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- Subject: INN FAQ Part 1/4: General Information
- Newsgroups: news.software.nntp,news.software.b,news.answers
- From: tal@Warren.MENTORG.COM (Tom Limoncelli)
- Date: 20 Aug 1994 04:00:16 -0000
-
- Posted-By: auto-faq 2.4
- Archive-name: inn-faq/part1
-
- Last Changed: $Id: FAQ-inn.1,v 1.83 1994/07/25 14:42:35 tal Exp $
-
- Part 1 of 4
-
- INN FAQ Part 1/4: General Information:
- Questions from people that don't (yet) run INN
- Specific notes for specific operating systems
- INN FAQ Part 2/4: Debugging Guide & Tutorial:
- INN FAQ Part 3/4: Operational and Misc. Questions
- INN FAQ Part 4/4: Appendix A: Norman's install guide
-
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Subject: Table Of Contents for Part 1/4
-
- =====================================================================
- TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR PART 1/4: General Information
- =====================================================================
-
- QUESTIONS FROM PEOPLE THAT DON'T (YET) RUN INN:
- Where can I get the INN software?
- Where can I get the latest copy of this FAQ?
- What is INN?
- What machines does it run on?
- INN must be really complicated since this FAQ is so long!
- Can I run C News with INN?
- Can I run NNTP with INN?
- Can I run the reference implementation (NNTP1.5) with INN?
- Can I run INN on my UUCP-only machine?
- Suppose I have a 286 machine?
- Does INN implement NOV, xthread (trn) or xuser/xmotd (tin) commands?
- Is an ident or authorization protocol supported?
- Does INN do UUCP batching like C News?
- Help! How do I configure this beast?
- How do I thank the FAQ maintainer?
-
- SPECIFIC NOTES FOR SPECIFIC OPERATING SYSTEMS:
- BASH tips
- AIX tips
- SunOS 4.1.2 tips
- Ultrix tips
- HP-UX tips
- Linux tips
- A/UX 3.0 (Macintosh) tips
- Alpha OSF tips
- Pyramid and system's where only root can have "cron" jobs.
- All System V based Unixes (SVR4, Solaris 2.x, SCO ODT 3.0, A/UX, DELL, ...)
- Solaris 2.x special needs
- 3Com Router users
- NOV problems on a Pyramid
- Warnings to people that must set HAVE_UNIX_DOMAIN to DONT
-
-
- The FAQ was written by Rich $alz <rsalz@rodan.uu.net> and is now
- maintained by Tom Limoncelli <tal@warren.mentorg.com>.
-
- These documents would not exist if it weren't for the people that have
- submitted questions and (most importantly) answers. THANK YOU ALL!
-
-
- =====================================================================
- QUESTIONS FROM PEOPLE THAT DON'T (YET) RUN INN
- =====================================================================
-
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Subject: Where can I get the INN software?
-
- The official archive site is ftp.uu.net in the directory
- networking/news/nntp/inn. Archie current lists over 30 archive sites;
- three other international sites are grasp.insa-lyon.fr in
- pub/unix/news/inn, munnari.oz.au in pub/news/inn, and src.doc.ic.ac.uk
- in computing/usenet/software/transport
-
- The latest version of INN is 1.4sec. This is rev. 1.4 with a slight
- modification of certain shell scripts to fix a security hole. Do
- not run 1.4 without the patch (see part 3/4 of this FAQ).
-
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Subject: Where can I get the latest copy of this FAQ?
-
- 1. This four-part FAQ is available via FTP at any FTP site that carries
- INN itself.
-
- 2. This FAQ is also posted to news.software.nntp, news.software.b and
- news.answers on the 5th and 20th of every month.
-
- 3. You can also get this FAQ by sending email to
- majordomo@warren.mentorg.com with "get file faq-inn-1" on the first
- line of the message. (the Subject: of the message will be ignored.)
- (Substitute faq-inn-2, faq-inn-3 or faq-inn-4 to get those parts).
-
- For example:
-
- % echo get file faq-inn-1 | mail majordomo@warren.mentorg.com
- % echo get file faq-inn-2 | mail majordomo@warren.mentorg.com
- % echo get file faq-inn-3 | mail majordomo@warren.mentorg.com
- % echo get file faq-inn-4 | mail majordomo@warren.mentorg.com
-
- or
-
- % mail majordomo@warren.mentorg.com
- Subject: ignored
- get file faq-inn-1
- get file faq-inn-2
- get file faq-inn-3
- get file faq-inn-4
- ^D
-
- or if you csh and are a total nerd, you can:
- echo 'get file new-inn.'{1,2,3,4}@ \
- | tr @ '\012' | mail majordomo@warren.mentorg.com
-
- ...or get a real hobby.
-
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Subject: What is INN?
