NAME

       touch_newsgroup - force leafnode to continue reading low-traffic newsgroups

SYNOPSIS

       touch_newsgroup [-f groupsfile] [-h hostname] [-v] [newsgroups]

DESCRIPTION

       touch_newsgroup  is a Perl script which reads the last article in the specified newsgroups
       on the specified using NNTP.

       This prevents leafnode or similar news-servers from marking those newsgroups  as  inactive
       because no-one is reading them.

       Perl  and  the Net::NNTP module are required to use this program.  On Debian systems these
       are avalible in the perl5 and libnet-perl packages.

OPTIONS

       -f groupsfile
              Read newsgroup names from groupsfile in addition to any specified on command  line.
              Use -f - to read from stdin.

       -h hostname
              Read newsgroups on host hostname (default 127.0.0.1)

       -v     Be verbose.  Prints the number of the article it reads from each newsgroup.

       newsgroups
              names of newsgroups to read.  May be omitted if a groupsfile is specified.

ENVIRONMENT

       Requires  Net::NNTP module (available in libnet from CPAN or the libnet-perl package).  On
       Debian systems, this program will by default be  run  daily  on  the  list  of  newsgroups
       specified in /etc/news/leafnode/touch_groups if that file exists.

LIMITATIONS

       Only one news-server is catered for, the IP address of which is hard-wired into the script
       as $nntp_host.

BUGS

       dies if it encounters any problems.

AUTHOR

       Copyright 1999 Jim Nicholson <j.nicholson@computer.org>

SEE ALSO

       leafnode(8)

                                           18 June 1999                        touch_newsgroup(1)