208 lines
9.3 KiB
HTML
208 lines
9.3 KiB
HTML
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//IETF//DTD HTML 2.0//EN">
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<!--Converted with LaTeX2HTML 96.1-c (Feb 29, 1996) by Nikos Drakos (nikos@cbl.leeds.ac.uk), CBLU, University of Leeds -->
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<!-- updated Sun Jul 14 17:45:48 MET DST 1996 by:
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Tony den Haan (tony@iaehv.nl) ftp://ftp.IAEhv.nl/pub/users/tony-->
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<HTML>
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<HEAD>
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<TITLE>The sys file</TITLE>
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</HEAD>
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<BODY LANG="EN">
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<A HREF="node1.html"><IMG WIDTH=65 HEIGHT=24 ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="contents" SRC="contents_motif.gif"></A> <BR>
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<B> Next:</B> <A HREF="node263.html">The active file</A>
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<B>Up:</B> <A HREF="node259.html">C-News</A>
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<B> Previous:</B> <A HREF="node261.html">Installation</A>
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<BR> <P>
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<H1><A NAME="SECTION0019300000">The <TT>sys</TT> file</A></H1>
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<A NAME="cnewssys"></A>
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The sys file, located in /usr/lib/news, controls which
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hierarchies you receive and forward to other sites. Although there
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are maintenance tools named addfeed and delfeed, I think
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it's better to maintain this file by hand.
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<P>
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The sys file contains entries for each site you forward news to,
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as well as a description of the groups you will accept.
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An entry looks like
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<PRE>
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site[/exclusions]:grouplist[/distlist][:flags[:cmds]]
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</PRE>
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Entries may be continued across newlines using a backslash (\).
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A hash sign (#) denotes a comment.
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<DL>
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<DT>site<DD> This is the name of the site the entry applies to. One usually
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chooses the site's UUCP name for this. There has to be an
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entry for your site in the sys file, too, else you will not
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receive any articles yourself.
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<P>
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The special site name ME denotes your site. The ME entry
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defines all groups you are willing to store locally. Articles
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that aren't matched by the ME line will go to the junk group.
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<P>
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Since C News checks site against the site names in the
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Path: header field, you have to make sure they really match.
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Some sites use their fully qualified domain name in this
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field, or an alias like news.site.domain. To prevent any articles from being returned to these sites, you have to add these
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to the exclusion list, separated by commas.
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<P>
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For the entry applying to site moria, for instance, the
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site field would contain moria/moria.orcnet.org.
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<DT>grouplist<DD> This is a comma-separated subscription list of groups and
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hierarchies for that particular site. A hierarchy may be specified by giving the hierarchy's prefix (such as comp.os for
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all groups whose name starts with this prefix), optionally
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followed by the keyword all (e.g. comp.os.all).
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<P>
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A hierarchy or group is excluded from forwarding by pre-
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ceding it with an exclamation mark. If a newsgroup is checked
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against the list, the longest match applies. For example, if
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grouplist contains
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<PRE>
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!comp,comp.os.linux,comp.folklore.computers
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</PRE>
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<DD> no groups from the comp hierarchy except comp.folklore.computers and all groups below comp.os.linux will be fed to that site.
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<P>
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If the site requests to be forwarded all news you receive
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yourself, enter all as grouplist.
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<DT>distlist<DD> is offset from the grouplist by a slash, and contains a list
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of distributions to be forwarded. Again, you may exclude certain distributions by preceding them with an exclamation mark.
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All distributions are denoted by all. Omitting distlist
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implies a list of all.
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<P>
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For example, you may use a distribution list of
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all,!local to prevent news for local use only from being sent
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to remote sites.
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<P>
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There are usually at least two distributions: world,
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which is often the default distribution used when none is
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specified by the user, and local. There may be other distributions that apply to a certain region, state, country, etc.
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Finally, there are two distributions used by C News only;
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these are sendme and ihave, and are used for the sendme/ihave
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protocol.
