Aucbarpa.1177
net.news.b
utzoo!decvax!duke!harpo!npois!ucbvax!ARPAVAX:usenet
Tue Apr 20 19:42:05 1982
news 2.6 released

Updates for version 2.6 of B news have been posted to net.sources.
Several useful contributed pieces of software, which have been
added to the "misc" directory, have also been posted to that
newsgroup.  Report any bugs to this mailbox: ucbvax!arpavax:usenet

		Changes to netnews in version 2.6

2.6 is the first release since 2.3, and the diffs are from 2.3.
2.4 and 2.5 were never sent out (multiple deltas were done on
control.c).

checknews has a -q option which causes an exit status result,
with no output.

expire has -e, -i, and -I flags to control expiration dates.
It will now put expired news in /usr/spool/oldnews (not
/usr/spool/news/.canned) and in subdirectories by newsgroup.
If you want to keep old news, you should mkdir /usr/spool/oldnews.

Expire has also been reworked to be driven by the history file
rather than the active file and all possible articles.  This
makes it faster, and it automatically cleans up history by
removing expired articles from there, too.  Be warned that if
an article does not appear in history, the new expire won't
remove it, so if you have been truncating your history file
by other means, you should keep your old expire program around
for a while, and run it again in a few weeks.

Two new configuration flags in defs.h: MANUALLY can be defined,
causing the system administrator to be notified of any action
requested by a control message.  He should then manually mail
the requested item to the person who requested it.  This is
intended for very secure systems.

Also, BERKNAME can be defined with your sites name on the Berknet,
if you are on a Berknet.  This enables the U sys option, described
below.

A new convention for control messages is in effect: a control
message is one that has a Control: line in the header, and the
text of the Control line is the message.  This is intended to
allow a cancel message to be posted to the same newsgroup as
the original article, using the same title.  For upward compatibilty
in a network environment, old style messages are still understood,
and messages are generated which are correct for both environments.
Eventually the old method will be phased out.

Several improvements to the cancel command make it work decently
over the network, and for the local super user.

The save command supports a | option, allowing you to pipe your
file to a command, e.g.
	s |lpr
will write to the line printer.

Two new sys flags: S means "no shell" and implies a direct exec
of the line in the sys file (this causes less overhead when sending
news).  Also, U means that the outgoing article should be formatted
for the Berknet.

The postnews shell script now puts you in your EDITOR if you have
it in your environment.

Articles which are posted to more than one newsgroup are now shown
to you only once.

Several useful tools have been added to the misc directory - they
are posted separately to net.sources.

-----------------------------------------------------------------
 gopher://quux.org/ conversion by John Goerzen <jgoerzen@complete.org>
 of http://communication.ucsd.edu/A-News/


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The Usenet Oldnews Archive: Compilation Copyright (C) 1981, 1996 
 Bruce Jones, Henry Spencer, David Wiseman.