innfeed.conf(5)
NAME
innfeed.conf - Configuration file for innfeed
DESCRIPTION
The configuration file innfeed.conf in pathetc is used to control the innfeed(8) program. It is a fairly free-format file that consists of three types of entries: key:value, peer and group. Comments are from the hash character "#" to the end of the line. key:value entries are a keyword and a value separated by a colon (which can itself be surrounded by whitespace). For example: max-connections: 10 A legal key starts with a letter and contains only letters, digits, and the "_" and "-" characters. There are 5 different types of values: integers, floating-point numbers, characters, booleans, and strings. Integer and floating-point numbers are as to be expected, except that exponents in floating-point numbers are not supported. A boolean value is either "true" or "false" (case is not significant). A character value is a single-quoted character as defined by the C-language. A string value is any other sequence of characters. If the string needs to contain whitespace, then it must be quoted with double quotes, and uses the same format for embedding non-printing characters as normal C-language string. Peer entries look like: peer <name> { # body ... } The word "peer" is required. The <name> is the same as the site name in INN's newsfeeds configuration file. The body of a peer entry contains some number (possibly zero) of key:value entries. Group entries look like: group <name> { # body ... } The word "group" is required. The <name> is any string valid as a key. The body of a group entry contains any number of the three types of entries. So key:value pairs can be defined inside a group, and peers can be nested inside a group, and other groups can be nested inside a group. key:value entries that are defined outside of all peer and group entries are said to be at "global scope". There are global key:value entries that apply to the process as a whole (for example the location of the backlog file directory), and there are global key:value entries that act as defaults for peers. When innfeed looks for a specific value in a peer entry (for example, the maximum number of connections to set up), if the value is not defined in the peer entry, then the enclosing groups are examined for the entry (starting at the closest enclosing group). If there are no enclosing groups, or the enclosing groups do not define the key:value, then the value at global scope is used. A small example could be: # Global value applied to all peers that have # no value of their own. max-connections: 5 # A peer definition. "uunet" is the name used by innd # in the newsfeeds configuration file. peer uunet { ip-name: usenet1.uu.net } peer vixie { ip-name: gw.home.vix.com max-connections: 10 # Override global value. } # A group of two peers which can handle more connections # than normal. group fast-sites { max-connections: 15 # Another peer. The "max-connections" value from the # "fast-sites" group scope is used. The "ip-name" value # defaults to the peer's name. peer data.ramona.vix.com { } peer bb.home.vix.com { max-connections: 20 # He can really cook. } } Given the above configuration file, the defined peers would have the following values for the max-connections key: uunet 5 vixie 10 data.ramona.vix.com 15 bb.home.vix.com 20 innfeed ignores key:value pairs it is not interested in. Some configuration file values can be set via a command-line option, in which case that setting overrides the settings in the file. Configuration files can be included in other configuration files via the syntax: $INCLUDE filename There is a maximum nesting depth of 10. For a fuller example configuration file, see the supplied innfeed.conf.
GLOBAL VALUES
The following listing show all the keys that apply to the process as
whole. These are not required (compiled-in defaults are used where
needed).
news-spool
This key requires a pathname value and defaults to patharticles in
inn.conf. It specifies where the top of the article spool is.
This corresponds to the -a command-line option.
input-file
This key requires a pathname value. It specifies the pathname
(relative to the backlog-directory value) that should be read in
funnel-file mode. This corresponds to giving a filename as an
argument on the command-line (i.e. its presence also implies that
funnel-file mode should be used).
The default is unset; innfeed then runs in channel or batch mode.
pid-file
This key requires a pathname value and defaults to innfeed.pid. It
specifies the pathname (relative to pathrun in inn.conf) where the
pid of the innfeed process should be stored. This corresponds to
the -p command-line option.
debug-level
This key defines the debug level for the process. Default is 0. A
non-zero number generates a lot of messages to stderr, or to the
config-defined log-file. This corresponds to the -d command-line
option.
