snfetch(8) [debian man page]
snfetch,v0.3.8(8) System Manager's Manual snfetch,v0.3.8(8) NAME
snfetch - fetch articles. SYNOPSIS
snfetch [-r] [-t timeout] [-c depth] group [serial [max]] DESCRIPTION
snfetch expects to read NNTP from file descriptor 6, and write NNTP to file descriptor 7, which descriptors must have already been open. Articles retrieved are written to descriptor 1. Each article displayed is separated from the next by a dot on a line by itself. These articles are NNTP safe, in the sense that double-dot unquoting is not done, and all lines end in CR-LF. snfetch expects to begin it's NNTP speech by giving the GROUP command. The upstream server's greeting must have already been read some other way. Likewise, when snfetch is done, it will not send a QUIT command. The output is suitable for feeding to snstore. snfetch always checks the article ID of the prospective article before retrieving it. If the ID already exists in the ID database, the article will not be retrieved. Note that this does not guarantee that all articles retrieved will be unique. snfetch does not guarantee to leave the NNTP conversation in a decent state (there might be more data to read, but snfetch aborted part way). You will need to be root or own /var/spool/sn in order to run this program. It is not safe to direct the output of several snfetches to the same pipe descriptor, but a file descriptor is all right. OPTIONS
-t timeout snfetch will wait only timeout seconds (default 180) for data before giving up, if the server doesn't respond. -r Output in news batch format instead. All articles will take the #! rnews form only, even if there is just one article, all lines end in bare linefeed, and dot-unquoting is performed. -c depth Employ a command pipeline of depth depth. NNTP command pipelining is not officially sanctioned, so by default no pipeline is used. However, a pipeline with a depth greater than 0 will substantally reduce transaction latency if the server accepts it. A respectable value for depth might be between 1 and 5. ARGUMENTS
snfetch takes the name of a single newsgroup on its command line. If serial is given, this is taken to be the first article number on group on the server to fetch. If max is specified, this is taken to be the maximum number of articles to fetch. The first article retrieved may be after serial if max would be violated. If max is not specified, there is no limit. ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
SNROOT If this is set and is not empty, the value is used in place of /var/spool/sn, the default news spool directory. FILES
/var/spool/sn/newsgroup/.serial If serial is not specified, the starting serial number is taken from the file /var/spool/sn/newsgroup/.serial. This defaults to 0 if the file can't be read. /var/spool/sn/newsgroup/.serial.tmp If snfetch exits with success (0), the new serial is written into this file. The original file /var/spool/sn/newsgroup/.serial is readonly by snfetch. /var/spool/sn/newsgroup/.max If max is not specified on the command line, max is read from this file. If the file cannot be read or does not exist, there is no limit. EXIT CODES
snfetch exits 1 on usage error, 2 on system failure, 3 on protocol error, 4 on read timeout, and 0 on success. SEE ALSO
snstore (8), snget (8) N.B. Harold Tay snfetch,v0.3.8(8)
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snget,v0.3.8(8) System Manager's Manual snget,v0.3.8(8) NAME
snget,sngetd - fetch news from upstream sites and store them locally. SYNOPSIS
snget [options] [news.group...] sngetd [options] options: [-d] [-h Bps] [-p nparallel] [-c depth] [-m max] DESCRIPTION
snget fetches articles for the news.groups on the command line (or all non-local newsgroups if none are specified) from their respective upstream feeds, and stores them in the news spool /var/spool/sn. If a newsgroup could not be fetched for, it may be attempted again. sngetd does the same, except it reads newsgroup names from /var/spool/sn/.fifo and does not exit. sngetd does not fork into the back- ground. snget does not guarantee to fetch the groups in the order specified on the command line. snget and sngetd will write errors and status messages to descriptor 2. snget and sngetd are both scheduling wrappers that call /usr/sbin/SNHELLO, snfetch, and snstore. You must own /var/spool/sn or be root in order to run snget and sngetd. OPTIONS
-d Enable verbosity, may be specified multiple times. This option is also propagated to snfetch and snstore. -p nparallel Attempt to fetch for nparallel newsgroups at once. Default is 4, maximum is 8. -h Bps Throttle the sum of bandwidth used by all snfetches to Bps bytes per second. This option is used to prevent snget or sngetd from hogging the network. By default there is no throttling. -c depth depth is passed to snfetch as the depth of the command pipeline. -m max The very first time contacting the news server, retrieve no more than max articles per newsgroup, default is 200. This option is useful only if there are unprimed newsgroups and has no effect otherwise. The .max file in each newsgroup directory still applies (see snfetch(8)). -t timeout This option is not documented because it is ignored and will disappear in a future release. See .timeout in FILES next. FILES
Server Directories These are the directories /var/spool/sn/.outgoing/server.name:port, which are symlinked from /var/spool/sn/news.group/.outgoing. If the latter isn't a (symlink to a) directory, snget won't fetch for news.group. /var/spool/sn/.outgoing/server.name:port/.timeout If this file exists and contains a number, this is taken to be the timeout in seconds in all dealings with server.name:port. Default is 120 seconds. /var/spool/sn/.outgoing/server.name:port/.SNHELLO If this program file exists, it is invoked instead of the default (usually /usr/sbin/SNHELLO) when an NNTP connection is first made to server.name:port in order to read the greeting and upload posted articles. If server.name:port requires a username and password, you would copy the default here and edit that information in. /var/spool/sn/news.group/{.serial,.max} snget and sngetd read these files on behalf of snfetch. SIGNALS
Other signals have default behaviour. SIGUSR1 If -h Bps was specified, Bps is halved, else is ignored. SIGUSR2 If -h Bps was specified, Bps is doubled, else is ignored. ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
See also /usr/sbin/SNHELLO for the list of environment variables exported by snget/sngetd. SNROOT If this is set and is not empty, the value is used in place of /var/spool/sn, the default news spool directory. PATH To find SNHELLO (if this server does not have a .SNHELLO), snfetch, and snstore. If PATH does not contain /usr/sbin as one of it's components, /usr/sbin is appended to it. SEE ALSO
snfetch(8), snstore(8), /usr/sbin/SNHELLO N.B. Harold Tay snget,v0.3.8(8)