Aucbarpa.561
net.news.b
utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!ARPAVAX:glickman
Fri Dec 18 17:04:26 1981
Fascinating Active File Facts
Newsgroups ARE checked in order of the active file and reordering of it
doesn't hurt a thing.  Putting general first and then having an article
which doesn't expire for a couple of centuries that describes the system
is a good idea.

I remove test directories in our spool directory every so often and then
regenerate the active file by simply ls(1)'ing into it.  This works, but
you have to beware that newsgroup names will be truncated to 14 chars.
You then have to go through fix up lines like net.sport.foot and
fa.unix-wizard.

Incidentally, removing a newgroup entry from the active file won't
stop news from coming into that group.  All inews does to the active
file is append to it whenever it has to create a directory.  On the
other hand (this has been mentioned before, I'm sure), active file entries
that don't have corresponding directories cause funny looking .newsrc
file entries like "/usr/spool/news/test: 1-2" which enrage users.

       Matt

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