pullnews  -  a  perl script for pulling news from one news
       machine and feeding it to another.


SYNOPSIS

       pullnews [ -c config ] [ -g groups ] [ -h ] [ -p port ]  [
       -q  ] [ -r file ] [ -s downstream-server ] [ remote-server
       ... ]


DESCRIPTION

       pullnews is run as a regular user process. It reads a con­
       fig  file  in  the  users  home directory (normally called
       .pullnews) and connects to the upstream servers defined in
       there  as  a  reader client. You may specifiy hostnames on
       the command line to limit the set of remote hosts it  con­
       nects  to,  but  each host must be listed in the .pullnews
       file.

       For each server it connects to it pulls over articles  and
       feeds  them to the downstream (local) server via the IHAVE
       (feeder) NNTP command. This means the computer pullnews is
       run  on  must  have  feeding access to the downstream news
       host.

       pullnews is designed for very small sites and is not meant
       for reverse-feeding large feeds.

       You   must   have  Graham  Barr's  Net::NNTP  perl  module
       installed on your system. This is part of the libnet  bun­
       dle  and  can  be  found  on  CPAN  or  from Graham's site
       http://www.connect.net/gbarr/


OPTIONS

       -c     Normally the config file is stored in  $HOME/.pull­
              news for the user running the pullnews program. The
              ``-c'' flag lets you change that.

       -g     The ``-g'' flag specifies a collection of groups to
              get.  The value must be a single argument with com­
              mas  between  group  names.   Each  group  must  be
              defined  in the config file.  Only the remote hosts
              that carry those groups will be contacted.

       -h     The ``-h'' flag just prints usage.

       -p     The ``-p'' flag can be used  to  change  connecting
              port other than 119.

       -q     The ``-q'' flag can be used to make things run more
              quietly.

       -r     The ``-r'' flag tells pullnews to create an  rnews-
              compatible file, instead of feeding article.

              retrieves to the news server  running  on  ``local­
              host''. The ``-s'' flag lets you change that.


CONFIG FILE

       The  config file for pullnews is a series of sets of lines
       describing the upstream hosts to connect to and the  news­
       groups  to  get  articles from. A host line has no leading
       white space and just has the name of the host  to  connect
       to.  Group  lines  com  after a host line and have leading
       white space followed by the group name.

       pullnews will update the config file to include  the  time
       the  group was last checked and the highest numbered arti­
       cle successfully retrieved and  transfered  to  the  down­
       stream server.

       A sample configuration file might look like:
              # Format group date high
              data.pa.vix.com
                      rec.bicycles.racing 908086612 783
                      rec.humor.funny 908086613 18
                      comp.programming.threads
              nnrp.vix.com
                      comp.std.lisp

       The  group  entries  for  the  two  rec.* groups have been
       updated by an earlier run by pullnews.


HISTORY

       pullnews was written by James Brister for  INN.   This  is
       revision 1.2.2.1, dated 2000/04/13.


BUGS

       pullnews  is  very simple and is lacking in more sophisti­
       cated features  (like  killing  articles  based  on  user-
       defined conditions) that better pull feeder most certainly
       have. It also doesn't keep or log much detail on  articles
       transferred.

       Due  to  a limitation in the Net::NNTP perl module, one of
       the functions in there is redefined  inside  the  pullnews
       source.  A  future release of the libnet packages will fix
       that.


SEE ALSO

       ctlinnd(8), inn.conf(5), innd(8), newsfeeds(5), shlock(1).


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