NEWS(5)

NAME
news - USENET network news article, utility files

DESCRIPTION

There are two formats of news articles: A and B. A format is the only format that version 1 netnews systems can read or write. Systems running the version 2 netnews can read either format and there are provisions for the version 2 netnews to write in A format. A format looks like this:

Aarticle-ID
newsgroups
path
date
title
Body of article

Only version 2 netnews systems can read and write B format. B format contains two extra pieces of information: receival date and expiration date. The basic structure of a B format file consists of a series of headers and then the body. A header field is defined as a line with a capital letter in the 1st column and a colon somewhere on the line. Unrecognized header fields are ignored. News is stored in the same format transmitted, see ``Standard for the Interchange of USENET Messages'' for a full description. The following fields are among those recognized:

Header
    Information

From:
    user@host.domain[.domain ...] (Full Name)

Newsgroups:
    Newsgroups

Message-ID:
    <Unique Identifier>

Subject:
    descriptive title

Date:
    Date Posted

Date-Received:
    Date received on local machine

Expires:
    Expiration Date

Reply-To:
    Address for mail replies

References:
    Article ID of article this is a follow-up to.

Control:
    Text of a control message

Here is an example of an article:

Relay-Version: B 2.10	2/13/83 cbosgd.UUCP
Posting-Version: B 2.10	2/13/83 eagle.UUCP
Path: cbosgd!mhuxj!mhuxt!eagle!jerry
From: jerry@eagle.uucp (Jerry Schwarz)
Newsgroups: net.general
Subject: Usenet Etiquette -- Please Read
Message-ID: <642@eagle.UUCP>
Date: Friday, 19-Nov-82 16:14:55 EST
Followup-To: net.news
Expires: Saturday, 1-Jan-83 00:00:00 EST
Date-Received: Friday, 19-Nov-82 16:59:30 EST
Organization: Bell Labs, Murray Hill
The body of the article comes here, after a blank line.

A sys file line has four fields, each seperated by colons:

system-name:subscriptions:flags:transmission command

Of these fields, on the system-name and subscriptions need to be present.

The system name is the name of the system being sent to. The subscriptions is the list of newsgroups to be transmitted to the system. The flags are a set of letters describing how the article should be transmitted. The default is B. Valid flags include A (send in A format), B (send in B format), N (use ihave/sendme protocol), U (use uux -c and the name of the stored article in a %s string).

The transmission command is executed by the shell with the article to be transmitted as the standard input. The default is uux - -z -r sysname!rnews. Some examples:

xyz:net.all
oldsys:net.all,fa.all,to.oldsys:A
berksys:net.all,ucb.all::/usr/lib/news/sendnews -b berksys\:rnews
arpasys:net.all,arpa.all::/usr/lib/news/sendnews -a rnews@arpasys
old2:net.all,fa.all:A:/usr/lib/sendnews -o old2\:rnews
user:fa.sf-lovers::mail user

Somewhere in a sys file, there must be a line for the host system. This line has no flags or commands. A # as the first character in a line denotes a comment.

The history, active, and ngfile files have one line per item.

SEE ALSO
inews(1), postnews(1), sendnews(8), uurec(8), readnews(1)