---
name: "rc.news"
section: "8"
platform: "linux"
package: "inn"
version: "2.7.4-4"
release: "Arch Linux 2026-11-01"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/rc.news"
---

# rc.news(8)

Start or stop INN daemons

## NAME

rc.news - Start or stop INN daemons

## SYNOPSIS

**rc.news** \[`"start"` \| `"stop"`\]

## DESCRIPTION

**rc.news** can be used to start or stop **innd** and supporting programs. It checks to make sure INN is not already running, handles cases of unclean shutdown, finishes up tasks which might have been interrupted by the preceding shutdown, e-mails certain boot-time warnings to *newsmaster* (as set in *inn.conf*), and is generally safer and easier than starting and stopping everything directly.  It needs to be run as the news user so that files in *pathrun* are created with the right ownership (though this is less important for `"rc.news stop"`).

Programs run and stopped by this script include:

- •

  Always: **innd** is started or stopped.

- •

  If *doinnwatch* is true in *inn.conf*: **innwatch** is started and stopped.

- •

  If *docnfsstat* is true in *inn.conf*: **cnfsstat** is started and stopped.

- •

  If *ovmethod* is set to `"ovdb"` in *inn.conf*: **ovdb\_init** is run; **ovdb\_server** and **ovdb\_monitor** are stopped.

- •

  If *ovmethod* is set to `"ovsqlite"` in *inn.conf*: **ovsqlite-server** is started and stopped.

- •

  If *rc.news.local* exists in *pathbin*: **rc.news.local** is run with argument `"start"` or `"stop"` (to perform site-specific startup or shutdown tasks).

- •

  When started, if INN appears to have previously been shut down during its expiry process, run **expirerm** if there are articles to unlink.

- •

  When started, if overview data appears to have just been rebuilt and *active* needs to be renumbered, then actually renumber it.

## OPTIONS

- "start"

  If the first argument is `"start"`, or no first argument is given, **rc.news** initiates INN startup.

- "stop"

  If the first argument is `"stop"`, **rc.news** initiates INN shutdown.

## EXAMPLES

To start INN and leave certain error messages going to the terminal:

```
       su news -s /bin/sh -c <pathbin in inn.conf>/rc.news
```

To run INN at startup time from appropriate system boot scripts:

```
       su news -s /bin/sh -c <pathbin>/rc.news >> <pathlog>/rc.news 2>&1
```

To stop INN:

```
       su news -s /bin/sh -c '<pathbin>/rc.news stop'
```

## HISTORY

This manual page written by Jeffrey M. Vinocur \<jeff@litech.org\> for InterNetNews.

## SEE ALSO

[ctlinnd(8)](/ctlinnd/8.md), [cnfsstat(8)](/cnfsstat/8.md), [expirerm(8)](/expirerm/8.md), [inn.conf(5)](/inn.conf/5.md), [innwatch(8)](/innwatch/8.md), [ovdb(5)](/ovdb/5.md), [ovsqlite(5)](/ovsqlite/5.md).