Table of Contents
expire - Usenet article and history expiration program
expire
[ -d dir ] [ -f file ] [ -g file ] [ -h file ] [ -i ] [ -N ] [ -n ] [ -p ] [ -r
reason ] [ -t ] [ -v level ] [ -w number ] [ -x ] [ -z file ] [ expire.ctl ]
Expire scans the history(5)
text file <pathdb in inn.conf>/history
and uses the information recorded in it to purge itself or old news articles.
And if the article whose storage method has self expire functionality,
the control file is ignored except ``/remember/'' line for that article by
default. In this case, expire probes the article to see if it still exists.
If it does not exist, expire purges the relevant entries. To disable this,
use the ``-N'' flag. If ``groupbaseexpiry'' in inn.conf is true, expire always treats
all stored articles whose storage method have self expire functionality
regardless of its actual method. In this case ``-e'', ``-k'', ``-N'', ``-p'', ``-q'', ``-w'' and ``-z'' flags
are ignored.
Note that expire never purges articles which do not match any
entry.
- -d
- If the ``-d'' flag is used, then the new history file and database
is created in the specified directory, dir. This is useful when the filesystem
does not have sufficient space to hold both the old and new history files.
When this flag is used, expire leaves the server paused and creates a zero-length
file named after the new history file, with an extension of ``.done'' to indicate
that it has successfully completed the expiration. The calling script should
install the new history file and un-pause the server. The ``-r'' flag should be
used with this flag. -f To specify an alternate history file, use the ``-f'' flag.
This flag is valid if ``-d'' flag is used together, and the output will be written
to this file. The default without ``-f'' flag is ``history.''
- -g
- If the ``-g'' flag is given,
then a one-line summary equivalent to the output of ``-v 1'' and preceded by
the current time, will be appended to the specified file.
- -h
- To specify an
alternate input text history file, use the ``-h'' flag. Expire uses the old dbz(3)
database to determine the size of the new one. If ``-d'' flag is not used together,
and the output file name will be with an extension of ``.n.'' The default without
``-h'' flag is <pathdb in inn.conf>/history.
- -i
- To ignore the old database, use the
``-i'' flag.
- -N
- If the article whose storage method has self expire functionality,
then the control file is ignored for that article by default. If the ``-N'' flag
is used, expire still uses the control file in this case.
- -n
- If innd is not
running, use the ``-n'' flag and expire will not send the ``pause'' or ``go'' commands.
(For more details on the commands, see ctlinnd(8)
). Note that expire only
needs exclusive access for a very short time -- long enough to see if any
new articles arrived since it first hit the end of the file, and to rename
the new files to the working files.
- -p
- Expire makes its decisions on the
time the article arrived, as found in the history file. This means articles
are often kept a little longer than with other expiration programs that
base their decisions on the article's posting date. To use the article's posting
date, use the ``-p'' flag.
- -r
- Expire normally sends a ``pause'' command to the local
innd(8)
daemon when it needs exclusive access to the history file, using
the string ``Expiring'' as the reason. To give a different reason, use the ``-r''
flag. The process ID will be appended to the reason. When expire is finished
and the new history file is ready, it sends a ``go'' command.
- -t
- If the ``-t'' flag
is used, then expire will generate a list of the tokens that should be
removed on its standard output, and the new history file will be left in
history.n, history.n.dir, history.n.index and history.n.hash. This flag be useful
for debugging when used with the ``-n'' flags. Note that if the ``-f'' flag is used,
then the name specified with that flag will be used instead of history.
- -v
- The ``-v'' flag is used to increase the verbosity of the program, generating
messages to standard output. The level should be a number, where higher
numbers result in more output. Level one will print totals of the various
actions done (not valid if a new history file is not written), level two
will print report on each individual file, while level five results in
more than one line of output for every line processed.
- -w
- Use the ``-w'' flag
to ``warp'' time so that expire thinks it is running at some time other then
the current time. The value should be a signed floating point number of
the number of days to use as the offset.
- -x
- If the ``-x'' flag is used, then expire
will not create any new history files. This is most useful when combined
with the ``-n'' and ``-t'' flags to see how different expiration policies would change
the amount of disk space used.
- -z
- If the ``-z'' flag is used, then articles are
not removed, but their names are appended to the specified file. See the
description of delayrm in news.daily(8)
.
If a filename is specified, it is
taken as the control file and parsed according to the rules in expire.ctl(5)
.
A single dash (``-'') may be used to read the file from standard input. If no
file is specified, the file <pathetc in inn.conf>/expire.ctl is read.
Written
by Rich $alz <rsalz@uunet.uu.net> for InterNetNews. This is revision 1.19.2.1,
dated 2000/08/17.
ctlinnd(8)
, dbz(3)
, expire.ctl(5)
, history(5)
,
inn.conf(5)
, innd(8)
, inndcomm(3)
.
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