NAME

       makeactive - tool to recover Usenet active file.

SYNOPSIS

       makeactive [ -m ] [ -o ]

DESCRIPTION

       Makeactive  invokes find(1) to get a list of all directories in the news spool tree, /var/spool/news.  It
       discards directories named lost+found as well as those that have a period in them.  It  scans  all  other
       directories for all-numeric filenames and determines the highest and lowest number.  The program's output
       is a set of active(5) file lines.  Because there is no way to know if a group is moderated  or  disabled,
       the  fourth field of all entries will be y.  Also, mid-level directories that aren't newsgroups will also
       created as newsgroups with no entries (for example,  there  is  a  ``comp.sources.unix''  group,  but  no
       ``comp.sources'').

OPTIONS

       -m     If the ``-m'' flag is given, then makeactive will attempt to adjust the highest and lowest article
              numbers wherever possible.  If articles are found in a newsgroup, the numbers  will  reflect  what
              what  was  found.  If no articles are found in a newsgroup, the high number from the old file will
              be kept, and the low number will be set to one more then the high number.  This flag may  only  be
              used if the ``-o'' flag is used.

       -o     If  the  ``-o''  flag  is used, makeactive will read an existing active file for the list of group
              names and just renumber all groups.  It will preserve the fourth field of the active file  if  one
              is  present.  This is analogous to the ctlinnd(8) ``renumber'' command, except that innd(8) should
              throttled or not running.  Do not use this flag with output  redirected  to  the  standard  active
              file!

EXIT STATUS

       Makeactive exits with non-zero status if any problems occurred.

EXAMPLES

       A typical way to use the program is with the following /bin/sh commands:
              ctlinnd throttle "Rebuilding active file"
              TEMP=${TMPDIR-/var/spool/news/in.coming/tmp}/act$$
              if [ -f /var/lib/news/active ] ; then
                  if makeactive -o >${TEMP} ; then
                      mv ${TEMP} /var/lib/news/active
                  fi
              else
                  if makeactive >${TEMP} ; then
                      # Edit to restore moderated
                      # and aliased groups.
                      ...
                      mv ${TEMP} /var/lib/news/active
                  fi
              fi
              ctlinnd reload active "New active file"
              ctlinnd go ''

HISTORY

       Written by Rich $alz <rsalz@uunet.uu.net> for InterNetNews.  This is revision 1.3, dated 1996/10/29.

SEE ALSO

       active(5),   ctlinnd(8),   dbz(3),   filechan(8),   history(5),  innd(8),  newsfeeds(5),  makehistory(8),
       newsrequeue(8).

                                                                                                   MAKEACTIVE(8)