

RNEWS(8)                   Unix Programmer's Manual                   RNEWS(8)


NAME
     rnews, cunbatch - accept and spool news input
     newsspool, newsrun, c7decode - news input spooler and processing
     newsrunning - control news-processing daemon

SYNOPSIS
     rnews
     cunbatch
     /usr/lib/newsbin/input/newsspool [ -g grade ] [ -i ] [ file ... ]
     /usr/lib/newsbin/input/newsrun [ grades ]
     /usr/lib/newsbin/input/c7decode
     /usr/lib/newsbin/input/newsrunning [on|off]

DESCRIPTION
     Rnews accepts news from standard input and spools it up  for  processing,
     space  permitting.   If  space is persistently too short, rnews looks for
     the  file  /usr/lib/news/rnews.stall;  if  it  is  present,  rnews  waits
     patiently for more space to appear, while if it is absent, rnews discards
     the news and reports this.

     Cunbatch is a historical synonym for rnews; there  is  no  difference  in
     what they do.

     Newsspool is the actual spooling program.  It copies  the  input  file(s)
     (standard  input  default)  to  a  file  in  the input-spooling directory
     /usr/spool/news/in.coming, stripping  off  any  `#!\  cunbatch'  or  `#!\
     c7unbatch'  header  as  it does so.  The filename is based on the current
     time, plus a suffix classifying the file by type (compressed,  c7encoded,
     or  plain  text),  plus  a possible prefix denoting the one-digit numeric
     grade (if the -g option is given; rnews does not use  this  option).   If
     invoked  with  the  -i  option, when finished newsspool attempts to start
     newsrun to process the new news immediately.  Rnews invokes it  this  way
     if and only if the file /usr/lib/news/rnews.immed exists.

     Newsrun should be run periodically (e.g. by cron(8)) to  process  spooled
     news.  Newsrunning can be used to turn newsrun's processing off and on if
     it is desired to  avoid  major  news  processing  during  certain  hours.
     `newsrunning off' instructs any currently-running newsrun to stop as soon
     as possible, and prevents later ones from running.   (This  is  a  slight
     oversimplification;  see  the  discussion of grades below.)  `newsrunning
     on' removes the inhibition (but does not actually start a  new  newsrun).
     Without  an argument, newsrunning reports the current status:  ``off'' or
     ``on''.

     Newsrun checks for the stop file that newsrunning\ off creates,  verifies
     that  there  is  enough  disk  space  for  processing,  and  then  starts
     processing spooled news.  News is processed in order by  grade:   if  the
     name  of  the  spooled file starts with a digit followed by a period, the
     digit is the file's grade.  Files without a grade are considered to  have
     a  grade  just after grade 9.  Lower-numbered grades are processed first,
     with processing within a grade in chronological order.

     If newsrun is invoked with a grades argument, that specifies  the  grades
     to  be  processed.  A grades argument can be a single grade (`1'), a list
     (`123'), or a range (`1-5').  In the absence of the  argument,  newsrun's
     default  is all grades if there is no stop file present, and just grade 0


C News                             3 March 1991                              1



RNEWS(8)                   Unix Programmer's Manual                   RNEWS(8)


     if there is a stop file.  If  a  stop  file  appears  during  processing,
     newsrun  will stop processing all but grade 0 and will exit when there is
     no grade-0 news left.

     Each batch is run  through  c7decode  (if  necessary),  decompressed  (if
     necessary), and then fed to relaynews.  (Files that lack a classification
     suffix,  typically  because  they  arrived  by  some  means  other   than
     newsspool,  are  tried  first  as compressed and then as plain text.)  If
     relaynews fails, newsrun reports this (by mail to usenet) and attempts to
     save  the spooled batch in the bad subdirectory for human inspection.  To
     bound the accumulation in bad in the event of  some  systematic  problem,
     newsrun  limits bad to 50 files; this default can be changed by placing a
     limit file in bad, containing one ASCII line  with  the  desired  numeric
     limit.  A limit of 0 will prevent saving of bad batches.

     C7decode passes standard input to standard output, decoding a complex and
     bizarre encoding of 8-bit data as printable ASCII characters.

FILES
     (All in /usr/spool/news/in.coming)

     000000000  (etc.) unclassified ungraded spooled news
     000000000.Z ungraded compressed spooled news
     000000000.t ungraded plain-text spooled news
     000000000.7 ungraded compressed c7encoded spooled news
     1.000000000.Z grade 1 compressed spooled news, etc.
     stop       newsrun disable file
     bad        directory for failed news
     bad/limit  limit on number of files in bad

SEE ALSO
     compress(1), newsbatch(8), newsmail(8), relaynews(8)

DIAGNOSTICS
     Complaints are mailed to usenet if something goes wrong.

HISTORY
     Part of C News.  Written at University of Toronto by Henry Spencer.

BUGS
     C7decode should be part of the underlying transport mechanism.  It hasn't
     been   tested  very  well  in  the  C  News  environment.   Bdecode  (see
     newsmail(8)) is probably better for most uses.

     Relaynews is a bit too  enthusiastic  about  declaring  batches  bad,  so
     things  end  up  in bad for no terribly good reason.  Actually, it's rare
     for the contents of bad to be very interesting.

     The grading mechanism relies  slightly  on  collating  sequence,  and  in
     particular on `.' collating before the digits.








C News                             3 March 1991                              2

