1TDX-UTIL(8) InterNetNews Documentation TDX-UTIL(8)
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6 tdx-util - Tradindexed overview manipulation utility
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9 tdx-util [-AFcgiOo] [-a article] [-f status] [-n newsgroup] [-p path]
10 [-R path]
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13 tdx-util is an administrative interface to the tradindexed overview
14 method for INN. It only works on tradindexed overview databases, not
15 on any other type of INN overview. It allows the administrator to dump
16 various information about the internal state of the overview, audit it
17 for errors, and rebuild portions of the overview database.
18 The tradindexed overview method should lock properly and therefore it
20 should be safe to run this utility and perform any operation it
21 performs, including full repairs or per-group overview rebuilds, while
22 the server is running. However, note that some of the operations
23 performed by this utility can take an extended period of time and will
24 hold locks in the overview database during that period, which depending
25 on what the server is doing may cause the server to stall until tdx-
26 util completes its operation.
27 The dump operations are -i, which dumps the master index for the
29 overview database, -g, which dumps the index for an individual group,
30 and -o and -O, which dump the overview information for a particular
31 group (including the additional metadata stored in the index) in two
32 different formats. For -g, -o, and -O, the -n option must also be
33 given to specify a newsgroup to operate on.
34 To add a new newsgroup to the overview database, use -c. A group must
36 be specified with -n. If the group status is something other than "y",
37 it should be specified with -f, and the low and high article numbers
38 may be specified with -a. If only one number is given rather than a
39 range, it will be taken to be the high water mark and the low mark will
40 be set to 1.
41 To audit the entire overview database for problems, use -A. Any
43 problems found will be reported to standard error. Use -F to correct
44 the errors found.
45 To rebuild the database for a particular newsgroup, use -R. The -R
47 option takes a path to a directory which contains all of the articles
48 for that newsgroup, one per file. The names of the files must be the
49 numbers of the articles in that group. (In other words, this directory
50 must be a traditional spool directory for that group.) The -n option
51 must also be given to specify the newsgroup for which the overview is
52 being rebuilt.
53 For all operations performed by tdx-util, a different overview database
55 than the one specified in inn.conf may be specified using the -p
56 option.
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59 -A Audit the entire overview database for problems. This runs the
60 internal consistency checks built into the tradindexed overview
61 implementation, checking such things as the validity and
62 reachability of all group index entries, the format of the
63 individual overview entries, the correspondence of index entries to
64 overview data, and similar such things. No changes will be made to
65 the database, but problems will be reported to standard error.
66 -a article
68 The article number or numbers to act on. article is a valid NNTP
69 range, meaning that it can be either a single article number or a
70 range of article numbers (like "1-5"). Either the start or the end
71 (or both) of the range may be omitted, in which case they will be
72 set to the first or last article number in the group. Passing "-"
73 for article is therefore equivalent to not using the -a option at
74 all.
75 Only useful in combination with the -o option to dump overview
77 information or with -c to specify the low and high article numbers
78 when creating a group.
79 -c Create a new group in the overview database. The group must be
81 specified with -n. The newsgroup status defaults to "y" but may be
82 set with -f. The low and high article numbers default to 1 and 0
83 respectively, but may be set with -a. If only one number is given
84 to -a, it is taken as the high article number.
85 -F Audit the entire overview database for problems, fixing them as
87 they're detected where possible. This runs the internal
88 consistency checks built into the tradindexed overview
89 implementation, checking such things as the validity and
90 reachability of all group index entries, the format of the
91 individual overview entries, the correspondence of index entries to
92 overview data, and similar such things. The strategy used when
93 fixing problems is to throw away data that's unrecoverable, so be
94 warned that using this option may result in inaccessible articles
95 if their overview data has been corrupted.
96 To see what would be changed by -F, run tdx-util with -A first.
98 -f status
100 When creating a newsgroup with -c, set the status of the newly
101 created group to status instead of "y". Only useful with -c.
