NAME

       knewsd - a tiny nntp demon

SYNOPSIS

       knewsd [ options ]

DESCRIPTION

       Knewsd  is  intended  to  be  used  with knews(1) to read news (in)directly from the spool
       directory or even from a mail folder hierarchy.  It  reads  NNTP  commands  from  standard
       input and writes replies to standard output.  The following commands are implemented:

       ARTICLE [number]
       BODY [number]
       HEAD [number]
              Return  the  head  and/or body of the current or the specified article.  Message-id
              lookups are not supported.

       GROUP newsgroup
              Enters the given newsgroup.

       HELP
              Gives a list of the implemented commands.

       LIST [active | newsgroups]
              Lists the active file or the newsgroups file.

       NEXT
              Changes the current article pointer to the next article

       POST
              Post an article via the specified posting agent.  If none has been  specified,  the
              reply will be '440 Posting not implemented.'

       QUIT
              Makes knewsd exit.

       STAT number
              Sets the current article pointer.

       XOVER range
              Returns the overview data for the specified range of articles.

       Knewsd  implements  the  'xover' command either by using the overview files if present, or
       creating overview records on the fly, or a combination of both if  the  overview  file  is
       incomplete.   In  the  latter  case,  if the -update flag is given, knewsd will update the
       overview files.

OPTIONS

       There is no need to spell out the entire option name, it is sufficient to  give  a  unique
       prefix, such as -a for -active.

       -spool directory
              This  is  the  spool directory.  It must be specified, either at compile time or at
              run time.

       -active file
              This is the active file containing the newsgroups and  the  high  and  low  article
              counts.   If this is not specifed, knews must be told not to try to read the active
              file.

       -newsgroups file
              This is the newsgroups  file  containing  the  group  descriptions.  It's  entirely
              optional.

       -overview dir
              This  can  be  used if the overview files reside in a different directory hierarchy
              than the spool directory.

       -update
              If this is set, knewsd will (try  to)  update  any  incomplete  overview  files  it
              encounters.  Not a good idea if you're reading a system wide spool directory.

       -postingagent agent
              If  this  is  set,  the 'agent' will be used to post articles.  A possible agent is
              'exec inews -h'.  This command is interpreted by the shell,  and  it  is  important
              that  it is exec'ed, so that knewsd may kill it on a broken pipe to prevent posting
              of duplicate or truncated articles.  Knewsd will warn about this on startup.

AUTHOR

       This software is Copyright 1995, 1996 by Karl-Johan Johnsson.

SEE ALSO

       knews(1), inews(1)

                                               1996                                     KNEWSD(1)