If a file named innfeed.debug exists in the pathlog directory (as
set in inn.conf), then debug-level is automatically set to 1. This
is a cheap way of avoiding continual reloading of the newsfeeds
file when debugging. Note that debug messages still go to log-
file.
debug-shrinking
This key requires a boolean value and defaults to false (the debug
file is allowed to grow without bound). If set to true, this file
is truncated when its size reaches a certain limit. See backlog-
limit for more details.
initial-sleep
This key requires a positive integer. The default value is 2. It
defines the number of seconds to wait when innfeed (or a fork)
starts, before beginning to open connections to remote hosts.
fast-exit
This key requires a boolean value and defaults to false. If set to
true, when innfeed receives a SIGTERM or SIGQUIT signal, it will
close its listeners as soon as it can, even if it means dropping
articles.
use-mmap
This key requires a boolean value and defaults to true. When
innfeed is given file names to send (a fairly rare use case)
instead of storage API tokens, it specifies whether mmaping should
be used if innfeed has been built with mmap(2) support. If article
data on disk is not in NNTP-ready format (CR/LF at the end of each
line), then after mmaping, the article is read into memory and
fixed up, so mmaping has no positive effect (and possibly some
negative effect depending on your system), and so in such a case
this value should be "false", which corresponds to the -M command-
line option.
log-file
This key requires a pathname value and defaults to innfeed.log. It
specifies where any logging messages that could not be sent via
syslog(3) should go (such as those generated when a positive value
for debug-value is used). This corresponds to the -l command-line
option.
This pathname is relative to pathlog in inn.conf.
log-time-format
This key requires a format string suitable for strftime(3). It is
used for messages sent via syslog(3) and to the status-file.
Default value is "%a %b %d %H:%M:%S %Y".
backlog-directory
This key requires a pathname value and defaults to innfeed. It
specifies where the current innfeed process should store backlog
files. This corresponds to the -b command-line option.
This pathname is relative to pathspool in inn.conf.
backlog-highwater
This key requires a positive integer value and defaults to 5. It
specifies how many articles should be kept on the backlog file
queue before starting to write new entries to disk.
backlog-ckpt-period
This key requires a positive integer value and defaults to 30. It
specifies how many seconds elapse between checkpoints of the input
backlog file. Too small a number will mean frequent disk accesses;
too large a number will mean after a crash, innfeed will re-offer
more already-processed articles than necessary.
backlog-newfile-period
This key requires a positive integer value and defaults to 600. It
specifies how many seconds elapse before each check for externally
generated backlog files that are to be picked up and processed.
backlog-rotate-period
This key requires a positive integer value and defaults to 60. It
specifies how many seconds elapse before innfeed checks for a
manually created backlog file and moves the output backlog file to
the input backlog file.
dns-retry
This key requires a positive integer value and defaults to 900. It
defines the number of seconds between attempts to re-lookup host
information that previously failed to be resolved.
dns-expire
This key requires a positive integer value and defaults to 86400.
It defines the number of seconds between refreshes of name to
address DNS translation. This is so long-running processes do not
get stuck with stale data, should peer IP addresses change.
gen-html
This key requires a boolean value and defaults to false. It
specifies whether the status-file should be HTML-ified.
status-file
This key requires a pathname value and defaults to innfeed.status.
An absolute pathname can be used. It specifies the pathname
(relative to pathhttp when gen-html is true; otherwise, pathlog as
set in inn.conf) where the periodic status of the innfeed process
should be stored. This corresponds to the -S command-line option.
connection-stats
This key requires a boolean value and defaults to false. If the
value is true, then whenever the transmission statistics for a peer
are logged, each active connection logs its own statistics. This
corresponds to the -z command-line option.
host-queue-highwater
This key requires a positive integer value and defaults to 10. It
defines how many articles will be held internally for a peer before
new arrivals cause article information to be spooled to the backlog
file.
stats-period
This key requires a positive integer value and defaults to 600. It
defines how many seconds innfeed waits between generating
statistics on transfer rates.
stats-reset
This key requires a positive integer value and defaults to 43200.
It defines how many seconds innfeed waits before resetting all
internal transfer counters back to zero (after logging one final
time). This is so a innfeed process running more than a day will
generate "final" stats that will be picked up by logfile processing
scripts.
initial-reconnect-time
This key requires a positive integer value and defaults to 30. It
defines how many seconds to first wait before retrying to reconnect
after a connection failure. If the next attempt fails too, then
the reconnect time is approximately doubled until the connection
succeeds, or max-reconnect-time is reached.
max-reconnect-time
This key requires an integer value and defaults to 3600. It
defines the maximum number of seconds to wait between attempt to
reconnect to a peer. The initial value for reconnection attempts
is defined by initial-reconnect-time, and it is doubled after each
failure, up to this value.
stdio-fdmax
This key requires a non-negative integer value and defaults to 0.
If the value is greater than zero, then whenever a network socket
file descriptor is created and it has a value less than this, the
file descriptor will be dup'ed to bring the value up greater than
this. This is to leave lower numbered file descriptors free for
stdio. Certain systems, Sun's in particular, require this. SunOS
4.1.x usually requires a value of 128 and Solaris requires a value
of 256. The default if this is not specified, is 0.
