1INEWS(1) InterNetNews Documentation INEWS(1)
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6 inews - Post a Usenet article to the local news server
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9 inews [-ADEhHILNOPRSvVWXY] [-acdefFimnorstwx value] [-p port] [file]
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12 inews reads a Usenet news article, perhaps with headers, from file or
13 standard input if no file is given. It adds some header fields and
14 performs some consistency checks. If the article does not meet those
15 checks, the article is rejected. If it passes the checks, inews sends
16 the article to the local news server as specified in inn.conf.
17 By default, if a file named .signature exists in the home directory of
19 the posting user, it is appended to the post, preceded by a line that
20 contains only "-- ". Signatures are not allowed to be more than four
21 lines long.
22 Control messages other than cancel messages are only allowed if inews
24 is being run by the news user or by a user in the news group and if the
25 control message is recognized. If the article contains a Distribution
26 header field with a distribution that matches one of the bad
27 distribution patterns in inn/options.h (anything containing a period by
28 default), the message will be rejected. The message will also be
29 rejected if checkincludedtext is true in inn.conf, it contains more
30 quoted text than original text, and it is over 40 lines long.
31 If not provided, the Path header field body will be "not-for-mail". If
33 -x is given, its value will be added to the beginning of the Path
34 header field. You may for instance want to add a special
35 "path-identity" value related to the host running inews, which will
36 appear as "path-identity!not-for-mail" in the Path header field.
37 If posting fails, a copy of the failed post will be saved in a file
39 named dead.article in the home directory of the user running inews.
40 inews exits with a non-zero status if posting failed or with a zero
41 status if posting was successful.
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44 Most of the options to inews take a single value and set the
45 corresponding header field body in the message that is posted. If the
46 value is more than one word or contains any shell metacharacters, it
47 must be quoted to protect it from the shell. Here are all the options
48 that set header fields and the corresponding header field body:
49 -a Approved
51 -c Control
52 -d Distribution
53 -e Expires
54 -F References
55 -f From
56 -m Message-ID
57 -n Newsgroups
58 -o Organization
59 -r Reply-To
60 -t Subject
61 -w Followup-To
62 -x Path (prefix)
63 The -x argument will be added to the beginning of the normal Path
65 header field body; it will not replace it contrary to what other
66 options do. This behaviour is historical, and was first implemented in
67 the inews program shipped with B News (the original meaning of -x was
68 to say not to forward the article to a specified site).
69 -A, -V, -W
71 Accepted for compatibility with C News. These options have no
72 affect.
73 -i, -I, -L, -s, -v, -X
75 Accepted for compatibility with tinews(1). These options have no
76 effect.
77 -D, -N
79 Perform the consistency checks and add header fields where
80 appropriate, but then print the article to standard output rather
81 than sending it to the server. -N is accepted as as synonym for
82 compatibility with C News.
83 -E If the article is empty (that is to say with no body), inews bails
85 out with an error. When -E is used, inews will just silently
86 discard the message and exit.
87 Note that control messages with no body are not rejected.
89 -h Normally, this flag should always be given. It indicates that the
91 article consists of headers, a blank line, and then the message
92 body. If it is omitted, the input is taken to be just the body of
93 the message, and any desired header fields have to be specified
94 with command-line options as described above.
95 -H Print to standard output a help message.
97 -O By default, an Organization header field will be added if none is
99 present in the article. To prevent adding the default (from
100 organization in inn.conf), use this flag.
101 -p port
103 Connect to the specified port on the server rather than to the
104 default (port 119).
105 -P inews computes a sender address with the username of the user
107 running inews and the hostname of the news server. It represents
108 the actual poster of the article.
109 By default, a Sender header field will be added with that value if
111 none is present in the article or if the From header field is not
112 already set to that value. Moreover, if a Sender header field is
113 already present, it will be replaced with that value.
114 To prevent adding or overwriting the Sender header field, use this
116 flag.
117 -R Reject all control messages.
119 -S Do not attempt to append ~/.signature to the message, even if it
121 exists.
122 -Y By default, inews authenticates to the remote news server only if
124 asked to, or if the initial NNTP banner corresponds to a state in
125 which postings are not allowed. Using this flag leads inews to
126 always authenticate, even if not asked to.
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129 If the NNTP server requests authentication, inews will try to read
130 passwd.nntp to get the username and password to use and will therefore
131 need read access to that file. This is typically done by making that
132 file group-readable and adding all users who should be able to use
133 inews to post to that server to the appropriate group.
134 inews used to do even more than it does now, and all of the remaining
136 checks that are not dependent on the user running inews should probably
137 be removed in favor of letting the news server handle them.
138 Since INN's inews uses inn.conf and some other corners of an INN
140 installation, it's not very appropriate as a general stand-alone inews
141 program for general use on a system that's not running a news server.
142 Other, more suitable versions of inews are available as part of various
143 Unix news clients or by themselves. We try to keep compatibility with
144 the flags other implementations use (like C News, inews-xt and
145 tinews(1)).
146
148 Written by Rich $alz <rsalz@uunet.uu.net> for InterNetNews. Rewritten
149 in POD by Russ Allbery <eagle@eyrie.org>.
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152 inn.conf(5), passwd.nntp(5), rnews(1).
153INN 2.7.0 2022-07-10 INEWS(1)