NAME

getactive − retrieve the active file from the remote news server

SYNOPSIS

/usr/local/lib/rn/getactive filename

DESCRIPTION

Getactive retrieves the newsgroup “active file” (which contains the list of all known newsgroups and their high/low message numbers) from the news server on a remote machine and places it in filename. 

The normal use is in support of shell scripts (such as newsgroups or newsetup ) which have been taken from existing software, such as rn.  When used in such scripts, the active file is usually retrieved into a temporary file such as /tmp/active.$$, and should be deleted before the shell script exits.

The active file is retrieved from the machine listed in the file SERVERFILE, which is defined by the constant SERVER_FILE in common/conf.h in thef NNTP source directory.  The environment variable NNTPSERVER can be used to override this choice. 

AUTHOR

Phil Lapsley

Amiga Unix  —  Last change: 8 July 1987