Ubuntu Manpage: innd, inndstart - InterNetNews daemon

NAME

       innd, inndstart - InterNetNews daemon

SYNOPSIS

       innd  [ -a ] [ -c days ] [ -d ] [ -f ] [ -i count ] [ -o count ] [ -l size ] [ -m mode ] [
       -n flag ] [ -p port ] [ -r ] [ -s ] [ -S host ] [ -t timeout ] [ -u ] [ -x ] [ -L ] [ -N ]
       [ -H count ] [ -T count ] [ -X seconds ]

       inndstart [ flags ]

DESCRIPTION

       Innd,  the  InterNetNews daemon, handles all incoming NNTP feeds.  It reads the active(5),
       newsfeeds(5), and hosts.nntp(5) files into memory.  It then opens the NNTP port to receive
       articles from remote sites (see the ``-p'' option), a Unix-domain stream socket to receive
       articles from local processes such as nnrpd(8) and rnews(1), and  a  Unix-domain  datagram
       socket  for  use  by  ctlinnd(8) to direct the server to perform certain actions.  It also
       opens the history(5) database and two  log  files  to  replace  its  standard  output  and
       standard error.

       Once  the  files  and  sockets have been opened, innd waits for connections and data to be
       ready on its ports by using select(2) and non-blocking I/O.  If no data is available, then
       it  will  flush  its  in-core  data  structures.  The default number of seconds to timeout
       before flushing is 300 seconds.

       If innd gets an NOSPC error (see intro(2)) while trying  to  write  the  active  file,  an
       article  file,  or the history database, it will send itself a ``throttle'' command.  This
       will also happen if it gets too many I/O errors while writing to any files.

       Any sub-processes spawned by the server will get a nice(2) value of 10.

OPTIONS

-p If the ``-p'' flag is used, then the NNTP port is assumed to be open on the
specified descriptor. (If this flag is used, then innd assumes it is running with
the proper permissions and it will not call chown(2) on any files or directories it
creates.)

-t Change the timeout period before flushing to timeoutseconds.

-i To limit the number of incoming NNTP connections, use the ``-i'' flag. A value of
zero will suppress this check. The default is 50.

-o To limit the number of files that will be kept open for outgoing file feeds, use
the ``-o'' flag. The default is the number of available descriptors minus some
reserved for internal use.

-l To limit the size of an article, use the ``-l'' flag. If this flag is used, then
any article bigger than size bytes will be rejected. The default is no checking,
which can also be obtained by using a value of zero.

-c Innd rejects articles that are too old. While this behavior can be controlled by
the history database, occasionally a site dumps a batch of very old news back onto
the network. Use the ``-c'' flag to specify a cutoff. For example ``-c21'' will
reject any articles that were posted more than 21 days ago. A value of zero will
suppress this check. The default is 14 days.

-d -f Innd normally puts itself into the background, sets its standard output and error
to log files, and disassociates itself from the terminal. Using the ``-d'' flag
instructs the server to not do this, while using the ``-f'' flag just leaves the
server running the foreground.

-u The logs are normally buffered; use the ``-u'' flag to have them unbuffered.

-m To start the server in a paused or throttled state (see ctlinnd(8)) use the ``-m''
flag to set the initial running mode. The argument should start with a single
letter g, p, or t, to emulate the ``go,'' ``pause,'' or ``throttle'' commands,
respectively.

-r If the ``-r'' flag is used, the server will renumber the active file as if a
``renumber'' command were sent.

-s If the ``-s'' flag is used, then innd will not do any work but will instead just
check the syntax of the newsfeeds file. It will exit with an error status if there
are any errors; the actual errors will be reported in syslog(3).

-n The ``-n'' flag specifies whether or not pausing or throttling the server should
also disable future newsreading processes. A value of ``y'' will make newreaders
act as the server, a value of ``n'' will allow newsreading even when the server is
not running. The default is to allow reading.

