NAME

       snget,sngetd - fetch news from upstream sites and store them locally.

SYNOPSIS

       snget [options] [news.group...]
       sngetd [options]
       options: [-d] [-h Bps] [-p nparallel] [-c depth] [-m max]

DESCRIPTION

       snget  fetches  articles  for  the  news.groups  on  the  command  line  (or all non-local
       newsgroups if none are specified) from their respective upstream feeds, and stores them in
       the  news  spool  /var/spool/sn.   If  a  newsgroup  could  not  be fetched for, it may be
       attempted  again.   sngetd  does  the  same,  except  it  reads   newsgroup   names   from
       /var/spool/sn/.fifo and does not exit.  sngetd does not fork into the background.

       snget  does  not guarantee to fetch the groups in the order specified on the command line.
       snget and sngetd will write errors and status messages to descriptor 2.

       snget and sngetd are both scheduling wrappers that call  /usr/sbin/SNHELLO,  snfetch,  and
       snstore.  You must own /var/spool/sn or be root in order to run snget and sngetd.

OPTIONS

       -d     Enable  verbosity, may be specified multiple times.  This option is also propagated
              to snfetch and snstore.

       -p nparallel
              Attempt to fetch for nparallel newsgroups at once.  Default is 4, maximum is 8.

       -h Bps Throttle the sum of bandwidth used by all snfetches to Bps bytes per second.   This
              option  is  used  to  prevent snget or sngetd from hogging the network.  By default
              there is no throttling.

       -c depth
              depth is passed to snfetch as the depth of the command pipeline.

       -m max The very first time contacting the news server, retrieve no more than max  articles
              per  newsgroup,  default  is 200.  This option is useful only if there are unprimed
              newsgroups and has no effect otherwise.  The .max file in each newsgroup  directory
              still applies (see snfetch(8)).

       -t timeout
              This  option is not documented because it is ignored and will disappear in a future
              release.  See .timeout in FILES next.

FILES

       Server Directories
              These  are  the  directories  /var/spool/sn/.outgoing/server.name:port,  which  are
              symlinked  from /var/spool/sn/news.group/.outgoing.  If the latter isn't a (symlink
              to a) directory, snget won't fetch for news.group.

       /var/spool/sn/.outgoing/server.name:port/.timeout
              If this file exists and contains a number, this is  taken  to  be  the  timeout  in
              seconds in all dealings with server.name:port.  Default is 120 seconds.

       /var/spool/sn/.outgoing/server.name:port/.SNHELLO
              If  this  program  file  exists,  it  is  invoked  instead  of the default (usually
              /usr/sbin/SNHELLO) when an NNTP connection is first  made  to  server.name:port  in
              order  to  read  the  greeting  and  upload  posted  articles.  If server.name:port
              requires a username and password, you would copy the default  here  and  edit  that
              information in.

       /var/spool/sn/news.group/{.serial,.max}
              snget and sngetd read these files on behalf of snfetch.

SIGNALS

       Other signals have default behaviour.

       SIGUSR1
              If -h Bps was specified, Bps is halved, else is ignored.

       SIGUSR2
              If -h Bps was specified, Bps is doubled, else is ignored.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

       See also /usr/sbin/SNHELLO for the list of environment variables exported by snget/sngetd.

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

       PATH   To find SNHELLO (if this server does not have a .SNHELLO),  snfetch,  and  snstore.
              If PATH does not contain /usr/sbin as one of it's components, /usr/sbin is appended
              to it.

SEE ALSO

       snfetch(8), snstore(8), /usr/sbin/SNHELLO