Provided by: leafnode_1.12.0-2_amd64 bug

NAME

       leafnode - NNTP server for small (dialup) sites

SYNOPSIS

       leafnode

DESCRIPTION

       Leafnode  is  a  USENET  package  intended  for small sites, where there are few users and
       little disk space, but where a large number of groups is desired.

       The design of leafnode is intended to self-repair after problems, and to require no manual
       maintenance.

       The leafnode program itself is the NNTP server.  It is run from inetd(8) or xinetd(8) when
       someone wants to read news.  The other parts of the package, fetchnews  and  texpire,  are
       responsible for fetching new news from another server, and for deleting old news.

ACCESS CONTROL

       No  authentication  or  access  control  is  supported.   This  is  a deliberate omission:
       Implementing this is a job which should not be redone for each and every service.

       It is mandatory that you use external access control mechanisms  like  tcpd,  inetd/xinetd
       compiled  with libwrap support option and the like and that these are in effect.  tcpd and
       libwrap are components of Wietse Venema's fine tcp_wrappers package.

       As a very rough last line of defense against abuse, leafnode will  drop  connections  from
       outside  your  LANs  by  default. You can configure leafnode to let go of this restriction
       (look for the allowstrangers option), but do not do that unless tight access control is in
       place.  Someone will abuse your computer sooner or later. Promised.

       I recommend that either firewalling or tcpd be used for access control.

FILES

       All  these  files  and  directories must be readable by the user "news". It is recommended
       that, unless otherwise stated, that the user "news" be the only user in the  group  "news"
       and  these  files  belong  to  "root:news"  (user:group)  so  leafnode  cannot modify your
       configuration or filter files.

       /etc/news/leafnode should not be writable by the user "news", but it  must  be  executable
       for  at  least  any  of  the  group that the user "news" is in.  /etc/news/leafnode/config
       contains the configuration parameters for leafnode.  It must not be writable by  the  user
       "news". Set this to owner root:news and mode 640. For details, see CONFIGURATION below.

       /var/spool/news  must  also  be readable and writable by the user "news".  It contains the
       news  articles;  e.g.,  /var/spool/news/alt/fan/agulbra  contains  the  articles  in   the
       alt.fan.agulbra  group.   Each  directory  contains  articles  in  numbered files (decimal
       numbers, monotonically increasing), and a special file called .overview which contains the
       "Subject",  "From",  "Date",  "Message-ID",  "References", "Bytes" and "Lines" headers for
       each article in the group.

       Several subdirectories are special:

       /var/spool/news/leaf.node contains the files that leafnode creates during  operation,  for
       example  the  groupinfo  file which contains information about each USENET newsgroup. This
       file is built by fetchnews (8). You can force a complete rebuild of the groupinfo file  by
       calling fetchnews with the parameter -f (see fetchnews (8)).

       /var/spool/news/out.going  contains  local  postings  that  fetchnews(8) is to pass to the
       upstream NNTP server. After a posting has been  successfully  written  to  disk,  its  u+r
       permission  flag  is  set.  This flag is interpreted by fetchnews(8) as "you may post this
       article". This prevents fetchnews from posting articles that are still being received from
       newsreaders.  (Note:  versions 1.9.23 to 1.9.32 inclusively used u+x instead, which caused
       some "stuck post" problems with articles in the spool when a prior  leafnode  version  was
       updated  to  one  of  these  10  versions.  Updating to leafnode 1.9.33 or later fixes the
       problem.)

       /var/spool/news/failed.postings contains local postings that the upstream server rejected.
       fetchnews(8)  will  create files in this directory, but none of the leafnode programs will
       delete anything in it.

       /var/spool/news/message.id contains hard links to each message; this is used in  place  of
       the  dbz database typically used by bigger servers.  (A directory such as this is probably
       more efficient for the small servers leafnode is designed for but scales very badly.)

