Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!wuarchive!kuhub.cc.ukans.edu!sloane From: sloane@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu Newsgroups: news.software.anu-news Subject: Re: Just what does ``Distribution'' mean? Message-ID: <19662.2584c09a@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> Date: 12 Dec 89 15:10:50 GMT References: Organization: University of Kansas Academic Computing Services Lines: 28 In article , "Tom Limoncelli @ Drew University" writes: > Sorry, my lack of Unix knowledge shines through. > > I'm looking for the place in ANU NEWS where you specify what > "Distribution" tokens you accept. Is it the same as NEWS.SYS? > > Are the subnets without periods (like "comp" or "nj" or "ny") the > same tokens one may use on the "Distribution" line? Yes the distribution information is in NEWS.SYS. The NEWS.SYS file basically describes all of the systems that your local NEWS program talks to, and what groups/distributions each system wants to see. The first line in the file usually describes your local system. You should put in the names of the distributions you want to accept and the names of the top level groups you want to receive. You can also exclude groups by putting in !group. For example if you wanted to get all of comp except the binaries groups you could do: mysys:local,ks,usa,na,world,comp,!comp.binaries,news:: This line says that mysys accepts postings with Distribution: set to local, ks, usa, na, or world, and Newsgroups: set to comp.* or news.* excluding comp.binaries.*. You would also have lines for all of the systems you send news to, specifying the distributions and groups they want to get. -- USmail: Bob Sloane, University of Kansas Computer Center, Lawrence, KS, 66045 E-mail: sloane@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu, sloane@ukanvax.bitnet, AT&T: (913)864-0444