NEWSOVERVIEW(8)

NAME
newsoverview: initdb, domkov, mkov, batmkov, expov - maintain netnews overview database

SYNOPSIS
initdb

domkov

mkov [ -an ] [ -o stamp ] [ file ... ]

batmkov [ file ... ]

expov

DESCRIPTION
These programs keep the netnews overview database for newsreaders up to date.

Initdb creates the database initially by reading all the articles under /usr/spool/news. This takes a long time (on the order of 12 hours, in late 1992), and can be avoided by letting domkov incrementally generate a database for new articles as they arrive; after a week or so, most articles should be in the database. The news system should not be locked when initdb is run; initdb takes care of the necessary locking internally, and deals with articles that arrive while it is running (primarily by deferring their processing to domkov).

Domkov should be run as the news userid periodically (e.g. from newsrun or cron(8)). It updates the database files from the header stream produced by relaynews(8) for new articles. (Batmkov is a slower variant that reads the articles named, one per line, in file(s), which may be relaynews F-style batch files.) Mkov normally reads a stream of RFC 1036 headers, with those of each article separated from those of its neighbours by an empty line, from files (standard input if none) and writes a summary in the format of newsoverview(5), but with a field containing the article's news spool directory name relative to /usr/spool/news prepended, on standard output. -a reads articles instead of a header stream and omits the initial directory name field; -n requests the initial directory name despite -a; -o causes only articles older than the file stamp to be summarised.

Expov should be run after expire(8) to delete database entries for missing articles.

FILES
/usr/spool/news/group/.overview
    overview database
/usr/lib/news/LOCKoverview
    lock file for the database
/usr/lib/news/headers
    stream of headers from newly-arrived articles
/usr/lib/news/active
    active newsgroups

SEE ALSO
newsoverview(5), expire(8), relaynews(8)

HISTORY
Written by Geoff Collyer, as part of the C News project.

BUGS
mkov -o is a blemish, but it really speeds up initdb.