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Internet Message Format | 1994-04-05 | 18.1 KB

Path: bloom-beacon.mit.edu!hookup!swrinde!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!news.mentorg.com!sdl!not-for-mail From: tal@Warren.MENTORG.COM (Tom Limoncelli) Newsgroups: news.software.nntp,news.software.b,news.answers Subject: Changes to INN FAQ Part 3/4: Operational and Misc. Questions Supersedes: <inn-faq-changes-3-765518416@Warren.MENTORG.COM> Followup-To: news.software.nntp Date: 5 Apr 1994 11:37:14 -0400 Organization: Mentor Graphics - IC Group, Warren, NJ, USA Lines: 508 Sender: tal@Warren.MENTORG.COM Approved: news-answers-request@MIT.Edu Distribution: world Expires: 04/20/94 Message-ID: <inn-faq-changes-3-764139608@Warren.MENTORG.COM> References: <inn-faq-changes-2-764139608@Warren.MENTORG.COM> Reply-To: Tom_Limoncelli@Warren.MENTORG.COM (Tom Limoncelli) NNTP-Posting-Host: sdl.warren.mentorg.com Xref: bloom-beacon.mit.edu news.software.nntp:5495 news.software.b:4177 news.answers:17712 Posted-By: auto-faq 2.4 Archive-name: inn-faq/diff3 No differences encountered -- Tom Limoncelli -- tal@warren.mentorg.com (work) -- tal@plts.org (play) "Psst! Hey, Anthony! Y'know what I | Disclaimer: I do not like about existing?" "Uh... uh... what?" | speak for Mentor Graphics. "Possessing a physical extension." -TSA | *** 1.48 1994/01/17 14:30:24 --- FAQ-inn.3 1994/03/31 21:14:54 *************** *** 1,4 **** ! Last Changed: $Id: FAQ-inn.3,v 1.48 1994/01/17 14:30:24 tal Exp $ Part 3 of 4 --- 1,4 ---- ! Last Changed: $Id: FAQ-inn.3,v 1.61 1994/03/15 20:09:03 tal Exp $ Part 3 of 4 *************** *** 32,37 **** --- 32,39 ---- Suddenly my active and history files are owned by root! How come my host name comes out twice in the Path line? Expire had problems last night, and while I fixed the problem, + expire reports "Group not matched (removed?) -- + Using default expiration" Why doesn't this newsfeeds entry do what I want? Why am I forwarding cancel messages for articles in comp.foo Debugging someone that is feeding you. *************** *** 42,55 **** Directories are being created with wrong permissions. Why am I getting alt.sex.pictures even though I have More about the "to.*" groups HOW DO I... (Big changes you can make to the system): How do I set up a delayed IHAVE/SENDME over NNTP? Can I use gzip with INN? What do I do if /var/spool/news is set up over many partitions? BUGS IN 1.4: ! (this section currently empty) BUGS IN 1.3: 7-bit encoded batches are not correctly processed. Why is this? BUGS IN 1.2: Why doesn't nntpget work? --- 44,65 ---- Directories are being created with wrong permissions. Why am I getting alt.sex.pictures even though I have More about the "to.*" groups + What's a decent syslog.conf configuration? + INN batcher writing "#!rnews 0" separators + Posting while throttled doesn't work + "innd: overview! spooling" and the file "overview!" in /usr/spool/news/out.going + "newgroup" control messages aren't being executed HOW DO I... (Big changes you can make to the system): How do I set up a delayed IHAVE/SENDME over NNTP? Can I use gzip with INN? What do I do if /var/spool/news is set up over many partitions? + archiving expired articles BUGS IN 1.4: ! Security Patch ! Looping Select Patch BUGS IN 1.3: 7-bit encoded batches are not correctly processed. Why is this? + NOV (overchan) doesn't work well. BUGS IN 1.2: Why doesn't nntpget work? *************** *** 74,79 **** --- 84,93 ---- Subject: Safe way to edit the "active" file? + First of all, you could manipulate the active file using the ctlinnd + "newgroup", "rmgroup" and "changegroup" commands. However, sometimes + you just need to do a lot of editing all at once: + The following sequence is the shortest: ctlinnd pause "edit active" *************** *** 81,87 **** ctlinnd reload active "edit active" ctlinnd go "edit active" ! Simple! No need to "flush", the "pause" does that. ------------------------------ --- 95,142 ---- ctlinnd reload active "edit active" ctlinnd go "edit active" ! Simple! No need to "flush" since the "pause" does that. ! ! > What if I need to delete 3000 lines from my active file? ! ! I would definately edit the active file manually (using ! the above procedure). ! ! > What if I need to delete 10 lines from my active file? ! ! For a couple quick changes, I recommend using "ctlinnd". This is a ! little slow because all channels are