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news.daily - do regular Usenet system administration
news.daily
[ keyword... ]
News.daily performs a number of important Usenet
administrative functions. This includes producing a status report, removing
old news articles, processing log files, rotating the archived log files,
renumbering the active file, removing any old socket files found in the
<pathrun in inn.conf> directory, and collecting the output. This program should
be run under the news administrator's id, not as root.
By default, news.daily
performs all of its functions and mails the output to the news administrator,
<USER specified with --with-news-master at configure>. 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)
. It may be run more often,
but such invocations should at least use the ``norotate'' keyword to prevent
the log files from being processed and rotated too fast.
The shlock(1)
program
is used to prevent simultaneous executions.
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(8)
. If the ``delayrm'' keyword
is specified, the ``expireover'' keyword is specified implicitly.
- expctl=path
- Specify the file to use as the expire.ctl(5)
file for expire.
- expdir=path
- By default, expire builds the new history(5)
file and database in the same
directory as the current files. Using this keyword specifies a different
local to build the new files (by passing the ``-d'' flag to expire), which will
then be moved to the right location when finished.
- nostat
- This keyword disables
the status report generated by innstat (see newslog(8)
). 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 logfile processing (and rotation) will
not be done.
- 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(5)
. Using this keyword disables this function.
- noexplog
- Expire normally
appends information to <pathlog in inn.conf>/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.
- flags='expire args'
- By default, expire is invoked with the an argument of ``-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.
- nologs
- After expiration, scanlogs(8)
is invoked to process the
log files. Using this keyword disables all log processing functions.
- 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.
- norenumber
- This
keyword disables the ctlinnd(8)
renumber operation. Normally, the low-water
mark for all newsgroups (see active(5)
) is reset.
- norm
- By default, any socket
ctlinnd socket that has not been modified for two days will be removed.
Using this keyword disables this function.
- 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.
- expireover
- The expireover
program is called after expiration to purge the overview databases. If no
overview data is created, the ``expireover'' keyword is not needed. This is
the case that the server runs only for feeder(no reader).
- expireoverflags='expireover 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''.
- /full/path
- The program specified by the given path 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.
- postexec='post executed program'
- The program specified by the given path is executed just after all expiration
is done. Multiple programs may be specified; they will be invoked in order.
- lowmark
- If the ``lowmark'' keyword is used, ctlinnd(8)
lowmark is used for
renumbering active(5)
. Normal ctlinnd(8)
renumber operation will take long
time. With ``lowmark'' keyword this will take less time. If the ``lowmark'' keyword
is used, ``norenumber'' keyword is not needed, since news.daily specifies it
implicitly.
- tmpdir=path
- Sets 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.
News.daily and this manual
page written by Landon Curt Noll <chongo@toad.com> and Rich $alz <rsalz@uunet.uu.net>.
This is revision 1.11.2.2, dated 2000/10/12.
active(5)
, ctlinnd(8)
,
expire(8)
, fastrm(8)
, inn.conf(5)
, newslog(5)
, newslog(8)
, innwatch.ctl(5)
,
shlock(1)
.
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