1NINPATHS(8)               InterNetNews Documentation               NINPATHS(8)
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NAME

6       ninpaths - Report Usenet Path header field statistics (new inpaths)
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SYNOPSIS

9       ninpaths -p -d dumpfile
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11       ninpaths -r site -u dumpfile [-u dumpfile ...] -v level
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DESCRIPTION

14       This is an efficient and space-saving inpaths reporting program.  It
15       works as follows: you feed it the Path header fields via an INN channel
16       feed or some other similar method, and from time to time the program
17       writes all its internal counters accumulated so far to a dump file.
18       Another instance of the program picks up all the dump files, adds them
19       up and formats them into the report.  The purpose of the final report
20       is to summarize the frequency of occurrence of sites in the Path header
21       fields of articles.
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23       Some central sites accumulate the Path header field data from many news
24       servers running this program or one like it, and then report statistics
25       on the most frequently seen news servers in Usenet article Path header
26       fields.  The sendinpaths script can be run daily to mail the
27       accumulated statistics to such a site and remove the old dump files.
28
29       You can get a working setup by doing the following:
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31       1.  Create a directory at pathlog/path (replacing pathlog here and in
32           all steps that follow with the full path to your INN log
33           directory).  Do not change the name of the "path" subdirectory
34           because it is used by sendinpaths.
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36       2.  Set up a channel feed using a newsfeeds entry like:
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38               inpaths!:*:Tc,WP:<pathbin>/ninpaths -p -d <pathlog>/path/inpaths.%d
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40           if your version of INN supports "WP" (2.0 and later all do).
41           Replace <pathbin> with the full path to your INN binaries
42           directory, and <pathlog> with the full path to your INN log
43           directory.
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45           Note that the naming convention of the generated inpaths dump files
46           should not be changed.  sendinpaths explicitly searches files whose
47           name starts with "inpaths." in the <pathlog>/path directory.
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49       3.  Run the following command to start logging these statistics:
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51               ctlinnd reload newsfeeds 'inpaths feed setup'
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53       4.  Enter into your news user crontab these two lines:
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55               6   6 * * *   <pathbin>/ctlinnd flush inpaths!
56               10  6 * * *   <pathbin>/sendinpaths
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58           (the actual time doesn't matter).  This will force ninpaths to
59           generate a dump file once a day.  Then, a few minutes later,
60           sendinpaths collects the dumps, makes a report, sends the collected
61           statistics, and deletes the old dumps.
62
63           Note that you can manually generate a report without mailing it,
64           and without deleting processed dump files, with "sendinpaths -n".
65           Another useful command is "sendinpaths -c" so as to receive a copy
66           of the e-mail sent by sendinpaths and therefore make sure that
67           everything is properly set.
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69       5.  In a couple of days, check that your daily statistics properly
70           appear in <http://top1000.anthologeek.net/>.
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OPTIONS

73       -d dumpfile
74           Save dumps in dumpfile.  Any %d in dumpfile will be replaced with
75           the current system time when the dump is made.  This option should
76           be used with -p.
77
78           The format of these dump files is described below.
79
80       -p  Read Path header fields from standard input.
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82       -r site
83           Generate a report for site.  Generally site should be the value of
84           pathhost from inn.conf.
85
86       -u dumpfile
87           Read data from dumpfile.  This option can be repeated to read data
88           from multiple dump files.
89
90       -v level
91           Set the verbosity level of the report.  Valid values for level are
92           0, 1, and 2, with 2 being the default.
93

DUMP FILE FORMAT

95       The format of the generated dump files is:
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97          !!NINP <version> <start-time> <end-time> <nb-sites> <nb-articles> <average-time>
98          <site_0> <count_0> <site_1> <count_1> <site_2> <count_2> ...
99          !!NLREC
100          :<site_a>!<site_b>,<count_ab>:<site_c>!<site_d>,<count_cd> ...
101          !!NEND <nb-relations>
102
103       where times are UNIX timestamps.  Then, nb-sites records follow.  Each
104       record is separated by a space or a new line, and consists of a host
105       name site_n followed by a number of appearances count_n.  The number of
106       processed Path header fields is nb-articles.
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108       Afterwards, nb-relations relations follow.  In 3.0.x versions, the
109       relations are separated by a space or a new line, and their syntax is
110       "site_a!site_b!count_ab" where site_a and site_b are numbers of the
111       site records starting at 0.
112
113       In 3.1.x versions, the relations begin with a colon and are separated
114       by either nothing or a new line.  Their syntax is
115       ":site_a!site_b,count_ab" with the same meaning as in previous
116       versions.  The count can be omitted when it is 1.  More than two sites
117       can be specified in the relation (":site_a!site_b!site_c,count_abc").
118
119       For instance:
120
121           !!NINP 3.1.1 1302944821 1302944838 5 2 1302944826
122           newsgate.cistron.nl 1 news.trigofacile.com 2 news.ecp.fr 2 usenet.stanford.edu 1
123           bleachbot 1
124           !!NLREC
125           :3!2:2!1,2:4!0:0!2
126           !!NLEND 4
127
128       where the two processed Path header fields are:
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130           Path: news.trigofacile.com!news.ecp.fr!usenet.stanford.edu!not-for-mail
131           Path: news.trigofacile.com!news.ecp.fr!newsgate.cistron.nl!bleachbot!not-for-mail
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NOTES

134       If your INN doesn't have the "WP" feed flag (1.5 does not, 1.6 and 1.7
135       do, 2.0 and later all do), use the following newsfeeds entry:
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137          inpaths!:*:Tc,WH:<pathbin>/ginpaths
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139       where ginpaths is the following script:
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141           #!/bin/sh
142           exec egrep '^Path: ' | <pathbin>/ninpaths -p -d <pathlog>/path/inpaths.%d
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144       replacing <pathbin> and <pathlog> as above.
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HISTORY

147       This is a slightly modified version of Olaf Titz's original ninpaths
148       program, which is posted to alt.sources and kept on his WWW archive
149       under <http://sites.inka.de/~bigred/sw/>.
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151       The idea and some implementation details for ninpaths come from the
152       original inpaths program, but most of the code has been rewritten for
153       clarity.  This program is in the public domain.
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SEE ALSO

156       newsfeeds(5), sendinpaths(8).
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160INN 2.7.0                         2022-07-10                       NINPATHS(8)
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