closed and reopened after each ! "rmgroup", "newgroup", and "changegroup". However, it's easier than ! remembering the above sequence. ! ! DO NOT THROTTLE THE SERVER WHEN DOING MULTIPLE rmgroup COMMANDS. There ! is a bug in INN (all versions) that will shred your active file if you ! do multiple "rmgroup" messages while the server if throttled. This is ! a common mistake. People think the "rmgroup"'s will go faster if the ! server is throttled. It will go faster, it will also shred your active ! file. ! ! If you have a large number of groups to remove or create, you can use ! awk to write a script to do the work for you. ! ! % cat thelist ! alt.foo.bar ! alt.delete.me ! comp.sys.mac ! % awk <thelist '{ print "ctlinnd rmgroup " $1 }' ! ctlinnd rmgroup alt.foo.bar ! ctlinnd rmgroup alt.delete.me ! ctlinnd rmgroup comp.sys.mac ! ! Now, you can either send the output of that to "| sh -x", ! or you can redirect the output to a file, and "source" the ! file. ! ! If you want to create a bunch of newsgroups, the awk ! command might be like this: ! ! % awk <thelist \ ! '{ print "ctlinnd newgroup " $1 " y user@host" }' | sh -x ------------------------------ *************** *** 132,139 **** STEP 6: When you feel you are ready to install the new $INN/site files: ! % cd $INN/site ! % make install STEP 7: Re-start the system: --- 187,194 ---- STEP 6: When you feel you are ready to install the new $INN/site files: ! # cd $INN/site ! # make install STEP 7: Re-start the system: *************** *** 140,146 **** % sh /usr/lib/news/etc/rc.news STEP 8: If everything was done right you should be up and running. ! Part ??? of the FAQ gives tips on testing your configuration. ------------------------------ --- 195,201 ---- % sh /usr/lib/news/etc/rc.news STEP 8: If everything was done right you should be up and running. ! Part 2 of the FAQ gives tips on testing your configuration. ------------------------------ *************** *** 211,218 **** ------------------------------ ! Subject: Expire had problems last night, and while I fixed the problem, ! it still won't run. When expire starts up it "reserves" the server so that nobody else can pause or throttle it. This prevents anyone else from coming in and --- 266,273 ---- ------------------------------ ! Subject: Expire had problems last night, and while I fixed the ! problem, it still won't run. When expire starts up it "reserves" the server so that nobody else can pause or throttle it. This prevents anyone else from coming in and *************** *** 225,230 **** --- 280,300 ---- ------------------------------ + Subject: expire reports "Group not matched (removed?) -- + Using default expiration" + + Expire says: + Group not matched (removed?) alt.techno-shamanism -- Using default expiration + Group not matched (removed?) misc.computers.forsale -- Using default expiration + Group not matched (removed?) de.rec.sf.startrek -- Using default expiration + + That just means that you've removed those newsgroups groups and expire + is slowly removing articles from the spool as they expire. Eventually + the articles will all have been deleted and so will these messages. + + + ------------------------------ + Subject: Why doesn't this newsfeeds entry do what I want? "foo.com:alt,!alt.sex" *************** *** 369,377 **** it. If a control message is posted to a group whose name ends with the four characters ``.ctl'' then the suffix is stripped off and what is left is used as the group name. ! For example, a cancel message posted to ``news.admin.ctl'' will be sent to all sites that subscribe to ``control'' or ! ``news.admin.'' There is also a pointer to this in newsfeeds(5). --- 439,447 ---- it. If a control message is posted to a group whose name ends with the four characters ``.ctl'' then the suffix is stripped off and what is left is used as the group name. ! For example, a cancel message posted to ``news.admin.misc.ctl'' will be sent to all sites that subscribe to ``control'' or ! ``news.admin.misc''. There is also a pointer to this in newsfeeds(5). *************** *** 380,385 **** --- 450,593 ---- Yes. + ------------------------------ + + Subject: What's a decent syslog.conf configuration? + + The configuration will be different for each site, but here is what + Greg Earle recommends as the lines for the "news.