NAME

       makeactive - tool to recover Usenet active file.

SYNOPSIS

       makeactive [ -m ] [ -o ]

DESCRIPTION

       Makeactive  invokes  find(1)  to  get  a  list  of all directories in the news spool tree,
       /var/spool/news.  It discards directories named lost+found as well as those  that  have  a
       period  in  them.  It scans all other directories for all-numeric filenames and determines
       the highest and lowest number.  The program's output is a set  of  active(5)  file  lines.
       Because  there  is no way to know if a group is moderated or disabled, the fourth field of
       all entries will be y.  Also, mid-level  directories  that  aren't  newsgroups  will  also
       created  as  newsgroups  with  no  entries  (for example, there is a ``comp.sources.unix''
       group, but no ``comp.sources'').

OPTIONS

       -m     If the ``-m'' flag is given, then makeactive will attempt to adjust the highest and
              lowest  article  numbers  wherever possible.  If articles are found in a newsgroup,
              the numbers will reflect what what was found.   If  no  articles  are  found  in  a
              newsgroup,  the high number from the old file will be kept, and the low number will
              be set to one more then the high number.  This flag may only be used if the  ``-o''
              flag is used.

       -o     If  the  ``-o''  flag is used, makeactive will read an existing active file for the
              list of group names and just renumber all groups.   It  will  preserve  the  fourth
              field  of  the  active file if one is present.  This is analogous to the ctlinnd(8)
              ``renumber'' command, except that innd(8) should throttled or not running.  Do  not
              use this flag with output redirected to the standard active file!

EXIT STATUS

       Makeactive exits with non-zero status if any problems occurred.

EXAMPLES

       A typical way to use the program is with the following /bin/sh commands:
              ctlinnd throttle "Rebuilding active file"
              TEMP=${TMPDIR-/var/spool/news/in.coming/tmp}/act$$
              if [ -f /var/lib/news/active ] ; then
                  if makeactive -o >${TEMP} ; then
                      mv ${TEMP} /var/lib/news/active
                  fi
              else
                  if makeactive >${TEMP} ; then
                      # Edit to restore moderated
                      # and aliased groups.
                      ...
                      mv ${TEMP} /var/lib/news/active
                  fi
              fi
              ctlinnd reload active "New active file"
              ctlinnd go ''

HISTORY

       Written  by  Rich $alz <rsalz@uunet.uu.net> for InterNetNews.  This is revision 1.3, dated
       1996/10/29.

SEE ALSO

       active(5),   ctlinnd(8),   dbz(3),   filechan(8),   history(5),   innd(8),   newsfeeds(5),
       makehistory(8), newsrequeue(8).

                                                                                    MAKEACTIVE(8)