From: smee@bristol.ac.uk (Paul Smee)
Newsgroups: news.software.b,news.admin.misc
Subject: Re: newgroup
Date: 16 Dec 92 09:38:45 GMT
Reply-To: P.Smee@bristol.ac.uk (Paul Smee)
Organization: University of Bristol

In article <1992Dec14.174342.679@metrosoft.com> gvh@metrosoft.com (Gordon Van Huizen) writes:
>I have what I would guess is the 'standard' newgroup
>script that comes with the C News software distribution.
>
>It has the unwelcome behavior of automatically adding
>new alt groups as they come along (even such fun groups as
>alt.hayco.sucks.mud) while doing nothing with new
>mainstream Usenet groups.
>
>I've heard that there are some other versions of this
>script floating around (Chip Salzenberg is said to have
>posted one recently) that behave in a more rational
>matter.
>
>Can anyone shed light on this, or point me at a repository
>for alternate C News admin scripts?

'newgroup' as shipped with the Cnews 'performance release' allows a
degree of control over newsgroup creation, by use of a file called
'newgroupperm' in /usr/lib/news -- or wherever it is you've hidden your
history and other 'overhead' files.  I'm pretty sure the script doesn't
use any performance-release-specific stuff, with the possible exception
of a single module to parse the newgroupperm lines, so it would
probably be possible to hack it in to co-exist with an otherwise
'normal' Cnews system.  Unfortunately it isn't well documented.  As far
as I've figured it out, newgroupperm lines look like:

bionet any yv
bit any yv
...
vmsnet any yv
all any nv

Where the first part is an initial part of a newsgroup name ('all'
meaning 'anything else', as usual).  Second bit says who the rule
applies to, 'any' meaning 'anybody', or (it appears, though I don't use
it) you can put in a string to be matched with the 'From' field of the
request.  Third bit specifies the action to be taken. 'y' means 'can
create', 'n' means 'can't create', 'v' means 'verbose' -- i.e. you want
a mail sent to the usenet guru telling him about it.

Been a while since I had to look at it, but as I recall, the newsgroup
name check is anchored at the start of the groupname.  Not sure, didn't
work out, whether, if you have a second field other than 'any', the
search is for substring anywhere in the From name, or anchored at the
left end thereof.  Had to figure this out from first principles, by
reading the script, and didn't work too hard on figuring out the parts
which I wasn't interested in.  Oh, also never bothered to work out what
happens if you have multiple lines which match the same set of
groupnames, but with different second fields.

The above is from our newgroupperms.  the final 'all' line not only
stops automatic creation of alt groups, but also the creation of
'local' groups from other 'locals' whose newgroup messages have escaped
their distribution area.  (We had picked up occasional 'au' groups, and
at least one Clark University local group, so this is probably a good
idea.)

-- 
Paul Smee, Computing Service, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1UD, UK
 P.Smee@bristol.ac.uk - ..!uunet!uknet!bsmail!p.smee - Tel +44 272 303132
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