Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)

FreeBSD Manual Pages

  
 
  

home | help
GENCANCEL(1)		  InterNetNews Documentation		  GENCANCEL(1)

NAME
       gencancel - Generate cancel control messages

SYNOPSIS
       gencancel [-adkLm] [-b body] [-c	charset] [-f from] [-n newsgroups] [-s
       subject]	message-id

DESCRIPTION
       gencancel provides the news administrator with a	helpful	tool to
       generate	cancel control messages, writing them to standard output.  The
       generated cancel	article	can then be injected by	inews (see examples
       below).

       gencancel expects the Message-ID	of the article to cancel; this
       message-id argument should properly be quoted for the shell and
       surrounded by angle brackets.  gencancel	will then try to read the
       original	article	in the news spool to determine the original newsgroups
       it was posted to, and re-use that information for the cancel control
       message.	 If you	want to	modify that, or	if the information was not
       found, you'll have to set it with the -n	flag.

       If INN was built	with Cancel-Lock support, gencancel will generate the
       right admin Cancel-Key header field to use in order to authenticate
       cancels.	 If, for whatever reason, you need cancelling an article
       posted from your	news server with a Cancel-Lock header field, the
       corresponding admin Cancel-Key hashes are needed	to authenticate	the
       withdrawal request.  That information is	computed with the canlockadmin
       parameter set in	inn-secrets.conf.

       In case you only	need the admin Cancel-Key hashes, you can use the -k
       flag.  Only the body of the Cancel-Key header field will	then be
       written to standard output.  You	can then re-use	it for instance	in a
       supersede request or from another script.

OPTIONS
       -a  gencancel  outputs  by  default an Approved header field, using the
	   same	value as the From header  field	 body.	 If  -a	 is  used,  no
	   Approved header field is output.

	   This	 header	 field	is  useful  for	cancelling articles originally
	   posted to moderated newsgroups.  If a cancel	control	article	 lists
	   a  moderated	 newsgroup  in	its  Newsgroups	 header	 field,	and no
	   Approved header field is present, the cancel	will be	 sent  to  the
	   moderator  first  for  approval.   Cancel  control messages are not
	   required to contain an Approved header field	outside	 of  moderated
	   newsgroups,	but  can, so you shouldn't generally use -a unless you
	   really want your cancels to be approved by a	moderator, or are sure
	   the Newsgroups header field does not	list any moderated newsgroups.

       -b body
	   gencancel writes by default "Admin cancel." in the body  of	cancel
	   control  messages.  Using this argument permits writing a different
	   value, which	may be empty or	multi-line.

       -c charset
	   By default, "ISO-8859-1" is specified as the	used  charset  in  the
	   Content-Type	 header	 field.	  In  case you change the default body
	   with	-b, you	may want to also change	charset	accordingly.

       -d  gencancel generates a Date header field in the local	time  of  your
	   news	server.	 Using -d will make use	of a UTC date.

       -f from
	   gencancel  uses  by default the value of complaints in inn.conf for
	   the From header field.  Using this  argument	 permits  setting  the
	   value  you  want.   The  same  value	 will be used for the Approved
	   header field	(if generated, when -a is not given).

       -k  Instead of outputting a whole  cancel  control  message,  gencancel
	   will	just output the	body of	the Cancel-Key header field with admin
	   hashes.

	   This	 flag  is  only	 available  if	INN was	built with Cancel-Lock
	   support.

       -L  gencancel  outputs  by  default  a  Cancel-Key  header   field   to
	   authenticate	the cancel control message.  If	-L is used, no Cancel-
	   Key header field is output.

	   This	 flag  is  only	 available  if	INN was	built with Cancel-Lock
	   support.

       -m  gencancel generates by default a random Message-ID and uses	it  as
	   unique identifier of	the cancel control message.  If	-m is used, no
	   Message-ID header field is output.

       -n newsgroups
	   gencancel  generates	by default the same Newsgroups header field as
	   the one present in the original article to cancel.  This is done to
	   best	ensure that the	cancel control message will be relayed to  the
	   same	news servers as	the original message.

	   In  case your news server does not (or no longer) locally carry the
	   original article, you will have to give an  explicit	 newsgroup  or
	   list	 of  comma-separated  newsgroups  with this flag, that will be
	   used	as the Newsgroups header field of the cancel.

       -s subject
	   gencancel uses by default "cmsg cancel <message-id>"	as the subject
	   of cancel control messages.	Using this argument permits setting  a
	   different  value  for  the  Subject	header field.  Make sure it is
	   properly MIME-encoded.

EXAMPLES
       To only retrieve	the admin Cancel-Key hashes associated	to  the	 given
       Message-ID:

	   gencancel -k	'<mid@news>'

       If you're using non-ASCII characters in headers,	make sure you properly
       MIME-encode them.  For instance,	use the	"Encode" Perl module:

	   FROM=$(perl -e 'use Encode;
			   print encode("MIME-Q",
					decode("UTF-8",	"Julien	ELIE"));')
	   gencancel -f	"$FROM <admin@news.server.com>"	'<mid@news>'

       You'll then see in the output a properly	MIME-encoded header field:

	   From: =?UTF-8?Q?Julien_=C3=89LIE?= <admin@news.server.com>

       An example of call with a custom	multi-line body:

	   gencancel -b	"$(echo	-e "Multi\nLine\nBody.")" '<mid@news>'

       (Use -c to change the default Content-Type charset for the body.)

       You  can	 then  pipe  the  result  into "inews -h -P -D"	(meaning inews
       expects an article with headers,	does not add a	Sender	header	field,
       and  writes the result to standard output instead of actually injecting
       it):

	   gencancel '<mid@news>' | inews -h -P	-D

       If it all looks good, then inject it  into  the	news  system  (without
       giving "-D" to inews):

	   gencancel '<mid@news>' | inews -h -P

       Note that inews sends the message to the	server specified in the	server
       parameter in inn.conf.

HISTORY
       Written by Julien Elie for InterNetNews.

SEE ALSO
       inews(1), inn-secrets.conf(5).

INN 2.8.0			  2023-04-15			  GENCANCEL(1)

Want to link to this manual page? Use this URL:
<https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=gencancel&sektion=1&manpath=FreeBSD+Ports+14.3.quarterly>

home | help