       /var/spool/news/interesting.groups contains one file for each group  an  NNTP  client  has
       asked to read.  leafnode will update the ctime (ls -l usually shows the mtime, try ls -lc)
       of the relevant file when a LISTGROUP, XOVER, XHDR, STAT, HEAD, BODY or ARTICLE command is
       issued, when a GROUP or LIST ACTIVE command (the latter only with a single group, not with
       patterns) is issued for an interesting group (to avoid  unsubscribing  low-traffic  groups
       that  are  still read) and fetchnews(8) will retrieve all new articles in all groups whose
       files have been either

              - touched during the past two days, or

              - touched more than once, and at least once within the past week.

       The  timeout  is  configurable  through  the  config  file  variables  timeout_short   and
       timeout_long. See also fetchnews(8) for the -n option.

       /etc/inetd.conf  or /etc/xinetd.conf contains the configuration which starts leafnode.  It
       is strongly recommended to start leafnode as user news.

ENVIRONMENT

       LN_REJECT_POST_PRE
              If this variable exists, all POST commands are rejected with a 400 code.  Use  only
              for debugging clients.

       LN_REJECT_POST_POST
              If  this  variable  exists,  the POST command is rejected with a 400 code after the
              article and CRLF.CRLF has been received. Use only for debugging clients.

CONFIGURATION

       All configuration is done using the file /etc/news/leafnode/config, which  may  include  a
       filter description file, filterfile for short, as described below.

       For  the  purposes  of  this section, whitespace shall be defined as an arbitrary sequence
       consisting  of  one  or  more  SPACE  or  HTAB  characters,  ASCII  positions  32  and  9,
       respectively.

       The configuration file is strictly line-oriented with LF or CRLF as line terminator.

       Empty  lines  and  lines  consisting  of  only  whitespace, possibly followed by a comment
       (introduced by a hash mark (#) and extending through the end of the line), are skipped.

       All other lines have exactly three mandatory fields, a plain text parameter, an assignment
       character  (=) optionally surrounded by whitespace and a value.  The value is either plain
       text or – new since leafnode v1.11 – a string in  double  quotes  with  trivial  backslash
       escape (see below).

       Plain  text starts at the first non-whitespace character and extends through the last non-
       whitespace character on the line that is not a comment. A trailing comment on  a  line  is
       skipped.

       Quoted  strings  are enclosed in double quote characters (").  The backslash character (\)
       is skipped, but it copies the immediately following character verbatim, so  that  you  can
       specify  the  backslash  itself by doubling it (\\) or a double quote character as part of
       the string by preceding it with a backslash (\"); the hash mark has no special meaning  as
       command  introducer  inside  quoted  strings. Text after the end of the string is silently
       ignored (this may change in future versions).  Comments after quoted strings are ignored.

       MANDATORY PARAMETERS

       These parameters must be specified for leafnode to work.

       server = news02.example.com
              "server" is used by fetchnews (8) to select what NNTP server(s)  to  retrieve  news
              from  and  to  post your articles to. You can specify more than one news server; in
              that case, the servers will be queried from the top  down.  If  you  want  to  post
              articles,  at  least  one of your servers should allow you to post.  In the example
              above, news02.example.com is the news server.

              This parameter can be given more than once. Each server starts with a fresh set  of
              default  configuration options, no inheritance takes place from the previous server
              definition. Only options explicitly marked "server-specific" can be set  on  a  per
              server basis, "general" options are set for all servers at the same time.

       expire = 5
              "expire"  is  the  number of days an article should be kept around. In the example,
              five days after the article has last been read, it is deleted by texpire (8).  This
              value  MUST be at least 1. This parameter is global, see the introductory paragraph
              of the following GENERAL OPTION PARAMETERS section to find out what this means.

       GENERAL OPTIONAL PARAMETERS

       These options can only be configured once in the configuration file, and take  effect  for
       leafnode  as  a  whole.  It  does not matter where these are specified relative to server=
       options, but for clarity, you are encouraged to place these before the first server= line.
       Specifying  each  of the global options more than once lets the last copy take effect, but
       may cause errors in the future.

       hostname = host.domain.country
              By default, leafnode tries hard to figure the host name of your computer,  skipping
              inadequate  (non-unique)  names  if  possible. It will look up your computer's host
              name with gethostname(3) and then try to qualify the name with gethostbyname(3)  if
              necessary.  Common sources for the full name therefore are /etc/hosts, NIS and DNS,
              but consult your system documentation for details.

