NAME
distributions - Recommended values for the Distribution: header
DESCRIPTION
The file pathetc/distributions contains a list of relevant
distributions and their descriptions. It provides local information
for posters who wish to add a Distribution: header to their articles so
as to restrict their propagation, although it does not guarantee that
such articles will not leak elsewhere because of a misconfiguration of
a news server to which they are fed. See newsfeeds(5) for more
information about how a news server handles the Distribution: header.
Each line of this file consists of a distribution area followed by its
description (encoded in UTF-8) after at least a whitespace. For
instance:
fr Local to France.
local Local to this news server.
nj Local to New Jersey.
usa Local to the United States of America.
Blank lines and lines beginning with a number sign ("#") are ignored.
Any client that issues the LIST DISTRIBUTIONS command obtain these
recommended values, if available. However, be aware that use of the
LIST DISTRIBUTIONS command is not widespread and most news clients will
never ask for this file.
If this file is empty, it is not an error. The server will just send
the client an empty response. And if the file is missing, the server
will also send the client an appropriate response to indicate that the
distributions list is not maintained on the server.
The Distribution: header can also be automatically set by nnrpd if
distrib.pats(5) is correctly configured.
HISTORY
Written by Julien Elie for InterNetNews.
$Id: distributions.pod 8830 2009-11-29 16:49:59Z iulius $
SEE ALSO
distrib.pats(5), newsfeeds(5), nnrpd(8).