-
- For a complete answer, why not read the Usenix paper that introduced
- INN to the world? It's available as
- ftp.uu.net:networking/news/nntp/inn/inn.usenix.ps.Z
-
- InterNetNews is a complete Usenet system. The cornerstone of the package
- is innd, an NNTP server that multiplexes all I/O. Think of it as an nntpd
- merged with the B News inews, or as a C News relaynews that reads multiple
- NNTP streams. Newsreading is handled by a separate server, nnrpd, that is
- spawned for each client. Both innd and nnrpd have some slight variances
- from the NNTP protocol (although in normal use you will never notice); see
- the manpages. INN separates hosts that feed you news from those that have
- users reading news. If you need to support a mixed environment you will have
- to do some extra work; the installation manual gives some hints.
-
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Subject: What machines does it run on?
-
- If you have socket() and select() then INN will probably run on your
- machine. In addition to the common platforms found around the Internet
- (SunOS and Ultrix, for example), INN runs on IBM`s AIX, Apple's A/UX,
- NeXT, Solaris 2.x, most SVR4 platforms, BSDI, most free BSD systems
- (NetBSD, FreeBSD, ...) and a host of others. It might require a
- little bit of tweaking of some free BSD platforms that have really bad
- shells.
-
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Subject: INN must be really complicated since this FAQ is so long!
-
- No, it's just that the FAQ is very complete. Part 2 is so long because
- it includes a tutorial that tries to turn a beginner into an TCP/IP
- protocol expert. Part 3 is long because the FAQ maintainer is
- constantly trying to add every question ever asked on
- news.software.nntp. Maybe someone should volunteer to maintain an
- index.
-
- A lot of the material could be integrated into the Install.ms doc.
-
- Please post questions to news.software.nntp. Do not send
- email to Tom Limoncelli directly. By posting your question,
- a group of 10 or so people will be trying to help you.
-
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Subject: Can I run C News with INN?
-
- No. INN handles all article reception, filing, forwarding, and
- expiration. You will get a corrupted database if you try to
- run INN with any other news system. For testing, you can probably shut
- down your old system, bring up INN, and then reverse the process. (INN
- uses the C News history file and DBZ database, so if you don't run C News
- you will have to do some fiddling around with those files.)
-
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Subject: Can I run NNTP with INN?
-
- There's a confusion here. NNTP is a protocol, defined in RFC 977. There
- is also an implementation of the protocol, NNTP1.5, that many people call
- NNTP. When there was only one implementation of the protocol, that was
- okay, but now that there are other implementations (for example, INN) it
- is getting confusing. It would be as if "sendmail" were named "smtp."
- Please try to be clear -- do you mean the NNTP protocol, or the NNTP
- reference implementation currently maintained by Stan Barber?
-
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Subject: Can I run the reference implementation (NNTP1.5) with INN?
-
- The quick answer is no. INN listens on the NNTP port and handles all
- incoming traffic. It receives articles, files them, and arranges for
- them to be forwarded to your peers. If a site connects that is not
- listed as a peer (e.g., a local workstation that does newsreading) then
- the INN server hands the connection off to another program that handles
- just the NNTP commands that newsreaders use. By default, this is nnrpd
- (notice the "r"), which implements the NNTP protocol for newsreaders
- (for example, it includes the POST command but not the IHAVE command).
- You can run the reference implementation server instead of nnrpd if you
- want. Doing this can be useful if you have clients that want to do
- both reading and article transfer.
-
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Subject: Can I run INN on my UUCP-only machine?
-
- Sure. While not designed for this, several people are running INN on
- machines that do not have IP-connectivity (such as UUCP-only hosts) and
- are quite happy with it. You might want to give it a try, especially if
- you think you will be joining the Internet some day.
-
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Subject: Suppose I have a 286 machine?
-
- Won't work. INN is designed to be a memory hog; a server that has been up
- for a few days while will have a working set size of a few to several
- megabytes, although not all of it will be resident. For example, the
- server keeps the active file and list of who gets what in memory, as well
- as all articles that it is receiving. Unless you can do things like
- "malloc(64 * 1024)" without pain, INN won't work on your machine.
-
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Subject: Does INN implement NOV, xthread (trn) or xuser/xmotd (tin) commands?
-
- Newsreaders all need some way to quickly grab data from
- a range of articles. trn, tin, nn, and others each developed
- their own database format, and their own extensions to the NNTP
- protocol for clients to read the database. Then, Geoff Collyer
- invented NOV, the database to end all other databases.
-
- Rather than support a different database format for each newsreader,
- INN supports Geoff Collyer's news overview database, NOV. INN includes
- everything you need to create/maintain/expire NOV's .overview files.
- You only need Geoff's distribution (available via FTP on world.std.com
- src/news/nov.dist.tar.Z) if you want to see how he implements things,
- or to get his client library (useful when building some newsreaders).
-
- It is very easy to configure INN to use NOV. Read Part 3/4 of
- this faq: Subject: Cookbook example setting up NOV ("overchan")
- NB: The NOV code in INN 1.3 is buggy. Use 1.4 or higher.
-
- The xover command is used for querying the NOV database. The xover
- command is very smart in that if the article has been canceled, the
- data isn't given out. If the article is so new that it's data isn't in
- the NOV database, nnrpd opens the article and digs out the data. xhrd
- and xpat make every effort to use NOV data before they dig the data out
- of the actual articles, thus making them considerably faster than other
- implementations. The "xoverview" command does not exist. If your
- server supports this command you need to upgrade.
