NAME

       active, active.times - list of active Usenet newsgroups

DESCRIPTION

       The  file  /var/lib/news/active lists the newsgroups that the local site receives.  Each newsgroup should
       be listed only once.  Each line specifies one group; their order in the file  does  not  matter.   Within
       each newsgroup, articles are assigned unique names, which are monotonically increasing numbers.

       If  an  article  is posted to newsgroups not mentioned in this file, those newsgroups are ignored.  If no
       valid newsgroups are specified, the article is filed into the newsgroup ``junk'' and only  propagated  to
       sites that receive the ``junk'' newsgroup.

       Each line consists of four fields specified by a space:

                      name himark lomark flags

       The  first  field  is the name of the newsgroup.  The second field is the highest article number that has
       been used in that newsgroup.  The third field is the lowest article number in the group; this  number  is
       not  guaranteed  to  be  accurate,  and  should only be taken to be a hint.  Note that because of article
       cancellations, there may be gaps in the numbering sequence.  If the lowest article number is greater then
       the highest article number, then there are no articles in the newsgroup.  In order to make it possible to
       update an entry in-place without rewriting the entire file, the second and third fields  are  padded  out
       with leading zeros to make them a fixed width.

       The fourth field can contain one of the following flags:

              y        Local postings are allowed
              n        No local postings are allowed, only remote ones
              m        The group is moderated and all postings must be approved
              j        Articles in this group are not kept, but only passed on
              x        Articles cannot be posted to this newsgroup
              =foo.bar Articles are locally filed into the ``foo.bar'' group

       If  a newsgroup has the ``j'' flag, then no articles will be filed into that newsgroup and local postings
       to that group should not be generated.  If an article for such a newsgroup  is  received  from  a  remote
       site, it will be filed into the ``junk'' newsgroup if it is not cross-posted.  This is different from not
       having  a  newsgroup  listed  in the file because sites can subscribe to ``j'' newsgroups and the article
       will be propagated to them.

       If the fourth field of a newsgroup starts with an equal sign, then the newsgroup is an  alias.   Articles
       can be posted to the group, but will be treated as if they were posted to the group named after the equal
       sign.   The  second  and third fields are ignored.  Note that the Newsgroup header is not modified (Alias
       groups are typically used during a transition, and are typically  created  with  ctlinnd(8)).   An  alias
       newsgroup should not point to another alias.

       The file /var/lib/news/active.times provides a chronological record of when newsgroups are created.  This
       file  is  normally updated by innd(8) whenever a ctlinnd ``newgroup'' command is done.  Each line consist
       of three fields:

              name time creator

       The first field is the name of the newsgroup.  The second field is the time it was created, expressed  as
       the  number  of  seconds  since  the epoch — i.e., a time_t; see gettimeofday(2).  The third field is the
       electronic mail address of the person who created the group.

HISTORY

       Written by Rich $alz <rsalz@uunet.uu.net> for InterNetNews.  This is revision 1.13, dated 1996/10/29.

SEE ALSO

       ctlinnd(8), innd(8).

                                                                                                       ACTIVE(5)