MAKEHISTORY(8)

NAME
makehistory - tools to recover Usenet history database.

SYNOPSIS
makehistory [ -A oldtmp ] [ -a active ] [ -b ] [ -f filename ] [ -i ] [ -n ] [ -o ] [ -r ] [ -s size ] [ -T tmpdir ] [ -u [ -v ] ]

DESCRIPTION

Makehistory rebuilds the history(5) text file and the associated dbz(3) database. The default name of the text file is /var/lib/news/history; to specify a different name, use the ``-f'' flag. Makehistory scans the active(5) file to determine which newsgroup directories within the spool directory, /var/spool/news, should be scanned. (If a group is removed, but its spool directory still exists, makehistory will ignore it.) The program reads each file found and writes a history line for it.

After the text file is written, makehistory will build the dbz database.

OPTIONS

-A  If the ``-A'' flag is used then the argument given is the pathname makehistory can use to store a copy of the history file as it's being built. It will be appended to, so existing data will not be lost (and so should be valid history entries).

-a  If the ``-a'' flag is given then the argument is the active file to use rather than the default one of /var/lib/news/active.

-b  If the ``-b'' flag is used, then makehistory will remove any articles that do not have valid Message-ID headers in them.

-f  If the ``-f'' flag is used, then the database files are named file.dir and file.pag. If the ``-f'' flag is not used, then a temporary link to the name history.n is made and the database files are written as history.n.pag and history.n.dir.

-o  If the ``-o'' flag is used, then the link is not made and any existing history files are overwritten. If the old database exists, makehistory will use it to determine the size of the new database.

-i  To ignore the old database use the ``-i'' flag. Using the ``-o'' flag implies the ``-i'' flag.

-s  The program will also ignore any old database if the ``-s'' flag is used to specify the approximate number of entries in the new database. Accurately specifying the size is an optimization that will create a more efficient database. (The size should be the estimated eventual size of the file, typically the size of the old file.) For more information, see the discussion of dbzfresh and dbzsize in dbz(3).

-u  If the ``-u'' flag is given, then makehistory assumes that innd is running. It will pause the server while scanning, and then send ``addhist'' commands (see ctlinnd(8)) to the server for any article that is not found in the dbz database. The command ``makehistory -bu'' is useful after a system crash, to delete any mangled articles and bring the article database back into a more consistent state.

-v  If the ``-v'' flag is used with the ``-u'' flag, then makehistory will put a copy of all added lines on its standard output.

-n  To scan the spool directory without rebuilding the dbz files, use the ``-n'' flag. If used with ``-u'', the server will not be paused while scanning.

-r  To just build the dbz files from an existing text file, use the ``-r'' flag. The ``-i'' or ``-s'' flags can be useful if there are no valid dbz files to use.

-T  Makehistory needs to create a temporary file that contains one line for each article it finds, which can become very large. This file is created in the /var/spool/news/in.coming/tmp directory. The ``TMPDIR'' environment variable may be used to specify a different directory. Alternatively, the ``-T'' flag may be used to specify a temporary directory. In addition, the sort(1) that is invoked during the build writes large temporary files (often to /var/tmp but see your system manpages). If the ``-T'' flag is used, then the flag and its value will be passed to sort. On most systems this will change the temporary directory that sort uses. if used, this flag and its value will be passed on to the sort(1) command that is invoked during the build.

EXAMPLES

A typical way to use this program is with the following /bin/sh commands:

    ctlinnd throttle "Rebuilding history file"
    cd /var/lib/news
    if makehistory -n -f history.n ; then
        :
    else
        echo Error creating history file!
        exit 1
    fi
    # The following line can be used to retain expired history
    # It is not necessary for the history file to be sorted.
    # awk 'NF==2 { print; }' <history >>history.n
    # View history file for mistakes.
    if makehistory -r -s `wc -l <history` -f history.n; then
        mv history.n history
        mv history.n.dir history.dir
        mv history.n.pag history.pag
    fi
    ctlinnd go ''

BUGS AND LIMITATIONS

Makehistory does not handle symbolic links. If the news spool area is split across multiple partitions, the following commands should probably be run before the database is regenerated:
    cd /var/spool/news
    find . -type l -name '[1-9]*' -print | xargs -t rm
Make sure to run the command on all the appropriate partitions!

HISTORY
Written by Rich $alz <rsalz@uunet.uu.net> for InterNetNews.

SEE ALSO
active(5), ctlinnd(8), dbz(3), filechan(8), history(5), innd(8), newsfeeds(5), makeactive(8), newsrequeue(8).