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ACTIVE(5)


NAME

  active - List of newsgroups carried by the server


DESCRIPTION

  The file pathdb/active lists the newsgroups carried by INN.  This file is
  generally maintained using ctlinnd(8) to create and remove groups, or by
  letting controlchan(8) do so on the basis of received control messages.
  This file should not be edited directly without throttling innd, and must
  be reloaded using ctlinnd before innd is unthrottled.	 Editing it directly
  even with those precautions may make it inconsistent with the overview
  database and won't update active.times, so ctlinnd should be used to make
  modifications whenever possible.

  Each newsgroup should be listed only once.  Each line specifies one group.
  The order of groups does not matter.	Within each newsgroup, received
  articles for that group are assigned monotonically increasing numbers as
  unique names.	 If an article is posted to newsgroups not mentioned in this
  file, those newsgroups are ignored.

  If none of the newsgroups listed in the Newsgroups header of an article are
  present in this file, the article is either rejected (if wanttrash is false
  in inn.conf), or is filed into the newsgroup "junk" and only propagated to
  sites that receive the "junk" newsgroup (if wanttrash is true).

  Each line of this file consists of four fields separated by a space:

      <name> <high> <low> <flag>

  The first field is the name of the newsgroup.	 The newsgroup "junk" is
  special, as mentioned above.	The newsgroup "control" and any newsgroups
  beginning with "control." are also special; control messages are filed into
  a control.* newsgroup named after the type of control message if that group
  exists, and otherwise are filed into the newsgroup "control" (without
  regard to what newsgroups are listed in the Newsgroups header).  If
  mergetogroups is set to true in inn.conf, newsgroups that begin with "to."
  are also treated specially; see innd(8).

  The second field is the highest article number that has been used in that
  newsgroup.  The third field is the lowest article number in the group; this
  number is not guaranteed to be accurate, and should only be taken to be a
  hint.	 It is normally updated nightly as part of the expire process; see
  news.daily(8) and look for "lowmark" or "renumber" for more details.	Note
  that because of article cancellations, there may be gaps in the numbering
  sequence.  If the lowest article number is greater then the highest article
  number, then there are no articles in the newsgroup.	In order to make it
  possible to update an entry in-place without rewriting the entire file, the
  second and third fields are padded out with leading zeros to make them a
  fixed width.

  The fourth field contains one of the following flags:

      y		Local postings are allowed.
      m		The group is moderated and all postings must be approved.
      n		No local postings are allowed, only articles from peers.
      j		Articles are filed in the junk group instead.
      x		No local postings and ignored for articles from peers.
      =foo.bar	Articles are filed in the group foo.bar instead.

  If a newsgroup has the "j" flag, no articles will be filed in that
  newsgroup, and local postings to that group will be rejected.	 If an
  article for that newsgroup is received from a remote site, and it is not
  crossposted to some other valid group, it will be filed into the "junk"
  newsgroup instead.  This is different than simply not listing the group,
  since the article will still be accepted and can be propagated to other
  sites, and the "junk" group can be made available to readers if wished.

  If the <flag> field begins with an equal sign, the newsgroup is an alias.
  Articles cannot be posted to that newsgroup, but they can be received from
  other sites.	Any articles received from peers for that newsgroup are
  treated as if they were actually posted to the group named after the equal
  sign.	 Note that the Newsgroups header of the articles are not modified.
  (Alias groups are typically used during a transition and are typically
  created manually with ctlinnd(8).)  An alias should not point to another
  alias.


HISTORY

  Written by Rich $alz <rsalz@uunet.uu.net> for InterNetNews.  Converted to
  POD by Russ Allbery <rra@stanford.edu>.

  $Id: active.5 6773 2004-05-17 05:48:54Z rra $


SEE ALSO

  active.times(5), controlchan(8), ctlinnd(8), inn.conf(5), innd(8),
  news.daily(8)

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