NAME

       snfetch - fetch articles.

SYNOPSIS

       snfetch [-r] [-t timeout] [-c depth] group [serial [max]]

DESCRIPTION

       snfetch  expects  to  read  NNTP  from  file  descriptor  6,  and  write NNTP to file descriptor 7, which
       descriptors must have already been open.  Articles retrieved are written to descriptor 1.   Each  article
       displayed  is separated from the next by a dot on a line by itself.  These articles are NNTP safe, in the
       sense that double-dot unquoting is not done, and all lines end in CR-LF.  snfetch expects to  begin  it's
       NNTP speech by giving the GROUP command.  The upstream server's greeting must have already been read some
       other way.  Likewise, when snfetch is done, it will not send a QUIT command.

       The output is suitable for feeding to snstore.

       snfetch always checks the article ID of the prospective article before retrieving it.  If the ID  already
       exists in the ID database, the article will not be retrieved.  Note that this does not guarantee that all
       articles retrieved will be unique.

       snfetch does not guarantee to leave the NNTP conversation in a decent state (there might be more data  to
       read, but snfetch aborted part way).

       You will need to be root or own /var/spool/sn in order to run this program.

       It  is  not  safe  to  direct  the  output  of  several snfetches to the same pipe descriptor, but a file
       descriptor is all right.

OPTIONS

       -t timeout
              snfetch will wait only timeout seconds (default 180) for data before  giving  up,  if  the  server
              doesn't respond.

       -r     Output in news batch format instead.  All articles will take the #! rnews form only, even if there
              is just one article, all lines end in bare linefeed, and dot-unquoting is performed.

       -c depth
              Employ a command pipeline of depth depth.  NNTP command pipelining is not  officially  sanctioned,
              so  by  default  no  pipeline  is  used.   However,  a  pipeline  with a depth greater than 0 will
              substantally reduce transaction latency if the server accepts it.  A respectable value  for  depth
              might be between 1 and 5.

ARGUMENTS

       snfetch  takes  the name of a single newsgroup on its command line.  If serial is given, this is taken to
       be the first article number on group on the server to fetch.  If max is specified, this is  taken  to  be
       the maximum number of articles to fetch.  The first article retrieved may be after serial if max would be
       violated.  If max is not specified, there is no limit.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

       SNROOT If this is set and is not empty, the value is used in place of  /var/spool/sn,  the  default  news
              spool directory.

FILES

       /var/spool/sn/newsgroup/.serial
              If   serial   is   not   specified,   the   starting   serial   number  is  taken  from  the  file
              /var/spool/sn/newsgroup/.serial.  This defaults to 0 if the file can't be read.

       /var/spool/sn/newsgroup/.serial.tmp
              If snfetch exits with success (0), the new serial is written into this file.   The  original  file
              /var/spool/sn/newsgroup/.serial is readonly by snfetch.

       /var/spool/sn/newsgroup/.max
              If  max  is  not specified on the command line, max is read from this file.  If the file cannot be
              read or does not exist, there is no limit.

EXIT CODES

       snfetch exits 1 on usage error, 2 on system failure, 3 on protocol error, 4 on read  timeout,  and  0  on
       success.

SEE ALSO

       snstore (8), snget (8)