NAME
tdx-util - Tradindexed overview manipulation utility
SYNOPSIS
tdx-util [-AFcgiOo] [-a article] [-f status] [-n newsgroup] [-p path]
[-R path]
DESCRIPTION
tdx-util is an administrative interface to the tradindexed overview
method for INN. It only works on tradindexed overview databases, not
on any other type of INN overview. It allows the administrator to dump
various information about the internal state of the overview, audit it
for errors, and rebuild portions of the overview database.
The tradindexed overview method should lock properly and therefore it
should be safe to run this utility and perform any operation it
performs, including full repairs or per-group overview rebuilds, while
the server is running. However, note that some of the operations
performed by this utility can take an extended period of time and will
hold locks in the overview database during that period, which depending
on what the server is doing may cause the server to stall until tdx-
util completes its operation.
The dump operations are -i, which dumps the master index for the
overview database, -g, which dumps the index for an individual group,
and -o and -O, which dump the overview information for a particular
group (including the additional metadata stored in the index) in two
different formats. For -g, -o, and -O, the -n option must also be
given to specify a newsgroup to operate on.
To add a new newsgroup to the overview database, use -c. A group must
be specified with -n. If the group status is something other than "y",
it should be specified with -f, and the low and high article numbers
may be specified with -a. If only one number is given rather than a
range, it will be taken to be the high water mark and the low mark will
be set to 1.
To audit the entire overview database for problems, use -A. Any
problems found will be reported to standard error. Use -F to correct
the errors found.
To rebuild the database for a particular newsgroup, use -R. The -R
option takes a path to a directory which contains all of the articles
for that newsgroup, one per file. The names of the files must be the
numbers of the articles in that group. (In other words, this directory
must be a traditional spool directory for that group.) The -n option
must also be given to specify the newsgroup for which the overview is
being rebuilt.
For all operations performed by tdx-util, a different overview database
than the one specified in inn.conf may be specified using the -p
option.
OPTIONS
-A Audit the entire overview database for problems. This runs the
internal consistency checks built into the tradindexed overview
implementation, checking such things as the validity and
reachability of all group index entries, the format of the
individual overview entries, the correspondence of index entries to
overview data, and similar such things. No changes will be made to
the database, but problems will be reported to standard error.
-a article
The article number or numbers to act on. article is a valid NNTP
range, meaning that it can be either a single article number or a
range of article numbers (like "1-5"). Either the start or the end
(or both) of the range may be omitted, in which case they will be
set to the first or last article number in the group. Passing "-"
for article is therefore equivalent to not using the -a option at
all.
Only useful in combination with the -o option to dump overview
information or with -c to specify the low and high article numbers
when creating a group.
-c Create a new group in the overview database. The group must be
specified with -n. The newsgroup status defaults to "y" but may be
set with -f. The low and high article numbers default to 1 and 0
respectively, but may be set with -a. If only one number is given
to -a, it is taken as the high article number.
-F Audit the entire overview database for problems, fixing them as
they’re detected where possible. This runs the internal
consistency checks built into the tradindexed overview
implementation, checking such things as the validity and
reachability of all group index entries, the format of the
individual overview entries, the correspondence of index entries to
overview data, and similar such things. The strategy used when
fixing problems is to throw away data that’s unrecoverable, so be
warned that using this option may result in inaccessible articles
if their overview data has been corrupted.
To see what would be changed by -F, run tdx-util with -A first.
-f status
When creating a newsgroup with -c, set the status of the newly
created group to status instead of "y". Only useful with -c.
-g Dump the index of a particular group. The fields are, in order,
the article number, the offset of the data for that article in the
overview data file for that group, the length of the overview data,
the time (in seconds since epoch) when the article arrived on the
server, the time (in seconds since epoch) when the article should
expire based on its Expires: header (or 0 if there is no Expires:
header), and the storage API token of the article.
If this option is given, the -n option must also be given to
specify the newsgroup on which to act.
-i Dump the master index of the overview database. This contains
similar information to the server active file, such as high and low
water marks and moderation status, and is the information that
nnrpd hands out to clients.
The fields are, in order, the newsgroup name, the high water mark,
the low water mark, the base article number (the point at which the
group index begins), the count of articles in the group, the group
status, the time (in seconds since epoch) when that newsgroup was
deleted or 0 if it hasn’t been, and the inode of the index file for
that group.
A particular newsgroup can be specified with the -n option. If -n
is not given, the entire master index will be dumped.
-n newsgroup
Specify the newsgroup on which to act, required for the -i, -o, and
-R options.
-O Dump the overview information for a newsgroup in the format used by
overchan as input. Each line will start with the storage API
token, the arrival timestamp in seconds since epoch, the expires
timestamp in the same format (or 0 if there is no Expires: header),
and then the overview data.
If this option is given, the -n option must also be given to
specify the newsgroup on which to act. By default, all of the
overview information for that newsgroup is dumped, but the -a
option may be given to restrict the dump to the information for a
single article.
-o Dump the overview information for a newsgroup, in the same format
as it would be returned to clients but with one modification.
Appended to the end of each entry will be four additional pieces of
data: the article number according to the index file for that
group labelled with "Article:", the storage API token for that
article labelled with "Token:", the arrival date for that article
on the server in RFC 5322 date format labelled with "Arrived:", and
the expiration date for that article (from the Expires: header) in
RFC 5322 date format if there is any, labelled with "Expires:".
If this option is given, the -n option must also be given to
specify the newsgroup on which to act. By default, all of the
overview information for that newsgroup is dumped, but the -a
option may be given to restrict the dump to the information for a
single article.
-p path
Act on the overview database rooted in path, overriding the
overview path specified in inn.conf.
-R path
Rebuild the overview for a given group from the articles stored in
path. The articles must be in the form of a traditional spool
directory; in other words, each article must be in a separate file
and the name of the file must match the article number of the
article.
If this option is given, the -n option must also be given to
specify the newsgroup on which to act.
EXAMPLES
Dump the master index for the overview database in /news/overview,
regardless of the overview path specified in inn.conf:
tdx-util -i -p /news/overview
Dump the group index for example.test:
tdx-util -g -n example.test
Dump the complete overview information for example.test:
tdx-util -o -n example.test
Dump the overview information for articles 45 and higher in
example.test:
tdx-util -o -n example.test -a 45-
Create an entry for example.test with mode m and low and high article
numbers of 4 and 23, respectively.
tdx-util -c -n example.test -f m -a 4-23
Audit the entire overview database for any problems:
tdx-util -A
Rebuild the overview information for example.test from a traditional
spool directory:
tdx-util -R <patharticles in inn.conf>/example/test -n example.test
The last command may be useful for recovering from a bad crash or
corrupted overview information for a particular group, if you are also
using the tradspool article storage method.
HISTORY
Written by Russ Allbery <rra@stanford.edu> for InterNetNews.
$Id: tdx-util.pod 8975 2010-02-08 22:01:33Z iulius $
SEE ALSO
makehistory(8), nnrpd(8).