news2mail(8)

1NEWS2MAIL(8)              InterNetNews Documentation              NEWS2MAIL(8)
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NAME

6       news2mail - Channel script to gateway news into e-mails
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SYNOPSIS

9       news2mail
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DESCRIPTION

12       news2mail runs as a channel process underneath innd.  It is set up as
13       channel feed in newsfeeds, with different mailing-lists as funnel
14       entries pointing to it (see below); news2mail expects the token of an
15       article followed by a sequence of list names.
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17       news2mail uses the configuration file pathetc/news2mail.cf to map
18       mailing-list names to e-mail addresses.  news2mail causes sendmail to
19       queue the messages for later delivery (to avoid DOS attacks by mass
20       postings).  You must run "sendmail -q" periodically to get the queue
21       processed.
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CONFIGURATION FILE

24       The configuration file format is simple: comments (starting with a hash
25       sign "#") and blank lines are ignored.  All other lines have two or
26       three fields on them.  The first is the list name and is what innd uses
27       (i.e. the site field of the entry in the newsfeeds file).  The second
28       field is the actual e-mail address to send the article to.  The third
29       field is optional: it sets the envelope-from address (for instance a
30       list member's address; if not set, it defaults to the "news" user).
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32       In e-mail messages, the To header field body will have the mailing-list
33       address (i.e. the second field).  Besides, news2mail strips most
34       article header fields from the article before mailing.
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36       In newsfeeds, the channel feed should look like:
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38           news2mail!:!*:Ac,Tc,Wn*:<pathbin>/news2mail
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40       and for each mailing-list, you only have to add to newsfeeds an entry
41       list like:
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43           list-big-red-ants/lists.ucsd.edu\
44               :!*,rec.pets.red-ants\
45               :Ap,Tm:news2mail!
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47       Please note the use of "Ap" and the exclusion of the list owner domain
48       to protect the list from feeding back new arrivals from the list.  The
49       site name used in the newfeeds entry for a mailing-list (above
50       "list-big-red-ants") must be the same as the first field in an entry in
51       news2mail.cf.  For instance:
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53           # newsfeeds-name   list-to-address      [list-sender-address]
54           list-big-red-ants  ants@lists.ucsd.edu  news+ants@news.server.org
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FILES

57       pathbin/news2mail
58           The Perl program itself used to gateway news into e-mails.
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60       pathetc/news2mail.cf
61           The configuration file which specifies the mapping to use for
62           gatewaying.
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BUGS

65       The news2mail program is set up as a funnelled channel in newsfeeds,
66       implying multiple matches should be handled as one - and multiple
67       matching funnelled feeds will result in a single call to the script.
68       Therefore, since only one mail is sent, crossposts are not currently
69       properly handled as for the envelope-from address (which then defaults
70       to the "news" user).
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HISTORY

73       news2mail was written by Brian Kantor in 1998.  This man page was
74       written by James Brister and converted to POD by Julien Elie.  The
75       third optional field in news2mail.cf was added by D. Stussy in 2008.
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