-
- What about TRN's xthread command?
-
- The xthread command has code but it is not supported; look at
- $inn/nnrpd/nnrpd.h. This code will probably vanish after 1.4.
-
- What about TIN's many commands?
-
- Tin commands are not supported. However, other people have
- added TIN support. See the next section.
-
-
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Subject: Is an ident or authorization protocol supported?
-
- An unsupported patch for nnrpd to add ident support can be found via
- FTP at ftp.csie.nctu.edu.tw:/pub/news/nnrpd-identd-patch.shar.gz. It
- includes patches to add tin's xuser and xmotd commands as well as a
- list subscription system. (skhuang@csie.nctu.edu.tw)
-
- Remember: ident information is only as valid as the server you connect
- to. Any fool with root access (or anyone with a PC or Mac) can create
- a bogus ident server that will give out whatever information they want
- you to see. It's not an authorization or identification protocol, it's
- just informational.
-
- The authd protocol is added to nnrpd by <nhiro@isci.kyutech.ac.jp>.
- This unsupported patch can be found in
- ftp.geophys.hokudai.ac.jp:/pub/network/news/inn/patches/authd-patch-1.3.tar.gz
- The documentation is in Japanese. Good luck.
-
- In a future release, you will be able to log all POST commands with
- ident information if you so choose. (Maybe INN 1.5)
-
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Subject: Does INN do UUCP batching like C News?
-
- Not as part of the standard distribution. The batching system right
- now is better than B News, but Rich has said he will be working on
- improving that part of INN in a future release. Christophe Wolfhugel
- <Christophe.Wolfhugel@grasp.insa-lyon.fr> has written a package that is
- very much like the C News batching system, however. You can find it on
- grasp.insa-lyon.fr in the pub/unix/news/inn/contrib directory.
-
- Version 3 of Christophe's package includes a shell version and a Perl
- version. Version 4, not yet planned will only be in Perl. The
- configuration file has evolved from older releases in order to support
- new features like "minimum batching".
-
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Subject: Help! How do I configure this beast?
-
- READ AND FOLLOW THE "Install.ms" FILE. This FAQ is meant to add to
- what Install.ms says not replace it.
-
- Many people that thought the Install.ms doc was incomplete later
- re-read the "First Time Installation" portion and were amazed how much
- they missed (or just plain skipped) the first time.
-
- You should also purchase the O'Reilly And Associates book on Managing
- Usenet to give yourself a good grounding on how to run a site.
-
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Subject: How do I thank the FAQ maintainer?
-
- If you find this document useful, please consider making a donation to
- the maintainer's favorite charity:
-
- The Personal Liberty Fund
- PO Box 11335
- New Brunswick, NJ 08906-1335
- USA
-
- The PLF is a legal and educational organization which helps people in
- New Jersey, USA. They have many on-going projects which range from
- combating youth suicide to legal advocacy. Their Anti-Violence Project
- runs a phone hotline for reporting gay-bashing which helps hundreds of
- people a year. The PLF is an all-volunteer organization and couldn't
- survive without donations. The PLF is recognized by the IRS as a
- 501(c)3 tax-exempt charity. Donations are tax deductible to the
- fullest extent of the law (U.S. citizens only). Please write "INN" in
- the memo field of the check.
-
-
- ======================================================================
- SPECIFIC NOTES FOR SPECIFIC OPERATING SYSTEMS
- ======================================================================
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Subject: BASH tips
-
- If you are using a Unix who's /bin/sh is a hardlink to
- bash, you'll find problems using nntpsend. nntpsend uses
- a variable named PPID, which is a read-only variable in BASH.
-
- You'll get errors that look like this:
- sh: PPID: read-only variable
-
- You can fix it using the the following patch:
-
-
- *** nntpsend~ Thu Aug 12 03:36:16 1993
- --- nntpsend Sat Oct 23 15:54:11 1993
- ***************
- *** 1,4 ****
- ! #! /bin/sh
- ## $Revision: 1.83 $
- ## Send news via NNTP by running several innxmit processes in the background.
- ## Usage:
- --- 1,4 ----
- ! #!/usr/local/bin/bash
- ## $Revision: 1.83 $
- ## Send news via NNTP by running several innxmit processes in the background.
- ## Usage:
- ***************
- *** 130,140 ****
- chmod 0660 ${LOG}
- exec >>${LOG} 2>&1
- fi
- ! PPID=$$
- ! echo "${PROGNAME}: [${PPID}] start"
-
- ## Set up environment.
- ! export BATCH PROGNAME PPID INNFLAGS
-
- ## Loop over all sites.
- cat ${INPUT} | while read SITE HOST MAXSIZE FLAGS; do
- --- 130,140 ----
- chmod 0660 ${LOG}
- exec >>${LOG} 2>&1
- fi
- ! CPID=$$
- ! echo "${PROGNAME}: [${CPID}] start"
-
- ## Set up environment.
- ! export BATCH PROGNAME CPID INNFLAGS
-
- ## Loop over all sites.
- cat ${INPUT} | while read SITE HOST MAXSIZE FLAGS; do
- ***************
- *** 240,246 ****
- fi
-
- ## Start sending this site in the background.
