NAME

       snfetch - fetch articles.

SYNOPSIS

       snfetch [-r] [-t timeout] [-c depth] group [serial [max]]

DESCRIPTION

       snfetch  expects to read NNTP from file descriptor 6, and write NNTP to file descriptor 7,
       which descriptors must  have  already  been  open.   Articles  retrieved  are  written  to
       descriptor  1.   Each  article  displayed is separated from the next by a dot on a line by
       itself.  These articles are NNTP safe, in the sense that double-dot unquoting is not done,
       and all lines end in CR-LF.  snfetch expects to begin it's NNTP speech by giving the GROUP
       command.  The upstream server's greeting must have  already  been  read  some  other  way.
       Likewise, when snfetch is done, it will not send a QUIT command.

       The output is suitable for feeding to snstore.

       snfetch  always checks the article ID of the prospective article before retrieving it.  If
       the ID already exists in the ID database, the article will not be  retrieved.   Note  that
       this does not guarantee that all articles retrieved will be unique.

       snfetch  does  not guarantee to leave the NNTP conversation in a decent state (there might
       be more data to read, but snfetch aborted part way).

       You will need to be root or own /var/spool/sn in order to run this program.

       It is not safe to direct the output of several snfetches to the same pipe descriptor,  but
       a file descriptor is all right.

OPTIONS

       -t timeout
              snfetch  will wait only timeout seconds (default 180) for data before giving up, if
              the server doesn't respond.

       -r     Output in news batch format instead.  All articles will  take  the  #!  rnews  form
              only,  even  if there is just one article, all lines end in bare linefeed, and dot-
              unquoting is performed.

       -c depth
              Employ a  command  pipeline  of  depth  depth.   NNTP  command  pipelining  is  not
              officially sanctioned, so by default no pipeline is used.  However, a pipeline with
              a depth greater than 0 will substantally reduce transaction latency if  the  server
              accepts it.  A respectable value for depth might be between 1 and 5.

ARGUMENTS

       snfetch  takes  the  name  of a single newsgroup on its command line.  If serial is given,
       this is taken to be the first article number on group on the server to fetch.  If  max  is
       specified, this is taken to be the maximum number of articles to fetch.  The first article
       retrieved may be after serial if max would be violated.  If max is not specified, there is
       no limit.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

       SNROOT If  this  is set and is not empty, the value is used in place of /var/spool/sn, the
              default news spool directory.

FILES

       /var/spool/sn/newsgroup/.serial
              If serial is not specified, the starting serial  number  is  taken  from  the  file
              /var/spool/sn/newsgroup/.serial.  This defaults to 0 if the file can't be read.

       /var/spool/sn/newsgroup/.serial.tmp
              If  snfetch  exits with success (0), the new serial is written into this file.  The
              original file /var/spool/sn/newsgroup/.serial is readonly by snfetch.

       /var/spool/sn/newsgroup/.max
              If max is not specified on the command line, max is read from this  file.   If  the
              file cannot be read or does not exist, there is no limit.

EXIT CODES

       snfetch  exits  1  on  usage  error,  2  on system failure, 3 on protocol error, 4 on read
       timeout, and 0 on success.

SEE ALSO

       snstore (8), snget (8)