*" related part. + Remember that most syslog's require tabs, not spaces. + + Greg's canonical SunOS 4.1.x INN-related syslog.conf entries (which can + be merged into your current configuration): + + # + # INN stuff + # + ## Send critical messages to everyone who is logged in and to the console. + news.crit * + news.crit /dev/console + + ## Log news messages to separate files. + ## Note that each level includes all of the above it. + ## =()<news.crit @<_PATH_MOST_LOGS>@/news.crit>()= + news.crit /var/log/news/news.crit + ## =()<news.err @<_PATH_MOST_LOGS>@/news.err>()= + news.err /var/log/news/news.err + ## =()<news.notice @<_PATH_MOST_LOGS>@/news.notice>()= + news.notice /var/log/news/news.notice + + + ------------------------------ + + Subject: INN batcher writing "#!rnews 0" separators + + >Outgoing UUCP batches from here are going out with "#!rnews 0" at + >the head of each article. + + Most common cause: your newsfeeds entry has "Wnm" not "Wnb". + + Other reasons: + + batchfiles have something other than a single space between article + filename and size + + batchfiles lack size information (all the articles sizes will be read + from the batch file as zero) + + + ------------------------------ + + Subject: Posting while throttled doesn't work + + >I want to be able to allow my users to be able to post articles when + >innwatch has throttled the system when the spool disk is "full". + + Cannot be done in 1.4. + + At a minimum, in 1.5 nnrpd will spool the post for the user. + + + ------------------------------ + + Subject: "innd: overview! spooling" and the file "overview!" in /usr/spool/news/out.going + + > About once a month or so, I get the following warning messages: + > + > Jan 20 07:20:22 optima innd: overview!:31:proc:9193 cant flush count 14639 Operation would block + > Jan 20 07:20:22 optima innd: overview! spooling 14639 bytes + > + > And there's a file "overview!" in /usr/spool/news/out.going with stuff in it. + > + > Should I be doing anything more with this than ignoring it, and maybe + > occasionally deleting it (it just grows)? + + This happens because innd is feeding info to overchan faster than + overchan can process it. The overflow is sent to the file + "overview!". This file can be deleted, as nnrpd will grab the missing + data out of the articles "manually". The slow-down won't be noticed. + However, you can "expireover -a" to "fill in the holes". + + To prevent this in the future, you need to make overchan run faster. + This is easy to do. I found that moving the overview files into + /usr/spool/news/over.view made things fast enough that the problem went + away. Change "_PATH_OVERVIEWDIR" in config.data, recompile, and you're + done. (You will need to recompile any newsreaders that read via NFS or + off the local disk). + + Why does that speed up overchan? overchan works by opening the proper + .overview file, appending 1 line to it, then closing the file. If you + have the .overview file in the same directory as 10000 articles then + opening the .overview file will take a huge amount of time. The open() + call literally searches though an average 5000 (half of 10000) file + names to find ".overview". If you move your .overview files so that + each one is in it's own directory, (say, + /usr/spool/news/over.view/{group}/{name}/.overview) then open() is + searching through 3 files ( ".", "..", and ".overview") to find 1 + file. ( O(N/2) where N=10000 vs. N=3... and you thought those + freshman year CS classes would never be useful!) + + There isn't much you can do to make the "append" and "close" steps much + faster, except maybe install a PrestoServe or similar write-cache, and + that won't help very much. + + Profiling overchan (with PureSoft's Quantify product) found that the + open() (actually searching the directory to find the .overview file) + was around 80% of the execution time of overchan. That was reduced to + 40% when I moved the .overview files to their own directory. With the + change, overview's profiling statistics are pretty flat. (which is + good). + + DO run "expireover -a" to fix the problem. + + DO NOT try feeding the "overview!" file to overchan manually. + (1) overchan doesn't do any locking and you'll have two overchan's + running at once. + (2) overchan only appends to the .overview files. If you've gotten + any articles since the "overview!" file was created (you will + have) then you'll be appending told old entries that are out of + order. Your ".overview" files must be in sorted order