-S If the ``-S'' flag is used, then innd will run in ``slave'' mode. When running as
a slave, the server will only accept articles from the specified host, which must
use the ``xreplic'' protocol extension described below. Note that the host must
either appear in the hosts.nntp file, or the server must be started with the ``-a''
flag.

-a By default, if a host if not mentioned in the hosts.nntp file, then the connection
is handed off to nnrpd. If the ``-a'' flag is used, then any host can connect and
transfer articles.

-L If the ``-L'' flag is used, then innd will not create the links for cross posted
articles. A feed only type of site could use this option to improve performance.
Or it can be combined with a channel feed to the crosspost(8) program to move the
delay associated with creating the links out of the innd processing loop.

-C If the ``-C'' flag is used, then innd will accept and propagate but not actually
process cancel or supercedes messages. This is intended for sites concerned about
abuse of cancels and wish to use another cancel mechanism with greater
authentication.

-H -T -X
The ``-H'', ``-T'', and ``-X'' flags control the number of connects per minute
allowed. This code is meant to protect your server from newsreader clients that
make too many connects per minute to your server. You should probably not use it
unless you are having a problem. The table used for these checks is fixed at 128
entries and is used as a ring. The size was chosen to make calculating the index
easy and to be pretty sure you won't run out of space. In practice, it is doubtful
that you will use even half the table at any given moment.

The ``-H'' flag limits the number of times a host is allowed to connect to the
server per ``-X'' seconds. The default is 2.

The ``-T'' flag limits the total number of incoming connects to innd per ``-X''
seconds. The maximum value is 128. The default is 60.

The ``-X'' sets the number of seconds used by the ``-H'' and ``-T'' flags. A value
of zero turns off checking. The default is 0.

Inndstart is a small front-end program that opens the NNTP port, sets its userid and
groupid to the news maintainer, and then execs innd with the ``-p'' flag and a minimal
secure, environment. This is a small, easily-understood front-end program that can be
used if a site does not want to run innd with root privileges.

CONTROL MESSAGES

Arriving articles that have a Control header or have a Subject header that starts with the
five characters ``cmsg '' are called control messages. Except for the cancel message,
these messages are implemented by external programs in the /usr/lib/news/control
directory. (Cancel messages update the history database, so they must be handled
internally; the cost of syncing, locking, then unlocking would be too high given the
number of cancel messages that are received.)

When a control message arrives, the first word of the text is converted to lowercase and
used as the name of the program to execute; if the named program does not exist, then a
program named default is executed.

All control programs are invoked with four parameters. The first is the address of the
person who posted the message; this is taken from the Sender header. If that header is
empty, then it is taken from the From header. The second parameter is the address to send
replies to; this is taken from the Reply-To header. If that header is empty then the
poster's address is used. The third parameter will be a name under which the article is
filed, relative to the news spool directory. The fourth parameter is the host that sent
the article, as specified on the Path line.

The distribution of control message is also different from those of standard articles.

Control messages are normally filed in the newsgroup named control. They can be filed in
subgroups, however, based on the control message command. For example, a newgroup message
will be filed in control.newgroup if that group exists, otherwise it will be filed in
control.

Sites may explicitly have the ``control'' newsgroup in their subscription list, although
it is usually best to exclude it. If a control message is posted to a group whose name
ends with the four characters ``.ctl'' then the suffix is stripped off and what is left is
used as the group name. For example, a cancel message posted to ``news.admin.ctl'' will
be sent to all sites that subscribe to ``control'' or ``news.admin.'' Newgroup and
rmgroup messages receive additional special treatment. If the message is approved and
posted to the name of the group being created or removed, then the message will be sent to
all sites whose subscription patterns would cause them to receive articles posted in that
group.

PROTOCOL DIFFERENCES

Innd implements the NNTP commands defined in RFC 977, with the following differences:

1. The ``list'' maybe followed by an optional ``active'', ``active.times'', or
``newsgroups'' argument. This common extension is not fully supported; see
nnrpd(8).

2. The ``authinfo user'' and ``authinfo pass'' commands are implemented. These are
based on the reference Unix implementation; no other documentation is available.

