NAME

news − USENET network news article, utility files

DESCRIPTION

There are two formats of news articles: A and B.  A format is the only format that version 1 netnews systems can read or write.  Systems running the version 2 netnews can read either format and there are provisions for the version 2 netnews to write in A format.  A format looks like this:

Aarticle-ID
newsgroups
path
date
title
Body of article

Only version 2 netnews systems can read and write B format.  B format contains two extra pieces of information:  receipt date and expiration date.  The basic structure of a B format file consists of a series of headers and then the body.  A header field is defined as a line with a capital letter in the first column and a colon somewhere on the line.  Unrecognized header fields are ignored.  News is stored in the same format transmitted, see Standard for the Interchange of USENET Messages for a full description.  The following fields are among those recognized:

From: user@host.domain[.domain ...] ( Full Name)
Newsgroups: Newsgroups
Message-ID: <Unique Identifier>
Subject: descriptive title
Date: Date Posted
Expires: Expiration Date
Reply-To: Address for mail replies
References: Article ID of article this is a follow-up to.
Control: Text of a control message

Here is an example of an article:

Path: cbosgd!mhuxj!mhuxt!eagle!jerry
From: jerry@eagle.uucp (Jerry Schwarz)
Newsgroups: net.general
Subject: Usenet Etiquette -- Please Read
Message-ID: <642@eagle.UUCP>
Date: Friday, 19 Nov 82 16:14:55 EST
Followup-To: net.news
Expires: Saturday, 1 Jan 83 00:00:00 EST
Organization: Bell Labs, Murray Hill
Lines: 42
 The body of the article comes here, after a blank line.

The sys file line has four fields, each separated by colons:

system-name:subscriptions: flags:transmission command

Of these fields, only the system-name and subscriptions need to be present.

The system name is the name of the system being sent to.  The subscriptions is the list of newsgroups to be transmitted to the system.  The flags are a set of letters describing how the article should be transmitted.  The default is B.  Valid flags include A (send in A format), B (send in B format), N (use “ihave/sendme” protocol), U (use “uux −c” and the name of the stored article in a “%s” string). 

The transmission command is executed by the shell with the article to be transmitted as the standard input.  The default is “uux − −z −r sysname!rnews”. Some examples:

xyz:net
oldsys:net,mod,to.oldsys:A
berksys:net,ucb::/usr/lib/news/sendnews −b berksys:rnews
arpasys:net,arpa::/usr/lib/news/sendnews −a rnews@arpasys
old2:net,mod:A:/usr/lib/sendnews −o old2:rnews
user:net.sf-lovers::mail user

Somewhere in the sys file, there must be a line for the host system.  This line has no flags or commands. A “#” as the first character in a line denotes a comment. A logical line may be continued to the next physical line by putting a \ at end of the line.

The history, active, and ngfile files have one line per item. 

SEE ALSO

checknews(1), inews(8), postnews(1), readnews(1), vnews(1), getdate(3), expire(8), recnews(8), sendnews(8), uurec(8)

Version B 2.11  —  Last change: July 5, 1986