active, active.times - list of active Usenet newsgroups


DESCRIPTION

       The  file <pathdb in inn.conf>/active lists the newsgroups
       that the local site receives.  Each  newsgroup  should  be
       listed  only  once.   Each line specifies one group; their
       order in the file does not matter.  Within each newsgroup,
       articles  are  assigned  unique names, which are monotoni­
       cally increasing numbers.

       If an article is posted to  newsgroups  not  mentioned  in
       this  file,  those  newsgroups  are  ignored.  If no valid
       newsgroups are specified, the article is either filed into
       the  newsgroup  ``junk'' and only propagated to sites that
       receive the ``junk'' newsgroup if ``wanttrash'' option  in
       inn.conf(5) is true.  Or it is ignored completely.

       Each line consists of four fields specified by a space:

                      name himark lomark flag

       The  first field is the name of the newsgroup.  If <merge­
       togroups in inn.conf> is ``true'', newsgroups  that  start
       with  the  three characters ``to.'' are treated specially;
       see innd(8).  The second field is the highest article num­
       ber that has been used in that newsgroup.  The third field
       is the lowest article number in the group; this number  is
       not guaranteed to be accurate, and should only be taken to
       be a hint.  Note that because  of  article  cancellations,
       there  may be gaps in the numbering sequence.  If the low­
       est article number is greater  then  the  highest  article
       number,  then  there are no articles in the newsgroup.  In
       order to make it possible  to  update  an  entry  in-place
       without  rewriting  the  entire file, the second and third
       fields are padded out with leading zeros to  make  them  a
       fixed width.

       The fourth field can contain one of the following flags:

              y        Local postings are allowed
              n        No local postings are allowed, only remote ones
              m        The group is moderated and all postings must be approved
              j        Articles in this group are not kept, but only passed on
              x        Articles cannot be posted to this newsgroup
              =foo.bar Articles are locally filed into the ``foo.bar'' group

       If  a  newsgroup has the ``j'' flag, then no articles will
       be filed into that newsgroup and local  postings  to  that
       group  should  not be generated.  If an article for such a
       newsgroup is received from a remote site, it will be filed
       into  the  ``junk''  newsgroup  if it is not cross-posted.
       This is different from not having a  newsgroup  listed  in
       the  file  because sites can subscribe to ``j'' newsgroups


       If the fourth field of a newsgroup starts  with  an  equal
       sign, then the newsgroup is an alias.  Articles can not be
       posted to the group, but can be received to that group and
       treated  as if they were received to the group named after
       the equal sign.  The second and third fields are  ignored.
       Note  that  the  Newsgroup  header  is not modified (Alias
       groups are typically used during  a  transition,  and  are
       typically  created  with  ctlinnd(8)).  An alias newsgroup
       should not point to another alias.

       The file  <pathdb  in  inn.conf>/active.times  provides  a
       chronological record of when newsgroups are created.  This
       file is normally updated by  innd(8)  whenever  a  ctlinnd
       ``newgroup''  command is done.  Each line consist of three
       fields:

              name time creator

       The first field is the name of the newsgroup.  The  second
       field  is the time it was created, expressed as the number
       of seconds since the epoch -- i.e., a time_t; see gettime­
       ofday(2).   The third field is the electronic mail address
       of the person who created the group.


HISTORY

       Written by Rich $alz  <rsalz@uunet.uu.net>  for  InterNet­
       News.  This is revision 1.8.4.2, dated 2000/08/24.


SEE ALSO

       ctlinnd(8), inn.conf(5), innd(8).


Man(1) output converted with man2html