NAME

       expire - Usenet article and history expiration program

SYNOPSIS

       expire  [  -d  dir  ]  [ -e ] [ -f file ] [ -g file ] [ -h file ] [ -i ] [ -l ] [ -n ] [ -p ] [ -q ] [ -r
       reason ] [ -s ] [ -t ] [ -v level ] [ -w number ] [ -x ] [ -z file ] [ expire.ctl ]

DESCRIPTION

       Expire scans the history(5) text file /var/lib/news/history and uses the information recorded  in  it  to
       purge old news articles.

OPTIONS

       -d     If  the  ``-d''  flag  is used, then the new history file and database is created in the specified
              directory, dir.  This is useful when the filesystem does not have sufficient space  to  hold  both
              the  old  and  new  history  files.   When  this flag is used, expire leaves the server paused and
              creates a zero-length file named after the new history file, with an  extension  of  ``.done''  to
              indicate that it has successfully completed the expiration.  The calling script should install the
              new history file and un-pause the server.  The ``-r'' flag should be used with this flag.

       -e     If  the  ``-e''  flag is used, then as soon as the first cross posting of the article expires, all
              copies of it are removed.

       -f     To specify an alternate history file, use the ``-f'' flag.

       -g     If the ``-g'' flag is given, then a one-line summary equivalent  to  the  output  of  ``-v1''  and
              preceeded by the current time, will be appended to the specified file.

       -h     To specify an alternate input text history file, use the ``-h'' flag.  Expire uses the old dbz(3z)
              database to determine the size of the new one.

       -i     To ignore the old database, use the ``-i'' flag.

       -l     Expire  normally just unlinks each file if it should be expired.  If the ``-l'' flag is used, then
              all articles after the first one are treated as if they could be symbolic links to the first  one.
              In  this  case,  the  first  article  will  not be removed as long as any other cross-posts of the
              article remain.

       -n     If innd is not running, use the ``-n'' flag and expire will  not  send  the  ``pause''  or  ``go''
              commands.   (For  more  details  on  the  commands,  see ctlinnd(8)).  Note that expire only needs
              exclusive access for a very short time — long enough to see if any new articles arrived  since  it
              first hit the end of the file, and to rename the new files to the working files.

       -p     Expire  makes  its  decisions on the time the article arrived, as found in the history file.  This
              means articles are often kept a little longer than with other expiration programs that base  their
              decisions on the article's posting date.  To use the article's posting date, use the ``-p'' flag.

       -q     Expire normally complains about articles that are posted to newsgroups not mentioned in the active
              file.  To suppress this action, use the ``-q'' flag.

       -r     Expire  normally  sends  a  ``pause''  command to the local innd(8) daemon when it needs exclusive
              access to the history file, using the string ``Expiring'' as the  reason.   To  give  a  different
              reason,  use  the  ``-r''  flag.   The  process ID will be appended to the reason.  When expire is
              finished and the new history file is ready, it sends a ``go'' command.

       -s     If the ``-s'' flag is used, then expire will print a summary when it exits showing the approximate
              number of kilobytes used by all deleted articles.

       -t     If the ``-t'' flag is used, then expire will generate a list of the files that should  be  removed
              on  its  standard output, and the new history file will be left in history.n and history.n.dir and
              history.n.pag.  This flag be useful for debugging when used with  the  ``-n''  and  ``-s''  flags.
              Note  that if the ``-f'' flag is used, then the name specified with that flag will be used instead
              of history.

       -v     The ``-v'' flag is used to increase the verbosity of the program, generating messages to  standard
              output.  The level should be a number, where higher numbers result in more output.  Level one will
              print  totals  of the various actions done (not valid if a new history file is not written), level
              two will print report on each individual file, while level five results in more than one  line  of
              output for every line processed.

       -w     Use  the  ``-w'' flag to ``warp'' time so that expire thinks it is running at some time other then
              the current time.  The value should be a signed floating point number of the number of days to use
              as the offset.

       -x     If the ``-x'' flag is used, then expire will not create any  new  history  files.   This  is  most
              useful  when  combined  with  the ``-n'', ``-s'', and ``-t'' flags to see how different expiration
              policies would change the amount of disk space used.

       -z     If the ``-z'' flag is used, then articles are not removed, but their names  are  appended  to  the
              specified file.  See the description of expirerm in news.daily(8).

       If  a  filename  is  specified,  it  is  taken  as  the control file and parsed according to the rules in
       expire.ctl(5).  A single dash (``-'') may be used to read the file from standard input.  If  no  file  is
       specified, the file /etc/news/expire.ctl is read.

HISTORY

       Written by Rich $alz <rsalz@uunet.uu.net> for InterNetNews.  This is revision 1.19, dated 1996/10/29.

SEE ALSO

       ctlinnd(8), dbz(3z), expire.ctl(5), history(5), innd(8), inndcomm(3).

                                                                                                       EXPIRE(8)