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<P>
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The use of distributions is a subject of debate. For one,
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some newsreaders create bogus distributions by simply using
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the top level hierarchy, for example comp when posting to
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comp.os.linux. Distributions that apply to regions are often
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questionable, too, because news may travel outside of your
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region when sent across the Internet.(3) Distributions apply-
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ing to an organization, however, are very meaningful, for
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example to prevent confidential information from leaving the
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company network. This purpose, however, is generally served
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better by creating a separate newsgroup or hierarchy.
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<DT>flags<DD>
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This describes certain parameters for the feed. It may be
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empty, or a combination of the following:
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<DL>
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<DT>F<DD> This flag enables batching.
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<DT>f<DD> This is almost identical to the F flag, but allows
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C News to calculate the size of outgoing batches
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more precisely.
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<DT>I<DD> This flag makes C News produce an article list
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suitable for use by ihave/sendme. Additional modifi-
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cations to the sys and the batchparms file are
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required to enable ihave/sendme.
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<DT>n<DD> This creates batch files for active NNTP transfer
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clients like nntpxmit (see chapter 19.). The batch
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files contain the article's filename along with its
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message id.
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<DT>I<DD> This flag makes C News produce an article list
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suitable for use by ihave/sendme. Additional modifi-
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cations to the sys and the batchparms file are
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required to enable ihave/sendme.
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<DT>n<DD> This creates batch files for active NNTP transfer
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clients like nntpxmit (see chapter 19.). The batch
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files contain the article's filename along with its
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message id.
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<DT>L<DD> This tells C News to transmit only articles posted
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at your site. This flag may be followed by a decimal
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number n, which makes C News only transfer articles
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posted within n hops from your site. C News deter-
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mines the number of hops from the Path: field.
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<DT>u<DD> tells C News to batch only articles from unmod-
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erated groups.
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<DT>m<DD> tells C News to batch only articles from moder-
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ated groups.
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<BR>
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You may use at most one of F, f, I, or n.
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<DT>cmds<DD> This field contains a command to be executed for each article, unless batching is enabled. The article will be fed to
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the command on standard input. This should only be used for
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very small feeds; otherwise the load on both systems will be
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too high.
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<P>
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The default command is
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<PRE>
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uux - -r -z system!rnews
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</PRE>
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<DD>
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which invokes rnews on the remote system, feeding it the article on
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standard input.
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<P>
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The default search path for commands given in this field
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is /bin:/usr/bin:/usr/lib/news/bin/batch. The latter directory
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contains a number of shell scripts whose name starts with via;
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they are briefly described later in this chapter.
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<P>
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If batching is enabled using either of the F or f, I or
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n flags, C News expects to find a file name in this field
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rather than a command. If the file name does not begin with a
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slash (/), it is assumed to be relative to
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/var/spool/news/out.going. If the field is empty, it defaults
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to system/togo.
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</DL>
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</DL>
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When setting up C-News, you will most probably have to write your own
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sys file. To help you with it, we give a sample file for
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vbrew.com below, from which you might copy what you need.
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<PRE>
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# We take whatever they give us.
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ME:all/all::
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# We send everything we receive to moria, except for local and
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# brewery-related articles. We use batching.
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moria/moria.orcnet.org:all,!to,to.moria/all,!local,!brewery:f:
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# We mail comp.risks to jack@ponderosa.uucp
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ponderosa:comp.risks/all::rmail jack@ponderosa.uucp
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# swim gets a minor feed
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swim/swim.twobirds.com:comp.os.linux,rec.humor.oracle/all,!local:f:
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# Log mail map articles for later processing
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usenet-maps:comp.mail.maps/all:F:/var/spool/uumaps/work/batch
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</PRE>
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<HR>
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<P><ADDRESS>
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<I>Andrew Anderson <BR>
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Thu Mar 7 23:22:06 EST 1996</I>
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</ADDRESS>
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