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 [-AFgio] [-a article] [-n newsgroup] [-p path] [-R path]
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12 tdx-util is an administrative interface to the tradindexed overview
13 method for INN. It only works on tradindexed overview databases, not
14 on any other type of INN overview. It allows the administrator to dump
15 various information about the internal state of the overview, audit it
16 for errors, and rebuild portions of the overview database.
17 The tradindexed overview method should lock properly and therefore it
19 should be safe to run this utility and perform any operation it per‐
20 forms, including full repairs or per-group overview rebuilds, while the
21 server is running. However, note that some of the operations performed
22 by this utility can take an extended period of time and will hold locks
23 in the overview database during that period, which depending on what
24 the server is doing may cause the server to stall until tdx-util com‐
25 pletes its operation.
26 The dump operations are -i, which dumps the master index for the over‐
28 view database, -g, which dumps the index for an individual group, and
29 -o, which dumps the overview information for a particular group
30 (including the additional metadata stored in the index). For -g and
31 -o, the -n option must also be given to specify a newsgroup to operate
32 on.
33 To audit the entire overview database for problems, use -A. Any prob‐
35 lems found will be reported to standard error. There is not (yet) a
36 corresponding option to correct the errors found.
37 To rebuild the database for a particular newsgroup, use -R. The -R
39 option takes a path to a directory which contains all of the articles
40 for that newsgroup, one per file. The names of the files must be the
41 numbers of the articles in that group. (In other words, this directory
42 must be a traditional spool directory for that group.) The -n option
43 must also be given to specify the newsgroup for which the overview is
44 being rebuilt.
45 For all operations performed by tdx-util, a different overview database
47 than the one specified in inn.conf may be specified using the -p
48 option.
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51 -A Audit the entire overview database for problems. This runs the
52 internal consistency checks built into the tradindexed overview
53 implementation, checking such things as the validity and reachabil‐
54 ity of all group index entries, the format of the individual over‐
55 view entries, the correspondance of index entries to overview data,
56 and similar such things. No changes will be made to the database,
57 but problems will be reported to standard error.
58 -a article
60 The article number to act on. Only useful in combination with the
61 -o option to dump overview information.
62 -F Audit the entire overview database for problems, fixing them as
64 they're detected where possible. This runs the internal consistency
65 checks built into the tradindexed overview implementation, checking
66 such things as the validity and reachability of all group index
67 entries, the format of the individual overview entries, the corre‐
68 spondance of index entries to overview data, and similar such
69 things. The strategy used when fixing problems is to throw away
70 data that's unrecoverable, so be warned that using this option may
71 result in inaccessible articles if their overview data has been
72 corrupted.
73 To see what would be changed by -F, run tdx-util with -A first.
75 -g Dump the master index of the overview database. This contains sim‐
77 ilar information to the server active file, such as high and low
78 water marks and moderation status, and is the information that
79 nnrpd hands out to clients.
80 The fields are, in order, the newsgroup name, the high water mark,
82 the low water mark, the base article number (the point at which the
83 group index begins), the count of articles in the group, the group
84 status flag, the time (in seconds since epoch) when that newsgroup
85 was deleted or 0 if it hasn't been, and the inode of the index file
86 for that group.
87 -i Dump the index of a particular group. The fields are, in order,
89 the article number, the offset of the data for that article in the
90 overview data file for that group, the length of the overview data,
91 the time (in seconds since epoch) when the article arrived on the
92 server, the time (in seconds since epoch) when the article should
93 expire based on its Expires header (or 0 if there is no Expires
94 header), and the storage API token of the article.
95 If this option is given, the -n option must also be given to spec‐
97 ify the newsgroup on which to act.
98 -n newsgroup
100 Specify the newsgroup on which to act, required for the -i, -o, and
101 -R options.
102 -o Dump the overview information for a newsgroup, in the same format
104 as it would be returned to clients but with one modification.
105 Appended to the end of each entry will be four additional pieces of
106 data: the article number according to the index file for that
107 group, the storage API token for that article, the arrival date for
108 that article on the server in RFC 822 date format, and the expira‐
109 tion date for that article (from the Expires header) in RFC 822
110 date format if there is any.
111 If this option is given, the -n option must also be given to spec‐
113 ify the newsgroup on which to act. By default, all of the overview
114 information for that newsgroup is dumped, but the -a option may be
115 given to restrict the dump to the information for a single article.
116 -p path
118 Act on the overview database rooted in path, overriding the over‐
119 view path specified in inn.conf.
120 -R path
122 Rebuild the overview for a given group from the articles stored in
123 path. The articles must be in the form of a traditional spool
124 directory; in other words, each article must be in a separate file
125 and the name of the file must match the article number of the arti‐
126 cle.
127 If this option is given, the -n option must also be given to spec‐
129 ify the newsgroup on which to act.
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132 Dump the master index for the overview database in /news/overview,
133 regardless of the overview path specified in inn.conf:
134 tdx-util -i -p /news/overview
136 Dump the group index for example.test:
138 tdx-util -g -n example.test
140 Dump the complete overview information for example.test:
142 tdx-util -o -n example.test
144 Audit the entire overview database for any problems:
146 tdx-util -A
148 Rebuild the overview information for example.test from a traditional
150 spool directory:
151 tdx-util -R /news/spool/articles/example/test -n example.test
153 The last command may be useful for recovering from a bad crash or cor‐
155 rupted overview information for a particular group, if you are also
156 using the tradspool article storage method.
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159 Written by Russ Allbery <rra@stanford.edu> for InterNetNews.
160 $Id: tdx-util.8 7047 2004-12-19 19:41:49Z rra $
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164 makehistory(8)
165INN 2.4.2 2004-12-19 TDX-UTIL(8)