Ubuntu Manpage: docheckgroups - Process checkgroups and output a list of changes

NAME

       docheckgroups - Process checkgroups and output a list of changes

SYNOPSIS

       docheckgroups [-u] [include-pattern [exclude-pattern]]

DESCRIPTION

docheckgroups is usually run by controlchan in order to process checkgroups control
messages. It reads a list of newsgroups along with their descriptions on its standard
input. That list should be formatted like the newsgroups(5) file: each line contains the
name of a newsgroup followed by one or more tabulations and its description.

docheckgroups will only check the presence of newsgroups which match include-pattern (an
egrep expression like "^comp\..*$" for newsgroups starting with "comp.") and which do not
match exclude-pattern (also an egrep expression) except for newsgroups mentioned in the
pathetc/localgroups file. This file is also formatted like the newsgroups(5) file and
should contain local newsgroups which would otherwise be mentioned for removal. There is
no need to put local newsgroups of hierarchies for which no checkgroups control messages
are sent, unless you manually process checkgroups texts for them. Lines beginning with a
hash sign ("#") are not taken into account in this file. All the newsgroups and
descriptions mentioned in pathetc/localgroups are appended to the processed checkgroups.

If exclude-pattern is given, include-pattern should also be given before (you can use an
empty string ("") if you want to include all the newsgroups). Be that as it may,
docheckgroups will only check newsgroups in the top-level hierarchies which are present in
the checkgroups.

Then, docheckgroups checks the active and newsgroups files and displays on its standard
output a list of changes, if any. It does not change anything by default; it only points
out what should be changed:

• Newsgroups which should be removed (they are in the active file but not in the
checkgroups) and the relevant ctlinnd commands to achieve that;

• Newsgroups which should be added (they are not in the active file but in the
checkgroups) and the relevant ctlinnd commands to achieve that;

• Newsgroups which are incorrectly marked as moderated or unmoderated (they are both in
the active file and the checkgroups but their status differs) and the relevant ctlinnd
commands to fix that;

• Descriptions which should be removed (they are in the newsgroups file but not in the
checkgroups);

• Descriptions which should be added (they are not in the newsgroups file but in the
checkgroups).

The output of docheckgroups can be fed into mod-active (it will pause the news server,
update the active file accordingly, reload it and resume the work of the news server) or
into the shell (commands for ctlinnd will be processed one by one). In order to update
the newsgroups file, the -u flag must be given to docheckgroups.

When processing a checkgroups manually, it is always advisable to first check the raw
output of docheckgroups. Then, if everything looks fine, use mod-active and the -u flag.

OPTIONS

       -u  If this flag is given, docheckgroups will update the newsgroups file: it removes
           obsolete descriptions and adds new ones.  It also sorts this file alphabetically and
           improves its general format (see newsgroups(5) for an explanation of the preferred
           number of tabulations).

EXAMPLES

So as to better understand how docheckgroups works, here are examples with the following
active file:

a.first 0000000000 0000000001 y
a.second.announce 0000000000 0000000001 y
a.second.group 0000000000 0000000001 y
b.additional 0000000000 0000000001 y
b.third 0000000000 0000000001 y
c.fourth 0000000000 0000000001 y

the following newsgroups file (using tabulations):

a.first First group.
a.second.announce Announce group.
a.second.group Second group.
b.third Third group.
c.fourth Fourth group.

and the following localgroups file (using tabulations):

b.additional A local newsgroup I want to keep.

The checkgroups we process is in the file test which contains:

a.first First group.
a.second.announce Announce group. (Moderated)
a.second.group Second group.
b.third Third group.
c.fourth Fourth group.

If we run:

cat test | docheckgroups

docheckgroups will output that a.second.announce is incorrectly marked as unmoderated and
that its description is obsolete. Besides, two new descriptions will be mentioned for
addition (the new one for a.second.announce and the missing description for b.additional
-- it should indeed be in the newsgroups file and not only in localgroups). Now that we
have checked the output of docheckgroups and that we agree with the changes, we run it
with the -u flag to update the newsgroups file and we redirect the standard output to mod-
active to update the active file:

cat test | docheckgroups -u | mod-active

That's all!

Now, suppose we run:

cat test | docheckgroups "^c\..*$"

Nothing is output (indeed, everything is fine for the c.* hierarchy). It would have been
similar if the test file had only contained the checkgroups for the c.* hierarchy
(docheckgroups would not have checked a.* and b.*, even if they had been in include-
pattern).

In order to check both a.* and c.*, you can run:

cat test | docheckgroups "^a\..*$|^c\..*$"

And if you want to check a.* but not a.second.*, you can run:

cat test | docheckgroups "^a\..*$" "^a\.second\..*$"

In our example, docheckgroups will then mention a.second.announce and a.second.group for
removal since they are in the active file (the same goes for their descriptions).
Notwithstanding, if you do want to keep a.second.announce, just add this group to
localgroups and docheckgroups will no longer mention it for removal.

FILES

       pathbin/docheckgroups
           The Shell script itself used to process checkgroups.

       pathetc/localgroups
           The list of local newsgroups along with their descriptions.

HISTORY

       Documentation written by Julien Elie for InterNetNews.

       $Id: docheckgroups.pod 8357 2009-02-27 17:56:00Z iulius $