3. A new command, ``mode reader'', is provided. This command will cause the server to
pass the connection on to nnrpd. The command ``mode query'' is intended for future
use, and is currently treated the same way.

4. A new command, ``xreplic news.group/art[,news.group/art]'', is provided. This is
similar to the ``ihave'' command (the same reply codes are used) except for the
data that follows the command word. The data consists of entries separated by a
single comma. Each entry consists of a newsgroup name, a slash, and an article
number. Once processed, the article will be filed in the newsgroup and article
numbers specified in the command.

5. A new command, ``xpath messageid'', is provided. The server responds with a 223
response and a space-separated list of filenames where the article was filed.

6. The only other commands implemented are ``head'', ``help'', ``ihave'', ``quit'',
and ``stat''.

HEADER MODIFICATIONS

       Innd modifies as few article headers as possible, although it  could  be  better  in  this
       area.

       The following headers, if present, are removed:
              Date-Received
              Posted
              Posting-Version
              Received
              Relay-Version
       Empty headers and headers that consist of nothing but whitespace are also dropped.

       The  local  site's  name  (as  determined by the ``pathhost'' value in inn.conf(5)) and an
       exclamation point are prepended to the Path header.

       The Xref header is removed.  If the article is cross-posted a new header is generated.

       The Lines header will be added if it is missing.

       Innd does not rewrite incorrect headers.  For example, it will not  replace  an  incorrect
       Lines header, but will reject the article.

LOGGING

Innd reports all incoming articles in its log file. This is a text file with a variable
number of space-separated fields in one of the following formats:
mon dd hh:mm:ss.mmm + feed <Message-ID> site...
mon dd hh:mm:ss.mmm j feed <Message-ID> site...
mon dd hh:mm:ss.mmm c feed <Message-ID> site...
mon dd hh:mm:ss.mmm - feed <Message-ID> reason...
The first three fields are the date and time to millisecond resolution. The fifth field
is the site that sent the article (based on the Path header) and the sixth field is the
article's Message-ID; they will be a question mark if the information is not available.

The fourth field indicates whether the article was accepted or not. If it is a plus sign,
then the article was accepted. If it is the letter ``j'' then the article was accepted,
but all of newsgroups have an ``j'' in their active field, so the article was filed into
the ``junk'' newsgroup. If the fourth field is the letter ``c'', then a cancel message
was accepted before the original article arrived. In all three cases, the article has
been accepted and the ``site..'' field contains the space-separated list of sites to which
the article is being sent.

If the fourth field is a minus sign, then the article was rejected. The reasons for
rejection include:
"%s" header too long
"%s" wants to cancel <%s> by "%s"
Article exceeds local limit of %s bytes
Article posted in the future -- "%s"
Bad "%s" header
Can't write history
Duplicate
Duplicate "%s" header
EOF in headers
Linecount %s != %s +- %s
Missing %s header
No body
No colon-space in "%s" header
No space
Space before colon in "%s" header
Too old -- "%s"
Unapproved for "%s"
Unwanted newsgroup "%s"
Unwanted distribution "%s"
Whitespace in "Newsgroups" header -- "%s"
Where ``%s'', above, is replaced by more specific information.

Note that if an article is accepted and none of the newsgroups are valid, it will be
logged with two lines, a ``j'' line and a minus sign line.

Innd also makes extensive reports through syslog. The first word of the log message will
be the name of the site if the entry is site-specific (such as a ``connected'' message).
The first word will be ``ME'' if the message relates to the server itself, such as when a
read error occurs.

If the second word is the four letters ``cant'' then an error is being reported. In this
case, the next two words generally name the system call or library routine that failed,
and the object upon which the action was being performed. The rest of the line may
contain other information.

In other cases, the second word attempts to summarize what change has been made, while the
rest of the line gives more specific information. The word ``internal'' generally
indicates an internal logic error.

HISTORY

       Written by Rich $alz <rsalz@uunet.uu.net> for InterNetNews.  This is revision 1.37,  dated
       1996/12/06.