              If leafnode fails to determine the host name, this is  usually  a  hint  that  your
              system  is not configured properly, or it has a hostname that is unsuitable for the
              domain part of a Message-ID, for example, "localhost.localdomain", and  you  should
              fix  the  name  service configuration. Adding a unique fully-qualified host name to
              /etc/hosts is usually sufficient. Please see README-FQDN for more details.

              You can configure the unique fully-qualified host name here as well,  but  this  is
              not recommended and discouraged.

       create_all_links = 1
              Normally,  fetchnews  will store articles only in the newsgroups which it considers
              interesting. With  this  option  set,  fetchnews  will  create  hardlinks  for  all
              newsgroups  in  the Newsgroups: header that it knows about. This may be of interest
              if you want to apply a score- or killfile to the local Xref: line.

       maxfetch = 1000
              "maxfetch" specifies the maximum number of articles fetchnews (8) should fetch from
              the  upstream  server  in each group. Its use is not advised, because if you use it
              you will not see all the traffic in a group. By default there is no limit.

       initialfetch = 1
              "initialfetch" defines how many articles from a newly subscribed  group  should  be
              fetched.  The  default  is  to  fetch  all  old articles, which can get quite time-
              consuming when subscribing to a very busy group.  This  is  equivalent  to  setting
              initialfetch  to zero. If you want to get no old articles when subscribing to a new
              group, you should set initialfetch to one, as in the example above.

       groupexpire very.crowded.group = 1

       groupexpire very.crowded.hierarchy.* = 1
              "groupexpire" makes it possible to  adjust  expiry  times  for  individual  groups.
              Expiry  times are given in days. 0 means "use the default", negative values prevent
              the expire process for this group altogether (you  can  consider  this  an  archive
              mode). This value is used by texpire (8). You can specify as many groupexpire lines
              as you like. It is possible to specify glob (7)-like wildcard expressions.

       maxage = 10
              If an article turns up on your upstream news server which is  older  than  "maxage"
              days  it  will  not been fetched even if you do not have it yet.  This is useful if
              your upstream server gets occasional "hiccups". The default is set to  10.  If  you
              want to switch this feature off, set maxage to some very large value, such as 20000
              (this is equivalent to roughly 54 years).

       maxold = 10
              Is synonymous to maxage, see above.

       maxlines = 2000
              If you want to avoid receiving very large articles,  you  may  set  the  "maxlines"
              parameter  to  the maximal number of lines an article should have. By default, this
              feature is switched off.

       minlines = 2
              Sometimes newsgroups are spammed with empty postings. To reject these postings, you
              can  set the "minlines" parameter. Setting minlines to a value larger 4 is probably
              not a good idea since you will also start to kill "real" postings then. By default,
              this feature is switched off.

       maxbytes = 100000
              If you want to avoid receiving very large articles, instead of using the "maxlines"
              parameter you can also use the "maxbytes" parameter. By default,  this  feature  is
              switched off.

       maxcrosspost = 5
              If you want to combat spam, you can filter out all postings that are posted to more
              than  a  certain  number  of  newsgroups.  The  number  is   defined   by   setting
              "maxcrosspost".  Setting  this parameter to very low values is probably a bad idea.
              This feature is switched off by default.

       maxgroups = 5
              Synonymous for maxcrosspost. See above.

       filterfile = /etc/news/leafnode/filters
              Leafnode can filter the input headers for arbitrary regular expressions.  These are
              stored  in  a  file  designated  "filterfile".  The  format of "filterfile" is very
              simple: one perl-compatible regular expression per line.  If  one  of  the  regular
              expressions  fits  to  a  header to be downloaded, the body of that article will be
              rejected. This feature is switched off  by  default.  The  format  of  the  regular
              expressions is described in pcre(3).

       timeout_short = 2
              By  default,  a  group  that has been accidentally touched is being fetched for two
              days. You can change this time by changing timeout_short.

       timeout_long = 7
              By default, a group that has not been read at all is being fetched for  seven  days
              before  being unsubscribed. This interval can be changed by setting timeout_long to
              a different value.

