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Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!harvard!think!mit-eddie!genrad!decvax!tektronix!reed!iscuva!davids
From: davids@iscuva.UUCP (David Schmidt)
Newsgroups: net.news.sa,net.news.adm
Subject: Re: -- rmgroup net reported --
Message-ID: <223@iscuva.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 6-May-86 11:53:04 EDT
Article-I.D.: iscuva.223
Posted: Tue May  6 11:53:04 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 11-May-86 05:34:16 EDT
References: <169@cbmvax.cbmvax.cbm.UUCP> <58@amdimage.UUCP> <226@msunix.UUCP>
Reply-To: davids@iscuva.UUCP (David Schmidt)
Organization: ISC Systems Corporation, Spokane, Wa.
Lines: 43
Xref: linus net.news.sa:287 net.news.adm:655

In article <226@msunix.UUCP> jon@msunix.UUCP (Jonathan Hue) writes:
>[...]
>Actually, I see a lot of newgroup control messages in net.control.
>I usually only get mail if there's one there that doesn't already exist.
>When I installed news I don't think I sent out any control messages,
>I think all it did was create the directories and the active file.
>Is this because older versions of news do an inews command to
>create a new newsgroup?  I would appreciate any explanation anyone
>could give me, the control messages have been puzzling me for
>some time.  I remember once I got hit with about 22 newgroup
>control messages from someone at Wang.  Why did I get mail that
>time and not everytime a newgroup comes along?
>

  I was almost one of the sites putting out a bunch of newgroup messages!
Of course the active file with the news distribution was out of date and 
the install file was not very specific on how to get the active file
current.  I talked to my news feed and he uucp'd me a copy of his current
active file but of course the numbers were not correct.  I started digging
around and found the checknews script.  If you feed that script a new
copy of the active file (checknews <newactive) it will update your active
file by creating the new groups (it also gives you the rmgroup command
for you to type in to remove the excess groups).
  The checknews script issues the following command to create the new
groups:

/usr/lib/news/inews -n control -t "cmsg newgroup GROUPNAME" </dev/null
(note the ""'s, they are necessary)

  This command does not send out any messages to the net but does properly
update the active file and create the spool directories.  The only command
that the install file mentions is "inews -C newgroup" which DOES send out
to the net in addition to creating the new group at the local site.

  I hope this helps.

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