NAME

       control.ctl - specify handling of Usenet control messages

DESCRIPTION

       The  file  /etc/news/control.ctl  is used to determine what action is taken when a control
       message is received.  It is read by the parsecontrol script, which is called  by  all  the
       control  scripts.   (For  an  explanation  of  how  the  control  scripts are invoked, see
       innd(8).)

       The file consists of a series of lines; blank lines and lines beginning with a number sign
       (``#'') are ignored.  All other lines consist of four fields separated by a colon:
              message:from:newsgroups:action

       The  first  field  is  the name of the message for which this line is valid.  It should be
       either the name of the control message, or the word ``all'' to mean that it is  valid  for
       all messages.

       The  second  field  is  a shell-style pattern that matches the email address of the person
       posting the message.  (The  poster's  address  is  first  converted  to  lowercase.)   The
       matching is done using the shell's case statement; see sh (1) for details.

       If  the  control message is ``newgroup'' or ``rmgroup'' then the third field specifies the
       shell-style pattern that must match the group being created or removed.   If  the  control
       message is of a different type, then this field is ignored.

       The  fourth  field specifies what action to take if this line is selected for the message.
       The following actions are understood:

       doit   The action requested by the control message should be performed.  In most cases the
              control script will also send mail to usenet.

       doifarg
              If  the  control message has an argument, this is treated as a ``doit'' action.  If
              no argument was given, it is  treated  as  a  ``mail''  entry.   This  is  used  in
              ``sendsys'' entries script so that a site can request its own newsfeeds(5) entry by
              posting a ``sendsys mysite'' article.  On the other  hand,  sendsys  ``bombs''  ask
              that  the  entire  newsfeeds  file  be  sent to a forged reply-to address; by using
              ``doifarg'' such messages will not be processed automatically.

       doit=file
              The action is performed, but a log entry is written  to  the  specified  log  file,
              file.   If  file  is the word ``mail'' then the record is mailed.  A null string is
              equivalent to /dev/null.  A pathname that starts with  a  slash  is  taken  as  the
              absolute  filename  to  use  as  the  log.   All  other  pathnames  are  written to
              /var/log/news/file.log.  The log is written by writelog (see newslog(8)).

       drop   No action is taken; the message is ignored.

       log    A one-line log notice is sent to standard error.  Innd normally directs this to the
              file /var/log/news/errlog.

       log=file
              A  log  entry  is  written to the specified log file, file, which is interpreted as
              described above.

       mail   A mail message is sent to the news administrator.

       Lines are matched in order; the last match found in the file is the one that is used.  For
       example, with the following three lines:
              newgroup:*:*:drop
              newgroup:tale@*.uu.net:comp.*|misc.*|news.*|rec.*|sci.*|soc.*|talk.*:doit
              newgroup:kre@munnari.oz.au:aus.*:mail
       A  newgroup  coming  from  ``tale''  at  a  UUNET  machine will be honored if it is in the
       mainstream Usenet hierarchy.  If ``kre'' posts a newgroup  message  creating  ``aus.foo'',
       then mail will be sent.  All other newgroup messages are ignored.

HISTORY

       Written  by  Rich $alz <rsalz@uunet.uu.net> for InterNetNews.  This is revision 1.8, dated
       1996/09/06.

SEE ALSO

       innd(8), newsfeeds(5), scanlogs(8).

                                                                                   CONTROL.CTL(5)