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

# scanspool(8)

Perform a sanity scan over all articles in news spool

## NAME

scanspool - Perform a sanity scan over all articles in news spool

## SYNOPSIS

**scanspool** \[**-cnrv**\] \[**-a** *active-file*\] \[**-s** *spool-dir*\]

## DESCRIPTION

**scanspool** is a Perl script for use with a *tradspool* article spool. It will scan the *active* file as well as all articles in the spool and report on the errors it encounters.  As this may take a while, using the **-v** switch is recommended to see how far the program has progressed.

**scanspool** will skip any file named other than just all-digits when treating the contents of the news spool.

First, **scanspool** scans the *active* file, noting problems such as:

- •

  malformed lines;

- •

  duplicate entries;

- •

  newsgroups aliased to a non-existent newsgroup;

- •

  newsgroups aliased to a newsgroup that is also aliased.

Then it will examine all articles under your news spool directory, complaining about articles that:

- •

  have a basename that starts with a leading 0;

- •

  have a basename that is out of range according to the low and high water marks of the *active* file;

- •

  do not contain a Newsgroups header field;

- •

  are in a directory for which there is no newsgroup in the *active* file;

- •

  are in a newsgroup to which they do not belong.

**scanspool** will also complain about directories with an all-digit component, in case the parent directory is a newsgroup with a high water mark below that all-digit component, as the name of such directories will conflict with a future article file with the same name.

**scanspool** understands aliased newsgroups.  Thus, if an article is posted to foo.old.name that is aliased to foo.bar, it will be expected to be found under foo.bar and not foo.old.name.

**scanspool** assumes that the path of a valid newsgroup's directory from the root of the spool tree will not contain any `"."` character. Thus, directories such as *out.going*, *tmp.dir*, *in.coming* and *news.archive* will not be searched.  This program also assumes that article basenames contain only decimal digits.  Last, files under the top level directory *lost+found* are not scanned.

## OPTIONS

- **-a** *active-file*

  The *active* file to use; *pathdb*/active is the default.

- **-c**

  Only check article filenames.  **scanspool** will therefore not actually scan the Newsgroups header field of the articles.

- **-n**

  Don't throttle **innd** while scanning.

- **-r**

  Remove articles reported to have a problem.  To see the list of articles in question, run **scanspool** without this flag first.

  Be warned that using this flag may result in inaccessible articles if articles are removed whereas they are perfectly valid articles.  Have a look at them to ensure they can be safely removed, and then use this flag.

- **-s** *spool-dir*

  The root of the spool tree; *patharticles* is the default.

- **-v**

  Setting this flag enables a verbose mode.  **scanspool** will then print which newsgroup is currently worked upon.  It will list all the articles found in non-*active* directories (that is to say articles sorted into groups no longer present in the *active* file), rather than just printing the group once.

## DIAGNOSTICS

The output of **scanspool** will start with one of the following forms:

- "FATAL:" (to stderr)

  Fatal or internal error.

- "WARNING:" (to stderr)

  *active* or article format problem, newsgroup alias problem, [find(1)](/find/1.md) error, article open error.

- "path/123:" (to stdout)

  Issues such as:

  - •

    basename starts with 0;

  - •

    article number out of range;

  - •

    article in the wrong directory;

  - •

    article in a directory not related to an *active* non-aliased newsgroup.

- "\\t ..." (to stdout)

  Verbose messages start with a tab.

## HISTORY

**scanspool** was written by Landon Curt Noll (chongo was here /\\../\\).

This manual page was written by Florian Schlichting, largely based on comments in the script.

## SEE ALSO

[active(5)](/active/5.md).