Newsgroups: news.software.b
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Cnews startup woes
Message-ID: <1990Dec6.212559.10067@zoo.toronto.edu>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <22002@well.sf.ca.us>
Date: Thu, 6 Dec 90 21:25:59 GMT

In article <22002@well.sf.ca.us> toad@well.sf.ca.us (Anton C. Shepps) writes:
>... I had edited
>the checkgroups script to actually call inews with the newgroup message
>instead of just mailing the long list to the news administrator...

Uh, why are you playing complicated games with control messages just to
create groups on your own system?  By far the simplest method is to get
a copy of your neighbor's active file, edit the numbers down (second
field to 00000, third to 00001), and install it.  If you want the
directories created -- and some newsreaders get unhappy if they are
missing -- just run "adddirs" afterward.

If you really must do it from checkgroups, why not make checkgroups invoke
"addgroup"?  There's no need to go through inews, and (as you found out)
that can cause problems.

Personally, I would avoid checkgroups entirely, since it is a vaguely-
specified mess.
-- 
"The average pointer, statistically,    |Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
points somewhere in X." -Hugh Redelmeier| henry@zoo.toronto.edu   utzoo!henry