term% cat index.txt NEWS(5) File Formats Manual 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 run‐
ning the version 2 netnews can read either format and there are provi‐
sions 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 Mes‐
sages'' 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 subscrip‐
tions is the list of newsgroups to be transmitted to the system. The
flags are a set of letters describing how the article should be trans‐
mitted. 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 sys‐
name!rnews. Some examples:
xyz:net.all
oldsys:net.all,fa.all,to.oldsys:A
berksys:net.all,ucb.all::/usr/lib/news/sendnews -b berksysrnews
arpasys:net.all,arpa.all::/usr/lib/news/sendnews -a rnews@arpasys
old2:net.all,fa.all:A:/usr/lib/sendnews -o old2rnews
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(8), postnews(1), sendnews(8), uurec(8), readnews(1)
NEWS(5)