NAME

touch_newsgroup - force leafnode to continue reading low-traffic newsgroups

SYNOPSIS

touch_newsgroup [-f groupsfile] [-h hostname] [-v] [newsgroups]

DESCRIPTION

touch_newsgroup is a Perl script which reads the last article in the specified newsgroups on the specified using NNTP.

This prevents leafnode or similar news-servers from marking those newsgroups as inactive because no-one is reading them.

Perl and the Net::NNTP module are required to use this program. On Debian systems these are avalible in the perl5 and libnet-perl packages.

OPTIONS

-f groupsfile: Read newsgroup names from groupsfile in addition to any specified on command line. Use -f - to read from stdin.
-h hostname: Read newsgroups on host hostname (default 127.0.0.1)
-v: Be verbose. Prints the number of the article it reads from each newsgroup.
newsgroups: names of newsgroups to read. May be omitted if a groupsfile is specified.

ENVIRONMENT

Requires Net::NNTP module (available in libnet from CPAN or the libnet-perl package). On Debian systems, this program will by default be run daily on the list of newsgroups specified in /etc/news/leafnode/touch_groups if that file exists.

LIMITATIONS

Only one news-server is catered for, the IP address of which is hard-wired into the script as $nntp_host.

BUGS

dies if it encounters any problems.