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><H1
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><A
NAME="X-087-2-CNEWS.ACTIVE"
>21.4. The active File</A
></H1
><P
>&#13;
The <TT
CLASS="FILENAME"
>active</TT
> file is located in
<TT
CLASS="FILENAME"
>/etc/</TT
>, and lists all groups known at your site
and the articles currently online. You will rarely have to touch it, but
we explain it nevertheless for sake of completion. Entries take the
following form:
<TABLE
BORDER="0"
BGCOLOR="#E0E0E0"
WIDTH="100%"
><TR
><TD
><PRE
CLASS="SCREEN"
><TT
CLASS="REPLACEABLE"
><I
>newsgroup</I
></TT
> <TT
CLASS="REPLACEABLE"
><I
>high</I
></TT
> <TT
CLASS="REPLACEABLE"
><I
>low</I
></TT
> <TT
CLASS="REPLACEABLE"
><I
>perm</I
></TT
></PRE
></TD
></TR
></TABLE
></P
><P
><TT
CLASS="REPLACEABLE"
><I
>newsgroup</I
></TT
> is the group's name.
<TT
CLASS="REPLACEABLE"
><I
>low</I
></TT
> and <TT
CLASS="REPLACEABLE"
><I
>high</I
></TT
> are the
lowest and highest numbers of articles currently available. If none are
available at the moment, <TT
CLASS="REPLACEABLE"
><I
>low</I
></TT
> is equal to
<TT
CLASS="REPLACEABLE"
><I
>high</I
></TT
>+1.</P
><P
>&#13;At least that's what the <TT
CLASS="REPLACEABLE"
><I
>low</I
></TT
> field is meant to do.
However, for efficiency, C News doesn't update this field. This wouldn't be
such a big loss if there weren't newsreaders that depend on it. For
instance, <B
CLASS="COMMAND"
>trn</B
> checks this field to see if it can purge any
articles from its thread database. To update the <TT
CLASS="REPLACEABLE"
><I
>low</I
></TT
>
field, you therefore have to run the <B
CLASS="COMMAND"
>updatemin</B
> command
regularly (or, in earlier versions of C News, the <B
CLASS="COMMAND"
>upact</B
>
script).</P
><P
><TT
CLASS="REPLACEABLE"
><I
>perm</I
></TT
> is a parameter detailing the access users are
granted to the group. It takes one of the following values:
<P
></P
><DIV
CLASS="VARIABLELIST"
><DL
><DT
><SPAN
CLASS="SYSTEMITEM"
>y</SPAN
></DT
><DD
><P
>Users are allowed to post to this group.</P
></DD
><DT
><SPAN
CLASS="SYSTEMITEM"
>n</SPAN
></DT
><DD
><P
>Users are not allowed to post to this group. However, the group may still
be read.</P
></DD
><DT
><SPAN
CLASS="SYSTEMITEM"
>x</SPAN
></DT
><DD
><P
>This group has been disabled locally. This happens sometimes when news
administrators (or their superiors) take offense at articles posted to
certain groups.</P
><P
>Articles received for this group are not stored locally, although they are
forwarded to the sites that request them.</P
></DD
><DT
><SPAN
CLASS="SYSTEMITEM"
>m</SPAN
></DT
><DD
><P
>This denotes a moderated group. When a user tries to post to this group,
an intelligent newsreader notifies her of this and send the article to
the moderator instead. The moderator's address is taken from the
<TT
CLASS="FILENAME"
>moderators</TT
> file in <TT
CLASS="FILENAME"
>/var/lib/news</TT
>.</P
></DD
><DT
><TT
CLASS="LITERAL"
>=</TT
><TT
CLASS="REPLACEABLE"
><I
>real-group</I
></TT
></DT
><DD
><P
>This marks <TT
CLASS="REPLACEABLE"
><I
>newsgroup</I
></TT
> as being a local alias for
another group, namely <TT
CLASS="REPLACEABLE"
><I
>real-group</I
></TT
>. All articles
posted to <TT
CLASS="REPLACEABLE"
><I
>newsgroup</I
></TT
> will be redirected to it.</P
></DD
></DL
></DIV
></P
><P
>In C News, you will generally not have to access this file directly.
Groups can be added or deleted locally using
<B
CLASS="COMMAND"
>addgroup</B
> and <B
CLASS="COMMAND"
>delgroup</B
> (see the
section <A
HREF="x-087-2-cnews.maint.html"
>Section 21.10</A
>&#8221; later in this chapter). A
<SPAN
CLASS="SYSTEMITEM"
>newgroup</SPAN
> control message adds
a group for the whole of Usenet, while a <SPAN
CLASS="SYSTEMITEM"
>rmgroup</SPAN
> message deletes a group.
<I
CLASS="EMPHASIS"
>Never send such a message yourself!</I
> For
instructions on how to create a newsgroup, read the monthly postings
in <SPAN
CLASS="SYSTEMITEM"
>news.announce.newusers</SPAN
>.</P
><P
>
The <TT
CLASS="FILENAME"
>active.times</TT
> file is closely related to the
<TT
CLASS="FILENAME"
>active</TT
> file. Whenever a group is created, C News logs
a message to this file containing the name of the group created, the date of
creation, whether it was done by a
<SPAN
CLASS="SYSTEMITEM"
>newgroup</SPAN
> control message or locally,
and who did it. This is convenient for newsreaders that may notify
the user of any recently created groups. It is also used by the
<B
CLASS="COMMAND"
>NEWGROUPS</B
> command of NNTP.</P
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