nget(1)nget(1)NAMEnget - retrieve files from NNTP (usenet news) hosts
SYNOPSISnget [...]
DESCRIPTIONnget retrieves messages matching a regular expression, and decodes any
files contained within. Multipart messages are automatically pieced
together. Parts from multiple servers will be combined if needed.
OPTIONS
The order options are specified is significant. In general, an option
will only affect options that come after it on the command line.
-q/--quiet
When specified once, will disable printing of auto-updating text
to allow the output to be redirected/logged without garbage in
it. When specified twice, will disable printing of merely
informative messages. Errors will still be printed.
-h/--host host
Force only the given host to be used for subsequent commands.
(Must be configured in .ngetrc.) Can reset to standard auto-
choosing method with -h ""
-a/--available
Update the list of available newsgroups. Subsequent -r/-R com‐
mands can be use to search for newsgroups.
-A/--quickavailable
Like -a/--available, but does not update the list, only makes it
available for searching.
-X/--xavailable
Search the group list, but without loading cache file or
retrieving full group list. Instead, the search will be done on
the server. Compared to -a/-A this has the advantage of not
requiring any disk space for cache files, and not requiring the
initial retrieval of the full group list. The disadvantages are
not all servers supporting the required NNTP extensions, the
inability to use complex regexs due to the need to convert it to
the simpler wildmat format, and the possibility that the com‐
mands can be quite slow if the server is overloaded (you may
need to increase the timeout value in some cases).
-g/--group group(s)
Update the list of available files in group(s). Multiple groups
can be specified by seperating them with commas. All cached
groups can be selected with "*". If a host has been specified
before with -h, it will retrieve headers only from that host.
Otherwise it will retrieve headers for all hosts above _glevel
(see configuration section for more info on priorities.) Subse‐
quent -r/-R commands can be used to retrieve files.
-G/--quickgroup group(s)
Like --group, but does not retrieve new headers.
-x/--xgroup group(s)
Use group(s) for subsequent -r commands, but without loading
cache file or retrieving full header list. Instead, the XPAT
command will used to retrieve only the matching headers. Com‐
pared to -g/-G this has the advantage of not requiring any disk
space for cache files, and not requiring the initial retrieval
of the full header list. The disadvantages are not all servers
supporting XPAT, the inability to use complex regexs due to the
need to convert it to the simpler wildmat format, and the possi‐
bility that the xpat command can be quite slow if the server is
overloaded (you may need to increase the timeout value in some
cases).
-F/--flushserver host
Following -g/-G: Flush all headers for server from current
group(s).
Following -a/-A: Flush all groups/descriptions for server from
grouplist.
-r/--retrieve regex
Following -g/-G/-x: Matches regex against subjects of previously
selected group(s), and retrieves ones that match.
Following -a/-A: Matches regex against newsgroup names and
descriptions and lists ones that match. (-T required)
-R/--expretrieve expression
Like -r, but matches expression instead of merely a regexp.
(see EXPRETRIEVE EXPRESSIONS section for more info.) Expression
is a postfix expression that can contain these keywords:
Following -g/-G: subject, author, lines, bytes, have, req, date,
age, update, updateage, messageid(or mid), references. Note
that the --limit argument does not affect the option, if you
want to limit based on number of lines, add it as part of the
expression.
Following -a/-A: group, desc.
-@/--list LISTFILE
Specify a file to load a list of command line args from. Looks
in ~/.nget5/lists/ dir by default. A # char in a listfile that
is the first character on a line or is preceeded by whitespace
and not quoted starts a comment which lasts until the end of the
line.
-p/--path DIRECTORY
Path to store subsequent retrieves. Also sets -P, and clears
previously specified dupepaths. Relative to path which nget was
started in. (Except in the case of inside a -@, which will be
relative to the cwd at the time of the -@.)
-P/--temppath DIRECTORY
Store temporary files in path instead of the current dir.
--dupepath DIRECTORY
Check for dupe files from specified path in addition to normal
path. Can be specified multiple times.
