NEWS.DAILY(8)NEWS.DAILY(8)NAMEnews.daily - do regular Usenet system administration
SYNOPSISnews.daily [ keyword... ]
DESCRIPTION
News.daily performs a number of important Usenet adminis
trative 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 <pathrun
in inn.conf> 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, <USER speci_
fied with --with-news-master at configure>. 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 ``norotate'' keyword to prevent
the log files from being processed and rotated too fast.
The shlock(1) program is used to prevent simultaneous exe
cutions.
KEYWORDS
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 renamed
after expiration by calling expirerm(8). If the
``delayrm'' keyword is specified, the ``expire
over'' keyword is specified implicitly.
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, and it does various things (like rotating
logs) that normally should only be done on daily
basis. 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 func
tion.
noexpireover
By default, expireover is invoked to remove old
overview database, if enableoverview is set in
inn.conf(5). Using this keyword disables this
function.
noexplog
Expire normally appends information to <pathlog in
inn.conf>/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 argu
ments 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 dis
ables 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'' key
word is used. The ``norotate'' keyword is passed
on to scanlogs if it is invoked.
norenumber
This keyword disables the ctlinnd(8) renumber oper
ation. Normally, the low-water mark for all news
groups (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 key
word 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. If no overview
data is created, the ``expireover'' keyword is not
needed. This is the case that the server runs only
for feeder(no reader).
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.
postexec='post executed program'
The program specified by the given path is executed
just after all expiration is done. Multiple pro
grams may be specified; they will be invoked in
order.
lowmark
If the ``lowmark'' keyword is used, ctlinnd(8) low
mark is used for renumbering active(5). Normal
ctlinnd(8) renumber operation will take long time.
With ``lowmark'' keyword this will take less time.
If the ``lowmark'' keyword is used, ``norenumber''
keyword is not needed, since news.daily specifies
it implicitly.
tmpdir=path
Sets the environment variable TMPDIR to the speci
fied path. Various parts of the expire process,
such as sort, will then use this path as the direc
tory for temporary files.
HISTORY
News.daily and this manual page written by Landon Curt
Noll <chongo@toad.com> and Rich $alz <rsalz@uunet.uu.net>.
This is revision 1.11.2.2, dated 2000/10/12.
SEE ALSOactive(5), ctlinnd(8), expire(8), fastrm(8), inn.conf(5),
newslog(5), newslog(8), innwatch.ctl(5), shlock(1).
NEWS.DAILY(8)
