Posting Methods; Control Messages - Sun Microsystems Sun Workstation 100U System Manager's Manual

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3. Posting Methods
There are three ways to post news. The basic method is to use the inew. command:
%
inewa -t title
-D
new.gt'oup,
<
bodl/file
This is the primitive used by other programs, and is not very suitable for humans.
A somewhat friendlier front end is podnew.. Podnew, first prompts for article header lines:
title, newsgroups, and distribution, and then places you in the editor so you can enter the text
of your article. The system default EDITOR (/u.r/ucblvi) is used unless the environment vari-
able EDITOR is set to override the system default. The header lines you entered at the begin-
ning of the session remain available for editing at the top of the buffer; other header lines can
also be added, such as expiration date. When you write out the file and exit from the editor,
your article is posted.
Another method is to use mail. This is possible with Sun systems. To use mail, set up an alias
such as the following for each newsgroup you subscribe to (adding new groups as they are
created):
net.general: "lIusr/lib/news/recnews net.general"
Now, whenever you send mail to net.general this starts up the given shell command which
calls recnew. with one argument: the name of the newsgroup. R ecnew. will in tum invoke
anew •.
Note that there are limits to recnew •. There is no way to use it to post to multiple newsgroups
without creating separate articles (something frowned upon because it forces people to read the
same thing more than once). Nor is there any way to make the recording feature work when
recnew. is used (see the File. section above).
4. Control Messages
Some news systems send articles that are not for human consumption. These articles are mes-
sages to your news system called "control messages."
A control message begins with a "Control:" header, the subject of the article contains a com-
mand and zero or more arguments (much like a UNIX program), and the body of the article
may be used for additional text. A list of commands follows.
Older systems use newsgroups matching all.all.ctl, rather than the "Control:" header, and this
will still work, although the "Control:" header is preferred. Since the newsgroup name is used
for distribution only, and is not checked to ensure that it's in the
dctive
file, such newsgroup
names can still be used. This makes it possible to post network-wide control messages with
net.msg.ctl (or restricted broadcast such as btl.msg.ctl) or messages for a particular system:
to.ucbvax.ctl. Messages are cancelled with a "Control:" line in a message to the same
newsgroup( s) as the original message.
Control messages are not stored in
1
u.r
1
.pooll new.; rather they are acted on and discarded at
once.
Control message commands are:
new group Allows special action to be taken locally when a new newsgroup is created. The
group itself is created with the
inew.
command with the -0 option, and this gen-
erates the message. By default, the newsgroup is added to the
dctive
file, a direc-
tory is created for it, and mail is sent to the local contact advising that this has
happened. newgroup takes one argument: the name of the newsgroup to be
7 January
1984 5