-m/--makedirs no,yes,ask,<max # of directory levels to create>
Make dirs specified by -p and -P. Default is no. If yes, will
make dirs automatically. If #, if the number of directories
that would need to be created is greater than the number given,
the answer will be interpreted as no. If ask, nget will prompt
the user when trying to change to a dir that does not exist.
Valid responses to the prompt are y[es], n[o], and a max number
of directory levels to create. (This means that if you get in
the habit of answering "1" rather than "y", and one day typo the
first portion of a path you won't accidentally create a bunch of
dirs in the wrong place.)
-T/--testmode
Causes --retrieve to merely print out all matching files.
--text ignore,files,mbox[:filename]
Specifies how to handle text posts. The default is files. OPT
can be ignore to save only binaries, "files" to save each text
post in a different file, and "mbox" to save each text post as a
message in a mbox format mailbox. The name of the mbox file to
save in can be specified with mbox:filename, the default is
nget.mbox. If the filename ends in .gz, it will automatically
be gzipped. Unless the filename has an absolute path, it is
interpreted as relative to the retrieve path.
--save-binary-info yes,no
Specifies whether to save text messages for posts that contained
only binary data. (If you want to see the headers.)
--test-multiserver OPT
Causes testmode to display which servers have parts of each
file. OPT may be no to disable(default), long for a verbose
output, and short for a more condensed form. (In short mode, the
shortname of each server is printed with no seperating space,
and it is upper-cased if that server does not have all the
parts. If the server has no shortname specified, it defaults to
the first char of the server alias.)
--fullxover OPT
Override the fullxover settings of the config file. The default
is -1, which doesn't override.
-M/--mark
Mark matched files as retrieved.
-U/--unmark
Unmark matched files as retrieved. (Automatically sets -dI)
-t/--tries int
Set maximum number of retries. -1 will retry indefinatly (prob‐
ably not a good idea).
-l/--limit int
Set the minimum number of lines a message (or total number of
lines for a multi-part message) must have to be considered for
retrieval.
-L/--maxlines int
Set the maximum number of lines a message must have to be con‐
sidered for retrieval. (-1 for unlimited)
-s/--delay int
Set the number of seconds to wait between retry attempts.
--timeout int
Set the number of seconds to wait for a reply from the nntp
server before giving up.
-i/--incomplete
Retrieve files with missing parts.
-I/--complete
Retrieve only files with all parts.
--decode
Decode and delete temp files (default)
-k/--keep
Decode and keep temp files.
-K/--no-decode
Keep temp files, and don't try to decode them.
-c/--case
Match case sensitively.
-C/--nocase
Match case insensitively.
--autopar
Enable automatic parfile handling. (default) Only download as
many par files as needed to replace missing or corrupt files.
--no-autopar
Disable automatic parfile handling. All parfiles that match the
expression will be downloaded.
-d/--dupecheck FLAGS
Check to make sure you don't already have files. This is done
in two ways. The first ("f") is by compiling a list of all
files in the current directory, then checking against all mes‐
sages to be retrieved to see if one of the filenames shows up in
the subject. This works reasonably well, though sometimes the
filename isn't in the subject. It can also cause problems if
you happen to have files in the directory named silly things
like "a", in which case all messages with the word "a" in them
will be skipped. However, it is still smart enough not to skip
messages that merely have a word containing "a".
The second method ("i") is by setting a flag in the header cache
that will prevent it from being retrieved again. You can use
combos such as -dfi to check both, -dFi to only check the flag,
-dfI to only check files, etc.
The third ("m") will cause files that are found by the dupe file
check ("f") to be marked as retrieved in the cache. (Useful for
handling crossposted binaries and/or binaries saved with another
newsreader.)
-D/--nodupecheck
Don't check either of the --dupecheck methods, retrieve any mes‐
sages that match.
-N/--noconnect
Do not connect to any server for retrieving articles. Useful
for trying to decode as much as you have. (if you got stuff
with -K or ngetlite.)
-w/--writelite LITEFILE
Write a list of parts to retrieve with ngetlite.
--help Show help.