for the + other utilities to work right. + + + ------------------------------ + + Subject: "newgroup" control messages aren't being executed + + > "newgroup" control messages aren't be executed + + The usual blame for this is _PATH_EGREP points to a grep that doesn't + understand regular expressions. For example, GNU grep only understands + regular expressions if it is called "egrep" (i.e. not "gnuegrep" or + "egnugrep"). + + Make sure you have a link or symlink between egnugrep and egrep. You + then need to modify config.data so that _PATH_EGREP is + /your/local/path/egrep and NOT /your/local/path/egnuegrep. Then + recompile and "make install" to have the new binaries and shell + scripts installed. + + ===================================================================== HOW DO I... (Big changes you can make to the system) ===================================================================== *************** *** 555,568 **** find . -type l -print | grep '[0-9][0-9]*' | xargs -t rm ===================================================================== BUGS IN 1.4 ===================================================================== ! (this section currently empty, it will soon have the 2-3 unofficial ! patches that are sometimes needed.) ===================================================================== BUGS IN 1.3 ===================================================================== --- 763,827 ---- find . -type l -print | grep '[0-9][0-9]*' | xargs -t rm + ------------------------------ + + Subject: archiving expired articles + + In <2hmomh$262@news.iastate.edu> rod@iastate.edu writes: + >What options do I have in INN for archiving local newsgroups? + + See doc/archive.8. You could also put "never:never:never" in your + expire.ctl file. + + >Any help would be appreciated. Any cookbook examples would also help. + + A cookbook newsfeeds entry: + # Feed all moderated source postings to an archiver + source-archive!:!*,*sources*,!*wanted*,!*.d\ + :Tc,Nm,Wn:/usr/local/bin/archive -f -i /usr/spool/news.archive/INDEX + + + ------------------------------ + + Subject: How do I set up inpaths with INN? + + inpaths should work just fine with INN as it ships. However, you can + make it run faster by using the following shell script. Edit it to + your tastes. It replaces the long "(cd /var/spool/news ; + /usr/local/bin/gfind . -type f -print | /usr/lib/news/local/inpaths sdl + | /usr/ucb/mail admin,pathsurvey@decwrl.dec.com )" which people usually + use. + + #!/bin/sh + . /home/news/innshellvars + cd ${SPOOL} + awk '(NR > 2){print $3}' < ${HISTORY} | tr . / | sort | \ + inpaths `innconfval pathhost` | \ + ${MAILCMD} pathsurvey@decwrl.dec.com + + ===================================================================== BUGS IN 1.4 ===================================================================== ! UNOFFICIAL patches for INN 1.4 are available via anonymous FTP at ! ftp://ftp.pop.psu.edu/pub/src/news/inn-patches/ ! ! The file ftp://ftp.pop.psu.edu/pub/src/news/inn-patches/README describes ! each of the UNOFFICIAL patches. ! ! The ones that are highly recommended are: + 1.4-to-1.4sec -- Fixes the major security hole in INN. + 1.4sec-to-1.4sec2 -- Fixes the remaining known security hole in INN. + + select-loop-bug.patch -- Under some circumstances innd can lose track + of a file descriptor and end up sitting in a select() loop. If your + INN suddenly is using up tons of CPU time and not getting much done, + install this UNOFFICIAL patch. Some OSs are more susecptible to this + bug. + ===================================================================== BUGS IN 1.3 ===================================================================== *************** *** 580,585 **** --- 839,853 ---- fixed in INN 1.4. + ------------------------------ + + Subject: NOV (overchan) doesn't work well. + + Correct. The NOV support in 1.3 didn't have all the bugs worked out. + Don't use NOV under INN 1.3. Better yet, upgrade to 1.4sec and get all + the benefits! + + ===================================================================== BUGS IN 1.2 (Hey, it's 1994! Upgrade already!) *************** *** 589,595 **** Subject: Why doesn't nntpget work? ! The nntpget in INN 1.2 doesn't work. Period. Upgrade to the latest version ! of INN. --- 857,863 ---- Subject: Why doesn't nntpget work? ! The nntpget in INN 1.2 doesn't work. Period. Upgrade to the latest ! version of INN.