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NAME

       makeactive - tool to recover Usenet active file.

SYNOPSIS

       makeactive [ -m ] [ -o ]

DESCRIPTION

       Makeactive invokes find(1) to get a list of all directories in the news
       spool tree, /var/spool/news.  It discards directories named  lost+found
       as  well  as  those  that  have  a  period in them.  It scans all other
       directories for all-numeric filenames and determines  the  highest  and
       lowest  number.  The program’s output is a set of active(5) file lines.
       Because there is no way to know if a group is  moderated  or  disabled,
       the fourth field of all entries will be y.  Also, mid-level directories
       that aren’t newsgroups will also created as newsgroups with no  entries
       (for   example,   there   is  a  ‘‘comp.sources.unix’’  group,  but  no
       ‘‘comp.sources’’).

OPTIONS

       -m     If the ‘‘-m’’ flag is given, then  makeactive  will  attempt  to
              adjust the highest and lowest article numbers wherever possible.
              If articles are found in a newsgroup, the numbers  will  reflect
              what  what  was found.  If no articles are found in a newsgroup,
              the high number from the old file will  be  kept,  and  the  low
              number  will be set to one more then the high number.  This flag
              may only be used if the ‘‘-o’’ flag is used.

       -o     If the ‘‘-o’’ flag is used, makeactive  will  read  an  existing
              active  file  for  the list of group names and just renumber all
              groups.  It will preserve the fourth field of the active file if
              one   is   present.    This   is  analogous  to  the  ctlinnd(8)
              ‘‘renumber’’ command, except that innd(8)  should  throttled  or
              not running.  Do not use this flag with output redirected to the
              standard active file!

EXIT STATUS

       Makeactive exits with non-zero status if any problems occurred.

EXAMPLES

       A typical way  to  use  the  program  is  with  the  following  /bin/sh
       commands:
              ctlinnd throttle "Rebuilding active file"
              TEMP=${TMPDIR-/var/spool/news/in.coming/tmp}/act$$
              if [ -f /var/lib/news/active ] ; then
                  if makeactive -o >${TEMP} ; then
                      mv ${TEMP} /var/lib/news/active
                  fi
              else
                  if makeactive >${TEMP} ; then
                      # Edit to restore moderated
                      # and aliased groups.
                      ...
                      mv ${TEMP} /var/lib/news/active
                  fi
              fi
              ctlinnd reload active "New active file"
              ctlinnd go ’’

HISTORY

       Written  by  Rich  $alz <rsalz@uunet.uu.net> for InterNetNews.  This is
       revision 1.3, dated 1996/10/29.

SEE ALSO

       active(5),  ctlinnd(8),  dbz(3),  filechan(8),   history(5),   innd(8),
       newsfeeds(5), makehistory(8), newsrequeue(8).