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)