expire - Usenet article and history expiration program
expire [-iNnptx] [-d dir] [-f
file] [-g file] [-h file] [-r
reason] [-s size] [-v level] [-w
number] [-z file] [expire.ctl]
expire scans the history(5)-format text file
pathdb/history and uses the information recorded in it to purge
itself of old news articles. Articles stored using a storage method that has
self-expire functionality are by default not affected by expire's
primary behavior (but see the -N flag to disable this). In this case,
expire.ctl is ignored except the
"/remember/" line for that article;
expire does still probe to see if the article still exists and purges
the relevant history and overview entries if appropriate. However, if
groupbaseexpiry in inn.conf is true, expire acts on all
articles as specified by expire.ctl regardless of whether their
storage methods have self-expire functionality.
Note that expire never purges articles which do not match
any entry in expire.ctl.
- -d dir
- If the -d flag is used, then the new history file and
database is created in the specified directory dir. This is useful
when the filesystem does not have sufficient space to hold both the old
and new history files. When this flag is used, expire leaves the
server paused and creates a zero-length file named after the new history
file, with an extension of ".done" to
indicate that it has successfully completed the expiration. The calling
script should install the new history file and unpause the server. The
-r flag should be used with this flag.
- -f file
- To specify an alternate history file, use the -f flag. This flag is
valid when used with the -d flag, and the output will be written to
the specified file. The default without -f is
"history".
- -g file
- If the -g flag is given, then a one-line summary equivalent to the
output of -v 1, except preceded by the current time, will be
appended to the specified file.
- -h file
- To specify an alternate input text history file, use the -h flag.
expire uses the old dbz(3) database to determine the size of
the new one. (If the -d flag is not used, the output filename will
be the same as the input filename with an extension of
".n".)
The default without the -h flag is
pathdb/history.
- -i
- To ignore the old database, use the -i flag.
- -N
- The control file is normally ignored for articles in storage methods which
have self-expire functionality. If the -N flag is used,
expire still uses the control file for these articles.
- -n
- If innd is not running, use the -n flag and expire
will not send the "pause" or
"go" commands. (For more details on the
commands, see ctlinnd(8)). Note that expire only needs
exclusive access for a very short time -- long enough to see if any
new articles arrived since it first hit the end of the file, and to rename
the new files to the working files.
- -p
- expire makes its decisions on the time the article arrived, as
found in the history file. This means articles are often kept a
little longer than with other expiration programs that base their
decisions on the article's posting date. To use the article's posting
date, use the -p flag.
- -r reason
- expire normally sends a "pause"
command to the local innd daemon when it needs exclusive access to
the history file, using the string
"Expiring" as the reason. To give a
different reason, use the -r flag. The process ID will be appended
to the reason. When expire is finished and the new history
file is ready, it sends a "go" command.
See also the -n flag.
- -s size
- Optimize the new history database for approximately size pairs
(lines in history). Accurately specifying the size will create a
more efficient database. (The size should be the estimated eventual size
of the file, typically the size of the old file.)
- -t
- If the -t flag is used, then expire will generate a list of
the tokens that should be removed on its standard output, and the new
history file will be left in history.n,
history.n.dir, history.n.index and history.n.hash.
This flag is useful for debugging when used with the -n flag. Note
that if the -f flag is used, then the name specified with that flag
will be used instead of history.
- -v level
- The -v flag is used to increase the verbosity of the program,
generating messages to standard output. The level should be a
number, where higher numbers result in more output. Level one will print
totals of the various actions done (not valid if a new history file
is not written), level two will print a report on each individual file,
while level five results in multiple lines of output for every history
line processed.
- -w number
- Use the -w flag to "warp" time so that expire
thinks it is running at some time other then the current time. The value
should be a signed floating point number indicating the number of days to
use as the offset.
- -x
- If the -x flag is used, then expire will not create any new
history files. This is most useful when combined with the -n and
-t flags to see how different expiration policies would change the
amount of disk space used.
- -z file
- If the -z flag is used, then articles are not removed, but their
names are appended to the specified file. See the description of
delayrm in news.daily(8). If a filename is specified, it is
taken as the control file and parsed according to the rules in
expire.ctl. A single dash ("-")
may be used to read the file from standard input. If no file is specified,
the file pathetc/expire.ctl is read.
Written by Rich $alz
<rsalz@uunet.uu.net> for InterNetNews. Converted to POD by Julien
Elie.
$Id: expire.pod 8573 2009-08-18 13:49:54Z
iulius $