1EXPIRE.CTL(5)             InterNetNews Documentation             EXPIRE.CTL(5)
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NAME

6       expire.ctl - Configuration file for article expiration
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DESCRIPTION

9       The file pathetc/expire.ctl is the default configuration file for
10       expire and expireover, which read it at start-up.  It serves two pur‐
11       poses:  it defines how long history entries for expired or rejected
12       articles are remembered, and it determines how long articles stored on
13       the server are retained.
14
15       Normally, if all of the storage methods used by the server are self-
16       expiring (such as CNFS), all lines except the "/remember/" setting
17       (described below) are ignored.  This can be changed with the -N option
18       to expire or expireover.
19
20       Black lines and lines beginning with a number sign ("#") are ignored.
21       All other lines should be in one of two formats.  The order of the file
22       is significant, and the last matching entry will be used.
23
24       The first format specifies how long to keep history entries for arti‐
25       cles that aren't present in the news spool.  These are articles that
26       have either already expired, or articles which the server rejected
27       (when remembertrash is set to true in inn.conf).  There should be one
28       and only one line in this format, which looks like:
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30           /remember/:<days>
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32       where <days> is a decimal number that specifies the minimum number of
33       days a history record for a given message ID is retained, regardless of
34       whether the article is present in the spool.  (History entries for
35       articles still present in the spool are always retained.)
36
37       The primary reason to retain a record of old articles is in case a peer
38       offers old articles that were previously accepted but have already
39       expired.  Without a history record for such articles, the server would
40       accept the article again and readers would see duplicate articles.
41       Articles older than a certain number of days won't be accepted by the
42       server at all (see artcutoff in inn.conf(5) and the -c flag in
43       innd(8)), and this setting should probably match that time period (10
44       days by default) to ensure that the server never accepts duplicates.
45
46       Most of the lines in this file will be in the second format, which con‐
47       sists of either four or five colon-separated fields:
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49           <pattern>:<flag>:<min>:<default>:<max>
50
51       if groupbaseexpiry is true in inn.conf (the default), and otherwise:
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53           <classnum>:<min>:<default>:<max>
54
55       All lines must be in the correct format given the current setting of
56       groupbaseexpiry, and therefore the two formats cannot co-exist in the
57       same file.
58
59       Normally, a rule matches a newsgroup through the combination of the
60       <pattern> and <flag> fields.  <pattern> is a uwildmat(3)-style pattern,
61       specifying the newsgroups to which the line is applied.  Note that the
62       last matching entry will be used, so general patterns (such as defaults
63       for all groups where <pattern> is "*") should appear at the beginning
64       of the file before more specific settings.
65
66       The <flag> field can be used to further limit newsgroups to which the
67       line applies, and should be chosen from the following set:
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69           M   Only moderated groups
70           U   Only unmoderated groups
71           A   All groups
72           X   Remove the article from all groups it appears in
73
74       One of M, U, or A must be specified.  X should be used in combination
75       with one of the other letters, not by itself.
76
77       An expiration policy is applied to every article in a newsgroup it
78       matches.  There is no way to set an expiration policy for articles
79       crossposted to groups you don't carry that's different than other arti‐
80       cles in the same group.  Normally, articles are not completely deleted
81       until they expire out of every group to which they were posted, but if
82       an article is expired following a rule where <flag> contains X, it is
83       deleted out of all newsgroups to which it was posted immediately.
84
85       If groupbaseexpiry is instead set to false, there is no <pattern> and
86       <flag> field and the above does not apply.  Instead, there is a single
87       <classnum> field, which is either a number matching the storage class
88       number specified in storage.conf or "*" to specify a default for all
89       storage classes.  All articles stored in a storage class will be
90       expired following the instructions in the line with a matching <class‐
91       num>, and when articles are expired, they're always removed from all
92       groups to which they were posted.
93
94       The remaining three fields are the same in either format, and are used
95       to determine how long an article should be kept.  Each field should be
96       either a decimal number of days (fractions like 8.5 are allowed, but
97       remember that articles are only removed when expire or expireover is
98       run, normally once a day by news.daily) or the word "never".
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100       The middle field, <default>, will be used as the expiration period for
101       most articles.  The other two fields, <min> and <max>, only come into
102       play if the article requests a particular expiration date with an
103       Expires header.  Articles with an Expires header will be expired at the
104       date given in that header, subject to the constraints that they will be
105       retained at least <min> days and no longer than <max> days.
106
107       If <min> is set to "never", no article matching that line will ever be
108       expired.  If <default> is set to "never", no article matching that line
109       without an explicit Expires header will ever be expired.  If <max> is
110       set to "never", Expires headers will be honored no matter how far into
111       the future they are.
112
113       One should think of the fields as a lower bound, the default, and an
114       upper bound.  Since most articles do not have an Expires header, the
115       second field is the most important and most commonly applied.
116
117       Articles that do not match any expiration rule will not be expired, but
118       this is considered an error and will result in a warning.  There should
119       always be a default line (a line with a <pattern> of "*" and <flag> of
120       "A", or a line with a <classnum> of "*"), which can explicitly state
121       that articles should never expire by default if that's the desired con‐
122       figuration.  The default line should generally be the first line of the
123       file (except for "/remember/") so that other expiration rules can over‐
124       ride it.
125
126       It is often useful to honor the Expires header in articles, especially
127       those in moderated groups.  To do this, set <min> to zero, <default> to
128       whatever normal expiration you wish, and <max> to "never" or some large
129       number, like 365 days for a maximum article life of a year.
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131       To ignore any Expires header, set all three fields to the same value.
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EXAMPLES

134       When groupbaseexpiry is true (the default):
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136           # Keep expired article history for 10 days, matching artcutoff.
137           /remember/:10
138
139           # Most articles stay for two weeks, ignoring Expires.
140           *:A:14:14:14
141
142           # Accept Expires headers in moderated groups for up to a year and
143           # retain moderated groups for a bit longer.
144           *:M:1:30:365
145
146           # Keep local groups for a long time and local project groups forever.
147           example.*:A:90:90:90
148           example.project.*:A:never:never:never
149
150       When groupbaseexpiry is false, for class-based expiration:
151
152           # Keep expired article history for 10 days, matching artcutoff.
153           /remember/:10
154
155           # Set a default expiration of seven days.
156           *:7:7:7
157
158           # Class 0 is retained for two weeks.
159           0:14:14:14
160

HISTORY

162       Written by Rich $alz <rsalz@uunet.uu.net> for InterNetNews.  Converted
163       to POD by Russ Allbery <rra@stanford.edu>.
164
165       $Id: expire.ctl.5 7207 2005-04-11 18:18:40Z rra $
166

SEE ALSO

168       expire(8), expireover(8), inn.conf(5), innd(8), news.daily(8), stor‐
169       age.conf(5), uwildmat(3)
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173INN 2.4.3                         2005-04-11                     EXPIRE.CTL(5)
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