EXPRETRIEVE EXPRESSIONS
Expressions are in postfix order. For the int, date, and age types,
standard int comparisons are allowed (==, !=, <, <=, >, >=). For regex
types, ==(=~), !=(!~) are allowed.
Thus a comparison would take the following form:
Infix: <keyword> <operator> <value> Postfix: <keyword> <value> <opera‐
tor>
Comparisons can be joined with &&(and), ||(or).
Infix: <comparison> && <comparison> Postfix: <comparison> <comparison>
&&
-g/-G keywords
subject (regex)
Matches the Subject: header.
author (regex)
Matches the From: header.
lines (int)
Matches the Lines: header.
bytes (int)
Matches the length of the message in bytes
have (int)
Matches the number of parts of a multipart file that we have.
req (int)
Matches the total number of parts of a multipart file.
date (date)
Matches the Date: header. All the standard formats are
accepted.
age (age)
Matches the time since the Date: header.
Format: [X y[ears]] [X mo[nths]] [X w[eeks]] [X d[ays]] [X
h[ours]] [X m[inutes]] [X s[econds]]
Ex.: "6 months 7 hours 8 minutes"
Ex.: "6mo7h8m"
update (date)
Matches the "update time" of the cache item. That is, the most
recent time that a new part of the file has been added. For
example, if part 1 was added one day, and part 2 only appeared
on the server the next day, then the update time would be when
part 2 was added on the second day. But if both parts were seen
on the first day, then seen again from a different server on the
second day, the update time would stay at the original value.
updateage (age)
Matches the time since the update of the cache item.
messageid (regex), mid (regex)
Matches the Message-ID header. (For multi-part posts, it
matches the message-id of the first part.)
references (regex)
Matches any of the message's References.
-a/-A keywords
group (regex)
Matches the newsgroup name.
desc (regex)
Matches the newsgroup description.
CONFIGURATION
Upon startup, nget will read ~/.nget5/.ngetrc for default configuration
values and host/group aliases. An example .ngetrc should have been
included with nget.
nget will also check ~/_nget5/ and _ngetrc if needed, to handle OS and
filesystems that can't (or won't) handle files starting with a period.
Options are specified one per line in the form:
key=value
Values may be strings(any sequence of characters ending in a newline,
not quoted), integers(whole numbers), floats(decimal numbers), bool‐
ean(0=false/1=true).
Subsections are specified in the form:
{section_name
data
}
where data is any number of options.
Global Configuration Options
limit (int, default=0)
Default value for -l/--limit
tries (int, default=20)
Default value for -t/--tries
delay (int, default=1)
Default value for -s/--delay
usegz (int, default=-1)
Default gzip compression level to use for cache/midinfo files
(can be overridden on a per-group basis). Acceptable values are
-1=zlib default, 0=uncompressed, and 1-9.
timeout (int, default=180)
Seconds to wait for a reply from the nntp server before giving
up.
maxstreaming (int, default=64)
Sets how many xover commands will be sent at once, when using
fullxover. maxstreaming=0 will disable streaming. Note that
setting maxstreaming too high can cause your connection to dead‐
lock if the write buffer is filled up and the write command
blocks, but the server will never read more commands since it is
waiting for us to read what it has already sent us.
maxconnections (int, default=-1)
Maximum number of connections to open at once, -1 to allow
unlimited open connections. When reached, the servers used
least recently will be disconnected first. (Note that regard‐
less of this setting, nget never opens more than one connection
per server.)
idletimeout (int, default=300)
Max seconds to keep an idle connection to a nntp server open.
curservmult (float, default=2.0)
Priority multiplier given to servers which are currently con‐
nected. This can be used to avoid excessive server switching.
