news.daily - do regular Usenet system administration
news.daily [ keyword... ]
News.daily performs a number of important Usenet
administrative functions. This includes producing a status report, removing
old news articles, processing log files, rotating the archived log files,
renumbering the active file, removing any old socket files found in the
``firewall'' directory, and collecting the output. This program should be
run under the news administrator's id, not as root.
By default, news.daily performs all of its functions and
mails the output to the news administrator, usenet. By specifying
``keywords'' on the command line, it is possible to modify the functions
performed, as well as change the arguments given to expire(8) and
expireover(8).
News.daily should be run once a day, typically out of
cron(8). It may be run more often, but such invocations should at
least use the ``notdaily'' keyword to prevent the log files from being
processed and rotated too fast.
The shlock(1) program is used to prevent simultaneous
executions.
The following keywords may be used:
- delayrm
- This uses the ``-z'' flag when invoking expire and
expireover. The names of articles to be removed are written to a
temporary file, and then removed after expiration by calling
expirerm(8).
- expctl=path
- Specify the file to use as the expire.ctl(5) file for
expire.
- expdir=path
- By default, expire builds the new history(5) file and
database in the same directory as the current files. Using this keyword
specifies a different local to build the new files (by passing the
''-d'' flag to expire), which will then be moved to the
right location when finished.
- nostat
- This keyword disables the status report generated by innstat (see
newslog(8)). Without this keyword, the status report is the first
function performed, just prior to obtaining the news.daily
lock.
- notdaily
- By default news.daily expects to be run only once a day. Use this
keyword any extra times news.daily is run in the day and the normal
logfile processing (and rotation) will not be done.
- noexpire
- By default, expire is invoked to remove old news articles. Using
this keyword disables this function.
- noexplog
- Expire normally appends information to
/var/log/news/expire.log (see newslog(5)). Using this
keyword causes the expire output to be handled as part of
news.daily's output. It has no effect if the ``noexpire'' keyword
is used.
- flags='expire args'
- By default, expire is invoked with the an argument of ``-v1''.
Using this keyword changes the arguments to those specified. Be careful to
use quotes if multiple arguments are needed. This keyword has no effect if
the ``noexpire'' keyword is used.
- nologs
- After expiration, scanlogs(8) is invoked to process the log files.
Using this keyword disables all log processing functions.
- norotate
- By default, log processing includes rotating and cleaning out log files.
Using this keyword disables the rotating and cleaning aspect of the log
processing: the logs files are only scanned for information and no
contents are altered.
- This keyword has no effect if the ``nologs'' keyword is used. The
``norotate'' keyword is passed on to scanlogs if it is
invoked.
- norenumber
- This keyword disables the ctlinnd(8) renumber operation. Normally,
the low-water mark for all newsgroups (see active(5)) is
reset.
- norm
- By default, any socket ctlinnd socket that has not been modified
for two days will be removed. Using this keyword disables this
function.
- nomail
- News.daily normally sends a mail message containing the results to
the administrator. Using this keyword causes this message to be sent to
stdout and stderr instead. Normally, all utilities invoked by the script
have their stdout and stderr redirected into a file. If the file is empty,
no message is sent.
- expireover
- The expireover program is called after expiration to purge the
overview databases.
- expireoverflags='expireover args'
- If the ``expireover'' keyword is used, this keyword may be used to specify
the flags to be passed to expireover. If the ``delayrm'' keyword is
used, then the default value is ``-z'' and the list of deleted files;
otherwise, the default value is ``-s''.
- /full/path
- The program specified by the given path is executed just before any
expiration is done. A typical use is to specify an alternate expiration
program and use the ``noexpire'' keyword. Multiple programs may be
specified; they will be invoked in order.
News.daily and this manual page written by Landon Curt Noll
<chongo@toad.com> and Rich $alz <rsalz@uunet.uu.net>. This is
revision 1.11, dated 1996/12/10.