NAME
aubconf — Configuration file for aub
DESCRIPTION
The vast majority of aub configuration is done in the aubconf
configuration file.
Configuration files are line-oriented; each line is processed
separately. If any line contains the ’#’ character that is not escaped
with a ’´, aub concludes that the character begins a comment, and
discards the comment character and everything on the line that follows
it.
Each non-blank line in a configuration file must begin with a keyword
recognized by aub. The case of keywords is not significant. As far as
aub is concerned, "keyword", "KEYWORD", "Keyword" and "KeYWorD" all
mean the same thing. Some keywords require arguments; some require no
arguments appear, and some permit variable numbers of arguments. If
aub sees keywords it doesn’t understand in your aubconf file, it will
complain to you about them.
COMMANDS
Commands are treated as either position sensitive or position
insensitive. When a position sensitive keyword appears before any GROUP
keyword, the keyword is interpreted as being the default for all groups
that appear later. When a position sensitive keyword appears after any
GROUP keyword, it is interpreting as applying only to that group,
overriding any previous default which may have been established via use
of the same keyword, or by the value of environment variables.
Position sensitive keywords appearing after a GROUP keyword which lists
multiple groups are applied only to the last group listed, not to all
groups appearing on the group line.
Position sensitive keywords will be marked in the list of all commands
below:
GROUP newsgroup ...
Name of the Usenet group (or groups) that you want aub to
process.
Every configuration file must contain at least one GROUP
keyword to be correct.
DIR, directory directory
This keyword is used to tell aub what directory to put
binaries it decodes in. It is position sensitive.
DESC, description file
This keyword causes aub to extract text from what it thinks
is the text portion of posted articles, and append it to the
file you specify. This is useful if you’re interested in
reading the text that describes what all the binaries aub is
unpacking are about. It is position sensitive.
HOOK program
This keyword enables you to select which binaries aub decodes
using your own software. If the HOOK keyword is specified,
aub will invoke the argument program and supply it with
subject line of the first piece of a binary that it can
potentially decode via standard input. If the program
returns true (zero), aub will decode the binary. If the
program returns false (non-zero), aub will skip decoding the
binary, and continue processing. It is position sensitive.
POST, postprocess postprocessor extension
This keyword enables you to postprocess binaries whose names
end in the string extension (you can list any number of these
suffixes on a single line in the configuration file). Before
a POSTprocess keyword can appear, postprocessor must first be
defined using the DEFine keyword. This keyword is position
sensitive.
DEF, define postprocessor UNIX command
This keyword lets you define a postprocessor. UNIX command is
any UNIX command, with arguments. Simple substitutions are
performed on UNIX command before it’s executed in conjunction
with the existence of a POSTprocess keyword and the
appearance of a binary whose filename ends in one of the
extension suffixes listed as arguments to the
POSTprocess keyword. This can be confusing and there are
useful examples in the main documentation. This keyword is
position insensitive.
NNTP news server
This tells aub that your news access is NNTP-based, and that
it should use the specified host as an NNTP server. If you
don’t include this line, aub will try to use the NNTPSERVER
environment variable. This keyword is position insensitive.
SPOOL directory
This tells aub that your news access is based on access to
raw news files, and that directory is the root of the news
spool tree. A single configuration file may not contain both
the NNTP and SPOOL keywords. This keyword is position
insensitive.
DEBUG N Sets the default debugging level aub runs at to N. N must be
a non-negative integer. Debugging level 0 is the default;
when run at debugging level zero, aub produces no output
unless it runs into serious problems. Setting the debugging
level to 1 will tell you about what aub is doing. Setting
the debugging level to 2 will tell you even more about what
aub is doing. Setting the debugging level to 3 or higher
will show you more than you ever wanted to know. This keyword
is position insensitive.
REC, recognize extension
The recognition code (the part of aub that identifies
binaries) maintains a list of common suffixes that it uses to
recognize binaries while it scans subject lines. The
RECognize keyword allows you to add suffixes to this internal
list of hints.This keyword is position insensitive.
ONLYREC, onlyrecognize extension
Works like RECognize, except that this list will not add to,
but will replace the current list of extensions, and aub will
only extract files that match one of the given extensions.
This keyword is position insensitive.
SAM, sample N
For each group, examine at most N messages. Note that fewer
than N messages may be loaded, if the newsgroup is missing
articles.This keyword is position insensitive.
NOXHDR This keyword is meaningful only if your news access is NNTP-
based. It will cause aub to not use the XHDR command to
access the subject lines of news articles, even if the NNTP
server you’re using has XHDR capability. This keyword is
position insensitive.
USER username
This keyword is meaningful only if your news access is NNTP-
based. It enables NNTP authentication and provides the name
you will use to log in. This keyword is position insensitive.
PASS [password] " 10 This keyword is meaningful only if your news
access is NNTP-based. It enables NNTP authentication and provides the
name you will use to log in. This keyword is position insensitive.
SKIPunresolved " 10 This keyword will have aub completely ignore any
unresolved articles. On large groups, this can be a huge speed-up but
it will also result in aub ignoring any file that is incomplete as of
the time you run aub but may complete itself later. Be careful when you
use this as it will update the .aubrc file as if they had all be
checked and come negatively. In other words, you run this once and any
information you have about unresolved articles previous to running this
is thrown away. Using this keyword is not recommended but it’s here per
a user request.
If the same keyword appears multiple times, and the second appearance
is not a position sensitive override of some established default, then
aub ignores the second instance of the keyword.
EXAMPLES
NNTP my.news.server
# optional: sample
SAMPLE 1000
# optional: onlyrecognize - saves files only if they have these extensions
# case-insensitive (.gif matches .GIF too, files will be saved as .gif)
ONLYRECOGNIZE .gif .jpg .jpeg .mpg .mpeg .mp3
# default directory to extract all files to
DIR /var/cache/aub/incoming/food
# add as many "group" directives as needed....
# group may be followed by another "dir" which applies to that group only
GROUP alt.binaries.food
GROUP alt.binaries.food.sushi
AUTHORS
Mark Stantz (No valid email address known)
Brandon Long blong@fiction.net
Avinash Chopde avinash@acm.org
Mako Hill mako@debian.org (responsible for this document)
COPYRIGHT
Copyright (c) 1992-2002 Mark Stantz, Brandon Long, Avinash Chopde, Mako
Hill
This code is offered as-is. Anyone is welcome to make improvements,
provided that my notice of authorship is retained. I accept no
responsibility for loss or damage caused by this program, nor do I
accept responsibility for supporting it.
SEE ALSO
aub(1); the INTRODUCING_AUB document
aubconf(1)