(Set to 1.0 if you want to disable it.)
penaltystrikes (int, default=3)
Number of consecutive connect errors before penalizing a server,
-1 to disable penalization.
initialpenalty (int, default=180)
Number of seconds to ignore a penalized server for.
penaltymultiplier (float, default=2.0)
Multiplier for penalty time for each time the penalty time runs
out and the server continues to be down.
case (boolean, default=0)
Default for regex case sensitivity. (0=-C/--nocase, 1=-c/--case)
complete (boolean, default=1)
Default for incomplete file filter. (0=-i/--incomplete,
1=-I/--complete)
dupeidcheck (boolean, default=1)
Default for already downloaded file filter. (0=-dI, 1=-di)
dupefilecheck (boolean, default=1)
Default for duplicate file filter. (0=-dF, 1=-df)
autopar (boolean, default=1)
Default for automatic par handling. (0=--no-autopar,
1=--autopar)
autopar_optimistic (boolean, default=0)
One problem with automatic par handling, is that sometimes peo‐
ple do multi-day posts and post the par files first. If
autopar_optimistic is enabled, it will assume that when there
aren't enough .pxx files, that it must just be a multi-day post
and will not grab any pxx files. If autopar_optimistic is off,
it grab all the pxx files so that if they expire before more are
posted, we will already have them.
quiet (boolean, default=0)
Default for quiet option. (0=normal, 1=-q)
tempshortnames (boolean, default=0)
1=Use 8.3 tempfile names (for old dos partitions, etc), 0=Use
17.3 tempfile names
fatal_user_errors (boolean, default=0)
Makes user/path errors cause an immediate exit rather than con‐
tinuing if possible.
unequal_line_error (boolean, default=0)
If set, downloaded articles whose actual number of lines does
not match the expected value will be regarded as an error and
ignored. If 0, a warning will be generated but the article will
be accepted.
fullxover (int, default=0)
Controls whether nget will check for articles added or removed
out of order when updating header cache. fullxover=0 will fol‐
low the nntp spec and assume articles are always added and
removed in the correct order. fullxover=1 will assume articles
may be added out of order, but are still removed in order. ful‐
lxover=2 handles articles being added and removed in any order.
makedirs (special, default=no)
Create non-existant directories specified by -p/-P?
(yes/no/ask/#)
test_multiserver (special, default=no)
Display multiserver file complition info in testmode output?
(no=no, short=show shortname of each server that has parts of
the file, lowercase when complete and uppercase when that server
only has some parts, long=show fullname of each server along
with a count of how many parts it has if it does not have them
all.)
text (special, default=files)
Default for the --text option (possible values are
ignore,files,mbox[:filename]).
save_binary_info (boolean, default=0)
Default for the --save-binary-info option.
cachedir (string)
Specifies a different location to store cache files. Could be
used to share a single cache dir between a trusted group of
users, to reduce HD/bandwidth usage, while still allowing each
user to have their own config/midinfo files.)
Host Configuration
Host configuration is done in the halias section, with a subsection for
each host containing its options:
address (string, required)
Address of the server, with optional port number seperated by a
colon. To specify a literal IPv6 address with a port number,
use the format "[address]:port".
id (int, required)
An identifier for this server. The id uniquely identifies a
certain set of header cache data. You may specify the same id
in more than one host, for example if you have multiple accounts
on a server to avoid to storing the same cache data multiple
times. The id should not be changed after you have used it.
Must be greater than 0 and less than ULONG_MAX. (usually
4294967295).
shortname (string, default=first character of host alias)
The shortname to use for this server.
user (string)
Username for the server, if it requires authorization.
pass (string)
Password for the server, if it requires authorization.
fullxover (int)
Override global fullxover setting for this server only.
maxstreaming (int)
Override global maxstreaming setting for this server only.
idletimeout (int)
Override global idletimeout setting for this server only.
linelenience (special, default=0)
The linelenience option may be specified as either a single int,
or two ints seperated by a comma. If only a single int, X is
specified, then it will be interpeted as shorthand for "-X,+X".
These values specify the ammount that the real (recieved) number
of lines (inclusive) for an article may deviate from the values
returned by the server in the header listings. For example,
"-1,2" means that the real number of lines may be one less than,
equal to, one greater than, or two greater than the expected
amount.
For example, the following host section defines a single host "host1",
with nntp authentication for user "bob", password "something", and the
fullxover option enabled.