- ! export SITE HOST LOCKS BATCHFILE PROGNAME PPID SIZE TMPDIR
- sh -c '
- BATCHFILE=${HOST}.nntp
- LOCK=${LOCKS}/LOCK.${HOST}
- --- 240,246 ----
- fi
-
- ## Start sending this site in the background.
- ! export SITE HOST LOCKS BATCHFILE PROGNAME CPID SIZE TMPDIR
- sh -c '
- BATCHFILE=${HOST}.nntp
- LOCK=${LOCKS}/LOCK.${HOST}
- ***************
- *** 247,253 ****
- trap "rm -f ${LOCK} ; exit 1" 1 2 3 15
- shlock -p $$ -f ${LOCK} || {
- WHY="`cat ${LOCK}`"
- ! echo "${PROGNAME}: [${PPID}:$$] ${HOST} locked ${WHY} `date`"
- exit
- }
- if [ -f ${SITE}.work ] ; then
- --- 247,253 ----
- trap "rm -f ${LOCK} ; exit 1" 1 2 3 15
- shlock -p $$ -f ${LOCK} || {
- WHY="`cat ${LOCK}`"
- ! echo "${PROGNAME}: [${CPID}:$$] ${HOST} locked ${WHY} `date`"
- exit
- }
- if [ -f ${SITE}.work ] ; then
- ***************
- *** 254,259 ****
- --- 254,260 ----
- cat ${SITE}.work >>${BATCHFILE}
- rm -f ${SITE}.work
- fi
- + if [ -s ${SITE} ] ; then
- mv ${SITE} ${SITE}.work
- if ctlinnd -s -t30 flush ${SITE} ; then
- cat ${SITE}.work >>${BATCHFILE}
- ***************
- *** 260,273 ****
- rm -f ${SITE}.work
- test -n "${SIZE}" && shrinkfile -s${SIZE} -v ${BATCHFILE}
- if [ -s ${BATCHFILE} ] ; then
- ! echo "${PROGNAME}: [${PPID}:$$] begin ${HOST} `date`"
- ! echo "${PROGNAME}: [${PPID}:$$] innxmit ${INNFLAGS} ${HOST} ..."
- eval innxmit ${INNFLAGS} ${HOST} ${BATCH}/${BATCHFILE}
- ! echo "${PROGNAME}: [${PPID}:$$] end ${HOST} `date`"
- else
- rm -f ${BATCHFILE}
- fi
- fi
- rm -f ${LOCK}
- ' &
- sleep 5
- --- 261,275 ----
- rm -f ${SITE}.work
- test -n "${SIZE}" && shrinkfile -s${SIZE} -v ${BATCHFILE}
- if [ -s ${BATCHFILE} ] ; then
- ! echo "${PROGNAME}: [${CPID}:$$] begin ${HOST} `date`"
- ! echo "${PROGNAME}: [${CPID}:$$] innxmit ${INNFLAGS} ${HOST} ..."
- eval innxmit ${INNFLAGS} ${HOST} ${BATCH}/${BATCHFILE}
- ! echo "${PROGNAME}: [${CPID}:$$] end ${HOST} `date`"
- else
- rm -f ${BATCHFILE}
- fi
- fi
- + fi
- rm -f ${LOCK}
- ' &
- sleep 5
- ***************
- *** 275,278 ****
-
- wait
- rm -f ${INPUT}
- ! echo "${PROGNAME}: [${PPID}] stop"
- --- 277,280 ----
-
- wait
- rm -f ${INPUT}
- ! echo "${PROGNAME}: [${CPID}] stop"
-
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Subject: AIX tips
-
- Q: When I run news.daily, there's always a few lines of error
- messages at the end of the output:
-
- compress: bad file number
-
- A: AIX /usr/bin/compress has a bug when compressing files with zero
- length. Then it spits out this error. Solution: Ignore it or use a
- different compress programm and change config.data accordingly.
- (from Kurt Jaeger <pi@rus.uni-stuttgart.de>)
-
- Q: innwatch doesn't work well from /etc/inittab, does it?
-
- A: Nope. Instead, you can create a "subsystem" with this command:
-
- mkssys -s innwatch -p /usr/local/news/bin/innwatch -u `id -u news` -G news -S -n 15 -f 9
-
- Note that your path to innwatch may differ, depending on where you
- decided to install the inn components. You also need to enter the
- command as one long line.
-
- This will create a subsystem named "innwatch" belonging to an SRC group
- named "news". The "-S" means that it uses signals for SRC to tell it
- when to stop and the "-n" is the SIGTERM signal, for normal shutdown,
- and the "-f" is the SIGKILL signal, which is sent if the process does
- not stop within 20 seconds. Then, modify rc.news to issue the command
-
- startsrc -s innwatch
-
- to get innwatch going. That's it!
-
- Shane Castle <swcxt@boco.co.gov, swcxt@csn.org>
-
- Q: What can I change in innwatch.ctl to make it work right?
-
- A: "df" has output that is a little different than other systems.
