Dnews Updates List

3.0e (7-12-96)

3.0d

3.0a

2.7q

2.7p

2.7o (12-Nov-96)

2.7n

2.7k

2.7j

2.7i

2.7h

2.7g

2.7f

2.7e

2.7d

2.7c

2.7b

2.7a

Major features of 2.7a

  1. Lower memory use
  2. Live high speed outgoing feeds (to replace xmit) these stream and allow multiple channels, and send articles as they are received to reduce system impact. This makes DNEWS ideal for easily sending out large feeds to many customers. (Assuming they haven't seen the light and switched to sucking feeds yet :-)
  3. Support for writing UUCP files directly (much faster)
  4. Support for reading UUCP files directly (much faster)
  5. Shotgun posting, to spread your local posts faster.
  6. PIDENTD support for unix systems.
  7. Many minor improvements / config settings / management commands. Before playing with the new commands for removing groups, copy your ACTIVE.DAT file (just incase :-)


site uucp1
	groups * 
	type uucp 
	uucp_dir c:\uucp1
	uucp_size 4000000 
	uucp_n 500

This will create bag files in the uucp1 directory, and switch every 4MB or 500 items.

site downstream.site.name
type live
live_nchan 3
groups *
tellnews trimgroups [n] 

which removes groups from your local machine that are not available on the machine you suck from. (n is the suck number) After doing this check dnews.log, then use the purgegroups command below if necessary. BEFORE doing this make sure your list of groups in nntp_feeder, or nntp_suck2-4 excludes your local groups or they too will be deleted (if you mess this up then use the undelete command from tellnews to get them back)

e.g.

nntp_feeder main.sucking.site *,!microsoft.*,!local.*
nntp_suck2 msnews.microsoft.com !*,microsoft.* 
tellnews purgegroups [wildcard]

'kill' groups that have been marked for delete. This command sets them to actually be forgotten. Always restart dnews after using this command. Note: If you do this on a sucking feed where you have removed several groups by hand that 'do' exist on the site you suck from, then the groups will re-appear. This is because dnews adds groups it doesn't know about when sucking. They should be left as 'marked for delete' if you don't want them to re-appear.

tellnews checkgroups check.txt

This processes a file check.txt, which must be a checkgroups message with header lines followed by one blank line, followed by the list of news groups with descriptions. Missing groups will be added, extra groups will be deleted.

site prog1
groups local.*
type program
prog_name \dnews\darchiv
prog_args \dnews\darchiv.log

When items arrive a pipe will be opened to the darchiv program, which must read articles from stdin and do something with them. The articles are sent in the following format:

ARTICLE group:item_number <messageid>

(Actual header and body of article)

. (single full stop is end of article)

ARTICLE group:item_number <messageid>

(Actual header and body of article)

. (single full stop is end of article)

A sample 'c' program is provided in this file to assist you in writing or modifying existing software.

Chan[0:72] B o=0 in=54/s out=2788/s 161.29.2.1 161.29.2.1 C_CMD

B The channel is busy processing a command

o=0 No bytes are waiting to be sent

in=54/s The channel has been reading at about 54 characters / second

out=2788/s The channel is writing at about 2788 per second.

org Your Company Name
org_replace true (forces your organization name on all posts)
tellnews reject <messageid> 

which will somtimes be useful in unblocking blocked feeds.

MAX_OUT 10000 

Controls bytes/second per channel, a value of between 2000 and 30000 is sensible. (3000 would limit connections to 'modem speed')

pident true

Which if tells dnews to attempt to verify a 'username' for every connected session. (This is only meaningful on unix systems where the 'ip address' alone does not identify the user) If successful then the users name is added to any message that they post.

suck_uucp c:\uucp\*.bag

This replaces the dposter service for reading in uucp feeds, it will read in messages a LOT faster than the dposter service could.

tellnews disconnect n

where n is the channel number shown in tellnews status.

2.6q

2.6o

2.6n

2.6m

2.6k

2.6j

NOTE: you must delete *.fts before starting this new FTS system if you were testing the previous beta version of FTS. (full text searching)

2.6i

2.6h

2.6g

2.6f

2.6e

2.6d (28-Aug-1996)

2.6c (27-Aug-1996)

2.6b (26-Aug-1996)

suck_stream true

This can triple the sucking speed or better on some systems.

2.6a (Beta release, 25-Aug-96)

Summary of major new featres since 2.5i

2.5l (20-August-1996)

2.5k

2.5j

2.5i

2.5h

2.5g

2.5f

2.5e

expire_bits true

If you are running a very big system this can smooth out performance during expire runs.