{halias
{host1
addr=news.host1.com
id=3838
user=bob
pass=something
fullxover=1
linelenience=-1,2
}
}
Server Priority Configuration
Multiserver priorities are defined in the hpriority section. Multiple
priority groups can be made, and different newsgroups can be configured
to use their own priority grouping, or they will default to the
"default" group. The -a option will use the "_grouplist" priority
group if it exists, otherwise it will use the "default" group.
The hpriority section contains a subsection for each priority group,
with data items of server=prio-multiplier, and the special items
_level=float and _glevel=float. _level sets the priority level
assigned to any host not listed in the group, and _glevel sets the
required priority needed for -g and -a to automatically use that host.
Both _level and _glevel default to 1.0 if not specified.
The priority group "trustsizes" also has special meaning, and is used
to choose which servers reporting of article line/byte counts to trust
when reporting to the user.
For example, the following section defines the default priority group
and the trustsizes priority group. If all hosts have a certain arti‐
cle, goodhost will be most likely to be chosen, and badhost least
likely. It also sets the default priority level to 1.01, meaning any
hosts not listed in this group will have a priority of 1.01. When
using -g without first specifying a host, only those with prios 1.2 or
above will be selected.
{hpriority
{default
_level=1.01
_glevel=1.2
host1=1.9
goodhost=2.0
badhost=0.9
}
{trustsizes
goodhost=5.0
badhost=0.1
}
}
Newsgroup Alias Configuration
Newsgroup aliases are defined in the galias section. An alias can be a
simple alias=fullname data item, or a subsection containing group=,
prio=, and usegz= items. The per-group usegz setting will override the
global setting.
An alias can also refer to multiple groups (either fullnames or further
aliases).
For example, the following galias section defines an alias of "abpl"
for the group "alt.binaries.pictures.linux", "chocobo" for the group
"alt.chocobo", and ospics for both alt.binaries.pictures.linux and
alt.binaries.pictures.freebsd. In addition, the chocobo group is
assigned to use the chocoprios priority grouping when deciding what
server to retrieve from.
{galias
abpl=alt.binaries.pictures.linux
{chocobo
group=alt.chocobo
prio=chocoprios
}
ospics=abpl,alt.binaries.pictures.freebsd
}
EXIT STATUS
On exit, nget will display a summary of the run. The summary is split
into three parts:
OK Lists successful operations.
total Total number of "logical messages" retrieved (after join‐
ing parts).
uu Number of uuencoded files.
base64 Number of Base64 (Mime) files.
XX Number of xxencoded files.
binhex Number of Binhex encoded files.
plaintext
Number of plaintext files saved.
qp Number of Quoted-Printable encoded files.
yenc Number of yEncoded files.
dupe Number of decoded files that were exact dupes of existing
files, and thus deleted.
skipped
Number of files that were queued to download but turned
out to be dupes after decoding earlier parts and compar‐
ing their filenames to the subject line. (Same method
thats used for the dupe file check when queueing them up,
just that the filename(s) of any decoded files cannot be
known until they are downloaded, so some of the checking
must occur during the run rather than at queue time.)
group Number of groups successfully updated.
grouplist
Newsgroup list successfully updated.
autopar
Number of parity sets that are complete.
WARNINGS
group Updating group info failed for some (but not all)
attempted servers.
xover Weird things happened while updating group info.
grouplist
Updating newsgroup list failed for some (but not all)
attempted servers.
retrieve
Article retrieval failed for some (but not all) attempted
servers.
undecoded
Articles were not decoded (usually because -K was used).
unequal_line_count
Some articles retrieved had different line counts than
the server said they should. (And unequal_line_error is
set to 0).
dupe Number of decoded files that had the same name as exist‐
ing files, but different content.
autopar
Weirdness encountered reading par files, such as encoun‐
tering unknown par versions, or non-ascii filenames in
the pars.
ERRORS Lists errors that occured. In addition, the exit status will be
set to a bitwise OR of the codes of all errors that occured.