- Basicly, you want to 'print $3' (not 'print $4') when doing a "df" and
- "df -i" lines should 'print $7' (not 'print $3').
-
- Here are diffs:
-
- *** innwatch.ctl Wed Apr 20 23:17:58 1994
- --- innwatch.ctl.aix Mon Jul 11 14:28:34 1994
- ***************
- *** 28,40 ****
- !load!+! uptime | tr -d ,. | awk '{ print $(NF - 2) }' ! gt ! 1500 ! pause ! loadav
-
- ## If load is OK, check space (and inodes) on various filesystems
- ! ## =()<!!! df . | awk 'NR == 2 { print $4 }' ! lt ! @<INNWATCH_SPOOLSPACE>@ ! throttle ! No space (spool)>()=
- ! !!! df . | awk 'NR == 2 { print $4 }' ! lt ! 8000 ! throttle ! No space (spool)
- ## =()<!!! df /nb/news2 | awk 'NR == 2 { print $4 }' ! lt ! @<INNWATCH_SPOOLSPACE>@ ! throttle ! No space (news.spool2)>()=
- !!! df /nb/news2 | awk 'NR == 2 { print $4 }' ! lt ! 8000 ! throttle ! No space (news.spool2)
- ! ## =()<!!! df @<_PATH_BATCHDIR>@ | awk 'NR == 2 { print $4 }' ! lt ! @<INNWATCH_BATCHSPACE>@ ! throttle ! No space (newsq)>()=
- ! !!! df /var/spool/news/out.going | awk 'NR == 2 { print $4 }' ! lt ! 800 ! throttle ! No space (newsq)
- ! ## =()<!!! df @<_PATH_NEWSLIB>@ | awk 'NR == 2 { print $4 }' ! lt ! @<INNWATCH_LIBSPACE>@ ! throttle ! No space (newslib)>()=
- ! !!! df /usr/lib/news | awk 'NR == 2 { print $4 }' ! lt ! 20000 ! throttle ! No space (newslib)
- ! ## =()<!!! df -i . | awk 'NR == 2 { print $3 }' ! lt ! @<INNWATCH_SPOOLNODES>@ ! throttle ! No space (spool inodes)>()=
- ! !!! df -i . | awk 'NR == 2 { print $3 }' ! lt ! 200 ! throttle ! No space (spool inodes)
- --- 28,40 ----
- !load!+! uptime | tr -d ,. | awk '{ print $(NF - 2) }' ! gt ! 1500 ! pause ! loadav
-
- ## If load is OK, check space (and inodes) on various filesystems
- ! ## =()<!!! df . | awk 'NR == 2 { print $3 }' ! lt ! @<INNWATCH_SPOOLSPACE>@ ! throttle ! No space (spool)>()=
- ! !!! df . | awk 'NR == 2 { print $3 }' ! lt ! 8000 ! throttle ! No space (spool)
- ## =()<!!! df /nb/news2 | awk 'NR == 2 { print $4 }' ! lt ! @<INNWATCH_SPOOLSPACE>@ ! throttle ! No space (news.spool2)>()=
- !!! df /nb/news2 | awk 'NR == 2 { print $4 }' ! lt ! 8000 ! throttle ! No space (news.spool2)
- ! ## =()<!!! df @<_PATH_BATCHDIR>@ | awk 'NR == 2 { print $3 }' ! lt ! @<INNWATCH_BATCHSPACE>@ ! throttle ! No space (newsq)>()=
- ! !!! df /var/spool/news/out.going | awk 'NR == 2 { print $3 }' ! lt ! 800 ! throttle ! No space (newsq)
- ! ## =()<!!! df @<_PATH_NEWSLIB>@ | awk 'NR == 2 { print $3 }' ! lt ! @<INNWATCH_LIBSPACE>@ ! throttle ! No space (newslib)>()=
- ! !!! df /usr/lib/news | awk 'NR == 2 { print $3 }' ! lt ! 20000 ! throttle ! No space (newslib)
- ! ## =()<!!! df -i . | awk 'NR == 2 { print $7 }' ! lt ! @<INNWATCH_SPOOLNODES>@ ! throttle ! No space (spool inodes)>()=
- ! !!! df -i . | awk 'NR == 2 { print $7 }' ! lt ! 200 ! throttle ! No space (spool inodes)
-
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Subject: SunOS 4.1.2 tips
-
- SunOS 4.1.2 (but not 4.1.1 or 4.1.3) broke the write system call but a
- patch is available. Any write could fail "half way", it is just more
- likely to happen when writing large files and in-core DBZ writes the
- history file out in one chunk. See the "Known Problems" section of the
- installation manual.
-
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Subject: Ultrix tips
-
- Tip #1: Ultrix has a "mmap()" function, but it doesn't do the same
- thing as the SunOS/BSD mmap() function. Therefore, do not configure
- INN to use mmap() on a Ultrix system. INN wants to find a mmap()
- function that is like the one on SunOS/BSD systems.
-
- Tip #2: The sendsys script breaks Ultrix 'nawk'. You can make
- a 1-line change or you can switch to 'awk' or "gawk".