       timeout_active = 90
              By default, active files from the upstream servers are re-read every 90 days.  This
              interval  can  be  changed by setting timeout_active to a different value. Be aware
              that reading an active file transfers about one MB of  information  if  the  server
              that you are using carries a reasonable number of groups (i. e. around 20,000).

       timeout_client = 900 (since v1.9.23)
              By default, leafnode will drop the connection 900 seconds (15 minutes) after seeing
              the last command from the client. You can change the timeout here. Setting  it  too
              low  (like below 5 minutes) will annoy your users and consume more system resources
              for re-reading all the files.

       timeout_fetchnews = 300 (since v1.9.52)
              Fetchnews will, since v1.9.52, assume the upstream server has become  wedged  after
              waiting for a reply for 300 seconds. You can change the timeout here.

       timeout_lock = 5 (since v1.9.54)
              Configure  how  many  seconds  the  leafnode  programs  (applyfilter,  checkgroups,
              fetchnews, texpire) will wait for the lock file before aborting. Setting this to  0
              means to wait indefinitely.  NOTE: you can override this by setting the environment
              variable LN_LOCK_TIMEOUT (note it  is  not  LN_TIMEOUT_LOCK).   The  default  is  5
              seconds.

       delaybody = 1
              With  this  option  set,  fetchnews  (8) fetches only the headers of an article for
              visual inspection. Only when the headers have been read, the bodies of the articles
              will  be  retrieved  the  next  time  fetchnews (8) is called. This can save a huge
              amount of download time and disk space.

       delaybody_in_situ = 1 (since v1.9.41)
              This is only applicable with delaybody=1.

              By default, leafnode will give the full downloaded article a new article number  so
              they appear as new in your newsreader. This does not work for all newsreaders. With
              this option set, leafnode will retain the original article number. You'll  have  to
              figure  out  how to tell your newsreader to show old articles. This option defaults
              to 0. It is highly recommended to leave it unset.

       debugmode = 1
              With this option set, fetchnews (8), texpire (8) and leafnode (8) will start to log
              lots of debugging output via syslog (8) at facility news and priority debug. Use it
              for tracking down problems with your feed.  debugmode  should  be  left  at  0  for
              regular use because it can log enormous amounts of data. The higher the number, the
              more will be logged. Choosing a figure greater than 3 will not make a difference at
              the moment.

       allow_8bit_headers = 1 (since v1.9.25)
              By  default,  leafnode  rejects  local  posts  that  have 8-bit characters in their
              headers, because they violate  relevant  standards,  particularly  RFC-2822  (which
              RFC-1036  is based on) that demands that Usenet news headers (as mail headers) must
              be pure 7-bit US-ASCII, with only whitespace allowed from the control characters.

              However, as UTF-8 is to come,  and  some  national  hierarchies,  particularly  the
              Norwegian and Danish (no.*, dk.*) seem to have agreed on preferring just-send-eight
              over RFC-2047, you can set this option to allow 8-bit  data  in  headers.  Leafnode
              will  however  add a warning header if 8-bit data is present, stating that the site
              administrator allowed this.

              There is no way to  make  leafnode  accept  non-whitespace  control  characters  in
              headers.

       allowSTRANGERS = MAGIC (since v1.9.23)
              By   default,   leafnode   refuses   connections  from  outside  your  LANs.  Check
              config.example for how to use this parameter  to  let  strangers  connect  to  your
              leafnode.   Instead  of  MAGIC,  you  have  to  write  a  number  as  mentioned  in
              config.example. Note that capitalization matters.

       linebuffer = 1
              By default, stdout and sometimes stderr of applications are set to "fully buffered"
              unless  connected to terminals. Use this option to explicitly request line buffered
              mode for stdout and stderr.

       clamp_maxage = 0
              By default, leafnode will derive a "maxage" argument from the expire time  that  is
              applicable to the group (groupexpire if set, expire otherwise), to prevent fetching
              articles  again  that  were  once  there  and  then  cleared  by  texpire(8).   Set
              clamp_maxage=0 to get rid of this behaviour.

