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RNEWS(1)		   InterNetNews Documentation			RNEWS(1)

NAME
     rnews - Inject individual articles and UUCP batches

SYNOPSIS
     rnews [-abdNUv] [-h host] [-P port] [-rS server] [file]

DESCRIPTION
     rnews injects either individual articles or UUCP-style article batches into
     a	local or remote news server.  It submits articles via IHAVE and is suit-
     able for injecting articles received from	other  sources;  local	postings
     should  generally use inews(1) instead.  It is also used to process spooled
     messages created by, for example, nnrpd while innd is not available.

     If authentication credentials are present for  the  remote  server  in  the
     passwd.nntp file in pathetc, then rnews will use them to authenticate.

     The message is read from file if given, spooled files (with the -U flag) or
     standard  input if no file is given.  Articles are sent to the server given
     in the -r or -S command line options if given, otherwise to the server  set
     via  nnrpdposthost in inn.conf, otherwise to the local server at 127.0.0.1,
     and finally to the server set via server in inn.conf.

     When sent over UUCP, Usenet articles are typically collected  in  a  single
     batch  to	reduce the UUCP overhead.  Batches can also be compressed to re-
     duce communication time.  If the input to rnews does  not	begin  with  the
     characters  "#!",	it  is taken to be a single news article; otherwise, the
     first line of the input is interpreted as a batch command.

     If the batch command is:

	 #! rnews <number>

     then the next <number> bytes (starting with the next line) are  read  as  a
     news  article.   After  that  article  is processed, the next line is again
     treated as a batch command.

     If the command is:

	 #! cunbatch

     then the rest of the input is fed to "gzip -d" to uncompress it,  and  then
     the resulting uncompressed output is re-read as if it were the original in-
     put to rnews.  A compressed batch should therefore start with this line and
     contain  a  batch	of  articles separated by "#! rnews" lines and then com-
     pressed with compress(1).	(Batches compressed with gzip(1) should  instead
     use  "gunbatch"  as  the batch command; INN just uses gzip rather than com-
     press because it can handle compress-style compression but is  more  widely
     available, due to old patent issues, than compress.)

     Otherwise,  if  the command is any other word and the -a flag is not given,
     rnews will try to execute a program with that name, looking for it  in  the
     directory pathbin/rnews.libexec.  The rest of the batch will be fed to that
     program's	standard input, and the standard output from the program will be
     treated as if it were the original input to rnews.  INN  comes  with  three
     such standard batch processors:

     bunbatch
       It invokes bzip2 and should be used for batches compressed with bzip2.

     c7unbatch
       It  undoes  an  ASCII  encoding to recover the original binary compressed
       stream and then decompresses it as explained above.

     gunbatch
       It invokes gzip and should be used for batches compressed with gzip.

OPTIONS
     -a  By default, rnews looks for additional unpackers in  the  rnews.libexec
	 sub-directory	of pathbin (as set in inn.conf).  If -a is given, no ad-
	 ditional batch processor will be used; only "rnews" and "cunbatch" will
	 be recognized as valid batch commands.

     -b  By default, rnews will log and discard any articles that  are	rejected
	 by  the  server or cannot be parsed by rnews for some reason (such as a
	 missing header field).  If -b is given, rejected articles will also  be
	 backed  up  in  the  bad  sub-directory  of  pathincoming  (as  set  in
	 inn.conf).

     -d  If -d is given, rnews will log via syslog the message-ID and  the  Path
	 header  field	body  of  each	article  rejected  as a duplicate by the
	 server.

     -h host
	 If -h is given, rnews will log the message ID and host via  syslog  for
	 each article that it offers to the server.  This is used in conjunction
	 with  a  UUCP feed to get a log of the messages received via that feed.
	 This will also be done if the environment variable UU_MACHINE	is  set,
	 but  will only be done if host is not an empty string.  (You can there-
	 fore turn off logging even if UU_MACHINE will be  set	by  passing  the
	 flag "-h ''" to rnews.)

     -N  Normally,  if	unpacking  the	input  batch  fails, it is re-spooled to
	 pathincoming for another attempt later.  If the -N flag  is  given,  no
	 such  re-spooling  is done and rnews will instead exit with status 9 if
	 unpacking fails.

     -P port
	 Use port as the server port to connect to rather than nnrpdpostport (as
	 set in inn.conf).  Note that this value is only used if rnews does  not
	 connect  to the local server (in other words, when -r or -S is given or
	 nnrpdposthost is set).

     -r server, -S server
	 -r and -S are synonymous.  If either is given, articles will be sent to
	 server rather than using the local server, overriding also the  setting
	 of nnrpdposthost in inn.conf.

     -U  If  the  server is not available, both rnews and nnrpd will spool posts
	 to new files in the pathincoming directory (as specified in  inn.conf).
	 When  rnews  is invoked with the -U option, it scans that directory and
	 processes all spooled messages found there whose filenames do not begin
	 with ".", attempting to send them to the server  again.   It's  a  good
	 idea  to  run	this  periodically  out  of cron to pick up any articles
	 spooled due to temporary server unavailability.

     -v  Enable verbose mode, with more traces, notably logging the  reason  why
	 articles are rejected by the server.

BUGS
     rnews  cannot  process articles that have embedded null characters in them.
     (Neither can the rest of INN at present.)

HISTORY
     Written by Rich $alz <rsalz@uunet.uu.net> for InterNetNews.   Rewritten  in
     POD by Russ Allbery <eagle@eyrie.org>.

SEE ALSO
     bzip2(1),	compress(1),  gzip(1), inews(1), inn.conf(5), innd(8), nnrpd(8),
     passwd.nntp(5).

INN 2.8.0			   2024-02-11				RNEWS(1)

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