Provided by: inn2_2.6.0-2_amd64 bug

NAME

       mailpost - Feed an e-mail message into a newsgroup

SYNOPSIS

       mailpost [-hn] [-a addr] [-b database] [-c wait-time] [-d distribution] [-f addr] [-m
       mailing-list] [-o output-command] [-p port] [-r addr] [-t tempdir] [-x header[:header...]]
       newsgroups

DESCRIPTION

       The mailpost program reads a properly formatted e-mail message from stdin and feeds it to
       inews for posting to a news server.  newsgroups is a whitespace-separated list of group
       names to which to post the article (at least one newsgroup must be specified).

       Before feeding the article to inews, it checks that the article has not been seen before,
       and it changes some headers (cleans up some address headers, removes X-Trace: and
       X-Complaints-To:, and puts "X-" in front of unknown headers).

       If the article has been seen before (mailpost records the Message-ID of each article it
       handles), then the article will be dropped with a non-zero error status.  Other errors
       will cause the article to be mailed to the newsmaster (selected at configure time and
       defaulting to "usenet").

       Normally, mailpost is run by sendmail(8) via an alias entry:

           local-mail-wreck-bikes: "|<pathbin in inn.conf>/mailpost
               -b /var/tmp -t /var/tmp -d local local.mail.rec.bicycles.racing"

       The -b and -t flags are useful to change the directories used by mailpost by default.  As
       a matter of fact, though it is recommended to run mailpost as the news user, it is as
       often as not run as another user, for instance the mail user.  Therefore, you should make
       sure to create and set to be writable by the user that mailpost runs as the directories
       where to put the database and the temporary files.

       Instead of /var/tmp, the mail spool directory can be specified, or any other directory
       where the mailpost process has write access.

OPTIONS

       -a addr
           If the -a flag is used, the value given is added to the article as an Approved:
           header.

       -b database
           If the -b flag is used, then it defines the location of the persistent database used
           to store the Message-IDs of articles sent on.  This is to prevent articles looping
           around if a news-to-mail gateway sends them back here.  This option may be required if
           the mailpost process does not have write access to the news database directory.  The
           default value is pathdb as set in inn.conf.

       -c wait-time
           The -c flag indicates a length of time to sleep before posting.  If duplicate messages
           are received in this interval (by any instance of mailpost using the same database),
           the article is only posted once, but with Newsgroups: header modified to crosspost the
           article to all indicated groups.  The units for wait-time are seconds; a reasonable
           value may be anywhere from tens to hundreds of seconds, or even higher, depending on
           how long mail can be delayed on its way to your system.

       -d distribution
           If the -d flag is used, the value given is added to the article as a Distribution:
           header.

       -f addr
           The -f flag is a synonym for the -r flag.

       -h  Print usage information and exit.

       -m mailing-list
           If the -m flag is used, the value given is added to the article in a Mailing-List:
           header, if such a header doesn't already exist.

       -n  If the -n flag is used, neither an article is posted nor a mail is sent in case an
           error occurs.  Everything is written to the standard output.

       -o output-command
           Specifies the program to which the resulting article processed by mailpost should be
           sent.  For debugging purpose, "-o cat" can be used.  The default value is "inews -S
           -h".

       -p port
           Specifies the port on which nnrpd is listening, used for article posting.  If given,
           -p is passed along to inews.

       -r addr
           A heuristic is used to determine a reasonable value for the Path: header.  The -r flag
           indicates what to use if no other value can be determined.

       -t tempdir
           If the -t flag is used, then it defines the location of the directory to use to
           temporarily store error messages that are sent to the newsmaster.  This option may be
           required if the default value refers to a path that does not exist or the mailpost
           process does not have write access to.  Two paths are tried by default:  pathtmp as
           set in inn.conf, and then /var/tmp if pathtmp is not writable.

       -x header[:header...]
           A colon-separated list of additional headers which should be treated as known headers;
           these headers will be passed through to inews without having "X-" prepended.

           Known headers are:

               Approved
               Content-*
               Date
               Distribution
               From
               Mailing-List
               Message-ID
               MIME-*
               References
               Return-Path
               Sender
               Subject

FILES

       pathbin/mailpost
           The Perl script itself used to feed an e-mail message to a newsgroup.

       pathdb/mailpost-msgid.dir and pathdb/mailpost-msgid.pag
           The default database files which record previously seen Message-IDs.

HISTORY

       Written by Paul Vixie long ago and then hacked up by James Brister for INN integration.

       $Id: mailpost.in 9830 2015-04-23 18:56:28Z iulius $

SEE ALSO

       active(5), inews(1), inn.conf(5), nnrpd(8), uwildmat(3).