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NAME

innfeed − multi-host, multi-connection, streaming NNTP feeder.

SYNOPSIS

innfeed [ −a spool-dir ] [ −b directory ] [ −C ] [ −c filename ] [ −d num ] [ −e bytes ] [ −h ] [ −l filename ] [ −m ] [ −M ] [ −o bytes ] [ −p file ] [ −S file ] [ −x ] [ −y ] [ −z ] [ −v ] [ file ]

DESCRIPTION

Innfeed implements the NNTP protocol for transferring news between computers. It handles the standard IHAVE protocol as well as the CHECK/TAKETHIS streaming extension. Innfeed can feed any number of remote hosts at once and will open multiple connections to each host if configured to do so. The only limitations are the process limits for open file descriptors and memory.

As an alternative to using NNTP, INN may also be fed to an IMAP server. This is done by using an executable called imapfeed, which is identical to innfeed except for the delivery process. The new version has two types of connections: an LMTP connection to deliver regular messages and an IMAP connection to handle control messages.

MODES

Innfeed has three modes of operation: channel, funnel-file and batch.

Channel mode is used when no filename is given on the command line, the ’’input-file’’ keyword is not given in the config file, and the ’’−x’’ option is not given. In channel mode innfeed runs with stdin connected via a pipe to innd. Whenever innd closes this pipe (and it has several reasons during normal processing to do so), innfeed will exit. It first will try to finish sending all articles it was in the middle of transmitting, before issuing a QUIT command. This means innfeed may take a while to exit depending on how slow your peers are. It never (well, almost never) just drops the connection.

The recommended way to restart innfeed when run in channel mode is therefore to tell innd to close the pipe and spawn a new innfeed process. This can be done with ’’ctlinnd flush <feed>’’ where <feed> is the name of the innfeed channel feed in ’’newsfeeds’’.

Funnel-file mode is used when a filename is given as an argument or the ’’input-file’’ keyword is given in the config file. In funnel file mode it reads the specified file for the same formatted information as innd would give in channel mode. It is expected that innd is continually writing to this file, so when innfeed reaches the end of the file it will check periodically for new information. To prevent the funnel file from growing without bounds, you will need to periodically move the file to the side (or simply remove it) and have innd flush the file. Then, after the file is flushed by innd, you can send innfeed a SIGALRM, and it too will close the file and open the new file created by innd. Something like:

innfeed -p /var/run/news/innfeed.pid my-funnel-file &
while true; do

done

Batch mode is used when the ’’−x’’ flag is used. In batch mode innfeed will ignore stdin, and will simply process any backlog created by a previously running innfeed. This mode is not normally needed as innfeed will take care of backlog processing.

CONFIGURATION

Innfeed expects a couple of things to be able to run correctly: a directory where it can store backlog files and a configuration file to describe which peers it should handle.

The configuration file is described in innfeed.conf(5). The ’’−c’’ option can be used to specify a different file.

For each peer (say, ’’foo’’), innfeed manages up to 4 files in the backlog directory: a ’’foo.lock’’ file, which prevents other instances of innfeed from interfering with this one; a ’’foo.input’’ file which has old article information innfeed is reading for re-processing; a ’’foo.output’’ file where innfeed is writing information on articles that couldn’t be processed (normally due to a slow or blocked peer); and a ’’foo’’ file.

This last file (’’foo’’) is never created by innfeed, but if innfeed notices it, it will rename it to ’’foo.input’’ at the next opportunity and will start reading from it. This lets you create a batch file and put it in a place where innfeed will find it. You should never alter the .input or .output files of a running innfeed.

The format of these last three files is one of the following:

/path/to/article <message-id>
@token@ <message-id>

This is the same as the first two fields of the lines innd feeds to innfeed, and the same as the first two fields of the lines of the batch file innd will write if innfeed is unavailable for some reason. When innfeed processes its own batch files it ignores everything after the first two whitespace separated fields, so moving the innd-created batch file to the appropriate spot will work, even though the lines have extra fields.

The first field can also be a storage API token. The two types of lines can be intermingled; innfeed will use the storage manager if appropriate and otherwise treat the first field as a filename to read directly.

Innfeed writes its current status to the file ’’innfeed.status’’ (or the file given by the ’’-S’’ option). This file contains details on the process as a whole, and on each peer this instance of innfeed is managing.

If innfeed is told to send an article to a host it is not managing, then the article information will be put into a file matching the pattern ’’innfeed-dropped.*’’, with part of the file name matching the pid of the innfeed process that is writing to it. Innfeed will not process this file except to write to it. If nothing is written to the file then it will be removed if innfeed exits normally.

SIGNALS

Upon receipt of a SIGALRM innfeed will close the funnel-file specified on the command line, and will reopen it (see funnel file description above).

Innfeed with catch SIGINT and will write a large debugging snapshot of the state of the running system.

Innfeed will catch SIGHUP and will reload the config file. See innfeed.conf(5) for more details.

Innfeed will catch SIGCHLD and will close and reopen all backlog files.

Innfeed will catch SIGTERM and will do an orderly shutdown.

Upon receipt of a SIGUSR1 innfeed will increment the debugging level by one; receipt of a SIGUSR2 will decrement it by one. The debugging level starts at zero (unless the ’’-d’’ option it used), in which case no debugging information is emitted. A larger value for the level means more debugging information. Numbers up to 5 are currently useful.

SYSLOG ENTRIES

There are 3 different categories of syslog entries for statistics: Host, Connection and Global.

The Host statistics are generated for a given peer at regular intervals after the first connection is made (or, if the remote is unreachable, after spooling starts). The Host statistics give totals over all Connections that have been active during the given time frame. For example (broken here to fit the page, with ’’vixie’’ being the peer):

May 23 12:49:08 data innfeed[16015]: vixie checkpoint

These meanings of these fields are:

If the ’’−z’’ option is used (see below), then when the peer stats are generated, each Connection will log its stats too. For example, for connection number zero (from a set of five):

May 23 12:49:08 data innfeed[16015]: vixie:0 checkpoint

If you only open a maximum of one Connection to a remote, then there will be a close correlation between Connection numbers and Host numbers, but in general you can’t tie the two sets of number together in any easy or very meaningful way. When a Connection closes it will always log its stats.

If all Connections for a Host get closed together, then the Host logs its stats as ’’final’’ and resets its counters. If the feed is so busy that there’s always at least one Connection open and running, then after some amount of time (set via the config file), the Host stats are logged as final and reset. This is to make generating higher level stats from log files, by other programs, easier.

There is one log entry that is emitted for a Host just after its last Connection closes and innfeed is preparing to exit. This entry contains counts over the entire life of the process. The ’’seconds’’ field is from the first time a Connection was successfully built, or the first time spooling started. If a Host has been completely idle, it will have no such log entry.

May 23 12:49:08 data innfeed[16015]: decwrl global

The final log entry is emitted immediately before exiting. It contains a summary of the statistics over the entire life of the process.

Feb 13 14:43:41 data innfeed-0.9.4[22344]: ME global
seconds 15742 offered 273441 accepted 45750
refused 222008 rejected 3334 missing 217

OPTIONS