Special keys for imapfeed
The following keys are used with imapfeed to authenticate to a remote
host. Several parameters may be included at global scope:
deliver-authname
The authname is who you want to authenticate as.
deliver-password
This is the appropriate password for authname.
deliver-username
The username is who you want to "act" as, that is, who is actually
going to be using the server.
deliver-realm
In this case, the "realm" is the realm in which the specified
authname is valid. Currently this is only needed by the DIGEST-MD5
SASL mechanism.
deliver-rcpt-to
A printf(3)-style format string for creating the envelope recipient
address. The pattern MUST include a single string specifier which
will be replaced with the newgroup (e.g. "bb+%s"). The default is
"+%s".
deliver-to-header
An optional printf(3)-style format string for creating a To: header
field to be prepended to the article. The pattern MUST include a
single string specifier which will be replaced with the newgroup
(e.g. "post+%s@domain"). If not specified, the To: header field
will not be prepended.
GLOBAL PEER DEFAULTS
All the key:value pairs mentioned in this section can be specified at
global scope. They may also be specified inside a group or peer
definition. Note that when peers are added dynamically (i.e. when
innfeed receives an article for an unspecified peer), it will add the
peer site using the parameters specified at global scope.
Required keys
No keys are currently required. They all have a default value, if not
present in the configuration file.
Optional keys
The following keys are optional:
article-timeout
This key requires a non-negative integer value. The default value
is 600. If no articles need to be sent to the peer for this many
seconds, then the peer is considered idle and all its active
connections are torn down.
response-timeout
This key requires a non-negative integer value. The default value
is 300. It defines the maximum amount of time to wait for a
response from the peer after issuing a command.
initial-connections
This key requires a non-negative integer value. The default value
is 1. It defines the number of connections to be opened
immediately when setting up a peer binding. A value of 0 means no
connections will be created until an article needs to be sent.
max-connections
This key requires a positive integer value. The default value is 2
but may be increased if needed or for large feeds. It defines the
maximum number of connections to run in parallel to the peer. A
value of 0 specifies an unlimited number of maximum connections.
In general, use of an unlimited number of maximum connections is
not recommended. Do not ever set max-connections to zero with
dynamic-method 0 set, as this will saturate peer hosts with
connections.
close-period
This key requires a positive integer value and defaults to 86400.
It is the maximum number of seconds a connection should be kept
open. Some NNTP servers do not deal well with connections being
held open for long periods.
dynamic-method
This key requires an integer value between 0 and 3. The default
value is 3. It controls how connections are opened, up to the
maximum specified by max-connections. In general (and
specifically, with dynamic-method 0), a new connection is opened
when the current number of connections is below max-connections,
and an article is to be sent while no current connections are idle.
Without further restraint (i.e. using dynamic-method 0), in
practice this means that max-connections connections are
established while articles are being sent. Use of other dynamic-
method settings imposes a further limit on the amount of
connections opened below that specified by max-connections. This
limit is calculated in different ways, depending of the value of
dynamic-method.
Users should note that adding additional connections is not always
productive -- just because opening twice as many connections
results in a small percentage increase of articles accepted by the
remote peer, this may be at considerable resource cost both locally
and at the remote site, whereas the remote site might well have
received the extra articles sent from another peer a fraction of a
second later. Opening large numbers of connections is considered
antisocial.
The meanings of the various settings are:
0 (no method)
Increase of connections up to max-connections is unrestrained.
1 (maximize articles per second)
Connections are increased (up to max-connections) and decreased
so as to maximize the number of articles per second sent, while
using the fewest connections to do this.
2 (set target queue length)
Connections are increased (up to max-connections) and decreased
so as to keep the queue of articles to be sent within the bounds
set by dynamic-backlog-low and dynamic-backlog-high, while using
the minimum resources possible. As the queue will tend to fill
if the site is not keeping up, this method ensures that the
maximum number of articles are offered to the peer while using
the minimum number of connections to achieve this.
3 (combination)
This method uses a combination of methods 1 and 2 above. For
sites accepting a large percentage of articles, method 2 will be
used to ensure these sites are offered as complete a feed as
possible. For sites accepting a small percentage of articles,
method 1 is used, to minimize remote resource usage. For
intermediate sites, an appropriate combination is used.
dynamic-backlog-low
This key requires a floating-point value between 0 and 100. It
represents (as a percentage) the low water mark for the host queue.
