Provided by: inn2_2.7.3~20250201-1_amd64 
NAME
pullnews - Pull news from multiple news servers and feed it to another
SYNOPSIS
pullnews [-BhnOqRx] [-a hashfeed] [-b fraction] [-c config] [-C width] [-d level] [-f fraction] [-F
fakehop] [-g groups] [-G newsgroups] [-H headers] [-k checkpt] [-l logfile] [-L size] [-m header_pats]
[-M num] [-N timeout] [-p port] [-P hop_limit] [-Q level] [-r file] [-s to-server[:port][_tlsmode]] [-S
max-run] [-t retries] [-T connect-pause] [-w num] [-z article-pause] [-Z group-pause] [from-server ...]
REQUIREMENTS
The "Net::NNTP" module must be installed. This module is available as part of the libnet distribution
and comes with recent versions of Perl. For older versions of Perl, you can download it from
<http://www.cpan.org/>.
DESCRIPTION
pullnews reads a config file named pullnews.marks, and connects to the upstream servers given there as a
reader client. This file is looked for in pathdb when pullnews is run as the user set in runasuser in
inn.conf (which is by default the "news" user); otherwise, this file is looked for in the running user's
home directory.
By default, pullnews connects to all servers listed in the configuration file, but you can limit pullnews
to specific servers by listing them on the command line: a whitespace-separated list of server names can
be specified, like from-server for one of them. For each server it connects to, it pulls over articles
and feeds them to the destination server via the IHAVE or POST commands. This means that the system
pullnews is run on must have feeding access to the destination news server.
pullnews is designed for very small sites that do not want to bother setting up traditional peering and
is not meant for handling large feeds.
In case you have running peers and don't want to propagate them the articles you are pulling from
upstream servers, you should add a fake hop with the -F flag to all the pulled articles, and add that
very fake hop in the exclusion sub-field of all the sites configured in your newsfeeds file which should
not receive these articles. For example, using "pullnews -F myserverimported", change
"sitename:*:Tm:innfeed!" to "sitename/myserverimported:*:Tm:innfeed!" for every sitename in newsfeeds
you don't want to feed the pulled articles to (like your outgoing peers and a possible "inpaths!" entry).
Entries like "ME", "controlchan!", "innfeed!" or "nocem!" do not need that exclusion.
OPTIONS
-a hashfeed
This option is a deterministic way to control the flow of articles and to split a feed. The hashfeed
parameter must be in the form "value/mod" or "start-end/mod". The Message-ID of each article is
hashed using MD5, which results in a 128-bit hash. The lowest 32 bits are then taken by default as
the hashfeed value (which is an integer). If the hashfeed value modulus "mod" plus one equals
"value" or is between "start" and "end", pullnews will feed the article. All these numbers must be
integers.
For instance:
pullnews -a 1/2 Feeds about 50% of all articles.
pullnews -a 2/2 Feeds the other 50% of all articles.
Another example:
pullnews -a 1-3/10 Feeds about 30% of all articles.
pullnews -a 4-5/10 Feeds about 20% of all articles.
pullnews -a 6-10/10 Feeds about 50% of all articles.
You can use an extended syntax of the form "value/mod:offset" or "start-end/mod:offset" (using an
underscore "_" instead of a colon ":" is also recognized). As MD5 generates a 128-bit return value,
it is possible to specify from which byte-offset the 32-bit integer used by hashfeed starts. The
default value for "offset" is ":0" and thirteen overlapping values from ":0" to ":12" can be used.
Only up to four totally independent values exist: ":0", ":4", ":8" and ":12".
Therefore, it allows generating a second level of deterministic distribution. Indeed, if pullnews
feeds "1/2", it can go on splitting thanks to "1-3/9:4" for instance. Up to four levels of
deterministic distribution can be used.
The algorithm is compatible with the one used by Diablo 5.1 and up.
-b fraction
Backtrack on server numbering reset. Specify the proportion ("0.0" to "1.0") of a group's articles
to pull when the server's article number is less than our high for that group. When fraction is
"1.0", pull all the articles on a renumbered server. The default is to do nothing.
