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snsend,v0.3.8(8)       DragonFly System Manager's Manual      snsend,v0.3.8(8)

NAME
       snsend - distribute articles
       snstore - store articles locally

SYNOPSIS
       snsend [-rvcna]
       snstore [-rvcna]

DESCRIPTION
       snsend reads articles from descriptor 0 and distributes each one into
       each newsgroup they are posted to, like inews.  snstore does the same
       but stores them all locally.  The input articles are expected to be in
       wire format (lines end with CRLF, leading dots are doubled, and
       articles are terminated with a lone dot).

       Control messages are not treated specially.

       The newsgroups list is taken from the X-sn-Newsgroups field if it
       exists; otherwise it is taken from the Newsgroups field, which must
       exist or the article will be junked.  All fields whose names begin with
       X-sn- (case insensitive) are always removed.

       If Date or Message-ID are not present, these are created.  The local
       hosts name is prepended to the Path field.

       If an article is to be junked, it is sent to the junk newsgroup if it
       exists, otherwise it is discarded.

ROUTING
       This applies only to snsend.  snstore does not route; it treats all
       news.groups as though they were local (see Nonexistent newsgroup and
       Local newsgroup below).  If any of the following fails, snsend aborts:

       For each news.group an article is (cross-) posted to, snsend routes the
       article as follows, aborting if any action fails:

       Nonexistent newsgroup
              If /var/spool/news/news.group is not a directory, snsend ignores
              this news.group.  If all news.groups are thus ignored, the
              article is junked.

       Global newsgroup
              If /var/spool/news/news.group/.outgoing is a (symlink to a)
              directory, snsend stores the article into a file in that
              directory, if the same article does not already exist there (so
              news.group's upstream feed doesn't get multiple copies of the
              same article.)  Such in-transit article files are given names
              that begin with a $ sign.

       Local processing via script
              Otherwise if /var/spool/news/news.group/.outgoing is a regular
              file, it is taken to be a script or program and is run with the
              article available on its input.  See
              /var/spool/news/dot-outgoing.ex.

       Local processing via fifo
              Otherwise if /var/spool/news/news.group/.outgoing is a fifo, the
              article is written into it.  It is an error if nothing is
              reading the fifo.

       Local newsgroup
              Otherwise if /var/spool/news/news.group/.outgoing does not
              exist, the article is stored into news.group.

OPTIONS
       Options apply to snsend and snstore equally.

       -r     The article stream is in rnews batch format, rather than wire
              format.  Only the #! rnews form is understood.

       -c     If an article already exists in the local newsgroup it is
              destined for, don't store it there.  For snsend, this option has
              no effect on newsgroups that are not local.

       -a     (Aliases not allowed.)  When storing to multiple local
              newsgroups, do not alias subsequent copies to the first,
              instead, make a copy.  Aliasing saves disk space, but when the
              original expires, so do all aliases to it.  This option has no
              effect on newsgroups that are not local.

       -n     Don't actually do anything with the article, just dump it back
              onto descriptor 1.

       -v     For each article stored in each newsgroup, output a line to
              descriptor 1 similar to what snscan would emit, except that for
              non-local newsgroups the serial number will always be 0.

FILES
       /var/spool/news/news.group.name/
              This includes /var/spool/news/=junk newsgroup if it exists.
              Each such directory represents the newsgroup of the same name,
              and articles are stored in files 1, 2, 3, etc. beneath it.  Each
              such file contains 1 or more articles.  This is contrary to the
              traditional form of /var/spool/news/news/group/name.
              news.group.name.

       /var/spool/news/news.group/.outgoing
              See also ROUTING above.  The presence of this directory
              indicates that news.group is global, and articles posted to
              news.group end up here in files named $*.  These files are
              linked in already complete, so all such files are ready to be
              uploaded.

       /var/spool/news/news.group/.compress
              If this file exists, articles stored in news.group are
              candidates for compression.  The content of the file is a number
              representing a minimum article body size below which compression
              won't be applied.  If the file is empty this threshold defaults
              to 1024 bytes.

       /var/spool/news/.me
              If this file exists, it's contents are taken to be the local
              hosts name for purposes of the Path field.  Otherwise the name
              is obtained from gethostname(2).

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
       See also /usr/local/sbin/dot-outgoing.ex for other variables exported
       when snsend invokes a .outgoing program.

       SNROOT If this is set, its value is used in place of /var/spool/news.

EXIT CODES
       snsend and snstore exit 0 on success, 1 on usage error, 2 on system
       error, 3 on article format error, and 9 if
       /var/spool/news/news.group/.outgoing (snsend only) exits with other
       than 0.

SEE ALSO
       /usr/local/sbin/dot-outgoing.ex, snscan(1)

N.B.                              Harold Tay                  snsend,v0.3.8(8)