1GENCANCEL(1) InterNetNews Documentation GENCANCEL(1)
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6 gencancel - Generate cancel control messages
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9 gencancel [-adkLm] [-b body] [-c charset] [-f from] [-n newsgroups] [-s
10 subject] message-id
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13 gencancel provides the news administrator with a helpful tool to
14 generate cancel control messages, writing them to standard output. The
15 generated cancel article can then be injected by inews (see examples
16 below).
17 gencancel expects the Message-ID of the article to cancel; this
19 message-id argument should properly be quoted for the shell and
20 surrounded by angle brackets. gencancel will then try to read the
21 original article in the news spool to determine the original newsgroups
22 it was posted to, and re-use that information for the cancel control
23 message. If you want to modify that, or if the information was not
24 found, you'll have to set it with the -n flag.
25 If INN was build with Cancel-Lock support, gencancel will generate the
27 right Cancel-Key header field to use in order to authenticate cancels.
28 If, for whatever reason, you need cancelling an article posted from
29 your news server with a Cancel-Lock header field, the corresponding
30 admin Cancel-Key hashes are needed to authenticate the withdrawal
31 request. That information is computed with the canlockadmin parameter
32 set in inn-secrets.conf.
33 In case you only need the Cancel-Key hashes, you can use the -k flag.
35 Only the body of the Cancel-Key header field will then be written to
36 standard output. You can then re-use it for instance in a supersede
37 request or from another script.
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40 -a gencancel outputs by default an Approved header field, using the
41 same value as the From header field body. If -a is used, no
42 Approved header field is output.
43 This header field is useful for cancelling articles originally
45 posted to moderated newsgroups. If a cancel control article lists
46 a moderated newsgroup in its Newsgroups header field, and no
47 Approved header field is present, the cancel will be sent to the
48 moderator first for approval. Cancel control messages are not
49 required to contain an Approved header field outside of moderated
50 newsgroups, but can, so you shouldn't generally use -a unless you
51 really want your cancels to be approved by a moderator, or are sure
52 the Newsgroups header field does not list any moderated newsgroups.
53 -b body
55 gencancel writes by default "Admin cancel." in the body of cancel
56 control messages. Using this argument permits writing a different
57 value, which may be empty or multi-line.
58 -c charset
60 By default, "ISO-8859-1" is specified as the used charset in the
61 Content-Type header field. In case you change the default body
62 with -b, you may want to also change charset accordingly.
63 -d gencancel generates a Date header field in the local time of your
65 news server. Using -d will make use of a UTC date.
66 -f from
68 gencancel uses by default the value of complaints in inn.conf for
69 the From header field. Using this argument permits setting the
70 value you want. The same value will be used for the Approved
71 header field (if generated, when -a is not given).
72 -k Instead of outputting a whole cancel control message, gencancel
74 will just output the body of the Cancel-Key header field.
75 This flag is only available if INN was built with Cancel-Lock
77 support.
78 -L gencancel outputs by default a Cancel-Key header field to
80 authenticate the cancel control message. If -L is used, no Cancel-
81 Key header field is output.
82 This flag is only available if INN was built with Cancel-Lock
84 support.
85 -m gencancel generates by default a random Message-ID and uses it as
87 unique identifier of the cancel control message. If -m is used, no
88 Message-ID header field is output.
89 -n newsgroups
91 gencancel generates by default the same Newsgroups header field as
92 the one present in the original article to cancel. This is done to
93 best ensure that the cancel control message will be relayed to the
94 same news servers as the original message.
95 In case your news server does not (or no longer) locally carry the
97 original article, you will have to give an explicit newsgroup or
98 list of comma-separated newsgroups with this flag, that will be
99 used as the Newsgroups header field of the cancel.
100 -s subject
102 gencancel uses by default "cmsg cancel <message-id>" as the subject
103 of cancel control messages. Using this argument permits setting a
104 different value for the Subject header field. Make sure it is
105 properly MIME-encoded.
106
108 To only retrieve the Cancel-Key hashes associated to the given Message-
109 ID:
110 gencancel -k '<mid@news>'
112 If you're using non-ASCII characters in headers, make sure you properly
114 MIME-encode them. For instance, use the "Encode" Perl module:
115 FROM=$(perl -e 'use Encode;
117 print encode("MIME-Q",
118 decode("UTF-8", "Julien ELIE"));')
119 gencancel -f "$FROM <admin@news.server.com>" '<mid@news>'
120 You'll then see in the output a properly MIME-encoded header field:
122 From: =?UTF-8?Q?Julien_=C3=89LIE?= <admin@news.server.com>
124 An example of call with a custom multi-line body:
126 gencancel -b "$(echo -e "Multi\nLine\nBody.")" '<mid@news>'
128 (Use -c to change the default Content-Type charset for the body.)
130 You can then pipe the result into "inews -h -P -D" (meaning inews
132 expects an article with headers, does not add a Sender header field,
133 and writes the result to standard output instead of actually injecting
134 it):
135 gencancel '<mid@news>' | inews -h -P -D
137 If it all looks good, then inject it into the news system (without
139 giving "-D" to inews):
140 gencancel '<mid@news>' | inews -h -P
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144 Written by Julien Elie for InterNetNews.
145
147 inews(1), inn-secrets.conf(5).
148INN 2.7.0 2022-07-10 GENCANCEL(1)