NAME
testhost - test the status of an NNTP news server
SYNOPSIS
testhost hostname [ -a|-n date time |-o ] [ -M ] [ -s|-S filename ] [
-e|-E filename ] [ -N port_number ] [ -U userid ] [ -P password ] [ -Q
] [ -l phrase_file ] [ -T timeout ] [ -d ] [ -q ] [ -z ]
OPTIONS
-a Get the active list from hostname
-d
This option tells testhost get the descriptions of the newsgroups on
the remote server by sending the ’list newsgroups’ command. The remote
server may or may not support this command.
-e | -E filename
These options will send all error messages (normally displayed on
stderr), to an alternate file. The lower case version, -e, will send
the error messages to the compiled-in default defined in suck_config.h.
The default is suck.errlog. The upper case version, -E, requires the
filename parameter. All error messages will then be sent to this file.
-l phrase_file
This option tells testhost to load in an alternate phrase file, instead
of using the built-in messages. This allows you to have testhost print
phrases in another language, or to allow you to customize the messages
without re-building. See the "FOREIGN LANGUAGE PHRASES" in suck.1 for
more details.
-n date time
Get the newgroups created on the host since the date and time
specified. The date must be in YYMMDD format and the time must be in
HHMMSS format.
-N port_number
This option will tell testhost to use an alternate NNRP port number
when connecting to the host, instead of the default, 119.
-q
This option tells testhost to not display the connection and
announcement messages, rather only display the results of the actual
command run.
-s | -S filename
These options will send all status messages (normally displayed on
stdout), to an alternate file. The lower case version, -s, will send
the status messages to the compiled-in default defined in
suck_config.h. The default is /dev/null, so no status messages will be
displayed. The upper case version, -S, requires the filename
parameter. All status messages will then be sent to this file.
-T
This option overrides the compiled-in TIMEOUT value. This is how long
testhost waits for data from the remote host before timing out and
aborting.
-U userid
-P password
These two options let you specify a userid and password, if your NNTP
server requires them.
-Q
This option tells testhost to use the environment variable NNTP_USER &
NNTP_PASS to specify a userid and password, if your NNTP server
requires them. This option is provided so that the userid & password
can’t be seen with the ps command, a potential security problem.
-z
This options tells testhost to use SSL to talk to the remote server, if
testhost was compiled with SSL.
DESCRIPTION
Testhost will query a NNTP news server, specified by hostname.
The hostname may optionally include the port number in the form
Host:Port.Iftheportnumberisincluded,theportnumberspecified by the -N
option will be ignored.
The default action is to issue the help command to the server, to see
what software it is running and what commands it accepts.
If the -a option is used, testhost will display the server’s active
history list. If the -n date time option is used, testhost will
display all new groups created on the server since the date and time
specified. If the -o option is used, then testhost will display the
overview format, which is what the XOVER command returns.
If the -M option is used, the command will be preceded with the "mode
reader" command, which might be needed by some servers.
EXIT VALUES
0 on success, -1 on failure.
SEE ALSO
suck(1), rpost(1), lpost(1).