- Original line:
- ${AWK} "/^$1"'[/:\\]/,/[^\\]$/' ${NEWSFEEDS} >${TEMP}
- Modified line:
- ${AWK} "/^$1"'[\/:\\]/,/[^\\]$/' ${NEWSFEEDS} >${TEMP}
- The original line will work with awk, gawk, but not nawk.
- The modified line will work with awk, gawk, or nawk.
- If you have gawk running on your machine use it. Otherwise, switch to
- awk.
-
- Tip #3: The syslog on Ultrix sucks rotten eggs and Digital refuses to
- fix it. (source: everyone that uses Ultrix and has ever used other
- systems) Luckily, you can replace it with the routine that comes with
- INN. However, some people have had better luck installing the syslog
- that can be found on
- "gatekeeper.dec.com:/pub/DEC/jtkohl-syslog-complete.tar.Z". It still
- works with old clients but does new-style syslogging, too. Works great
- for me so far. (this information from: nelson@reed.edu (Nelson
- Minar)). The syslog that is shipped with INN works pretty well but
- there have been some claims that some old clients don't like it.
-
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Subject: HP-UX tips
-
- Q. My logs keep telling me there is no space for articles
- A. Edit innwatch.ctl to use "bdf" instead of "df".
-
- Q. I am running inn on an HP machine. INN won't start up automatically.
- I can start it manually. There is no problem with news or INN once
- it is started.
-
- A. Try adding a "sleep 10" to the bottom of /etc/rc.news, or in
- /etc/rc, right after /etc/rc.news is invoked. On some machines,
- including HP, the shell started by "#!/bin/sh" when /etc/rc is executed
- will exit before innd has disassociated itself from that shell. This
- causes innd to exit, sometimes without printing an error message.
- (source: pjoslin@mbvlab.wpafb.af.mil (Paul Joslin ))
-
- This problem goes away if you set HAVE_SETSID to "DO". Something to do
- with Posix Session Leader concepts. Ick. (source: Steve Howie
- <scotty@piranha.cs.uoguelph.ca>)
-
- HP-UX 8.x and 9.x users might find a problem with getting innwatch to
- start up. People have found that having "at" start it seems to work
- more reliably than other methods:
-
- ${DOINNWATCH} && {
- echo "${INNWATCH} &" | su ${NEWSUSER} -c 'at now + 2 min' > /dev/null
- }
-
- The '&' in the command line prevents innwatch from taking up an at-job
- slot. SysV-style crons have a per-category and overall limit on the
- number of jobs executing simultaneously.
-
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Subject: Linux tips
-
- | nntpsend.log says the following.
-
- | nntpsend: [214:222] innxmit -a -t300 -T1800
- | travelers.mail.cornell.edu ...
- | Ignoring line "cornell/test/13 805 ..."
- | sh: PPID read-only variable
-
- Tomasz Surmacz <tsurmacz@ict.pwr.wroc.pl> writes:
-
- If you are using INN under Linux or have your /bin/sh a symlink to
- /bin/bash the above problem appears (in nntpsend precisely speaking,
- not innxmit)
-
- The problem is that bash already defines the PPID variable and
- nntpsend is trying to use it too. To fix this:
-
- 1. comment out line PPID = $$
- 2. change all occurences of PPID to say PARENTPID
-
- I have also noticed that changing first line of nntpsend from
- '#!/bin/sh' to "!/bin/bash" helps in such occasions.
-
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Subject: A/UX 3.0 (Macintosh) tips
-
- Tip #1: Use the INN malloc.
-
- Tip #2: If you are running INN 1.4 on a Mac running A/UX 3.0.1, Every
- so often, (generally when someone fires up a reader), INN goes beserk.
- Syslog says:
-
- innd: ME cant select Bad file number
-
- This message repeats about 20 times per second. It freezes up my
- computer and I need to reboot.
-
- That's a kernel bug. You do have to reboot.
-
- If you compiled inn with gcc, don't. My experience was that somehow, if
- INN was compiled with GCC the kernel bug is triggered, but that doesn't
- happen with cc.
-
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Subject: Alpha OSF tips:
-
- To compile INN for the DEC Alpha, follow the instructions in the INN
- patch archive on ftp.pop.psu.edu:/pub/src/news/inn-patches
-
- In rc.news you need to start $INNWATCH using the following:
-
- ${DOINNWATCH} && {
- echo "${INNWATCH} &" | su ${NEWSUSER} -c 'at now + 2 min' > /dev/null
- }
-
- The '&' in the command line prevents innwatch from taking up an at-job
- slot. SysV-style crons have a per-category and overall limit on the
- number of jobs executing simultaneously.
-
-
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Subject: Pyramid and system's where only root can have "cron" jobs.
-
- Your cron jobs may not work if you use:
-
- su news -c /usr/lib/news/bin/news.daily delayrm expireover
-
- Instead, you must put the entire command in quotes. Like this:
-
- su news -c "/usr/lib/news/bin/news.daily delayrm expireover"
-
- Look for "Pyramid" in part ??? of this FAQ for details.
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Subject: System V based Unixes (SVR4, Solaris 2.x, SCO ODT 3.0, A/UX, DELL, ...)
