1BATCHER(8) InterNetNews Documentation BATCHER(8)
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6 batcher - Article batching for InterNetNews
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9 batcher [-rv] [-a articles] [-A total-articles] [-b size] [-B total-
10 size] [-i string] [-N batches] [-p process] [-s separator] host [input]
11
13 batcher reads a list of files and prepares news batches for the
14 specified host. It is generally used to prepare UUCP feeds, but the
15 resulting batches can be used by any application that uses rnews(8) to
16 inject the articles. It is normally invoked by a script run out of
17 cron that uses shlock to lock the host, followed by ctlinnd to flush
18 the batch file. See send-uucp(8) for a front-end for batcher.
19 batcher reads the file input, or standard input if no file is given.
21 If input is a relative file name, it is assumed to be in pathoutgoing
22 as set in inn.conf. Blank lines and lines starting with a number sign
23 ("#") are ignored. All other lines in the input should consist of one
24 or two fields separated by a single space. The first field is the
25 storage API token of an article. The second field, if present,
26 specifies the size of the article in bytes.
27 By default, batches are written to standard output (which isn't very
29 useful if more than one batch is output), but see the -p option.
30
32 -a articles
33 This flag limits the number of articles included in each batch.
34 The default is no limit. A new batch will be started when either
35 the total bytes or the number of articles written exceeds the
36 specified limits.
37 -A total-articles
39 Limits the total number of articles written for all batches. As
40 soon as the total number of articles written to batches reaches or
41 exceeds total-articles, all additional articles in the input will
42 be deferred. The default is no limit.
43 -b size
45 This flag sets the size limit for each batch; as soon as at least
46 this much data has been written out, a new batch will be started.
47 The default size is 60 KB. Using "-b 0" will allow unlimited batch
48 sizes.
49 -B total-size
51 Limits the total number of bytes written for all batches. As soon
52 as the total bytes written to batches reaches or exceeds total-
53 size, all additional articles in the input will be deferred. The
54 default is no limit.
55 -i string
57 A batch starts with an identifying line to specify the unpacking
58 method to be used on the receiving end. When this flag is used,
59 string, followed by a newline, will be output at the start of each
60 batch. The default is to have no initial string (under the
61 assumption that either the processor specified with the -p flag or
62 some other later process will add the appropriate line).
63 -N batches
65 Limits the total number of batches written. As soon as the number
66 of batches written reaches or exceeds batches, all additional
67 articles in the input will be deferred. The default is no limit.
68 -p process
70 By default, batches are written to standard output, which is not
71 useful when more than one output batch is created. If this option
72 is given, each batch will instead be fed via a pipe to the shell
73 command process. The process argument must be an sprintf(3) format
74 string, which may have a single %s parameter that will be replaced
75 with the host name.
76 A common value is:
78 ( echo '#! gunbatch' ; exec gzip -c ) | uux - -r -z %s!rnews
80 which generates gzip-compressed batches and feeds them to uux.
82 -r By default, batcher reports errors to pathlog/errlog. To suppress
84 this redirection and report errors to standard error, use the -r
85 flag.
86 -s separator
88 Each article in a batch starts with a separator line that indicates
89 the size of the article. separator must be an sprintf(3) string,
90 which may have a single %ld in the string that will be replaced
91 with the size of the article. If the separator is not empty, a
92 newline will also be appended to it when it is added to the
93 beginning of each article.
94 The default separator is:
96 #! rnews %ld
98 and this should rarely be changed.
100 -v Upon exit, batcher reports statistics via syslog. With this flag,
102 the statistics will also be printed to standard output.
103
105 If the input is exhausted and all batches are created successfully,
106 batcher will exit with a zero status.
107 If any of the limits specified with -A, -B, or -N flags are reached, or
109 if there is an error in writing a batch, batcher will try to spool the
110 remaining input by copying it to a file as follows:
111 • If there was no input filename, the remaining input will be copied to
113 pathoutgoing/host.
114 • If an input filename was given, the remaining input will be copied to
116 a temporary file named by appending ".bch" to the end of input (and
117 qualified by adding pathoutgoing if input was not a fully qualified
118 path). If this happens successfully, batcher will then try to rename
119 this temporary file to input (thus replacing input with a copy of
120 itself with all of lines for the successfully batched articles
121 removed).
122 Upon receipt of an interrupt or termination signal, batcher will finish
124 batching the current article, close the batch, and then rewrite the
125 batch file as described above.
126
128 Written by Rich $alz <rsalz@uunet.uu.net> for InterNetNews. Rewritten
129 by Russ Allbery <eagle@eyrie.org> in POD.
130
132 ctlinnd(8), inn.conf(5), newsfeeds(5), rnews(8), send-uucp(8),
133 shlock(1).
134INN 2.6.5 2022-01-23 BATCHER(8)