2.5d

2.5c

2.5b

2.5a

2.4q

2.4p

2.4o

2.4n

2.4m (I don't like the letter l)

2.4k (Beta)

2.4j (Beta 19/June/1996)

2.4i (Beta 18/June/1996)

2.4h (Beta 17/June/1996)

2.4g (Beta 16/June/1996)

	xover,xhdr,list,article,body

2.4f (Beta 6/June/1996)

2.4e (5/June/1996)

tellnews update2,3,4 To update from alternate sucks.
tellnews updateone rec.humor.* 3 To update one or a few groups from suck3
tellnews showcached [rec.*] To show all cached news groups.
expire_fast true

This makes the expire process run at a high priority, the DEFAULT is now LOW priority, so it doesn't interfere with people reading news

hide_queue true

This hides the names of the entries in the sucking queue, so little old ladies are not offended by naughty group names.

suck_requeue true

This tells it to requeue any groups which are not finished due to the batchn, or batchsize settings.

groups_at 44 1

Triggers a fetch for any new group names from the feeder site once per day (1:44 a.m.). This will be the default for new installations, for old installations you may want to add this line.

xover_cache 10000

At the same time you may want to reduce HEAD_CACHE to about 200 if your are short of memory as the xover cache is much more efficient and uses less memory.

tellnews getgroups 2

Which will get new groups from 'suck2' automatically. (usually run this once when adding a second sucking feed like the microsoft news groups, warning, it will add all groups that the other server offers, ignoring the 'suck2' group wildcard. (but it does obey the 'me' wild card in newsfeeds.conf))

2.4d (19-5-96)

2.4c

2.4b

2.4a

nntp_feeder main.feeder.site *,!microsoft.*
nntp_suck2 alternate.feeder !*,alt.*,!microsoft.*
nntp_suck3 msnews.microsoft.com microsoft.*

update_at *5 * # Get main groups every 10 minutes
update_at2 20 3 # Get missing articles once a day 
update_at3 40 9,12 # Get Micrsoft articles at 9:40 and 12:40
site me 
groups *
site $nntp_feeder
groups *,!microsoft.*
builtin
posting
site msnews.microsoft.com
groups !*,microsoft.*
builtin
posting
...

Please don't update every 10 minutes from microsoft, as they could easily get over loaded :-)

2.3p

replicate true
postonly true
site $NNTP_FEEDER
groups *
builtin
posting

2.3o (12/5/96)

2.3n (5/5/96)

2.3m (3/5/96)

2.3l (19/4/96)

*:logoff:::*
*.my.domain:read,post:::*
*:read,post:joe:joepassword:*

This is because the username line will be matched in anticipation of the user/password info being sent. So these lines should now appear ABOVE wildcard matching lines, e.g.:

*:logoff:::*
*:read,post:joe:joepassword:*
*.my.domain:read,post:::*

So the logic is now: If he is in MY domain, he can read and post, but if he isn't in MY DOMAIN then he can connect but cannot do anything until I see a user/password combination.

2.3k

2.3j

2.3i

	nntp_slow true
	chan_nobuff true
tellnews stats_in, Shows stats in incoming feeds
tellnews stats_groups, Shows stats on group usage/size


2.3h

2.3g

2.3f

2.3e (21/Feb/96)

2.3d (11/Feb/96)

2.3c (7/Feb/96)

2.3b

2.3a

2.2g

2.2f (30/1/96)

2.2e

2.2d (20-Jan-1996)

2.2c (19-Jan-1996)

2.2a (15-Jan-1996)

2.1v (13-Jan-1996)

2.1u (12-Jan-1996)

2.1t (5-Jan-1996)

2.1s (3-Jan-1996)

2.1r

2.1q

2.1p

2.1o

2.1m (3/12/95)

2.1k

2.1j

2.1i (20/11/95)

2.1h

2.1g

2.1f (internal release mainly)

2.1e (4/11/1995)

2.1d (4/11/1995)

2.1c (2/11/1995)

2.1b (1/11/1995)

2.1a (31/10/1995)

2.0 Beta-5

2.0 Beta-4

2.0 Beta-3 (26-Oct-1995)

2.0 Beta-2 (24-Oct-1995)

2.0 Beta-1 (22-Oct-1995)

1.1g (30-Sep-1995)

        tellnews purgelost

        tellnews setused nnn

1.1f (27-Sep-1995)

1.1e (26-Sep-1995)

1.1d (20-Sep-1995)

1.1c (14-Sep-1995)

1.1b (Internal only)

1.1a (6-Sep-1995)

1.0e (Internal version)

1.0d (Internal version)

1.0c (22-Aug-1995)

1.0b (20-Aug-1995)

1.0a (14-Aug-1995)

        check <messageID>
        takethis <messageid>
        mode stream

0.9d (Wide BETA release 2)

0.9c (Wide BETA release)

0.9b