| < mailpost | Russ Allbery > Software > INN > INN CURRENT Documentation | rnews > |
(Pull news from multiple news servers and feed it to another)
pullnews [-BhnOqRx] [-a hashfeed] [-b fraction] [-c config] [-C width] [-d level] [-f fraction] [-F fakehop] [-g groups] [-G newsgroups] [-H headers] [-k checkpt] [-l logfile] [-L size] [-m header_pats] [-M num] [-N timeout] [-p port] [-P hop_limit] [-Q level] [-r file] [-s to-server[:port][_tlsmode]] [-S max-run] [-t retries] [-T connect-pause] [-w num] [-z article-pause] [-Z group-pause] [from-server ...]
The Net::NNTP module must be installed. This module is available as part
of the libnet distribution and comes with recent versions of Perl. For
older versions of Perl, you can download it from <http://www.cpan.org/>.
pullnews reads a config file named pullnews.marks, and connects
to the upstream servers given there as a reader client. This file is
looked for in pathdb when pullnews is run as the user set in
runasuser in inn.conf (which is by default the news user);
otherwise, this file is looked for in the running user's home directory.
By default, pullnews connects to all servers listed in the configuration file, but you can limit pullnews to specific servers by listing them on the command line: a whitespace-separated list of server names can be specified, like from-server for one of them. For each server it connects to, it pulls over articles and feeds them to the destination server via the IHAVE or POST commands. This means that the system pullnews is run on must have feeding access to the destination news server.
pullnews is designed for very small sites that do not want to bother setting up traditional peering and is not meant for handling large feeds.
This option is a deterministic way to control the flow of articles and to
split a feed. The hashfeed parameter must be in the form value/mod
or start-end/mod. The Message-ID of each article is hashed using MD5,
which results in a 128-bit hash. The lowest 32 bits are then taken
by default as the hashfeed value (which is an integer). If the hashfeed
value modulus mod plus one equals value or is between start
and end, pullnews will feed the article. All these numbers must
be integers.
For instance:
pullnews -a 1/2 Feeds about 50% of all articles.
pullnews -a 2/2 Feeds the other 50% of all articles.
Another example:
pullnews -a 1-3/10 Feeds about 30% of all articles.
pullnews -a 4-5/10 Feeds about 20% of all articles.
pullnews -a 6-10/10 Feeds about 50% of all articles.
You can use an extended syntax of the form value/mod:offset or
start-end/mod:offset (using an underscore _ instead of a colon
: is also recognized). As MD5 generates a 128-bit return value,
it is possible to specify from which byte-offset the 32-bit integer
used by hashfeed starts. The default value for offset is :0 and
thirteen overlapping values from :0 to :12 can be used. Only up to
four totally independent values exist: :0, :4, :8 and :12.
Therefore, it allows generating a second level of deterministic
distribution. Indeed, if pullnews feeds 1/2, it can go on
splitting thanks to 1-3/9:4 for instance. Up to four levels of
deterministic distribution can be used.
The algorithm is compatible with the one used by Diablo 5.1 and up.
Backtrack on server numbering reset. Specify the proportion (0.0 to 1.0)
of a group's articles to pull when the server's article number is less than
our high for that group. When fraction is 1.0, pull all the articles on
a renumbered server. The default is to do nothing.
Feed is header-only, that is to say pullnews only feeds the headers of the articles, plus one blank line. It adds the Bytes header field if the article does not already have one, and keeps the body only if the article is a control article.
Normally, the config file is stored in pullnews.marks in pathdb when pullnews is run as the news user, or otherwise in the running user's home directory. If -c is given, config will be used as the config file instead. This is useful if you're running pullnews as a system user on an automated basis out of cron or as an individual user, rather than the news user.
See CONFIG FILE below for the format of this file.
Use width characters per line for the progress table. The default value
is 50.
Set the debugging level to the integer level (up to 4); more debugging
output will be logged as this increases. The default value is 0.
This changes the proportion of articles to get from each group to
fraction and should be in the range 0.0 to 1.0 (1.0 being
the default).
Prepend fakehop as a host to the Path header field body of articles fed.
Specify a collection of groups to get. groups is a list of newsgroups separated by commas (only commas, no spaces). Each group must be defined in the config file, and only the remote hosts that carry those groups will be contacted. Note that this is a simple list of groups, not a wildmat expression, and wildcards are not supported.
Add the comma-separated list of groups newsgroups to each server in the configuration file (see also -g and -w).
Print a usage message and exit.
Remove these named header fields (colon-separated list) from fed articles.
Checkpoint (save) the config file every checkpt articles
(default is 0, that is to say at the end of the session).
Log progress/stats to logfile (default is stdout).
Specify the largest wanted article size in bytes. The default is to download all articles, whatever their size. When this option is used, pullnews will first retrieve overview data (if available) of each newsgroup to process so as to obtain articles sizes, before deciding which articles to actually download.
Feed an article based on header field body matching. The argument is a number of whitespace-separated tuples (each tuple being a colon-separated header field name and regular expression). For instance:
-m "Hdr1:regexp1 !Hdr2:regexp2 #Hdr3:regexp3 !#Hdr4:regexp4"
specifies that the article will be passed only if the Hdr1 header
field body matches regexp1 and the Hdr2 header field body does not
match regexp2. Besides, if the Hdr3 header field body matches
regexp3, that header is removed; and if the Hdr4 header field
body does not match regexp4, that header is removed.
