news.daily - do regular Usenet system administration


SYNOPSIS

       news.daily [ keyword...  ]


DESCRIPTION

       News.daily  performs a number of important Usenet adminis­
       trative  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 possi­
       ble 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 exe­
       cutions.


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(8).   If  the
              ``delayrm''  keyword  is  specified,  the ``expire­
              over'' 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.

              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 func­
              tion.

       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  argu­
              ments 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  dis­
              ables  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'' key­
              word is used.  The ``norotate'' keyword  is  passed
              on to scanlogs if it is invoked.

              This keyword disables the ctlinnd(8) renumber oper­
              ation.  Normally, the low-water mark for all  news­
              groups (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  key­
              word  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 pro­
              grams may be specified; they  will  be  invoked  in
              order.

       lowmark
              If the ``lowmark'' keyword is used, ctlinnd(8) low­
              mark 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.

              Sets  the environment variable TMPDIR to the speci­
              fied path.  Various parts of  the  expire  process,
              such as sort, will then use this path as the direc­
              tory for temporary files.


HISTORY

       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.


SEE ALSO

       active(5), ctlinnd(8), expire(8), fastrm(8),  inn.conf(5),
       newslog(5), newslog(8), innwatch.ctl(5), shlock(1).


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