EXPIRE(8)
NAME
expire - Usenet article and history expiration program
SYNOPSIS
expire [ -d dir ] [ -e ] [ -f file ] [ -g file ] [ -h file
] [ -i ] [ -l ] [ -n ] [ -p ] [ -q ] [ -r reason ] [ -s ]
[ -t ] [ -v level ] [ -w number ] [ -x ] [ -z file ] [
expire.ctl ]
DESCRIPTION
Expire scans the history(5) text file /var/lib/news/his-
tory and uses the information recorded in it to purge old
news articles.
OPTIONS
-d If the ``-d'' flag is used, then the new history
file and database is created in the specified
directory, dir. This is useful when the filesystem
does not have sufficient space to hold both the old
and new history files. When this flag is used,
expire leaves the server paused and creates a zero-
length file named after the new history file, with
an extension of ``.done'' to indicate that it has
successfully completed the expiration. The calling
script should install the new history file and un-
pause the server. The ``-r'' flag should be used
with this flag.
-e If the ``-e'' flag is used, then as soon as the
first cross posting of the article expires, all
copies of it are removed.
-f To specify an alternate history file, use the
``-f'' flag.
-g If the ``-g'' flag is given, then a one-line sum-
mary equivalent to the output of ``-v1'' and pre-
ceeded by the current time, will be appended to the
specified file.
-h To specify an alternate input text history file,
use the ``-h'' flag. Expire uses the old dbz(3z)
database to determine the size of the new one.
-i To ignore the old database, use the ``-i'' flag.
-l Expire normally just unlinks each file if it should
be expired. If the ``-l'' flag is used, then all
articles after the first one are treated as if they
could be symbolic links to the first one. In this
case, the first article will not be removed as long
as any other cross-posts of the article remain.
-n If innd is not running, use the ``-n'' flag and
expire will not send the ``pause'' or ``go'' com-
mands. (For more details on the commands, see
ctlinnd(8)). Note that expire only needs exclusive
access for a very short time -- long enough to see
if any new articles arrived since it first hit the
end of the file, and to rename the new files to the
working files.
-p Expire makes its decisions on the time the article
arrived, as found in the history file. This means
articles are often kept a little longer than with
other expiration programs that base their decisions
on the article's posting date. To use the arti-
cle's posting date, use the ``-p'' flag.
-q Expire normally complains about articles that are
posted to newsgroups not mentioned in the active
file. To suppress this action, use the ``-q''
flag.
-r Expire normally sends a ``pause'' command to the
local innd(8) daemon when it needs exclusive access
to the history file, using the string ``Expiring''
as the reason. To give a different reason, use the
``-r'' flag. The process ID will be appended to
the reason. When expire is finished and the new
history file is ready, it sends a ``go'' command.
-s If the ``-s'' flag is used, then expire will print
a summary when it exits showing the approximate
number of kilobytes used by all deleted articles.
-t If the ``-t'' flag is used, then expire will gener-
ate a list of the files that should be removed on
its standard output, and the new history file will
be left in history.n and history.n.dir and his-
tory.n.pag. This flag be useful for debugging when
used with the ``-n'' and ``-s'' flags. Note that
if the ``-f'' flag is used, then the name specified
with that flag will be used instead of history.
-v The ``-v'' flag is used to increase the verbosity
of the program, generating messages to standard
output. The level should be a number, where higher
numbers result in more output. Level one will
print totals of the various actions done (not valid
if a new history file is not written), level two
will print report on each individual file, while
level five results in more than one line of output
for every line processed.
-w Use the ``-w'' flag to ``warp'' time so that expire
thinks it is running at some time other then the
current time. The value should be a signed
floating point number of the number of days to use
as the offset.
-x If the ``-x'' flag is used, then expire will not
create any new history files. This is most useful
when combined with the ``-n'', ``-s'', and ``-t''
flags to see how different expiration policies
would change the amount of disk space used.
-z If the ``-z'' flag is used, then articles are not
removed, but their names are appended to the speci-
fied file. See the description of expirerm in
news.daily(8).
If a filename is specified, it is taken as the control
file and parsed according to the rules in expire.ctl(5).
A single dash (``-'') may be used to read the file from
standard input. If no file is specified, the file
/etc/news/expire.ctl is read.
HISTORY
Written by Rich $alz lt;rsalz@uunet.uu.net for InterNet-
News. This is revision 1.19, dated 1996/10/29.
SEE ALSO
ctlinnd(8) dbz(3z) expire.ctl(5) history(5) innd(8)
inndcomm(3).