1PULLNEWS(1) InterNetNews Documentation PULLNEWS(1)
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6 pullnews - Pull news from multiple news servers and feed it to another
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9 pullnews [-hnqRx] [-b fraction] [-c config] [-C width] [-d level] [-f
10 fraction] [-F fakehop] [-g groups] [-G newsgroups] [-H headers] [-k
11 checkpt] [-l logfile] [-m header_pats] [-M num] [-N timeout] [-O] [-p
12 port] [-P hop_limit] [-Q level] [-r file] [-s to-server[:port]] [-S
13 max-run] [-t retries] [-T connect-pause] [-w num] [-z article-pause]
14 [-Z group-pause] [from-server ...]
15
17 The "Net::NNTP" module must be installed. This module is available as
18 part of the libnet distribution and comes with recent versions of Perl.
19 For older versions of Perl, you can download it from
20 <http://www.cpan.org/>.
21
23 pullnews reads a config file in the running user's home directory
24 (normally called ~/.pullnews) and connects to the upstream servers
25 given there as a reader client. By default, it connects to all servers
26 listed in the configuration file, but you can limit pullnews to
27 specific servers by listing them on the command line: a whitespace-
28 separated list of server names can be specified, like from-server for
29 one of them. For each server it connects to, it pulls over articles
30 and feeds them to the destination server via the IHAVE or POST
31 commands. This means that the system pullnews is run on must have
32 feeding access to the destination news server.
33 pullnews is designed for very small sites that do not want to bother
35 setting up traditional peering and is not meant for handling large
36 feeds.
37
39 -b fraction
40 Backtrack on server numbering reset. Specify the proportion (0.0
41 to 1.0) of a group's articles to pull when the server's article
42 number is less than our high for that group. When fraction is 1.0,
43 pull all the articles on a renumbered server. The default is to do
44 nothing.
45 -c config
47 Normally, the config file is stored in ~/.pullnews for the user
48 running pullnews. If -c is given, config will be used as the
49 config file instead. This is useful if you're running pullnews as
50 a system user on an automated basis out of cron rather than as an
51 individual user.
52 See "CONFIG FILE" below for the format of this file.
54 -C width
56 Use width characters per line for the progress table. The default
57 value is 50.
58 -d level
60 Set the debugging level to the integer level; more debugging output
61 will be logged as this increases. The default value is 0.
62 -f fraction
64 This changes the proportion of articles to get from each group to
65 fraction and should be in the range 0.0 to 1.0 (1.0 being the
66 default).
67 -F fakehop
69 Prepend fakehop as a host to the Path: header of articles fed.
70 -g groups
72 Specify a collection of groups to get. groups is a list of
73 newsgroups separated by commas (only commas, no spaces). Each
74 group must be defined in the config file, and only the remote hosts
75 that carry those groups will be contacted. Note that this is a
76 simple list of groups, not a wildmat expression, and wildcards are
77 not supported.
78 -G newsgroups
80 Add the comma-separated list of groups newsgroups to each server in
81 the configuration file (see also -g and -w).
82 -h Print a usage message and exit.
84 -H headers
86 Remove these named headers (colon-separated list) from fed
87 articles.
88 -k checkpt
90 Checkpoint (save) the config file every checkpt articles (default
91 is 0, that is to say at the end of the session).
92 -l logfile
94 Log progress/stats to logfile (default is "stdout").
95 -m header_pats
97 Feed an article based on header matching. The argument is a number
98 of whitespace-separated tuples (each tuple being a colon-separated
99 header and regular expression). For instance:
100 Hdr1:regexp1 !Hdr2:regexp2
102 specifies that the article will be passed only if the "Hdr1:"
104 header matches "regexp1" and the "Hdr2:" header does not match
105 "regexp2".
106 -M num
108 Specify the maximum number of articles (per group) to process. The
109 default is to process all new articles. See also -f.
110 -n Do nothing but read articles -- does not feed articles downstream,
112 writes no rnews file, does not update the config file.
113 -N timeout
115 Specify the timeout length, as timeout seconds, when establishing
116 an NNTP connection.
117 -O Use an optimized mode: pullnews checks whether the article already
119 exists on the downstream server, before downloading it. It may
120 help for huge articles or a slow link to upstream hosts.