-B Feed is header-only, that is to say pullnews only feeds the headers of the articles, plus one blank
line. It adds the Bytes header field if the article does not already have one, and keeps the body
only if the article is a control article.
-c config
Normally, the config file is stored in pullnews.marks in pathdb when pullnews is run as the news
user, or otherwise in the running user's home directory. If -c is given, config will be used as the
config file instead. This is useful if you're running pullnews as a system user on an automated
basis out of cron or as an individual user, rather than the news user.
See "CONFIG FILE" below for the format of this file.
-C width
Use width characters per line for the progress table. The default value is "50".
-d level
Set the debugging level to the integer level (up to "4"); more debugging output will be logged as
this increases. The default value is "0".
-f fraction
This changes the proportion of articles to get from each group to fraction and should be in the range
"0.0" to "1.0" ("1.0" being the default).
-F fakehop
Prepend fakehop as a host to the Path header field body of articles fed.
-g groups
Specify a collection of groups to get. groups is a list of newsgroups separated by commas (only
commas, no spaces). Each group must be defined in the config file, and only the remote hosts that
carry those groups will be contacted. Note that this is a simple list of groups, not a wildmat
expression, and wildcards are not supported.
-G newsgroups
Add the comma-separated list of groups newsgroups to each server in the configuration file (see also
-g and -w).
-h Print a usage message and exit.
-H headers
Remove these named header fields (colon-separated list) from fed articles.
-k checkpt
Checkpoint (save) the config file every checkpt articles (default is "0", that is to say at the end
of the session).
-l logfile
Log progress/stats to logfile (default is "stdout").
-L size
Specify the largest wanted article size in bytes. The default is to download all articles, whatever
their size. When this option is used, pullnews will first retrieve overview data (if available) of
each newsgroup to process so as to obtain articles sizes, before deciding which articles to actually
download.
-m header_pats
Feed an article based on header field body matching. The argument is a number of whitespace-
separated tuples (each tuple being a colon-separated header field name and regular expression). For
instance:
-m "Hdr1:regexp1 !Hdr2:regexp2 #Hdr3:regexp3 !#Hdr4:regexp4"
specifies that the article will be passed only if the "Hdr1" header field body matches "regexp1" and
the "Hdr2" header field body does not match "regexp2". Besides, if the "Hdr3" header field body
matches "regexp3", that header is removed; and if the "Hdr4" header field body does not match
"regexp4", that header is removed.
-M num
Specify the maximum number of articles (per group) to process. The default is to process all new
articles. See also -f.
-n Do nothing but read articles -- does not feed articles downstream, writes no rnews file, does not
update the config file.
-N timeout
Specify the timeout length, as timeout seconds, when establishing an NNTP connection.
-O Use an optimized mode: pullnews checks whether the article already exists on the downstream server,
before downloading it. It may help for huge articles or a slow link to upstream hosts.
-p port
Connect to the destination news server on a port other than the default of "119". This option does
not change the port used to connect to the source news servers.
-P hop_limit
Restrict feeding an article based on the number of hops it has already made. Count the hops in the
Path header field body (hop_count), feeding the article only when hop_limit is "+num" and hop_count
is more than num; or hop_limit is "-num" and hop_count is less than num.
-q Print out less status information while running.
-Q level
Set the quietness level ("-Q 2" is equivalent to "-q"). The higher this value, the less gets logged.
The default is "0".
-r file
Rather than feeding the downloaded articles to a destination server, instead create a batch file that
can later be fed to a server using rnews. See rnews(1) for more information about the batch file
format.
-R Be a reader (use MODE READER and POST commands) to the downstream server. Some posts will then be
rejected because of unexpected injection header fields, obsolete or incorrectly formatted header
fields, or with a date too far in the past. You may then want to set artcutoff to "0" in inn.conf,
and use the -H flag to strip unwanted header fields. Even with that, a few articles may still be
rejected.
The default is to behave like a feeder and use the IHAVE command. (You'll have to allow in
incoming.conf the connections from pullnews so that it is recognized as a feeder.)
