NEWS(5) 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. Unrecog- nized 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 Control: Text of a control message NEWS(5) NEWS(5) 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 transmit- ted to the system. The flags are a set of letters describ- ing 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. NEWS(5) NEWS(5) SEE ALSO inews(8), postnews(1), sendnews(8), uurec(8), readnews(1)