1PULLNEWS(1) InterNetNews Documentation PULLNEWS(1)
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6 pullnews - Pull news from one news server and feed it to another
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9 pullnews [-hq] [-c config] [-g groups] [-p port] [-r file] [-s to-
10 server] [<from-server> ...]
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13 The Net::NNTP module must be installed. This module is available as
14 part of the libnet distribution and comes with recent versions of Perl.
15 For older versions of Perl, you can download it from
16 <http://www.cpan.org/>.
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19 pullnews reads a config file in the running user's home directory (nor‐
20 mally called ~/.pullnews) and connects to the upstream servers given
21 there as a reader client. By default, it connects to all servers
22 listed in the configuration file, but you can limit pullnews to spe‐
23 cific servers by listing them on the command line. For each server it
24 connects to, it pulls over articles and feeds them to the destination
25 server via the IHAVE command. This means that the system pullnews is
26 run on must have feeding access to the destination news server.
27 pullnews is designed for very small sites that don't want to bother
29 setting up traditional peering and is not meant for handling large
30 feeds.
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33 -c config
34 Normally, the config file is stored in ~/.pullnews for the user
35 running pullnews. If -c is given, config will be used as the con‐
36 fig file instead. This is useful if you're running pullnews as a
37 system user on an automated basis out of cron rather than as an
38 individual user.
39 -g groups
41 Specifies a collection of groups to get. groups is a list of news‐
42 groups separated by commas (only commas, no spaces). Each group
43 must be defined in the config file, and only the remote hosts that
44 carry those groups will be contacted. Note that this is a simple
45 list of groups, not a wildmat expression, and wildcards are not
46 supported.
47 -h Print a usage message and exit.
49 -p port
51 Connect to the destination news server on a port other than the
52 default of 119. This option does not change the port used to con‐
53 nect to the remote news servers.
54 -q Print out less status information while running.
56 -r file
58 Rather than feeding the downloaded articles to a local server,
59 instead create a batch file that can later be fed to a server using
60 rnews. See rnews(1) for more information about the batch file for‐
61 mat.
62 -s to-server
64 Normally, pullnews will feed the articles it retrieves to the news
65 server running on localhost. To connect to a different host, spec‐
66 ify a server with the -s flag.
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69 The config file for pullnews is divided into blocks, one block for each
70 remote server to connect to. A block begins with the host line, which
71 must have no leading whitespace and contains just the hostname of the
72 remote server. Following this line should be one or more newsgroup
73 lines which start with whitespace followed by the name of a newsgroup
74 to retrieve. Only one newsgroup should be listed on each line.
75 pullnews will update the config file to include the time the group was
77 last checked and the highest numbered article successfully retrieved
78 and transferred to the destination server. It uses this data to avoid
79 doing duplicate work the next time it runs.
80 The full syntax is:
82 <host> [<username> <password>]
84 <group> [<time> <high>]
85 <group> [<time> <high>]
86 where the <host> line must not have leading whitespace and the <group>
88 lines must. Note that you may optionally specify a username and pass‐
89 word for basic authentication to the remote server if necessary.
90 A typical configuration file would be:
92 # Format group date high
94 data.pa.vix.com
95 rec.bicycles.racing 908086612 783
96 rec.humor.funny 908086613 18
97 comp.programming.threads
98 nnrp.vix.com pull sekret
99 comp.std.lisp
100 Note that an earlier run of pullnews has filled in details about the
102 last article downloads from the two rec.* groups. The two comp.*
103 groups were just added by the user and have not yet been checked.
104 The nnrp.vix.com server requires authentication, and pullnews will use
106 the username "pull" and the password "sekret".
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109 pullnews is very simple and is lacking in more sophisticated features
110 (like killing articles based on user-defined conditions) that better
111 pull feeders most certainly have. It also doesn't keep or log much
112 detail on articles transferred.
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115 pullnews was written by James Brister for INN. The documentation was
116 rewritten in POD by Russ Allbery <rra@stanford.edu>.
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119 incoming.conf(5)
120INN 2.4.3 2005-12-11 PULLNEWS(1)