---
name: "rnews"
section: "8cn"
platform: "linux"
package: "cnews"
version: "cr.g7-40.4"
release: "Debian 5.0 (Lenny)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/rnews/8cn"
---

# rnews(8cn)

accept and spool news input newsspool, newsrun - news input spooler and processing newsrunning - control news-processing daemon

## NAME

rnews, cunbatch - accept and spool news input\
 newsspool, newsrun - news input spooler and processing\
 newsrunning - control news-processing daemon

## SYNOPSIS

**rnews**\
 **cunbatch**\
 **/usr/lib/news/input/newsspool** \[ **-g** grade \] \[ file ... \]\
 **/usr/lib/news/input/newsrun** \[ **-s** suffixletter \] \[ grades \]\
 **/usr/lib/news/input/newsrunning** \[**on**\|**off**\]

## DESCRIPTION

*Rnews* accepts news from standard input and spools it up for processing, space permitting. If space is persistently too short, *rnews* looks for the file */var/lib/news/rnews.stall*; if it is present, *rnews* waits patiently for more space to appear, while if it is absent, *rnews* discards the news and reports this.

*Cunbatch* is a historical synonym for *rnews*; there is no difference in what they do.

*Newsspool* is the actual spooling program. It copies the input *file*(s) (standard input default) to a file in the input-spooling directory */var/spool/news/in.coming*, stripping off any \`**#! cunbatch**' header as it does so. The filename is based on the current time, plus a suffix classifying the file by type (compressed or plain text), plus a possible prefix denoting the one-digit numeric *grade* (if the **-g** option is given; *rnews* does not use this option).

*Newsrun* should be run periodically (e.g. by [*cron*(8)](/cron/8.md)) to process spooled news. *Newsrunning* can be used to turn *newsrun*'s processing off and on if it is desired to avoid major news processing during certain hours. \`**newsrunning off**' instructs any currently-running *newsrun* to stop as soon as possible, and prevents later ones from running. (This is a slight oversimplification; see the discussion of *grades* below.) \`**newsrunning on**' removes the inhibition (but does not actually start a new *newsrun*). Without an argument, *newsrunning* reports the current status: \`\`off'' or \`\`on''.

*Newsrun* checks for the *stop* file that *newsrunning off* creates, verifies that there is enough disk space for processing, and then starts processing spooled news. News is processed in order by *grade*: if the name of the spooled file starts with a digit followed by a period, the digit is the file's *grade*. Files without a grade are considered to have a grade just after grade 9. Lower-numbered grades are processed first, with processing within a grade in chronological order.

If *newsrun* is invoked with a *grades* argument, that specifies the grades to be processed. A *grades* argument can be a single grade (\`1'), a list (\`123'), or a range (\`1-5'). In the absence of the argument, *newsrun*'s default is all grades if there is no *stop* file present, and just grade 0 if there is a *stop* file. If a *stop* file appears during processing, *newsrun* will stop processing all but grade 0 and will exit when there is no grade-0 news left.

If *newsrun* is run with a **-s** option, that restricts processing to files that end with **.***suffixletter* only. For example, **-s t** would restrict processing to files classified as text only (i.e., no processing of compressed files or unclassified files).

Each batch is de*compress*ed (if necessary) and then fed to *relaynews*. (Files that lack a classification suffix, typically because they arrived by some means other than *newsspool*, are tried first as compressed and then as plain text.) If *relaynews* fails, *newsrun* attempts to save the spooled batch in the *bad* subdirectory for human inspection.

## FILES

```
(All in /var/spool/news/in.coming)

000000000	(etc.) unclassified ungraded spooled news
000000000.Z	ungraded compressed spooled news
000000000.t	ungraded plain-text spooled news
1.000000000.Z	grade 1 compressed spooled news, etc.
stop	newsrun disable file
bad	directory for failed news
```

## SEE ALSO

[compress(1)](/compress/1.md), newsbatch(8CN), newsmail(8CN), relaynews(8CN)

## DIAGNOSTICS

Complaints are mailed via *report* if something goes wrong.

## HISTORY

Part of C News. Written at University of Toronto by Henry Spencer.

## BUGS

*Relaynews* is a bit too enthusiastic about declaring batches bad, so things may end up in *bad* for no terribly good reason. Actually, it's rare for the contents of *bad* to be very interesting.

The grading mechanism relies slightly on collating sequence, and in particular on \`.' collating before the digits.