NEWSOVERVIEW(8CN)NEWSOVERVIEW(8CN)NAME
initov, domkov, mkov, expov - maintain netnews overview database
SYNOPSIS
/usr/local/libexec/cnews/nov/initov
/usr/local/libexec/cnews/nov/domkov
/usr/local/libexec/cnews/nov/mkov [ -an ] [ -o stamp ] [ file ... ]
/usr/local/libexec/cnews/nov/expov
DESCRIPTION
These programs keep the netnews overview database for newsreaders up to
date.
Initov creates the database initially by reading all the articles under
/var/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 initov is run; initov 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 is run from newsrun(8CN). It updates the database files from
the header stream produced by relaynews(8CN) for new articles.
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 out‐
put. -a reads articles instead of a header stream (but ignores filess
which are directories or have names which do not resemble article
names, i.e. do not have a leading digit on their last component). and
omits the initial directory name field; -n requests the initial direc‐
tory name despite -a; -o causes only articles older than the file stamp
to be summarised.
Expov should be run after expire(8CN) (and is, by doexpire(8CN)) to
delete database entries for missing articles.
FILES
/var/news/group/.overview
overview database
/var/lib/news/LOCKoverview
lock file for the database
/var/lib/news/headers
stream of headers from newly-arrived articles
/var/lib/news/active
active newsgroups
SEE ALSOnewsoverview(5), expire(8CN), relaynews(8CN)HISTORY
Written by Geoff Collyer, with minor contributions from Henry Spencer,
as part of the C News project.
BUGS
mkov -o is a blemish, but it really speeds up initov.
15 Aug 1994 NEWSOVERVIEW(8CN)
