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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  can-
     cels.   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-se-
     crets.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 stan-
     dard 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 ap-
	 proval.  Cancel control messages are not required  to	contain  an  Ap-
	 proved  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  con-
	 trol  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  Con-
	 tent-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 differ-
	 ent 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 Mes-
     sage-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 pa-
     rameter 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:
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