NAME
makehistory - tools to recover Usenet history database.
SYNOPSIS
makehistory [ -A oldtmp ] [ -a active ] [ -b ] [ -f filename
] [ -i ] [ -n ] [ -o ] [ -r ] [ -s size ] [ -T tmpdir ] [ -u
[ -v ] ]
DESCRIPTION
Makehistory rebuilds the history(5) text file and the asso-
ciated dbz(3) database. The default name of the text file
is /news/etc/history; to specify a different name, use the
``-f'' flag. Makehistory scans the active(5) file to deter-
mine which newsgroup directories within the spool directory,
/news, should be scanned. (If a group is removed, but its
spool directory still exists, makehistory will ignore it.)
The program reads each file found and writes a history line
for it.
After the text file is written, makehistory will build the
dbz database.
OPTIONS
-A If the ``-A'' flag is used then the argument given is
the pathname makehistory can use to store a copy of the
history file as it's being built. It will be appended
to, so existing data will not be lost (and so should be
valid history entries).
-a If the ``-a'' flag is given then the argument is the
active file to use rather than the default one of
/usr/local/news/etc/active.
-b If the ``-b'' flag is used, then makehistory will
remove any articles that do not have valid Message-ID
headers in them.
-f If the ``-f'' flag is used, then the database files are
named file.dir and file.pag. If the ``-f'' flag is not
used, then a temporary link to the name history.n is
made and the database files are written as
history.n.pag and history.n.dir.
-o If the ``-o'' flag is used, then the link is not made
and any existing history files are overwritten. If the
old database exists, makehistory will use it to deter-
mine the size of the new database.
-i To ignore the old database use the ``-i'' flag. Using
the ``-o'' flag implies the ``-i'' flag.
-s The program will also ignore any old database if the
``-s'' flag is used to specify the approximate number
of entries in the new database. Accurately specifying
the size is an optimization that will create a more
efficient database. (The size should be the estimated
eventual size of the file, typically the size of the
old file.) For more information, see the discussion of
dbzfresh and dbzsize in dbz(3).
-u If the ``-u'' flag is given, then makehistory assumes
that innd is running. It will pause the server while
scanning, and then send ``addhist'' commands (see
ctlinnd(8)) to the server for any article that is not
found in the dbz database. The command
``makehistory -bu'' is useful after a system crash, to
delete any mangled articles and bring the article data-
base back into a more consistent state.
-v If the ``-v'' flag is used with the ``-u'' flag, then
makehistory will put a copy of all added lines on its
standard output.
-n To scan the spool directory without rebuilding the dbz
files, use the ``-n'' flag. If used with ``-u'', the
server will not be paused while scanning.
-r To just build the dbz files from an existing text file,
use the ``-r'' flag. The ``-i'' or ``-s'' flags can be
useful if there are no valid dbz files to use.
-T Makehistory needs to create a temporary file that con-
tains one line for each article it finds, which can
become very large. This file is created in the
/var/tmp directory. The ``TMPDIR'' environment vari-
able may be used to specify a different directory.
Alternatively, the ``-T'' flag may be used to specify a
temporary directory. In addition, the sort(1) that is
invoked during the build writes large temporary files
(often to /var/tmp but see your system manpages). If
the ``-T'' flag is used, then the flag and its value
will be passed to sort. On most systems this will
change the temporary directory that sort uses. if
used, this flag and its value will be passed on to the
sort(1) command that is invoked during the build.
EXAMPLES
A typical way to use this program is with the following
/bin/sh commands:
ctlinnd throttle "Rebuilding history file"
cd /usr/local/news/etc
if makehistory -n -f history.n ; then
:
else
echo Error creating history file!
exit 1
fi
# The following line can be used to retain expired history
# It is not necessary for the history file to be sorted.
# awk 'NF==2 { print; }' <history >>history.n
# View history file for mistakes.
if makehistory -r -s `wc -l <history` -f history.n; then
mv history.n history
mv history.n.dir history.dir
mv history.n.pag history.pag
fi
ctlinnd go ''
BUGS AND LIMITATIONS
Makehistory does not handle symbolic links. If the news
spool area is split across multiple partitions, the follow-
ing commands should probably be run before the database is
regenerated:
cd /news
find . -type l -name '[1-9]*' -print | xargs -t rm
Make sure to run the command on all the appropriate parti-
tions!
HISTORY
Written by Rich $alz <rsalz@uunet.uu.net> for InterNetNews.
This is revision 1.3, dated 1996/11/26.
SEE ALSO
active(5), ctlinnd(8), dbz(3), filechan(8), history(5),
innd(8), newsfeeds(5), makeactive(8), newsrequeue(8).
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