       article_despite_filter = 1 (since v1.9.33)
              By  default,  fetchnews  will  request HEAD and BODY separately if a filter file is
              defined and delaybody is off. For high latency,  high  throughput  links  (such  as
              interleaved  DSL  or  satellite  links),  it may be faster to request head and body
              together with an ARTICLE command and ignore the body if the filters  apply  (though
              it  may  not  be  cheaper  if  you  pay per MByte), enabling this option will force
              leafnode to use the ARTICLE command in spite of filters being defined.  (Note  that
              in delaybody mode, HEAD and BODY will ALWAYS be requested separately.)

       newsadmin = news@leafnode.example.org (since v1.9.47)
              This  option  sets  the From: address for the placeholder article, it should be the
              news administrator's mail address.  It defaults to news@HOSTNAME, where HOSTNAME is
              leafnode's hostname.

       SERVER-SPECIFIC OPTIONAL PARAMETERS

       These  options  can only be placed after the server= line of the server to which you would
       like these to apply, and they always pertain to the  preceding  server=  line.  Specifying
       them before the first server= line is an error.

       username = myname
              If any of your news servers requires authentication, you can enter your username on
              that server here. This field may occur  multiple  times,  once  after  each  server
              definition.  See  the introduction of this CONFIGURATION section for information on
              how to quote myname.

       password = mypassword
              If any of your news servers requires authentication, you can enter your password on
              that  server  here.  This  field  may  occur multiple times, once after each server
              definition.  Since the password is available in clear text, it is recommended  that
              you  set  the rights on the config file as restrictive as possible, otherwise other
              users of your computer will be able to get your password(s) from that file. See the
              introduction  of  this  CONFIGURATION  section  for  information  on  how  to quote
              mypassword.

       port = 8000
              By default, fetchnews tries to connect to its upstream news  servers  on  the  NNTP
              port  (119).  If  your servers run on a different port, you can specify those here.
              This field may occur multiple times, once after each server definition.

              Note: to modify  the  port  your  own  leafnode  servers  listens  on,  change  the
              inetd.conf  or xinetd.conf configuration file.  leafnode does not set up its listen
              port itself.

       timeout = 30
              By default, leafnode tries to connect for 10 seconds to a server and then gives up.
              If  you  have  a  slow server, you can try for a longer time by setting the timeout
              higher (in this example, 30 seconds). The timeout can  be  tuned  individually  for
              each server.

       noactive = ANYTHING (v1.9.25 ... v1.11.4)

       noactive = 1 (since v1.11.5)
              If this parameter is set, the active file is never downloaded from this server. Use
              this for very slow servers unless they carry  groups  that  other  servers  do  not
              offer.  Leafnode  versions 1.9.25 to 1.11.4 would always assume that "ANYTHING" had
              been 1. "noactive = 0" is supported since v1.11.5.

       nodesc = ANYTHING (until v1.11.4)

       nodesc = 1 (since v1.11.5)
              Some servers do not deliver news groups descriptions correctly because they  cannot
              parse  the  XGTITLE and LIST NEWSGROUPS commands. In that case, put this line after
              the "server" line. Leafnode  versions  up  to  v1.11.4  would  always  assume  that
              "ANYTHING" had been 1. "nodesc = 0" is supported since v1.11.5.

       nopost = 1 (since v1.9.23)
              Prevent  posting  to this server. You can use this if the upstream will not let you
              post but still greet leafnode with 200 or if the upstream  does  not  forward  your
              postings reliably.

       noread = 1 (since v1.9.33)
              Prevent  fetching  news articles or active files from this server. You can use this
              if the upstream is good to post, but too slow to fetch news from.

       noxover = 1 (since v1.9.47)
              Prevent the use of XOVER on the current server. Fetchnews will use XHDR instead.

       only_groups_match_all = 1 (since v1.9.52)
              Usually, when cross-posting an article, fetchnews will  post  the  article  if  ANY
              group  listed  in  the Newsgroups: header is matched by the PCRE.  With this option
              on, ALL groups listed in the Newsgroups: header must match. This  can  be  used  to
              avoid "poison" groups when you have multiple upstream servers.

       only_groups_pcre = PCRE (since v1.9.28)
              This  parameter  lists  the  Perl-compatible  regular expression of groups that are
              fetched or posted to this server. The PCRE is automatically anchored  at  the  left
              hand side, so you can omit the leading ^. Remember to escape dots, as in:
              de\.comp\.|de\.comm\.