-
- If you are running any non-BSD (i.e. System V based) Unix you MUST have
- the following option set:
-
- ## How should close-on-exec be done? Pick IOCTL or FCNTL.
- #### =()<CLX_STYLE @<CLX_STYLE>@>()=
- CLX_STYLE FCNTL
-
- This includes SVR4, Solaris 2.x, A/UX and SCO ODT 3.0. (SVR4 means
- systems based on System V Release 4 from USL. Please check your manual
- to see if your operating system is based on SVR4.)
-
- This CLX_STYLE setting is clearly stated in the Install.ms file and
- repeated here since so many people post to news.software.nntp after
- ignoring the warnings.
-
- If CLX_STYLE isn't set to FCNTL, you'll get tons of overchan processes
- hanging around.
-
- With SCO ODT 3.0 and MOST systems, innd will link and run if you use
- IOCTL but eventually will stop answering incoming calls.
-
- Don't be fooled. Just because it compiles doesn't mean it's going to
- work.
-
- If you start innd on an AT&T SysV Rel 4.0 machine and get syslog
- messages like:
- localhost:15 cant setsockopt(SNDBUF) Protocol error
- localhost:15 cant setsockopt(RCVBUF) Protocol error
- then you should FIRST try to change HAVE_UNIX_DOMAIN to "DONT" in
- config.data. If that doesn't fix the problem, you should comment out
- the "setsockopt()" calls and things will work.
-
- Many SVR4 for i486 binaries (sendmail, mh, vmail, innd, rnews are now
- on ftp.germany.eu.net in pub/comp/i486/svr4/*.SVR4.tgz But remember
- that some of the above need site specific changes, so their usefulness
- may be limited.
-
- If you get syslog messages that say, "ME cant accept RCreader"
- please refer to Part 2 of this FAQ.
-
- DELL ships their Unix with /dev/log chmod'ed to 0644 which means nobody
- can syslog anything. Pretty stupid, eh? INN uses syslog extensively.
- If you find that you don't get any syslog messages check to see if you
- need to: "chmod 0666 /dev/log".
-
- If your SVR4 system still doesn't run correctly, check the
- Solaris 2.x suggestions.
-
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Subject: Solaris 2.x special needs
-
- If "inews" outputs "Bad Message-ID" when posting Under Solaris 2.x
- (where x = 0, 1, 2 or 3) you need to change the file "getfqdn.c". Find
- the lines that read:
-
- if (strchr(hp->h_name, '.') == NULL) {
- /* Try to force DNS lookup if NIS/whatever gets in the way. */
- (void)strncpy(temp, buff, sizeof buff);
- (void)strcat(temp, ".");
- hp = gethostbyname(temp);
- }
-
- and delete them.
-
- Under Solaris 2.[012] (SunOS 5.0, 5.1, 5.2) you must add the following
- at the beginning of each file using gethostbyname():
-
- #define gethostbyname __switch_gethostbyname
-
- Under Solaris 2.3 gethostbyname() might work without changes depending
- on your configuration. We haven't figured out when they work and when
- they don't. If you run into problems, try to change "gethostbyname()"
- to "solaris_gethostbyname()" and then use the gethostbyname() listed in
- the Solaris Porting FAQ. This isn't a perfect solution, because you
- now need a different binary for Solaris 2.[012] systems.
-
- It would be great if someone were to submit a solaris_gethostbyname()
- function who's binary works under all Solaris revs and gives all the
- semantics of BSD gethostbyname(). In particular, one that doesn't have
- the problems discussed in sun bugid #1126573 or #1135988. It would be
- amazing if this was submitted by one of the many Sun employees that
- flame the INN FAQ maintainer in comp.sys.sun.admin everytime he bitches
- about how much he hates Solaris 2.x. :-)
-
- Under all Solaris 2.* versions there is a problem with innwatch.ctl.
- It expects to use "df -i" to find out how many inodes are free on your
- disk. /usr/{sbin,5bin,bin}/df doesn't support the "-i" option, it has
- a "-e" option that outputs the info you want, but in a different
- format. You should use "/usr/ucb/df -i" instead, since this version of
- df includes the "-i" option.
