NAME

       expire.ctl - control file for Usenet article expiration

DESCRIPTION

       The file /etc/news/expire.ctl is the default control file for the expire(8) program, which
       reads it at start-up.  Blank lines and lines beginning with  a  number  sign  (``#'')  are
       ignored.  All other lines should be in one of two formats.

       The  first  format specifies how long to keep a record of fully-expired articles.  This is
       useful when a newsfeed intermittently offers older news that is not kept around very long.
       (The  case  of very old news is handled by the ``-c'' flag of innd(8).)  There should only
       be one line in this format, which looks like this:
              /remember/:days
       Where days is a floating-point number  that  specifies  the  upper  limit  to  remember  a
       Message-ID,  even  if  the  article  has  already  expired.   (It  does not affect article
       expirations.)

       Most of the lines in the file will consist of five colon-separated fields, as follows:
              pattern:modflag:keep:default:purge
       The pattern field is a list of wildmat(3)-style patterns, separated by commas.  This field
       specifies  the newsgroups to which the line is applied.  Note that the file is interpreted
       in order, so that the last line that matches  will  be  used.   This  means  that  general
       patterns  (like a single asterisk to set the defaults) should appear before specific group
       specifications.

       The modflag field can be used to further limit newsgroups to which the line  applies,  and
       should be chosen from the following set:
              M    Only moderated groups
              U    Only unmoderated groups
              A    All groups

       The  next  three  fields  are  used to determine how long an article should be kept.  Each
       field should be either a number of days (fractions like ``8.5'' are allowed) or  the  word
       ``never.''   The  most  common use is to specify the default value for how long an article
       should be kept.  The first and third fields — keep and  purge  —  specify  the  boundaries
       within  which  an  Expires  header will be honored.  They are ignored if an article has no
       Expires header.  The fields are specified in the  file  as  ``lower-bound  default  upper-
       bound,''  and  they are explained in this order.  Since most articles do not have explicit
       expiration dates, however, the second field tends to be the most important one.

       The keep field specifies how many days an  article  should  be  kept  before  it  will  be
       removed.   No  article in the newsgroup will be removed if it has been filed for less then
       keep days, regardless of any expiration date.  If this field is the word ``never'' then an
       article cannot have been kept for enough days so it will never be expired.

       The  default  field specifies how long to keep an article if no Expires header is present.
       If this field is the word ``never'' then articles without explicit expiration  dates  will
       never be expired.

       The  purge field specifies the upper bound on how long an article can be kept.  No article
       will be kept longer then the number of days specified by this field.  All articles will be
       removed after then have been kept for purge days.  If purge is the word ``never'' then the
       article will never be deleted.

       It is often useful to honor the  expiration  headers  in  articles,  especially  those  in
       moderated  groups.   To do this, set keep to zero, default to whatever value you wish, and
       purge to never.  To ignore any Expires header, set all three fields to the same value.

       There must be exactly one line with a pattern of ``*'' and a  modflags  of  ``A''  —  this
       matches  all  groups  and  is  used to set the expiration default.  It should be the first
       expiration line.

       For example,
              ##  How long to keep expired history
              /remember/:5
              ##  Most things stay for two weeks
              *:A:14:14:14
              ##  Believe expiration dates in moderated groups, up to six weeks
              *:M:1:30:42
              ##  Keep local stuff for a long time
              foo.*:A:30:30:30

HISTORY

       Written by Rich $alz <rsalz@uunet.uu.net> for InterNetNews.  This is revision 1.15,  dated
       1996/10/29.

SEE ALSO

       expire(8), wildmat(3).

                                                                                    EXPIRE.CTL(5)