NAME

       news.daily - do regular Usenet system administration

SYNOPSIS

       news.daily [ keyword...  ]

DESCRIPTION

       News.daily  performs  a  number  of important Usenet administrative functions.  This includes producing a
       status report, removing old news articles,  processing  log  files,  rotating  the  archived  log  files,
       renumbering  the  active  file,  removing  any  old socket files found in the ``firewall'' directory, and
       collecting the output.  This program should be run under the news administrator's id, not as root.

       By default, news.daily performs all of its functions and mails the  output  to  the  news  administrator,
       usenet.   By  specifying  ``keywords''  on  the  command  line,  it  is  possible to modify the functions
       performed, as well as change the arguments given to expire(8) and expireover(8).

       News.daily should be run once a day, typically out of cron(8).  It  may  be  run  more  often,  but  such
       invocations  should  at  least use the ``notdaily'' keyword to prevent the log files from being processed
       and rotated too fast.

       The shlock(1) program is used to prevent simultaneous executions.

KEYWORDS

       The following keywords may be used:

       delayrm
              This uses the ``-z'' flag when invoking expire and  expireover.   The  names  of  articles  to  be
              removed are written to a temporary file, and then removed after expiration by calling expirerm(8).

       expctl=path
              Specify the file to use as the expire.ctl(5) file for expire.

       expdir=path
              By  default,  expire  builds  the  new  history(5)  file and database in the same directory as the
              current files.  Using this keyword specifies a different local to build the new files (by  passing
              the ''-d'' flag to expire), which will then be moved to the right location when finished.

       nostat This  keyword  disables  the  status  report  generated by innstat (see newslog(8)).  Without this
              keyword, the status report is the first function performed, just prior to obtaining the news.daily
              lock.

       notdaily
              By default news.daily expects to be run only once  a  day.   Use  this  keyword  any  extra  times
              news.daily is run in the day and the normal logfile processing (and rotation) will not be done.

       noexpire
              By  default,  expire  is  invoked  to  remove old news articles.  Using this keyword disables this
              function.

       noexplog
              Expire normally appends information to  /var/log/news/expire.log  (see  newslog(5)).   Using  this
              keyword  causes  the expire output to be handled as part of news.daily's output.  It has no effect
              if the ``noexpire'' keyword is used.

       flags='expire args'
              By default, expire is invoked with the an argument of ``-v1''.  Using  this  keyword  changes  the
              arguments  to  those  specified.  Be careful to use quotes if multiple arguments are needed.  This
              keyword has no effect if the ``noexpire'' keyword is used.

       nologs After expiration, scanlogs(8) is invoked to process the log files.  Using  this  keyword  disables
              all log processing functions.

       norotate
              By  default,  log  processing  includes  rotating  and cleaning out log files.  Using this keyword
              disables the rotating and cleaning aspect of the log processing: the logs files are  only  scanned
              for information and no contents are altered.

              This  keyword has no effect if the ``nologs'' keyword is used.  The ``norotate'' keyword is passed
              on to scanlogs if it is invoked.

       norenumber
              This keyword disables the ctlinnd(8) renumber operation.  Normally, the  low-water  mark  for  all
              newsgroups (see active(5)) is reset.

       norm   By  default,  any  socket  ctlinnd socket that has not been modified for two days will be removed.
              Using this keyword disables this function.

       nomail News.daily normally sends a mail message containing the results to the administrator.  Using  this
              keyword  causes  this  message  to  be sent to stdout and stderr instead.  Normally, all utilities
              invoked by the script have their stdout and stderr redirected into a file.  If the file is  empty,
              no message is sent.

       expireover
              The expireover program is called after expiration to purge the overview databases.

       expireoverflags='expireover args'
              If  the ``expireover'' keyword is used, this keyword may be used to specify the flags to be passed
              to expireover.  If the ``delayrm'' keyword is used, then the default value is ``-z'' and the  list
              of deleted files; otherwise, the default value is ``-s''.

       /full/path
              The program specified by the given path is executed just before any expiration is done.  A typical
              use  is  to  specify  an  alternate expiration program and use the ``noexpire'' keyword.  Multiple
              programs may be specified; they will be invoked in order.

HISTORY

       News.daily  and  this  manual  page  written  by  Landon  Curt  Noll  <chongo@toad.com>  and  Rich   $alz
       <rsalz@uunet.uu.net>.  This is revision 1.11, dated 1996/12/10.

SEE ALSO

       active(5), ctlinnd(8), expire(8), fastrm(8), newslog(5), newslog(8), innwatch.ctl(5), shlock(1).

                                                                                                   NEWS.DAILY(8)