-
- /usr/ucb/df is part of the BSD Compatibility stuff. If you loaded
- Solaris 2.x without that, you can replace innwatch.ctl's disk checks
- with these lines:
-
- ## If load is OK, check space (and inodes) on various filesystems
- ## =()<!!! /usr/bin/df -k . | awk 'NR == 2 { print $4 }' ! lt ! @<INNWATCH_SPOOLSPACE>@ ! throttle ! No space (spool)>()=
- !!! /usr/bin/df -k . | awk 'NR == 2 { print $4 }' ! lt ! 8000 ! throttle ! No space (spool)
- ## =()<!!! /usr/bin/df -k @<_PATH_BATCHDIR>@ | awk 'NR == 2 { print $4 }' ! lt ! @<INNWATCH_BATCHSPACE>@ ! throttle ! No space (newsq)>()=
- !!! /usr/bin/df -k /news2/spool/out.going | awk 'NR == 2 { print $4 }' ! lt ! 800 ! throttle ! No space (newsq)
- ## =()<!!! /usr/bin/df -k @<_PATH_NEWSLIB>@ | awk 'NR == 2 { print $4 }' ! lt ! @<INNWATCH_LIBSPACE>@ ! throttle ! No space (newslib)>()=
- !!! /usr/bin/df -k /news2/privcontrol | awk 'NR == 2 { print $4 }' ! lt ! 40000 ! throttle ! No space (newslib)
- ## =()<!!! /usr/bin/df -k @<_PATH_OVERVIEWDIR>@ | awk 'NR == 2 { print $4 }' ! lt ! @<INNWATCH_OVERVIEWSPACE>@ ! throttle ! No space (overview)>()=
- !!! /usr/bin/df -k /news3/overview | awk 'NR == 2 { print $4 }' ! lt ! 6000 ! throttle ! No space (overview)
- ## =()<!!! /usr/bin/df -e . | awk 'NR == 2 { print $2 }' ! lt ! @<INNWATCH_SPOOLNODES>@ ! throttle ! No space (spool inodes)>()=
- !!! /usr/bin/df -e . | awk 'NR == 2 { print $2 }' ! lt ! 200 ! throttle ! No space (spool inodes)
-
- Don't run the "lint" step if you use Solaris. In fact, nobody needs to
- execute this step except Rich, when he's writing new code. If you have
- a Solaris machine without "lint", just make "lint" a symlink to
- "/bin/echo".
-
- People running Solaris 2.3 have built INN with HAVE_UNIX_DOMAIN set to
- TRUE and everything seems to be ok. I guess Sun has fixed enough
- bugs in 2.3 to make it usable. I recommend the latest "recommended
- patches" if you run any version of Solaris 2.x.
-
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Subject: 3Com Router users
-
- If you observe strange behavior, like nnrpd locking and not sending
- some articles to the clients, and if you find no clues about other
- potential problems, then check your IP layer: some users have observed
- bugs in the IP implementation of 3Com routers caused TCP
- sessions lock outs. You have very probably also NFS problems then.
- Upgrading to the latest PROMs fixes this totally bizarre problem.
-
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Subject: NOV problems on a Pyramid
-
- Q: I just turned on the overview stuff and I don't think news.daily is
- properly expiring the .overview files. I'm using a Pyramid.
-
- A: Do you need quotes in your crontab entry? Look at your news.daily
- report -- expire using "expireover delayrm" should take a few minutes.
- If it takes longer than, say, 10-20 minutes, then the keywords aren't
- being seen by news.daily so perhaps the commandline quoting is wrong.
-
- i.e. you had:
-
- su news -c /usr/lib/news/bin/news.daily delayrm expireover
-
- You should have:
-
- su news -c "/usr/lib/news/bin/news.daily delayrm expireover"
-
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Subject: Warnings to people that must set HAVE_UNIX_DOMAIN to DONT
-
- Disclaimer: First of all, if you have to set HAVE_UNIX_DOMAIN to DONT,
- YOU HAVE TO SET IT to DONT. It's not a choice you can make, it's a
- description of the operating system that you've purchased. If you've
- wrongly set this variable to DO your system isn't going to work *at*
- *all*.
-
- When you use POST (the NNTP command), you are talking to nnrpd. nnrpd
- cleans up your headers, adds the missing headers that it is allowed to
- add, checks whatever it checks, and then submits the finalized version
- to innd. How does it talk to innd?
-
- If you have HAVE_UNIX_DOMAIN set to DO, nnrpd opens a Unix domain
- socket and sends the text. At this point it is talking to innd
- somewhat like ctlinnd does. innd can trust that the post isn't
- forged since it is coming from a program trustworthy enough to
- get to the socket (which isn't much).
-
- If you have HAVE_UNIX_DOMAIN set to DONT, it has no choice but to open
- a socket to port 119, issue the "IHAVE" command, and send the text that
- way (just like a remote newsreader). This means that innd (not another
- nnrpd) has to be at the other end of the pipe. If it opens the
- connection and sees a "nnrpd" you're hosed and you get "441 480
- Transfer permission denied". (Better the "441 480" message than an
- infinate loop of nnrpd's connecting to nnrpd's!) To get innd to not
- hand off the connection to a nnrpd process, you must have the host's
- name in the hosts.nntp file. (don't forget to do "ctlinnd reload
- hosts.nntp")
-
- If you have your host's name in the hosts.nntp file, then any
- newsreader running on your nntphost must be "INN-aware" (i.e. that they
- issue the "mode reader" command) or they must read news via the file
- system instead of NNTP.
-
- If you have NNTP-based newsreaders that can't send the "mode reader"
- command, you can try including "server: localhost" in your inn.conf
- file, but then you must have a different inn.conf file for the other
- machines. If you can't do that, you have no other options but to
- recompile your newsreaders.
-
- Remember, if you change your inn.conf file, you must shutdown and
- restart innd. There is no "ctlinnd reload inn.conf" command.
- --
- Tom Limoncelli -- tal@warren.mentorg.com (work) -- tal@plts.org (play)
-
- The internet is like a box of chocolates.
-
-
-