tdx-util - Overview manipulation utility for tradindexed

Description

tdx-util is an administrative interface to the tradindexed overview method for INN. It only works on
tradindexed overview databases, not on any other type of INN overview. (See dedicated ovdb_stat(8) and
ovsqlite-util(8) programs for ovdb and ovqslite overview methods.) It allows the administrator to dump
various information about the internal state of the overview, audit it for errors, and rebuild portions
of the overview database.

The tradindexed overview method should lock properly and therefore it should be safe to run this utility
and perform any operation it performs, including full repairs or per-group overview rebuilds, while the
server is running. However, note that some of the operations performed by this utility can take an
extended period of time and will hold locks in the overview database during that period, which depending
on what the server is doing may cause the server to stall until tdx-util completes its operation.

The dump operations are -i, which dumps the master index for the overview database, -g, which dumps the
index for an individual group, and -o and -O, which dump the overview information for a particular group
(including the additional metadata stored in the index) in two different formats. For -g, -o, and -O,
the -n option must also be given to specify a newsgroup to operate on.

To add a new newsgroup to the overview database, use -c. A group must be specified with -n. If the
group status is something other than "y", it should be specified with -f, and the low and high article
numbers may be specified with -a. If only one number is given rather than a range, it will be taken to
be the high water mark and the low mark will be set to 1.

To audit the entire overview database for problems, use -A. Any problems found will be reported to
standard error. Use -F to correct the errors found.

To rebuild the database for a particular newsgroup, use -R. The -R option takes a path to a directory
which contains all of the articles for that newsgroup, one per file. The names of the files must be the
numbers of the articles in that group. (In other words, this directory must be a traditional spool
directory for that group.) The -n option must also be given to specify the newsgroup for which the
overview is being rebuilt.

For all operations performed by tdx-util, a different overview database than the one specified in
inn.conf may be specified using the -p option.

The number of overview records stored in the database can be obtained with the "inndf -n" command.

Examples

       Dump  the  master  index  for  the  overview  database in /news/overview, regardless of the overview path
       specified in inn.conf:

           tdx-util -i -p /news/overview

       Dump the group index for example.test:

           tdx-util -g -n example.test

       Dump the complete overview information for example.test:

           tdx-util -o -n example.test

       Dump the overview information for articles 45 and higher in example.test:


           tdx-util -o -n example.test -a 45-
       Create an entry for example.test with mode m and low and high article numbers of 4 and 23, respectively.

           tdx-util -c -n example.test -f m -a 4-23

       Audit the entire overview database for any problems:

           tdx-util -A

       Rebuild the overview information for example.test from a traditional spool directory:

           tdx-util -R <patharticles in inn.conf>/example/test -n example.test

       The last command may be useful for recovering from a bad crash or corrupted overview  information  for  a
       particular group, if you are also using the tradspool article storage method.

History

       Written by Russ Allbery <eagle@eyrie.org> for InterNetNews.

Name

       tdx-util - Overview manipulation utility for tradindexed

Options

-aarticle
The article number or numbers to act on. article is a valid NNTP range, meaning that it can be
either a single article number or a range of article numbers (like "1-5"). Either the start or the
end (or both) of the range may be omitted, in which case they will be set to the first or last
article number in the group. Passing "-" for article is therefore equivalent to not using the -a
option at all.

Only useful in combination with the -o and -O options to dump overview information or with -c to
specify the low and high article numbers when creating a group.

-A Audit the entire overview database for problems. This runs the internal consistency checks built
into the tradindexed overview implementation, checking such things as the validity and reachability
of all group index entries, the format of the individual overview entries, the correspondence of
index entries to overview data, and similar such things. No changes will be made to the database,
but problems will be reported to standard error.

-c Create a new group in the overview database. The group must be specified with -n. The newsgroup
status defaults to "y" but may be set with -f. The low and high article numbers default to 1 and 0
respectively, but may be set with -a. If only one number is given to -a, it is taken as the high
article number.

-F Audit the entire overview database for problems, fixing them as they're detected where possible.
This runs the internal consistency checks built into the tradindexed overview implementation,
checking such things as the validity and reachability of all group index entries, the format of the
individual overview entries, the correspondence of index entries to overview data, and similar such
things. The strategy used when fixing problems is to throw away data that's unrecoverable, so be
warned that using this option may result in inaccessible articles if their overview data has been
corrupted.

To see what would be changed by -F, run tdx-util with -A first.

-fstatus
When creating a newsgroup with -c, set the status of the newly created group to status instead of
"y". Only useful with -c.

-g Dump the index of a particular group. The fields are, in order, the article number, the offset of
the data for that article in the overview data file for that group, the length of the overview data,
the time (in seconds since epoch) when the article arrived on the server, the time (in seconds since
epoch) when the article should expire based on its Expires header field (or 0 if there is no Expires
header field), and the storage API token of the article.

If this option is given, the -n option must also be given to specify the newsgroup on which to act.

-i Dump the master index of the overview database. This contains similar information to the server
active file, such as high and low water marks and moderation status, and is the information that
nnrpd hands out to clients.

The fields are, in order, the newsgroup name, the high water mark, the low water mark, the base
article number (the point at which the group index begins), the count of articles in the group, the
group status, the time (in seconds since epoch) when that newsgroup was deleted or 0 if it hasn't
been, and the inode of the index file for that group.

A particular newsgroup can be specified with the -n option. If -n is not given, the entire master
index will be dumped.

-nnewsgroup
Specify the newsgroup on which to act, required for the -c, -g, -o, -O, and -R options, and optional
for the -i option.

-o Dump the overview information for a newsgroup, in the same format as it would be returned to clients
but with one modification. Appended to the end of each entry will be four additional pieces of data:
the article number according to the index file for that group labelled with "Article:", the storage
API token for that article labelled with "Token:", the arrival date for that article on the server in
RFC 5322 date format labelled with "Arrived:", and the expiration date for that article (from the
Expires header field) in RFC 5322 date format if there is any, labelled with "Expires:".

If this option is given, the -n option must also be given to specify the newsgroup on which to act.
By default, all of the overview information for that newsgroup is dumped, but the -a option may be
given to restrict the dump to the information for a single article or a range of article numbers.

-O Dump the overview information for a newsgroup in the format used by overchan as input. Each line
will start with the storage API token, the arrival timestamp in seconds since epoch, the expires
timestamp in the same format (or 0 if there is no Expires header field), and then the overview data.

-ppath
Act on the overview database rooted in path, overriding the overview path specified in inn.conf.

-Rpath
Rebuild the overview for a given group from the articles stored in path. The articles must be in the
form of a traditional spool directory; in other words, each article must be in a separate file and
the name of the file must match the article number of the article.