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NAME

       buffchan - Buffered file-writing backend for INN

SYNOPSIS

       buffchan [-bru] [-c lines] [-C seconds] [-d directory] [-f num-fields]
       [-l lines] [-L seconds] [-m map] [-p pid-file] [-s format]

DESCRIPTION

       buffchan reads lines from standard input and copies the initial fields
       in each line to the files named by the remaining fields on the line.
       buffchan is intended to be called by innd as an exploder feed.

       The input is interpreted as a sequence of lines.  Each line contains a
       fixed number of initial fields, followed by a variable number of
       filename fields.  All fields in a line are separated by whitespace and
       do not contain any whitespace.  The default number of initial fields is
       one.

       For each line of input, buffchan writes the initial fields, separated
       by a space and followed by a newline, to each of the files named in the
       filename fields.  The output files are kept open and are only flushed
       or closed based on the schedule given by the -c, -C, -l, and -L
       options.

       As an exploder feed (see newsfeeds(5) for an explanation), buffchan
       interprets lines beginning with an exclamation point as commands.
       Besides "!begin" (which only marks the start of the feed), there are
       three supported commands:

       !flush [site]
           The flush command closes and reopens all open files.  An optional
           site can be specified, in which case buffchan flushes only that
           file.  This command is analogous to the "ctlinnd flush" command.
           This command can be sent via innd using "ctlinnd send buffchan-site
           'flush site'".

           Applications can tell that flush has completed by renaming the file
           before issuing the command.  When the original file name has
           reappeared, the flush is complete.  If fchmod(3) is available,
           buffchan also changes the file to read-only while it’s actively
           writing to it and changes it back to read/write once it has been
           closed.  It will change the mode back to read-only only if it
           reopens the same file.

       !drop [site]
           The drop command is similar to the flush command, except that no
           files are reopened.  If given an argument, only the specified site
           is dropped; otherwise, all sites are dropped.  (Note that a site
           will be restarted if the input stream mentions the site again.)

           When a "ctlinnd drop site" command is sent, innd will automatically
           forward the command to buffchan if the site is listed as a funnel
           feeding into the buffchan exploder.  To drop all sites, use
           "ctlinnd send buffchan-site drop".

       !readmap
           The map file specified with the -m option, if given, will be
           reloaded.

       Once buffchan opens a file, it keeps it open (in the absence of a drop
       command).  The input must therefore never specify more files than the
       maximum number of files a process may open.

OPTIONS

       -b  Force the output to be buffered.  (This is generally the default,
           but it may depend on the operating system.)  If -b is given, a
           buffer size of BUFSIZ (a constant of the system standard I/O
           library) is used.

       -c lines
           If the -c flag is given, buffchan will close and reopen a file
           after every lines lines are written to the file.

       -C seconds
           If the -C flag is given, buffchan will close and reopen a file if
           it has been open for more than seconds seconds.

       -d directory
           This flag may be used to specify a directory the program should
           change to before starting.  If this flag is used, the default for
           the -s flag (see below) is changed to be a simple %s (in other
           words, output files are considered to be relative to directory).

       -f num-fields
           By default, each line is expected to contain one fixed field
           followed by some number of filename fields.  If this flag is given,
           num-fields will be used as the number of initial fixed fields.

       -l lines
           If the -l flag is given, buffchan will flush the output after every
           lines lines are written to a file.

       -L seconds
           If the -L flag is given, buffchan will flush each output file every
           seconds seconds.

       -m map
           Map files translate the names in the filename fields on each line
           into filenames that should be used instead.  It’s used primarily
           when short names are used in newsfeeds, but the output files should
           use the full domain names of remote peers.

           In the map file, blank lines and lines starting with a number sign
           ("#") are ignored.  All other lines should have two host names
           separated by a colon.  The first field is the name that may appear
           in the input stream; the second field names the file to be used
           when the name in the first field appears.  For example:

               # This is a comment
               uunet:news.uu.net
               foo:foo.com
               munnari:munnari.oz.au

       -p pid-file
           If the -p option is given, buffchan will write a line containing
           its process ID (in text) to the specified file when it starts.

       -r  By default, buffchan sends its error messages to pathlog/errlog.
           To suppress this redirection and send error messages to standard
           error, use the -r flag.

       -s  The -s flag may be used to specify a format that maps a filename
           from the filename fields at the end of each line to an actual
           filename.  This is a sprintf(3) format string that should contain a
           single instance of %s, which will be replaced with the value of the
           filename field (possibly after mapping with the map file from -m).
           The default value is pathoutgoing/%s.

       -u  If the -u flag is used, the output will be unbuffered.

EXAMPLES

       If buffchan is invoked with "-f 2" and given the following input:

           news/software/b/132 <1643@munnari.oz.au> foo uunet
           news/software/b/133 <102060@litchi.foo.com> uunet munnari
           comp/sources/unix/2002 <999@news.foo.com> foo uunet munnari

       Then the file foo will have these lines:

           news/software/b/132 <1643@munnari.oz.au>
           comp/sources/unix/2002 <999@news.foo.com>

       the file munnari will have these lines:

           news/software/b/133 <102060@litchi.foo.com>
           comp/sources/unix/2002 <999@news.foo.com>

       and the file uunet will have these lines:

           news/software/b/132 <1643@munnari.oz.au>
           news/software/b/133 <102060@litchi.foo.com>
           comp/sources/unix/2002 <999@news.foo.com>

HISTORY

       Written by Rich $alz <rsalz@uunet.uu.net> for InterNetNews.  Converted
       to POD by Russ Allbery <rra@stanford.edu>.

       $Id: buffchan.pod 7851 2008-05-26 19:33:08Z iulius $

SEE ALSO

       ctlinnd(8), filechan(8), inn.conf(5), innd(8), newsfeeds(5).