SEE ALSO

groff_font(5)

groff version 1.09, 14 February 1994

group

group—User group file.

DESCRIPTION

/etc/group is an ASCII file that defines the groups to which users belong. There is one entry per line, and each line has the format

group_name:passwd:GID:user_list

The field descriptions are

FILES

/etc/group

SEE ALSO

login(1), newgrp(1), passwd(5)

Linux, 29 December 1992

history

history—Record of current and recently expired Usenet articles.

DESCRIPTION

The file /news/lib/history keeps a record of all articles currently stored in the news system, as well as those that have been received but since expired.

The file consists of text lines. Each line corresponds to one article. The file is normally kept sorted in the order in which articles are received, although this is not a requirement. innd(8) appends a new line each time it files an article, and expire(8) builds a new version of the file by removing old articles and purging old entries.

Each line consists of two or three fields separated by a tab, shown below as \t:

<Message_ID>\t date

<Message_ID>\t date \t files

The Message_ID field is the value of the article's Message-ID header, including the angle brackets.

The date field consists of three subfields separated by a tilde. All subfields are the text representation of the number of seconds since the epoch—a time_t; see gettimeofday(2). The first subfield is the article's arrival date. If copies of the article are still present, then the second subfield is either the value of the article's Expires header or a hyphen if no expiration date was specified. If an article has been expired, the second subfield will be a hyphen. The third subfield is the value of the article's Date header, recording when the article was posted.

The files field is a set of entries separated by one or more spaces. Each entry consists of the name of the newsgroup, a slash, and the article number. This field is empty if the article has been expired.

For example, an article cross-posted to comp.sources.unix and comp.sources.d that was posted on February 10, 1991, (and received three minutes later) with an expiration date of May 5, 1991, could have a history line (broken into two lines for display) like the following:

<312@litchi.foo.com> \t 666162000~673329600~666162180

\t comp.sources.unix/1104 comp.sources.d/7056

In addition to the text file, there is a dbz(3z) database associated with the file that uses the Message-ID field as a key to determine the offset in the text file where the associated line begins. For historical reasons, the key includes the trailing \0 byte (which is not stored in the text file).

HISTORY

Written by Rich $alz (rsalz@uunet.uu.net) for InterNetNews.

SEE ALSO

dbz(3z), expire(8), innd(8), news-recovery(8)

hosts.nntp, hosts.nntp.nolimit

hosts.nntp, hosts.nntp.nolimit—List of hosts that feed NNTP news.

DESCRIPTION

The file /news/lib/hosts.nntp is read by innd(8) to get the list of hosts that feed the local site Usenet news using the NNTP protocol. The server reads this file at startup or when directed to by ctlinnd(8). When a hosts connects to the NNTP port of the system on which innd is running, the server will do a check to see if their Internet address is the same as one of the hosts named in this file. If the host is not mentioned, then innd will spawn an nnrpd(8) to process the connection, with the accepted connection on standard input and standard output.

Comments begin with a number sign (#) and continue through the end of the line. Blank lines and comments are also ignored. All other lines should consist of two or three fields separated by a colon.

The first field should be either an Internet address in dotted-quad format or an address that can be parsed by gethostbyname(3). If a host's entry has multiple addresses, all of them will be added to the access list. The second field, which may be blank, is the password the foreign host is required to use when first connecting. The third field, which may be omitted, is a list of newsgroups to which the host may post articles. This list is parsed as a newsfeeds(5) subscription list; groups not in the list are ignored.

Because innd is usually started at system boot time, the local nameserver may not be fully operational when innd parses this file. As a work-around, a ctlinnd reload command can be performed after a delay of an hour or so. It is also possible to provide both a host's name and its dotted-quad address in the file.

For example:

## FOO has a password, UUNET doesn't.

## UUNET cannot post to local groups.

## These are comment lines.

news.foo.com:magic

uunet.uu.net::!foo.*

If the file contains passwords, it should not be world-readable. The file /news/lib/hosts.nntp.nolimit, if it exists, is read whenever the hosts.nntp file is read. It has the same format, although only the first field is used. Any host mentioned in this file is not subject to the incoming connections limit specified by innd's _c flag. This can be used to allow local hosts or time-sensitive peers to connect regardless of the local conditions.