121 -p port
123 Connect to the destination news server on a port other than the
124 default of 119. This option does not change the port used to
125 connect to the source news servers.
126 -P hop_limit
128 Restrict feeding an article based on the number of hops it has
129 already made. Count the hops in the Path: header (hop_count),
130 feeding the article only when hop_limit is "+num" and hop_count is
131 more than num; or hop_limit is "-num" and hop_count is less than
132 num.
133 -q Print out less status information while running.
135 -Q level
137 Set the quietness level ("-Q 2" is equivalent to "-q"). The higher
138 this value, the less gets logged. The default is 0.
139 -r file
141 Rather than feeding the downloaded articles to a destination
142 server, instead create a batch file that can later be fed to a
143 server using rnews. See rnews(1) for more information about the
144 batch file format.
145 -R Be a reader (use MODE READER and POST commands) to the downstream
147 server. The default is to use the IHAVE command.
148 -s to-server[:port]
150 Normally, pullnews will feed the articles it retrieves to the news
151 server running on localhost. To connect to a different host,
152 specify a server with the -s flag. You can also specify the port
153 with this same flag or use -p.
154 -S max-run
156 Specify the maximum time max-run in seconds for pullnews to run.
157 -t retries
159 The maximum number (retries) of attempts to connect to a server
160 (see also -T). The default is 0.
161 -T connect-pause
163 Pause connect-pause seconds between connection retries (see also
164 -t). The default is 1.
165 -w num
167 Set each group's high water mark (last received article number) to
168 num. If num is negative, calculate Current+num instead (i.e. get
169 the last num articles). Therefore, a num of 0 will re-get all
170 articles on the server; whereas a num of "-0" will get no old
171 articles, setting the water mark to Current (the most recent
172 article on the server).
173 -x If the -x flag is used, an Xref: header is added to any article
175 that lacks one. It can be useful for instance if articles are fed
176 to a news server which has xrefslave set in inn.conf.
177 -z article-pause
179 Sleep article-pause seconds between articles. The default is 0.
180 -Z group-pause
182 Sleep group-pause seconds between groups. The default is 0.
183
185 The config file for pullnews is divided into blocks, one block for each
186 remote server to connect to. A block begins with the host line, which
187 must have no leading whitespace and contains just the hostname of the
188 remote server, optionally followed by authentication details (username
189 and password for that server).
190 Following the host line should be one or more newsgroup lines which
192 start with whitespace followed by the name of a newsgroup to retrieve.
193 Only one newsgroup should be listed on each line.
194 pullnews will update the config file to include the time the group was
196 last checked and the highest numbered article successfully retrieved
197 and transferred to the destination server. It uses this data to avoid
198 doing duplicate work the next time it runs.
199 The full syntax is:
201 <host> [<username> <password>]
203 <group> [<time> <high>]
204 <group> [<time> <high>]
205 where the <host> line must not have leading whitespace and the <group>
207 lines must.
208 A typical configuration file would be:
210 # Format group date high
212 data.pa.vix.com
213 rec.bicycles.racing 908086612 783
214 rec.humor.funny 908086613 18
215 comp.programming.threads
216 nnrp.vix.com pull sekret
217 comp.std.lisp
218 Note that an earlier run of pullnews has filled in details about the
220 last article downloads from the two rec.* groups. The two comp.*
221 groups were just added by the user and have not yet been checked.
222 The nnrp.vix.com server requires authentication, and pullnews will use
224 the username "pull" and the password "sekret".
225
227 pathbin/pullnews
228 The Perl script itself used to pull news from upstream servers and
229 feed it to another news server.
230 $HOME/.pullnews
232 The default config file. It is in the running user's home
233 directory (normally called ~/.pullnews).
234
236 pullnews was written by James Brister for INN. The documentation was
237 rewritten in POD by Russ Allbery <rra@stanford.edu>.
238 Geraint A. Edwards greatly improved pullnews, adding no more than
240 16 new recognized flags, fixing some bugs and integrating the
241 backupfeed contrib script by Kai Henningsen, adding again 6 other
242 flags.
243 $Id: pullnews.pod 8468 2009-05-16 12:28:24Z iulius $
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247 incoming.conf(5), rnews(1).
248INN 2.5.2 2010-08-11 PULLNEWS(1)