4.4BSD/usr/src/contrib/news/inn/doc/active.5

.\" $Revision: 1.10 $
.TH ACTIVE 5
.SH NAME
active, active.times \- list of active Usenet newsgroups
.SH DESCRIPTION
The file
.\" =()<.I @<_PATH_ACTIVE>@>()=
.I /var/spool/news/data/active
lists the newsgroups that the local site receives.
Each newsgroup should be listed only once.
Each line specifies one group; their order in the file does not matter.
Within each newsgroup, articles are assigned unique names, which are
monotonically increasing numbers.
.PP
If an article is posted to newsgroups not mentioned in this file, those
newsgroups are ignored.
If no valid newsgroups are specified, the article is
.\" =()<.ie '@<WANT_TRASH>@'DONT' rejected.>()=
.ie 'DONT'DONT' rejected.
.el \{\
filed into the newsgroup ``junk'' and only propagated to sites that receive
the ``junk'' newsgroup.\}
.PP
Each line consists of four fields specified by a space:
.RS
.nf
name himark lomark flags
.fi
.RE
The first field is the name of the newsgroup.
.\" =()<.if '@<MERGE_TO_GROUPS>@'DO' \{\>()=
.if 'DONT'DO' \{\
Newsgroups that start with the three characters ``to.'' are treated
specially; see
.IR innd (8).\}
The second field is the highest article number that has been used in that
newsgroup.
The third field is the lowest article number in the group; this number
is not guaranteed to be accurate, and should only be taken to be a hint.
Note that because of article cancellations, there may be gaps in the
numbering sequence.
If the lowest article number is greater then the highest article number,
then there are no articles in the newsgroup.
In order to make it possible to update an entry in-place without rewriting
the entire file, the second and third fields are padded out with leading
zeros to make them a fixed width.
.PP
The fourth field can contain one of the following flags:
.RS
.nf
.ta \w'=foo.bar   'u
y	Local postings are allowed
n	No local postings are allowed, only remote ones
m	The group is moderated and all postings must be approved
j	Articles in this group are not kept, but only passed on
x	Articles cannot be posted to this newsgroup
=foo.bar	Articles are locally filed into the ``foo.bar'' group
.fi
.RE
.PP
If a newsgroup has the ``j'' flag, then no articles will be filed into
that newsgroup and local postings to that group should not be generated.
If an article for such a newsgroup is received from a remote site, it
will be filed into the ``junk'' newsgroup if it is not cross-posted.
This is different from not having a newsgroup listed in the file because
sites can subscribe to ``j'' newsgroups and the article will be propagated
to them.
.PP
If the fourth field of a newsgroup starts with an equal sign, then
the newsgroup is an alias.
Articles can be posted to the group, but will be treated as if they
were posted to the group named after the equal sign.
The second and third fields are ignored.
Note that the Newsgroup header is not modified
(Alias groups are typically used during a transition, and are typically
created with
.IR ctlinnd (8)).
An alias newsgroup should not point to another alias.
.PP
The file
.\" =()<.I @<_PATH_ACTIVETIMES>@>()=
.I /var/spool/news/data/active.times
provides a chronological record of when newsgroups are created.
This file is normally updated by
.IR innd (8)
whenever a
.I ctlinnd
\&``newgroup'' command is done.
Each line consist of three fields:
.RS
.nf
name time creator
.fi
.RE
.PP
The first field is the name of the newsgroup.
The second field is the time it was created, expressed as the number of
seconds since the epoch \(em
.IR i.e. ,
a
.IR time_t ;
see
.IR gettimeofday (2).
The third field is the electronic mail address of the person who
created the group.
.SH HISTORY
Written by Rich $alz <rsalz@uunet.uu.net> for InterNetNews.
.de R$
This is revision \\$3, dated \\$4.
..
.R$ $Id: active.5,v 1.10 1993/01/29 16:42:32 rsalz Exp $
.SH "SEE ALSO"
ctlinnd(8), innd(8).