If the host queue falls below this level while using dynamic-method
2 or 3, and if 2 or more connections are open, innfeed will attempt
to drop connections to the host. An Infinite Impulse Response
(IIR) filter is applied to the value to prevent connection flap
(see dynamic-filter). The default value is 20.0. This value must
be smaller than dynamic-backlog-high.
dynamic-backlog-high
This key requires a floating-point value between 0 and 100. It
represents (as a percentage) the high water mark for the host
queue. If the host queue rises above this level while using
dynamic-method 2 or 3, and if less than max-connections are open to
the host, innfeed will attempt to open further connections to the
host. An Infinite Impulse Response (IIR) filter is applied to the
value to prevent connection flap (see dynamic-filter). The default
value is 50.0. This value must be larger than dynamic-backlog-low.
dynamic-backlog-filter
This key requires a floating-point value between 0 and 1. It
represents the filter coefficient used by the Infinite Impulse
Response (IIR) filter used to implement dynamic-method 2 and 3.
The default value of this filter is 0.7, giving a time constant of
1/(1-0.7) articles. Higher values will result in slower response
to queue fullness changes; lower values in faster response.
max-queue-size
This key requires a positive integer value. The default value is
20. It defines the maximum number of articles to process at one
time when using streaming to transmit to a peer. Larger numbers
mean more memory consumed as articles usually get pulled into
memory (see the description of use-mmap).
streaming
This key requires a boolean value. Its default value is true. It
defines whether streaming commands are used to transmit articles to
the peers.
no-check-high
This key requires a floating-point number which must be in the
range [0.0, 100.0]. When running transmitting with the streaming
commands, innfeed attempts an optimization called "no-CHECK mode".
This involves not asking the peer if it wants the article, but just
sending it. This optimization occurs when the percentage of the
articles the peer has accepted gets larger than this number. If
this value is set to 100.0, then this effectively turns off no-
CHECK mode, as the percentage can never get above 100.0. If this
value is too small, then the number of articles the peer rejects
will get bigger (and your bandwidth will be wasted). The default
value of 95.0 usually works pretty well.
no-check-low
This key requires a floating-point number which must be in the
range [0.0, 100.0], and it must be smaller that the value for no-
check-high. When running in no-CHECK mode, as described above, if
the percentage of articles the remote server accepts drops below
this number, then the no-CHECK optimization is turned off until the
percentage gets above the no-check-high value again. If there is
small difference between this and the no-check-high value (less
than about 5.0), then innfeed may frequently go in and out of no-
CHECK mode. If the difference is too big, then it will make it
harder to get out of no-CHECK mode when necessary (wasting
bandwidth). Keeping this to between 5.0 and 10.0 less than no-
check-high usually works pretty well. The default value is 90.0.
no-check-filter
This is a floating-point value representing the time constant, in
articles, over which the CHECK/no-CHECK calculations are done. The
default value is 50.0, which will implement an Infinite Impulse
Response (IIR) filter of time constant 50. This roughly equates to
making a decision about the mode over the previous 50 articles. A
higher number will result in a slower response to changing
percentages of articles accepted; a lower number will result in a
faster response.
port-number
This key requires a positive integer value. It defines the TCP/IP
port number to use when connecting to the remote. Usually, port
number 119 is used, which is the default value.
force-ipv4
This key requires a boolean value. By default, it is set to false.
Setting it to true is the same as setting bindaddress6 to "none"
and removing bindaddress from "none" if it was set.
drop-deferred
This key requires a boolean value. By default, it is set to false.
When set to true, and a peer replies with code 431 or 436 (try
again later), innfeed just drops the article and does not try to
re-send it. This is useful for some peers that keep on deferring
articles for a long time to prevent innfeed from trying to offer
the same article over and over again.
min-queue-connection
This key requires a boolean value. By default, it is set to false.
When set to true, innfeed will attempt to use a connection with the
least queue size (or the first empty connection). If this key is
set to true, it is recommended that dynamic-method be set to 0.
This allows for article propagation with the least delay.
no-backlog
This key requires a boolean value. It specifies whether spooling
should be enabled (false, the default) or disabled (true). Note
that when no-backlog is set, articles reported as spooled are
actually silently discarded.
backlog-limit
This key requires a non-negative integer value. If the number is 0
(the default), then backlog files are allowed to grow without bound
when the peer is unable to keep up with the article flow. If this
number is greater than 0, then it specifies the size (in bytes) the
backlog file should get truncated to when the backlog file reaches
a certain limit. The limit depends on whether backlog-factor or
backlog-limit-highwater is used.
