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NINPATHS(8)		   InterNetNews Documentation		     NINPATHS(8)

NAME
     ninpaths - Report Usenet Path header field statistics (new inpaths)

SYNOPSIS
     ninpaths -p -d dumpfile

     ninpaths -r site -u dumpfile [-u dumpfile ...] -v level

DESCRIPTION
     This  is an efficient and space-saving inpaths reporting program.	It works
     as follows: you feed it the Path header fields via an INN channel	feed  or
     some other similar method, and from time to time the program writes all its
     internal  counters  accumulated so far to a dump file.  Another instance of
     the program picks up all the dump files, adds them up and formats them into
     the report.  The purpose of the final report is to summarize the  frequency
     of occurrence of sites in the Path header fields of articles.

     Some  central  sites  accumulate  the Path header field data from many news
     servers running this program or one like it, and then report statistics  on
     the most frequently seen news servers in Usenet article Path header fields.
     The  sendinpaths script can be run daily to mail the accumulated statistics
     to such a site and remove the old dump files.

     You can get a working setup by doing the following:

     1.  Create a directory at pathlog/path (replacing pathlog here and  in  all
	 steps	that  follow  with the full path to your INN log directory).  Do
	 not change the name of the "path" subdirectory because it  is	used  by
	 sendinpaths.

     2.  Set up a channel feed using a newsfeeds entry like:

	     inpaths!\
		 :*\
		 :Tc,WP:<pathbin>/ninpaths -p -d <pathlog>/path/inpaths.%d

	 if  your  version of INN supports "WP" (2.0 and later all do).  Replace
	 <pathbin> with the full  path	to  your  INN  binaries  directory,  and
	 <pathlog> with the full path to your INN log directory.

	 Note  that  the  naming  convention of the generated inpaths dump files
	 should not be changed.  sendinpaths  explicitly  searches  files  whose
	 name starts with "inpaths." in the <pathlog>/path directory.

     3.  Run the following command to start logging these statistics:

	     ctlinnd reload newsfeeds 'inpaths feed setup'

     4.  Enter into your news user crontab these two lines:

	     6	 6 * * *   <pathbin>/ctlinnd flush inpaths!
	     10  6 * * *   <pathbin>/sendinpaths

	 (the actual time doesn't matter).  This will force ninpaths to generate
	 a  dump  file	once a day.  Then, a few minutes later, sendinpaths col-
	 lects the dumps, makes a report, sends the  collected	statistics,  and
	 deletes the old dumps.

	 Note  that  you  can manually generate a report without mailing it, and
	 without deleting processed dump files, with "sendinpaths -n".	 Another
	 useful  command  is  "sendinpaths  -c"  so  as to receive a copy of the
	 e-mail sent by sendinpaths and therefore make sure that  everything  is
	 properly set.

     5.  In  a	couple of days, check that your daily statistics properly appear
	 in <http://top1000.anthologeek.net/>.

OPTIONS
     -d dumpfile
	 Save dumps in dumpfile.  Any %d in dumpfile will be replaced  with  the
	 current  system time when the dump is made.  This option should be used
	 with -p.  If dumpfile is "-", then stdout is used.

	 The format of these dump files is described below.

     -p  Read Path header fields from standard input.

     -r site
	 Generate a report for site.  Generally site  should  be  the  value  of
	 pathhost from inn.conf.

     -u dumpfile
	 Read data from dumpfile.  This option can be repeated to read data from
	 multiple dump files.

     -v level
	 Set  the  verbosity level of the report.  Valid values for level are 0,
	 1, and 2, with 2 being the default.

DUMP FILE FORMAT
     The format of the generated dump files is:

	!!NINP <version> <start-time> <end-time> <nb-sites> <nb-articles>
	    <average-time>
	<site_0> <count_0> <site_1> <count_1> <site_2> <count_2> ...
	!!NLREC
	:<site_a>!<site_b>,<count_ab>:<site_c>!<site_d>,<count_cd> ...
	!!NEND <nb-relations>

     where times are UNIX timestamps.	Then,  nb-sites  records  follow.   Each
     record  is  separated by a space or a new line, and consists of a host name
     site_n followed  by  a  number  of  appearances  count_n.	 The  number  of
     processed Path header fields is nb-articles.

     Afterwards,  nb-relations	relations  follow.  In 3.0.x versions, the rela-
     tions are separated by  a	space  or  a  new  line,  and  their  syntax  is
     "site_a!site_b!count_ab"  where  site_a  and site_b are numbers of the site
     records starting at 0.

     In 3.1.x versions, the relations begin with a colon and  are  separated  by
     either  nothing  or  a new line.  Their syntax is ":site_a!site_b,count_ab"
     with the same meaning as in previous versions.  The count	can  be  omitted
     when  it  is  1.	More  than  two  sites	can be specified in the relation
     (":site_a!site_b!site_c,count_abc").

     For instance:

	 !!NINP 3.1.1 1302944821 1302944838 5 2 1302944826
	 newsgate.cistron.nl 1 news.trigofacile.com 2 news.ecp.fr 2
	     usenet.stanford.edu 1
	 bleachbot 1
	 !!NLREC
	 :3!2:2!1,2:4!0:0!2
	 !!NLEND 4

     where the two processed Path header fields are:

	 Path: news.trigofacile.com!news.ecp.fr!usenet.stanford.edu
	     !not-for-mail
	 Path: news.trigofacile.com!news.ecp.fr!newsgate.cistron.nl
	     !bleachbot!not-for-mail

NOTES
     If your INN doesn't have the "WP" feed flag (1.5 does not, 1.6 and 1.7  do,
     2.0 and later all do), use the following newsfeeds entry:

	inpaths!:*:Tc,WH:<pathbin>/ginpaths

     where ginpaths is the following script:

	 #!/bin/sh
	 exec egrep '^Path: ' \
	     | <pathbin>/ninpaths -p -d <pathlog>/path/inpaths.%d

     replacing <pathbin> and <pathlog> as above.

HISTORY
     This  is  a slightly modified version of Olaf Titz's original ninpaths pro-
     gram, which is posted to alt.sources and kept  on	his  WWW  archive  under
     <http://sites.inka.de/~bigred/sw/>.

     The  idea and some implementation details for ninpaths come from the origi-
     nal inpaths program, but most of the code has been rewritten  for	clarity.
     This program is in the public domain.

SEE ALSO
     newsfeeds(5), sendinpaths(8).

INN 2.8.0			   2024-05-19			     NINPATHS(8)

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