
- removing old news articles (with expirerm if the delayrm
keyword is specified);
- •
- purging the overview database with expireover if the corresponding
eponym keyword is specified;
- •
- processing log files and rotating the archived log files with
scanlogs;
- •
- processing innfeed dropped files with procbatch;
- •
- renumbering the active file with ctlinnd;
- •
- rebuilding the history file with expire;
- •
- removing any old socket files found in the pathrun directory;
- •
- collecting all the output and mailing it.
Please note that this program should be run under the news administrator's
account (usually "news"), not as root. By default,
news.daily
performs all of its functions and mails the output to the news administrator,
which is the user specified with
--with-news-master at configure time
(it is "usenet" by default). You can also change this behaviour with
the
mailto keyword.
By specifying keywords on the command line, it is possible to modify the
functions performed, as well as change the arguments given to
expire(8)
and
expireover(8).
news.daily should be run once a day,
typically out of
cron(8). Since it will slow the server down while it
is running, it should be run during periods of low server usage, such as in
the middle of the night. To run it at 3am, for example, add the following
entry to the news user's crontab file:
0 3 * * * <pathbin in inn.conf>/news.daily expireover lowmark
If you're using any non-CNFS storage methods, add the
delayrm keyword to
the above option list for
news.daily.
It may be run more often, but such invocations should at least use the
norotate keyword (or perhaps the
notdaily keyword) to prevent
the log files from being processed and rotated too fast. The
shlock(1)
program is used to prevent simultaneous executions.
The program specified by the given path
/path/to/a/program is executed
just before any expiration is done. A typical use is to specify an alternate
expiration program and use the
noexpire keyword. Multiple programs may
be specified; they will be invoked in order.
KEYWORDS¶
The following keywords may be used:
- delayrm
- This uses the -z flag when invoking expire and
expireover. The names of articles to be removed are written to a
temporary file, and then renamed after expiration by calling
expirerm which in turn calls fastrm.
- expctl=path
- Specify the file to use as the expire.ctl file for
expire.
- expdir=path
- By default, expire builds the new history file and database
in the same directory as the current files. Using this keyword specifies a
different location to build the new files (by passing the -d flag
to expire), which will then be moved to the right location when
finished.
- expireover
- The expireover program is called after expiration to purge the
overview database. If no overview data is created, the expireover
keyword is not needed. This is the case when the server runs only for
feeders (no reader). By default, expireover is not called by
news.daily.
- expireoverflags=args
- If the expireover keyword is used, this keyword may be used to
specify the flags to be passed to expireover. If the delayrm
keyword is used, then the default value is -z and the list of
deleted files; otherwise, the default value is -s.
- flags=args
- By default, expire is invoked with argument -v1. Using this
keyword changes the arguments to those specified. Be careful to use quotes
if multiple arguments are needed. This keyword has no effect if the
noexpire keyword is used.
- lowmark
- If the lowmark keyword is used, "ctlinnd lowmark" is used
for renumbering active. Normal "ctlinnd renumber"
operation will take long time. With the lowmark keyword, this will
take less time. If the lowmark keyword is used, the
norenumber keyword is not needed since news.daily specifies
it implicitly.
If the lowmark keyword is given to news.daily, then the
expireover keyword must also be given; otherwise, that kind of
renumbering will not be taken into account.
- mailto=address
- By default, news.daily mails the report to the newsmaster address
specified with --with-news-master at configure time. The
mailto keyword can specify a different address to which to mail the
report. Note that using this keyword has no effect if the nomail
keyword is also specified.
- noexpire
- By default, expire is invoked to remove old news articles. Using
this keyword disables this function.
- noexpireover
- By default, expireover is invoked to remove old overview database
if enableoverview is set in inn.conf. Using this keyword
disables this function.
- noexplog
- expire normally appends information to pathlog/expire.log
(see newslog(5)). Using this keyword causes the expire
output to be handled as part of news.daily's output. It has no
effect if the noexpire keyword is used.
- nologs
- After expiration, scanlogs is invoked to process the log files.
Using this keyword disables all log processing functions.
- nomail
- news.daily normally sends a mail message containing the results to
the administrator. Using this keyword causes this message to be sent to
stdout and stderr instead. Normally, all utilities invoked by the script
have their stdout and stderr redirected into a file. If the file is empty,
no message is sent.
- noprocbatch
- This keyword disables the run of procbatch on innfeed
dropped files generated in its spool directory. These files contain a list
of articles which were not correctly sent to peers. By default, they will
be processed and removed afterwards.
- norenumber
- This keyword disables the "ctlinnd renumber" operation.
Normally, the low water marks for all newsgroups are reset in the
active file.
- norm
- By default, any ctlinnd socket that has not been modified for two
days will be removed. Using this keyword disables this function.
- norotate
- By default, log processing includes rotating and cleaning out log files.
Using this keyword disables the rotating and cleaning aspect of the log
processing: the logs files are only scanned for information and no
contents are altered. This keyword has no effect if the nologs
keyword is used. The norotate keyword is passed on to
scanlogs if it is invoked.
- nostat
- This keyword disables the status report generated by innstat.
Without this keyword, the status report is the first function performed,
just prior to obtaining the news.daily lock.
- notdaily
- By default, news.daily expects to be run only once a day, and it
does various things (like rotating logs) that normally should only be done
on daily basis. Use this keyword any extra times news.daily is run
in the day and the normal log files processing (and rotation) will not be
done. This keyword implies nologs.
- postexec=program
- The program specified by the given path program is executed just
after all expiration is done. Multiple programs may be specified; they
will be invoked in order.
- procbatchdir=path
- news.daily tries to find the backlog directory of innfeed in
innfeed.conf. In case several instances of innfeed are
running or when its configuration file is not the default one, the
procbatchdir keyword can be used to specify the path of the backlog
directory. This keyword can be used more than once in the
command-line.
- tmpdir=path
- Overrides the pathtmp setting in inn.conf by setting the
environment variable $TMPDIR to the specified path. Various parts of the
expire process, such as sort, will then use this path as the directory for
temporary files.
HISTORY¶
news.daily and this manual page were written by Landon Curt Noll
<chongo@toad.com> and Rich $alz <rsalz@uunet.uu.net> for
InterNetNews. It was converted to POD by Julien Elie.
$Id: news.daily.pod 9634 2014-05-14 18:05:41Z iulius $
SEE ALSO¶
active(5),
ctlinnd(8),
expire(8),
expire.ctl(5),
expireover(8),
expirerm(8),
fastrm(8),
inn.conf(5),
innstat(8),
newslog(5),
procbatch(8),
scanlogs(8),
shlock(1).