NEWS.DAILY(8)NEWS.DAILY(8)NAMEnews.daily - do regular Usenet system administration
SYNOPSISnews.daily [ keyword... ]
innwatch [ -t sleeptime ] [ -f controlfile ] [ -l logfile ]
expirerm file
inncheck [ -v ] [ -pedantic ] [ -perms [ -fix ] ] [ -noperms ] [
file... ]
DESCRIPTION
News.daily performs a number of important Usenet administrative func‐
tions. This includes producing a status report, removing old news
articles, processing log files, rotating the archived log files, renum‐
bering the active file, removing any old socket files found in the
``firewall'' 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 out‐
put to the news administrator, usenet. 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 ``noro‐
tate'' 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 removed after expiration by calling expirerm.
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.
noexpire
By default, expire is invoked to remove old news articles.
Using this keyword disables this function.
noexplog
Expire normally appends information to
/var/spool/news/data/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'' key‐
word 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 func‐
tions.
norotate
By default, log processing includes rotating and cleaning out
log files. Using this keyword disables the rotating and clean‐
ing aspect of the log processing: the logs files are only
scanned for information and no contents are altered. This key‐
word has no effect if the ``nologs'' keyword is used.
norenumber
This keyword disables the ctlinnd(8) renumber operation. Nor‐
mally, 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.
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 alter‐
nate expiration program and use the ``noexpire'' keyword. Mul‐
tiple programs may be specified; they will be invoked in order.
The ``norotate'' keyword is passed on to scanlogs if it is invoked.
Expirerm is a script that removes a list of files. The specified file
lists the files. It is sorted, and then fed into a pipeline responsi‐
ble for doing the removal, normally fastrm(8). If there seemed to be a
problem removing the files, then mail is sent to the news administra‐
tor. If there were no problems, then file is renamed to
/var/spool/news/data/expire.list where it is kept (for safety) until
the next day's expiration.
Innwatch is a script that can be started at news boot time. It period‐
ically — every sleeptime seconds — examines the load average, and the
number of free blocks and inodes on the spool partition, as described
by its controlfile, innwatch.ctl(5). If the load gets too high, or the
disk gets too full, it throttles the server. When the condition
restores, it unblocks the server. In addition, on each pass through
the loop it will check the specified logfile to see if it has been mod‐
ified, and send mail to the news administrator if so. It is usually a
good idea to set this to the syslog(3) file that receives critical news
messages. Upon receipt of an interrupt signal, innwatch will report
its status in the file /var/spool/news/data/innwatch.status.
Inncheck is a perl(1) script that verifies the syntax and permissions
of all InterNetNews configuration files. If no files are specified, it
checks all files. A filename may be followed by an equal sign and a
path to indicate the pathname to use for the file. For example,
``newsfeeds=/tmp/nf'' will check the syntax of a new newsfeeds(5) with‐
out requiring it to be installed. If the ``-v'' flag is used, it
prints status information as it checks each file. If the ``-pedantic''
flag is used, it checks the files for omissions which are not strictly
errors, but which might indicate a configuration error.
If any file is specified, only the permissions on those files are
checked. The ``-noperms'' flag will suppress this check. If the
``-perms'' flag is used the script verifies the ownership and permis‐
sions of all files. The ``-fix'' flag can also be used so that the
output can be executed as a shell script.
HISTORY
News.daily and this manual page written by Landon Curt Noll
<chongo@toad.com> and Rich $alz <rsalz@uunet.uu.net>. Inncheck written
by Brendan Kehoe <brendan@cs.widener.edu> and Rich. Innwatch written
by Mike Cooper <mcooper@usc.edu> and <kre@munnari.oz.au>. This is
revision 1.6, dated 1993/03/18.
SEE ALSOactive(5), ctlinnd(8), expire(8), fastrm(8), newslog(5), newslog(8),
innwatch.ctl(5), shlock(1).
NEWS.DAILY(8)
