NAME

       active, active.times - list of active Usenet newsgroups

DESCRIPTION

       The  file  /var/lib/news/active  lists  the newsgroups that the local site receives.  Each
       newsgroup should be listed only once.  Each line specifies one group; their order  in  the
       file  does  not  matter.  Within each newsgroup, articles are assigned unique names, which
       are monotonically increasing numbers.

       If an article is posted to newsgroups not mentioned in this  file,  those  newsgroups  are
       ignored.   If  no  valid newsgroups are specified, the article is filed into the newsgroup
       ``junk'' and only propagated to sites that receive the ``junk'' newsgroup.

       Each line consists of four fields specified by a space:

                      name himark lomark flags

       The first field is the name of the newsgroup.  The second field  is  the  highest  article
       number that has been used in that newsgroup.  The third field is the lowest article number
       in the group; this number is not guaranteed to be accurate, and should only be taken to be
       a  hint.   Note  that because of article cancellations, there may be gaps in the numbering
       sequence.  If the lowest article number is greater then the highest article  number,  then
       there  are  no articles in the newsgroup.  In order to make it possible to update an entry
       in-place without rewriting the entire file, the second and third  fields  are  padded  out
       with leading zeros to make them a fixed width.

       The fourth field can contain one of the following flags:

              y        Local postings are allowed
              n        No local postings are allowed, only remote ones
              m        The group is moderated and all postings must be approved
              j        Articles in this group are not kept, but only passed on
              x        Articles cannot be posted to this newsgroup
              =foo.bar Articles are locally filed into the ``foo.bar'' group

       If  a newsgroup has the ``j'' flag, then no articles will be filed into that newsgroup and
       local postings to that group should not be generated.  If an article for such a  newsgroup
       is  received from a remote site, it will be filed into the ``junk'' newsgroup if it is not
       cross-posted.  This is different from not having a newsgroup listed in  the  file  because
       sites can subscribe to ``j'' newsgroups and the article will be propagated to them.

       If  the  fourth  field  of a newsgroup starts with an equal sign, then the newsgroup is an
       alias.  Articles can be posted to the group, but will be treated as if they were posted to
       the group named after the equal sign.  The second and third fields are ignored.  Note that
       the Newsgroup header is not modified (Alias groups are typically used during a transition,
       and  are  typically  created  with  ctlinnd(8)).   An  alias newsgroup should not point to
       another alias.

       The file /var/lib/news/active.times provides a chronological record of when newsgroups are
       created.  This file is normally updated by innd(8) whenever a ctlinnd ``newgroup'' command
       is done.  Each line consist of three fields:

              name time creator

       The first field is the name of the newsgroup.   The  second  field  is  the  time  it  was
       created,  expressed  as  the  number  of  seconds  since  the  epoch — i.e., a time_t; see
       gettimeofday(2).  The third field is the electronic mail address of the person who created
       the group.

HISTORY

       Written  by Rich $alz <rsalz@uunet.uu.net> for InterNetNews.  This is revision 1.13, dated
       1996/10/29.

SEE ALSO

       ctlinnd(8), innd(8).

                                                                                        ACTIVE(5)