Specify the maximum number of articles (per group) to process. The default is to process all new articles. See also -f.
Do nothing but read articles -- does not feed articles downstream, writes no rnews file, does not update the config file.
Specify the timeout length, as timeout seconds, when establishing an NNTP connection.
Use an optimized mode: pullnews checks whether the article already exists on the downstream server, before downloading it. It may help for huge articles or a slow link to upstream hosts.
Connect to the destination news server on a port other than the default of
119. This option does not change the port used to connect to the source
news servers.
Restrict feeding an article based on the number of hops it has already
made. Count the hops in the Path header field body (hop_count),
feeding the article only when hop_limit is +num and hop_count
is more than num; or hop_limit is -num and hop_count is
less than num.
Print out less status information while running.
Set the quietness level (-Q 2 is equivalent to -q). The higher this
value, the less gets logged. The default is 0.
Rather than feeding the downloaded articles to a destination server, instead create a batch file that can later be fed to a server using rnews. See rnews(1) for more information about the batch file format.
Be a reader (use MODE READER and POST commands) to the downstream server.
Some posts will then be rejected because of unexpected injection header
fields, obsolete or incorrectly formatted header fields, or with a date
too far in the past. You may then want to set artcutoff to 0
in inn.conf, and use the -H flag to strip unwanted header fields.
Even with that, a few articles may still be rejected.
The default is to behave like a feeder and use the IHAVE command. (You'll have to allow in incoming.conf the connections from pullnews so that it is recognized as a feeder.)
Normally, pullnews will feed the articles it retrieves to the news
server running on localhost. To connect to a different host, specify a
server with the -s flag. You can also specify the port with this same
flag or use -p. Default port is 119.
The connection is by default unencrypted. To negotiate a TLS encryption
layer, you can set tlsmode to TLS for implicit TLS (negotiated
immediately upon connection on a dedicated port) or STARTTLS for explicit
TLS (the appropriate command will be sent before authenticating or feeding
messages). Examples of use are:
pullnews -s news.server.com
pullnews -s news.server.com_STARTTLS
pullnews -s news.server.com:433_TLS
Note that not all NNTP servers implement TLS for feeding articles.
Specify the maximum time max-run in seconds for pullnews to run.
The maximum number (retries) of attempts to connect to a server or
reconnect to a server if the socket is unexpectedly closed (see also -T).
The default is 0.
Pause connect-pause seconds between connection retries (see also -t).
The default is 1.
Set each group's high water mark (last received article number) to num.
If num is negative, calculate Current+num instead (i.e. get the
last num articles). Therefore, a num of 0 will re-get all articles
on the server; whereas a num of -0 will get no old articles, setting the
water mark to Current (the most recent article on the server).
If the -x flag is used, an Xref header field is added to any article that lacks one. It can be useful for instance if articles are fed to a news server which has xrefslave set in inn.conf.
Sleep article-pause seconds between articles. The default is 0.
Sleep group-pause seconds between groups. The default is 0.
The config file for pullnews is divided into blocks, one block for
each remote server to connect to. A block begins with the host line
(which must have no leading whitespace) and contains just the hostname of
the remote server with optional port and TLS mode (with the same semantics
as the -s flag), optionally followed by authentication details (username
and password for that server). Note that authentication details can also
be provided for the downstream server (a host line for localhost or the
hostname specified with the -s flag could be added for it in the
configuration file, with no newsgroup to fetch).
Following the host line should be one or more newsgroup lines which start with whitespace followed by the name of a newsgroup to retrieve. Only one newsgroup should be listed on each line.
pullnews will update the config file to include the time the group was last checked and the highest numbered article successfully retrieved and transferred to the destination server. It uses this data to avoid doing duplicate work the next time it runs.
The full syntax is:
<host>[:<port>][_<tlsmode>] [<username> <password>]
<group> [<time> <high>]
<group> [<time> <high>]
where the <host> line must not have leading whitespace and the <group> lines must.
A typical configuration file would be:
# Format: group date high
data.pa.vix.com
rec.bicycles.racing 908086612 783
rec.humor.funny 908086613 18
comp.programming.threads
nnrp.vix.com pull sekret
comp.std.lisp
news.server.com:563_TLS joe password
news.software.nntp
Note that an earlier run of pullnews has filled in details about the last article downloads from the two rec.* groups. The two comp.* groups and the news.* group were just added by the user and have not yet been checked.
The nnrp.vix.com server requires authentication, and pullnews will use the
username pull and the password sekret (without any encryption layer).
The connection to news.server.com will be encrypted with implicit TLS on port 563. Joe's password won't be sent in plaintext.
The Perl script itself used to pull news from upstream servers and feed it to another news server.
The default config file. It is stored in pullnews.marks in pathdb when pullnews is run as the news user, or otherwise in the running user's home directory.
pullnews was written by James Brister for INN. The documentation was rewritten in POD by Russ Allbery <eagle@eyrie.org>.
Geraint A. Edwards greatly improved pullnews, adding no more than 16 new recognized flags, fixing some bugs and integrating the backupfeed contrib script by Kai Henningsen, adding again 6 other flags.
incoming.conf(5), rnews(1).
| < mailpost | Russ Allbery > Software > INN > INN CURRENT Documentation | rnews > |