(Note that some errors share an exit code, since there are only
8 bits available.)
decode (exit code 1)
Number of file decoding errors.
autopar (exit code 2)
Number of parity sets that could not be completed.
path (exit code 4)
Errors changing to paths specified with -p or -P.
user (exit code 4)
User errors, such as trying -r without specifying a group
first.
retrieve (exit code 8)
Number of times article retrieval failed for all
attempted servers.
group (exit code 16)
Number of times header retrieval failed for all attempted
servers.
grouplist (exit code 32)
Number of times newsgroup list retrieval failed for all
attempted servers.
fatal (exit code 128)
Error preventing further operation, such as "No space
left on device".
other (exit code 64)
Any other kind of error.
EXAMPLES
The simplest possible example. Retrieve and decode everything from
alt.binaries.test that you haven't already gotten before:
nget-g alt.binaries.test -r ""
get listing of all files matching penguin.*png from alt.binaries.pic‐
tures.linux (note this is a regex, equivilant to standard shell glob of
penguin*png.. see the regex(7) or grep manpage for more info on regular
expressions.)
nget-g alt.binaries.pictures.linux -DTr "penguin.*png"
retrieve all the ones that have more than 50 lines:
nget-g alt.binaries.pictures.linux -l 50 -r "penguin.*png"
equivilant to above, using -R:
nget-g alt.binaries.pictures.linux -R "lines 50 > subject penguin.*png
== &&"
(basically (lines > 50) && (subject == penguin.*png))
flush all headers from host goodhost in group alt.binaries.pic‐
tures.linux:
nget-Galt.binaries.pictures.linux -Fgoodhost
retrieve/update group list, and list all groups with "linux" in the
name or description:
nget-a -Tr linux
equivilant to above, using -R:
nget-a -TR "group linux == desc linux == ||"
flush all groups from host goodhost in grouplist:
nget-A -Fgoodhost
NOTES
Running multiple copies of nget at once should be safe. It uses file
locking, so there should be no way for the files to actually get cor‐
rupted. However if you have two ngets doing a -g on the same group at
the same time, it would duplicate the download for both processes. If
you are using -G there is no problem at all. (Theoretically you might
be able to cause some sort of problems by downloading the same files
from the same group in the same directory at the same time..)
ENVIRONMENT
HOME Where to put .nget5 directory. (put nget files $HOME/.nget5/)
NGETHOME
Override HOME var (put nget files in $NGETHOME)
NGETCACHE
Override HOME/NGETHOME vars and .ngetrc cachedir option (put
nget cache files in $NGETCACHE)
NGETRC Alternate configuration file to use.
FILES
~/.nget5/
All configuration and cache files are stored here. Changed to
.nget5/ because cache format changed in nget 0.27. (The 5 in
the directory name is for file format version 5, not nget ver‐
sion 5.) To upgrade a .nget4 directory to .nget5, simply run
"mv ~/.nget4 ~/.nget5 ; rm ~/.nget5/*,cache*"
~/.nget5/.ngetrc
Configuration file. If you store authentication information
here, be sure to set it readable only by owner.
~/_nget5/_ngetrc
Alternate location, use this if you can't create a dir/file
starting with a period.
~/.nget5/lists/
Default directory for listfiles.
AUTHOR
Matthew Mueller <donut AT dakotacom.net>
The latest version, and other programs I have written, are available
from:
http://www.dakotacom.net/~donut/programs/
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Frank Pilhofer, author of uulib, which nget depends upon for uudecoding
the files once they are downloaded. http://www.fpx.de/fp/Soft‐
ware/UUDeview/
Peter Brian Clements, author of par2-cmdline, which nget uses a
stripped down version of for its par2 checking.
http://parchive.sourceforge.net/
The Unix-socket-faq, which my url for has gone bad, but is supposedly
posted monthly on comp.unix.programmer.
Beej's Guide to Network Programming at
http://www.ecst.csuchico.edu/~beej/guide/net/
Jean-loup Gailly and Mark Adler, for the zlib library.
SEE ALSOngetlite(1), regex(7), grep(1)
21 Dec 2004 nget(1)