102 -g Dump the index of a particular group. The fields are, in order,
104 the article number, the offset of the data for that article in the
105 overview data file for that group, the length of the overview data,
106 the time (in seconds since epoch) when the article arrived on the
107 server, the time (in seconds since epoch) when the article should
108 expire based on its Expires: header (or 0 if there is no Expires:
109 header), and the storage API token of the article.
110 If this option is given, the -n option must also be given to
112 specify the newsgroup on which to act.
113 -i Dump the master index of the overview database. This contains
115 similar information to the server active file, such as high and low
116 water marks and moderation status, and is the information that
117 nnrpd hands out to clients.
118 The fields are, in order, the newsgroup name, the high water mark,
120 the low water mark, the base article number (the point at which the
121 group index begins), the count of articles in the group, the group
122 status, the time (in seconds since epoch) when that newsgroup was
123 deleted or 0 if it hasn't been, and the inode of the index file for
124 that group.
125 A particular newsgroup can be specified with the -n option. If -n
127 is not given, the entire master index will be dumped.
128 -n newsgroup
130 Specify the newsgroup on which to act, required for the -i, -o, and
131 -R options.
132 -O Dump the overview information for a newsgroup in the format used by
134 overchan as input. Each line will start with the storage API
135 token, the arrival timestamp in seconds since epoch, the expires
136 timestamp in the same format (or 0 if there is no Expires: header),
137 and then the overview data.
138 If this option is given, the -n option must also be given to
140 specify the newsgroup on which to act. By default, all of the
141 overview information for that newsgroup is dumped, but the -a
142 option may be given to restrict the dump to the information for a
143 single article.
144 -o Dump the overview information for a newsgroup, in the same format
146 as it would be returned to clients but with one modification.
147 Appended to the end of each entry will be four additional pieces of
148 data: the article number according to the index file for that
149 group labelled with "Article:", the storage API token for that
150 article labelled with "Token:", the arrival date for that article
151 on the server in RFC 5322 date format labelled with "Arrived:", and
152 the expiration date for that article (from the Expires: header) in
153 RFC 5322 date format if there is any, labelled with "Expires:".
154 If this option is given, the -n option must also be given to
156 specify the newsgroup on which to act. By default, all of the
157 overview information for that newsgroup is dumped, but the -a
158 option may be given to restrict the dump to the information for a
159 single article.
160 -p path
162 Act on the overview database rooted in path, overriding the
163 overview path specified in inn.conf.
164 -R path
166 Rebuild the overview for a given group from the articles stored in
167 path. The articles must be in the form of a traditional spool
168 directory; in other words, each article must be in a separate file
169 and the name of the file must match the article number of the
170 article.
171 If this option is given, the -n option must also be given to
173 specify the newsgroup on which to act.
174
176 Dump the master index for the overview database in /news/overview,
177 regardless of the overview path specified in inn.conf:
178 tdx-util -i -p /news/overview
180 Dump the group index for example.test:
182 tdx-util -g -n example.test
184 Dump the complete overview information for example.test:
186 tdx-util -o -n example.test
188 Dump the overview information for articles 45 and higher in
190 example.test:
191 tdx-util -o -n example.test -a 45-
193 Create an entry for example.test with mode m and low and high article
195 numbers of 4 and 23, respectively.
196 tdx-util -c -n example.test -f m -a 4-23
198 Audit the entire overview database for any problems:
200 tdx-util -A
202 Rebuild the overview information for example.test from a traditional
204 spool directory:
205 tdx-util -R <patharticles in inn.conf>/example/test -n example.test
207 The last command may be useful for recovering from a bad crash or
209 corrupted overview information for a particular group, if you are also
210 using the tradspool article storage method.
211
213 Written by Russ Allbery <rra@stanford.edu> for InterNetNews.
214 $Id: tdx-util.pod 8975 2010-02-08 22:01:33Z iulius $
216
218 makehistory(8), nnrpd(8).
219INN 2.5.2 2010-08-11 TDX-UTIL(8)