Man Linux: Main Page and Category List

NAME

       docheckgroups - Process checkgroups and output a list of changes

SYNOPSIS

       docheckgroups [-u] [include-pattern [exclude-pattern]]

DESCRIPTION

       docheckgroups is usually run by controlchan in order to process
       checkgroups control messages.  It reads a list of newsgroups along with
       their descriptions on its standard input.  That list should be
       formatted like the newsgroups(5) file:  each line contains the name of
       a newsgroup followed by one or more tabulations and its description.

       docheckgroups will only check the presence of newsgroups which match
       include-pattern (an egrep expression like "^comp\..*$" for newsgroups
       starting with "comp.") and which do not match exclude-pattern (also an
       egrep expression) except for newsgroups mentioned in the
       pathetc/localgroups file.  This file is also formatted like the
       newsgroups(5) file and should contain local newsgroups which would
       otherwise be mentioned for removal.  There is no need to put local
       newsgroups of hierarchies for which no checkgroups control messages are
       sent, unless you manually process checkgroups texts for them.  Lines
       beginning with a hash sign ("#") are not taken into account in this
       file.  All the newsgroups and descriptions mentioned in
       pathetc/localgroups are appended to the processed checkgroups.

       If exclude-pattern is given, include-pattern should also be given
       before (you can use an empty string ("") if you want to include all the
       newsgroups).  Be that as it may, docheckgroups will only check
       newsgroups in the top-level hierarchies which are present in the
       checkgroups.

       Then, docheckgroups checks the active and newsgroups files and displays
       on its standard output a list of changes, if any.  It does not change
       anything by default; it only points out what should be changed:

       · Newsgroups which should be removed (they are in the active file but
         not in the checkgroups) and the relevant ctlinnd commands to achieve
         that;

       · Newsgroups which should be added (they are not in the active file but
         in the checkgroups) and the relevant ctlinnd commands to achieve
         that;

       · Newsgroups which are incorrectly marked as moderated or unmoderated
         (they are both in the active file and the checkgroups but their
         status differs) and the relevant ctlinnd commands to fix that;

       · Descriptions which should be removed (they are in the newsgroups file
         but not in the checkgroups);

       · Descriptions which should be added (they are not in the newsgroups
         file but in the checkgroups).

       The output of docheckgroups can be fed into mod-active (it will pause
       the news server, update the active file accordingly, reload it and
       resume the work of the news server) or into the shell (commands for
       ctlinnd will be processed one by one).  In order to update the
       newsgroups file, the -u flag must be given to docheckgroups.

       When processing a checkgroups manually, it is always advisable to first
       check the raw output of docheckgroups.  Then, if everything looks fine,
       use mod-active and the -u flag.

OPTIONS

       -u  If this flag is given, docheckgroups will update the newsgroups
           file: it removes obsolete descriptions and adds new ones.  It also
           sorts this file alphabetically and improves its general format (see
           newsgroups(5) for an explanation of the preferred number of
           tabulations).

EXAMPLES

       So as to better understand how docheckgroups works, here are examples
       with the following active file:

           a.first 0000000000 0000000001 y
           a.second.announce 0000000000 0000000001 y
           a.second.group 0000000000 0000000001 y
           b.additional 0000000000 0000000001 y
           b.third 0000000000 0000000001 y
           c.fourth 0000000000 0000000001 y

       the following newsgroups file (using tabulations):

           a.first             First group.
           a.second.announce   Announce group.
           a.second.group      Second group.
           b.third             Third group.
           c.fourth            Fourth group.

       and the following localgroups file (using tabulations):

           b.additional        A local newsgroup I want to keep.

       The checkgroups we process is in the file test which contains:

           a.first             First group.
           a.second.announce   Announce group. (Moderated)
           a.second.group      Second group.
           b.third             Third group.
           c.fourth            Fourth group.

       If we run:

           cat test | docheckgroups

       docheckgroups will output that a.second.announce is incorrectly marked
       as unmoderated and that its description is obsolete.  Besides, two new
       descriptions will be mentioned for addition (the new one for
       a.second.announce and the missing description for b.additional -- it
       should indeed be in the newsgroups file and not only in localgroups).
       Now that we have checked the output of docheckgroups and that we agree
       with the changes, we run it with the -u flag to update the newsgroups
       file and we redirect the standard output to mod-active to update the
       active file:

           cat test | docheckgroups -u | mod-active

       That’s all!

       Now, suppose we run:

           cat test | docheckgroups "^c\..*$"

       Nothing is output (indeed, everything is fine for the c.* hierarchy).
       It would have been similar if the test file had only contained the
       checkgroups for the c.* hierarchy (docheckgroups would not have checked
       a.* and b.*, even if they had been in include-pattern).

       In order to check both a.* and c.*, you can run:

           cat test | docheckgroups "^a\..*$|^c\..*$"

       And if you want to check a.* but not a.second.*, you can run:

           cat test | docheckgroups "^a\..*$" "^a\.second\..*$"

       In our example, docheckgroups will then mention a.second.announce and
       a.second.group for removal since they are in the active file (the same
       goes for their descriptions).  Notwithstanding, if you do want to keep
       a.second.announce, just add this group to localgroups and docheckgroups
       will no longer mention it for removal.

FILES

       pathbin/docheckgroups
           The Shell script itself used to process checkgroups.

       pathetc/localgroups
           The list of local newsgroups along with their descriptions.

HISTORY

       Documentation written by Julien Elie for InterNetNews.

       $Id: docheckgroups.pod 8357 2009-02-27 17:56:00Z iulius $

SEE ALSO

       active(5), controlchan(8), ctlinnd(8), mod-active(8), newsgroups(5).