Provided by: sn_0.3.8-10.1build1_amd64 
NAME
snsend - distribute articles
snstore - store articles locally
SYNOPSIS
snsend [-rvcna]
snstore [-rvcna]
DESCRIPTION
snsend reads articles from descriptor 0 and distributes each one into each newsgroup they are posted to,
like inews. snstore does the same but stores them all locally. The input articles are expected to be in
wire format (lines end with CRLF, leading dots are doubled, and articles are terminated with a lone dot).
Control messages are not treated specially.
The newsgroups list is taken from the X-sn-Newsgroups field if it exists; otherwise it is taken from the
Newsgroups field, which must exist or the article will be junked. All fields whose names begin with X-
sn- (case insensitive) are always removed.
If Date or Message-ID are not present, these are created. The local hosts name is prepended to the Path
field.
If an article is to be junked, it is sent to the junk newsgroup if it exists, otherwise it is discarded.
ROUTING
This applies only to snsend. snstore does not route; it treats all news.groups as though they were local
(see Nonexistent newsgroup and Local newsgroup below). If any of the following fails, snsend aborts:
For each news.group an article is (cross-) posted to, snsend routes the article as follows, aborting if
any action fails:
Nonexistent newsgroup
If /var/spool/sn/news.group is not a directory, snsend ignores this news.group. If all
news.groups are thus ignored, the article is junked.
Global newsgroup
If /var/spool/sn/news.group/.outgoing is a (symlink to a) directory, snsend stores the article
into a file in that directory, if the same article does not already exist there (so news.group's
upstream feed doesn't get multiple copies of the same article.) Such in-transit article files are
given names that begin with a $ sign.
Local processing via script
Otherwise if /var/spool/sn/news.group/.outgoing is a regular file, it is taken to be a script or
program and is run with the article available on its input. See /var/spool/sn/dot-outgoing.ex.
Local processing via fifo
Otherwise if /var/spool/sn/news.group/.outgoing is a fifo, the article is written into it. It is
an error if nothing is reading the fifo.
Local newsgroup
Otherwise if /var/spool/sn/news.group/.outgoing does not exist, the article is stored into
news.group.
OPTIONS
Options apply to snsend and snstore equally.
-r The article stream is in rnews batch format, rather than wire format. Only the #! rnews form is
understood.
-c If an article already exists in the local newsgroup it is destined for, don't store it there. For
snsend, this option has no effect on newsgroups that are not local.
-a (Aliases not allowed.) When storing to multiple local newsgroups, do not alias subsequent copies
to the first, instead, make a copy. Aliasing saves disk space, but when the original expires, so
do all aliases to it. This option has no effect on newsgroups that are not local.
-n Don't actually do anything with the article, just dump it back onto descriptor 1.
-v For each article stored in each newsgroup, output a line to descriptor 1 similar to what snscan
would emit, except that for non-local newsgroups the serial number will always be 0.
FILES
/var/spool/sn/news.group.name/
This includes /var/spool/sn/=junk newsgroup if it exists. Each such directory represents the
newsgroup of the same name, and articles are stored in files 1, 2, 3, etc. beneath it. Each such
file contains 1 or more articles. This is contrary to the traditional form of
/var/spool/sn/news/group/name. news.group.name.
/var/spool/sn/news.group/.outgoing
See also ROUTING above. The presence of this directory indicates that news.group is global, and
articles posted to news.group end up here in files named $*. These files are linked in already
complete, so all such files are ready to be uploaded.
/var/spool/sn/news.group/.compress
If this file exists, articles stored in news.group are candidates for compression. The content of
the file is a number representing a minimum article body size below which compression won't be
applied. If the file is empty this threshold defaults to 1024 bytes.
/var/spool/sn/.me
If this file exists, it's contents are taken to be the local hosts name for purposes of the Path
field. Otherwise the name is obtained from gethostname(2).
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
See also /usr/sbin/dot-outgoing.ex for other variables exported when snsend invokes a .outgoing program. SNROOT If this is set, its value is used in place of /var/spool/sn.
EXIT CODES
snsend and snstore exit 0 on success, 1 on usage error, 2 on system error, 3 on article format error, and
9 if /var/spool/sn/news.group/.outgoing (snsend only) exits with other than 0.
SEE ALSO
/usr/sbin/dot-outgoing.ex, snscan(1)