-s to-server[:port][_tlsmode]
Normally, pullnews will feed the articles it retrieves to the news server running on localhost. To
connect to a different host, specify a server with the -s flag. You can also specify the port with
this same flag or use -p. Default port is "119".
The connection is by default unencrypted. To negotiate a TLS encryption layer, you can set tlsmode
to "TLS" for implicit TLS (negotiated immediately upon connection on a dedicated port) or "STARTTLS"
for explicit TLS (the appropriate command will be sent before authenticating or feeding messages).
Examples of use are:
pullnews -s news.server.com
pullnews -s news.server.com_STARTTLS
pullnews -s news.server.com:433_TLS
Note that not all NNTP servers implement TLS for feeding articles.
-S max-run
Specify the maximum time max-run in seconds for pullnews to run.
-t retries
The maximum number (retries) of attempts to connect to a server or reconnect to a server if the
socket is unexpectedly closed (see also -T). The default is "0".
-T connect-pause
Pause connect-pause seconds between connection retries (see also -t). The default is "1".
-w num
Set each group's high water mark (last received article number) to num. If num is negative,
calculate Current+num instead (i.e. get the last num articles). Therefore, a num of "0" will re-get
all articles on the server; whereas a num of "-0" will get no old articles, setting the water mark to
Current (the most recent article on the server).
-x If the -x flag is used, an Xref header field is added to any article that lacks one. It can be
useful for instance if articles are fed to a news server which has xrefslave set in inn.conf.
-z article-pause
Sleep article-pause seconds between articles. The default is "0".
-Z group-pause
Sleep group-pause seconds between groups. The default is "0".
CONFIG FILE
The config file for pullnews is divided into blocks, one block for each remote server to connect to. A
block begins with the host line (which must have no leading whitespace) and contains just the hostname of
the remote server with optional port and TLS mode (with the same semantics as the -s flag), optionally
followed by authentication details (username and password for that server). Note that authentication
details can also be provided for the downstream server (a host line for "localhost" or the hostname
specified with the -s flag could be added for it in the configuration file, with no newsgroup to fetch).
Following the host line should be one or more newsgroup lines which start with whitespace followed by the
name of a newsgroup to retrieve. Only one newsgroup should be listed on each line.
pullnews will update the config file to include the time the group was last checked and the highest
numbered article successfully retrieved and transferred to the destination server. It uses this data to
avoid doing duplicate work the next time it runs.
The full syntax is:
<host>[:<port>][_<tlsmode>] [<username> <password>]
<group> [<time> <high>]
<group> [<time> <high>]
where the <host> line must not have leading whitespace and the <group> lines must.
A typical configuration file would be:
# Format: group date high
data.pa.vix.com
rec.bicycles.racing 908086612 783
rec.humor.funny 908086613 18
comp.programming.threads
nnrp.vix.com pull sekret
comp.std.lisp
news.server.com:563_TLS joe password
news.software.nntp
Note that an earlier run of pullnews has filled in details about the last article downloads from the two
rec.* groups. The two comp.* groups and the news.* group were just added by the user and have not yet
been checked.
The nnrp.vix.com server requires authentication, and pullnews will use the username "pull" and the
password "sekret" (without any encryption layer).
The connection to news.server.com will be encrypted with implicit TLS on port 563. Joe's password won't
be sent in plaintext.
FILES
pathbin/pullnews
The Perl script itself used to pull news from upstream servers and feed it to another news server.
pathdb/pullnews.marks or ~/pullnews.marks
The default config file. It is stored in pullnews.marks in pathdb when pullnews is run as the news
user, or otherwise in the running user's home directory.
HISTORY
pullnews was written by James Brister for INN. The documentation was rewritten in POD by Russ Allbery
<eagle@eyrie.org>.
Geraint A. Edwards greatly improved pullnews, adding no more than 16 new recognized flags, fixing some
bugs and integrating the backupfeed contrib script by Kai Henningsen, adding again 6 other flags.
SEE ALSO
incoming.conf(5), rnews(1).
INN 2.7.3 2025-02-21 PULLNEWS(1)