NAME

       controlchan - Channel-fed control message handler

SYNOPSIS

       controlchan [-ch]

DESCRIPTION

       controlchan removes the responsibility for handling control messages (except cancels) from innd and
       instead processes them from a channel or file feed.

       The two Perl modules "Encode" and "MIME::Parser" are required by controlchan.

       To reduce load, controlchan keeps a copy of control.ctl and control.ctl.local in memory and checks
       permissions (including any required PGP headers) before any scripts are called.  These two configuration
       files are automatically reloaded when controlchan notices they have been modified.  Also, the default
       case of an unrecognized control article is handled internally.  The "drop" case is handled with far less
       fuss.

       Normally, controlchan is invoked by innd as configured in newsfeeds.  An example entry is below.  Make
       sure that the newsgroup "control.cancel" exists so that controlchan does not have to scan through
       cancels, which it will not be processing anyway.

           controlchan!\
               :!*,control,control.*,!control.cancel\
               :AC,Tc,Wnsm\
               :<pathbin in inn.conf>/controlchan

       controlchan can also be manually invoked with a mere path to a file (containing a complete control
       article with its headers and its body) or a token on its standard input:

           echo '/path/to/a/control/article' | controlchan
           echo '@0303465234000000000000235AE000000002@' | controlchan

       Note that in the (very, very unlikely) event that you need to process ihave/sendme control messages, be
       sure that logipaddr is set to false in inn.conf, because in this case controlchan needs a site name, not
       an IP address.

       controlchan tries to report all log messages through syslog(3), unless connected to an interactive
       terminal.

OPTIONS

       -c  By  default, controlchan does not process articles whose Date or Injection-Date header fields are too
           far in the past (more than artcutoff days, as set in inn.conf) or one day in the future.   It  allows
           preventing a malicious replay of old control articles.

           Using the -c flag disables this check on the cutoff date.

       -h  Gives usage information.

HISTORY

       Written by Katsuhiro Kondou <kondou@nec.co.jp> for InterNetNews.  Converted to POD by Julien Elie.

SEE ALSO

       control.ctl(5), inn.conf(5).

INN 2.7.3                                          2025-02-21                                     CONTROLCHAN(8)