1ACTIVE(5) InterNetNews Documentation ACTIVE(5)
2
6 active - List of newsgroups carried by the server
7
9 The file pathdb/active lists the newsgroups carried by INN. This file
10 is generally maintained using ctlinnd(8) to create and remove groups,
11 or by letting controlchan(8) do so on the basis of received control
12 messages; this file is then updated and a backup stored in
13 pathdb/active.old. Note that the newsgroups(5) file normally contains
14 the descriptions of the newsgroups carried by the news server.
15 The active file should not be edited directly without throttling innd,
17 and must be reloaded using ctlinnd before innd is unthrottled. Editing
18 it directly even with those precautions may make it inconsistent with
19 the overview database and won't update active.times, so ctlinnd should
20 be used to make modifications whenever possible.
21 Each newsgroup should be listed only once. Each line specifies one
23 group. The order of groups does not matter. Within each newsgroup,
24 received articles for that group are assigned monotonically increasing
25 numbers as unique names. If an article is posted to newsgroups not
26 mentioned in this file, those newsgroups are ignored.
27 If none of the newsgroups listed in the Newsgroups header field body of
29 an article are present in this file, the article is either rejected (if
30 wanttrash is false in inn.conf), or is filed into the newsgroup "junk"
31 and, when "Aj" is not set in the newsfeeds feed pattern, only
32 propagated to sites that receive the "junk" newsgroup (if wanttrash is
33 true).
34 Each line of this file consists of four fields separated by a space:
36 <name> <high> <low> <status>
38 The first field is the name of the newsgroup. The newsgroup "junk" is
40 special, as mentioned above. The newsgroup "control" and any
41 newsgroups beginning with "control." are also special; control messages
42 are filed into a control.* newsgroup named after the type of control
43 message if that group exists, and otherwise are filed into the
44 newsgroup "control" (without regard to what newsgroups are listed in
45 the Newsgroups header field body). If mergetogroups is set to true in
46 inn.conf, newsgroups that begin with "to." are also treated specially;
47 see innd(8).
48 The second field is the highest article number that has been used in
50 that newsgroup. The third field is the lowest article number in the
51 group; this number is not guaranteed to be accurate, and should only be
52 taken to be a hint. It is normally updated nightly as part of the
53 expire process; see news.daily(8) and look for "lowmark" or "renumber"
54 for more details. Note that because of article cancellations, there
55 may be gaps in the numbering sequence. If the lowest article number is
56 greater than the highest article number, then there are no articles in
57 the newsgroup. In order to make it possible to update an entry in-
58 place without rewriting the entire file, the second and third fields
59 are padded out with leading zeros to make them a fixed width.
60 The fourth field contains one of the following status:
62 y Local postings and articles from peers are allowed.
64 m The group is moderated and all postings must be approved.
65 n No local postings are allowed, only articles from peers.
66 j Articles from peers are filed in the junk group instead.
67 x No local postings, and articles from peers are ignored.
68 =foo.bar Articles are filed in the group foo.bar instead.
69 If a newsgroup has the "j" status, no articles will be filed in that
71 newsgroup. Local postings are not accepted; if an article for that
72 newsgroup is received from a remote site, and if it is not crossposted
73 to some other valid group, it will be filed into the "junk" newsgroup
74 instead. This is different than simply not listing the group, since
75 the article will still be accepted and can be propagated to other
76 sites, and the "junk" group can be made available to readers if wished.
77 If the <status> field begins with an equal sign, the newsgroup is an
79 alias. Articles cannot be posted to that newsgroup, but they can be
80 received from other sites. Any articles received from peers for that
81 newsgroup are treated as if they were actually posted to the group
82 named after the equal sign. Note that the Newsgroups header field of
83 the articles is not modified. (Alias groups are typically used during
84 a transition and are typically created manually with ctlinnd(8).) An
85 alias should not point to another alias.
86 Note that readers.conf can be configured so that local posts to
88 newsgroups with status "j", "n" or "x" are accepted.
89
91 For innd to be able to start, the three groups "control",
92 "control.cancel" and "junk" need to be in the active file. Besides, if
93 mergetogroups is set to true in inn.conf, the newsgroup "to" also needs
94 to exist.
95 The minimal active file shipped with INN is:
97 control 0000000000 0000000001 n
99 control.cancel 0000000000 0000000001 n
100 control.checkgroups 0000000000 0000000001 n
101 control.newgroup 0000000000 0000000001 n
102 control.rmgroup 0000000000 0000000001 n
103 junk 0000000000 0000000001 n
104 (Note that the second and the third field may differ if the news server
106 has already been in use.)
107 There are more control.* pseudogroups here than needed by innd to
109 start; the corresponding control messages will be filed into them. The
110 "n" status is so that users cannot post directly to these groups
111 (control messages should only be posted to the groups that they
112 affect). If you do not want these groups to be visible to clients, do
113 not delete them but simply hide them in readers.conf(5).
114 To create additional groups after the server is running, you can use
116 "ctlinnd newgroup". You can also synchronize your newsgroup list to
117 that of another server by using actsync(8) or get the active file of
118 another NNTP server with getlist(1). And do not forget to update your
119 newsgroups file, which can be automatically done thanks to
120 docheckgroups called with the -u flag.
121
123 Written by Rich $alz <rsalz@uunet.uu.net> for InterNetNews. Converted
124 to POD by Russ Allbery <eagle@eyrie.org>.
125
127 active.times(5), actsync(8), controlchan(8), ctlinnd(8),
128 docheckgroups(8), getlist(1), inn.conf(5), innd(8), mod-active(8),
129 news.daily(8), newsgroups(5), readers.conf(5).
130INN 2.7.1 2022-07-10 ACTIVE(5)