This parameter also applies to the debug file when debug-shrinking
is set to true, and has the same effect on this file as the one has
on backlog files.
backlog-factor
This key requires a floating-point value, which must be larger than
1.0. It is used in conjunction with the peer key backlog-limit.
If backlog-limit has a value greater than zero, then when the
backlog file gets larger than the value backlog-limit * backlog-
factor, then the backlog file will be truncated to the size
backlog-limit.
For example, if backlog-limit has a value of 1000000, and backlog-
factor has a value of 2.0, then when the backlog file gets to be
larger than 2000000 bytes in size, it will be truncated to 1000000
bytes. The front portion of the file is removed, and the trimming
happens on line boundaries, so the final size may be a bit less
than this number. If backlog-limit-highwater is defined too, then
backlog-factor takes precedence. The default value of backlog-
factor is 1.1.
This parameter also applies to the debug file when debug-shrinking
is set to true, and has the same effect on this file as the one has
on backlog files.
backlog-limit-highwater
This key requires a positive integer value that must be larger than
the value for backlog-limit. The default value is 0.
If the size of the backlog file gets larger than this value (in
bytes), then the backlog file will be shrunk down to the size of
backlog-limit. If both backlog-factor and backlog-limit-highwater
are defined, then the value of backlog-factor is used.
This parameter also applies to the debug file when debug-shrinking
is set to true, and has the same effect on this file as the one has
on backlog files.
backlog-feed-first
This key requires a boolean value. By default it is set to false.
When set to true, the backlog is fed before new files. This is
intended to enforce in-order delivery, so setting this to true when
initial-connections or max-connections is more than 1 is
inconsistent.
bindaddress
This key requires a string value. It specifies which outgoing IPv4
address innfeed should bind the local end of its connection to. It
must be an IPv4 address in dotted-quad format (nnn.nnn.nnn.nnn),
"any", or "none". If not set or set to "any", innfeed defaults to
letting the kernel choose this address. If set to "none", innfeed
will not use IPv4 for outgoing connections to peers in this scope
(i.e. it forces IPv6).
If not set in innfeed.conf, innfeed defaults to the value of
sourceaddress from inn.conf (which by default is unset).
bindaddress6
This key requires a string value. It behaves like bindaddress
except for outgoing IPv6 connections. It must be in numeric IPv6
format (note that a value containing colons must be enclosed in
double quotes), "any", or "none". If set to "none", innfeed will
not use IPv6 for outgoing connections to peers in this scope.
If not set in innfeed.conf, innfeed defaults to the value of
sourceaddress6 from inn.conf (which by default is unset).
username
This key requires a string value. If the value is defined, then
innfeed tries to authenticate by AUTHINFO USER and this value used
for user name. password must also be defined, if this key is
defined.
password
This key requires a string value. The value is the password used
for AUTHINFO PASS. username must also be defined, if this key is
defined.
PEER VALUES
As previously explained, the peer definitions can contain redefinitions
of any of the key:value pairs described in the section about global
peer defaults above. There is one key:value pair that is specific to a
peer definition.
ip-name
This key requires a word value. The word is the host's FQDN, or
the dotted quad IP-address. If this value is not specified, then
the name of the peer in the enclosing peer block is taken to also
be its ip-name.
RELOADING
If innfeed gets a SIGHUP signal, then it will reread the configuration file. All values at global scope except for backlog-directory can be changed (although note that bindaddress and bindaddress6 changes will only affect new connections). Any new peers are added and any missing peers have their connections closed. The log file is also reopened.
EXAMPLE
For a comprehensive example, see the sample innfeed.conf distributed
with INN and installed as a starting point.
Here are examples of how to format values:
eg-string: "New\tconfig\tfile\n"
eg-long-string: "A long string that goes
over multiple lines. The
newline is kept in the
string except when quoted
with a backslash \
as here."
eg-simple-string: A-no-quote-string
eg-integer: 10
eg-boolean: true
eg-char: 'a'
eg-ctrl-g: '\007'
HISTORY
Written by James Brister <brister@vix.com> for InterNetNews. Converted to POD by Julien Elie. Earlier versions of innfeed (up to 0.10.1) were shipped separately; innfeed is now part of INN and shares the same version number. Please note that the innfeed.conf format has changed dramatically since version 0.9.3. $Id: innfeed.conf.pod 9923 2015-07-14 16:48:11Z iulius $
SEE ALSO
inn.conf(5), innfeed(8), newsfeeds(5).
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