              If  this  parameter  is  omitted,  all  groups  are fetched from and posted to this
              server.

              Note: you must run fetchnews with the -f option after changing, adding or  removing
              any only_groups_pcre option.

              Hint: you can use something like this to check your only_groups_pcre settings:
              cut -f1 -d" " @spooldir@/leaf.node/groupinfo \
              | pcregrep 'PATTERN'

       post_anygroup = 1 (since v1.9.37)
              This  parameter  makes  leafnode post on this server without checking if it carries
              the group an article is posted to. The default is post_anygroup =  0,  which  means
              that leafnode will check with a "GROUP" command if the server carries the group the
              articles is posted into. Use this on  post-only  servers  that  do  not  allow  the
              "GROUP"  command.  Note:  inconsiderate use of this parameter may cause articles to
              end up in the failed.postings directory.

       OBSOLETE PARAMETERS

       supplement
              is synonymous to server. Do not use it on new installations.

       fqdn   is synonymous to hostname. Do not use it on new installations.

PROTOCOL

       Here are the NNTP commands supported by this server:

       ARTICLE, BODY, DATE, GROUP, HDR, HEAD, HELP, LAST, LIST, LIST ACTIVE,  LIST  ACTIVE.TIMES,
       LIST  EXTENSIONS,  LIST  NEWSGROUPS,  LIST OVERVIEW.FMT, LISTGROUP, MODE, NEWGROUPS, NEXT,
       POST, OVER, SLAVE, STAT, XHDR, XOVER.  These commands follow RFC-977 and RFC-2980,  except
       HDR and OVER which are recognized in anticipation of current NNTP drafts.

       Note that the syntax of HDR and OVER may change.

BUGS

       Leafnode  is totally unaware of UTF-8 and will reject a client that posts UTF-8 characters
       in the header. Current Usefor drafts claim all  article  headers  UTF-8  encoded  Unicode.
       Leafnode  still  expects  RFC-2047 instead which may eventually be phased out in favour of
       UTF-8.

       Leafnode stops reading a line at the first NUL character.

       Leafnode may not cope well with crosspostings that cross hierarchies if you have  multiple
       upstream feeds and use the only_groups_pcre configuration option.

       Leafnode  will  only  bother to determine the time zone offset for generated Date: headers
       for posts that lack them on systems that offer the tm_gmtoff member in struct tm (commonly
       BSD and GNU systems).

AUTHOR

       Written  by Arnt Gulbrandsen <agulbra@troll.no> and copyright 1995 Troll Tech AS, Postboks
       6133 Etterstad, 0602 Oslo, Norway, fax +47 22646949.

       Modified  by  Cornelius  Krasel  <krasel@wpxx02.toxi.uni-wuerzburg.de>,   Randolf   Skerka
       <Randolf.Skerka@gmx.de>    and    Markus   Enzenberger   <enz@cip.physik.uni-muenchen.de>.
       Copyright of the modifications 1997 – 1999.

       Modified by Matthias Andree <matthias.andree@gmx.de>, Copyright 1999 – 2002.  Modified  by
       Ralf Wildenhues <ralf.wildenhues@gmx.de>, Copyright 2002.

       Jonathan Larmour <jifl@jifvik.org> contributed the timeout_client feature.

       Andreas  Meininger  <a.meininger@gmx.net>  contributed  the  code  to  let  texpire ignore
       groupexpire = -1 groups.

       Mark Brown <broonie@debian.org> added the noactive option.

       Numerous contributions by other people.

       The   initial   development   of   leafnode   has   been   paid   for   by   Uninett    AS
       (http://www.uninett.no/).

SEE ALSO

       applyfilter(8), checkgroups(8), fetchnews(8), newsq(1), texpire(8).

       tcpd(8), hosts_access(5), glob(7), pcre2(3), RFC 977, RFC 2980.