innfeed.conf(5)

NAME
innfeed.conf - configuration file for innfeed

DESCRIPTION

This man page describes the configuration file for version 0.10 (beta) of innfeed. This format has changed dramatically since version 0.9.3.

The file innfeed.conf is used to control the innfeed(1) program. It is a fairly free-format file that consists of three types of entries: key/value, peer and group. Comments are taken from the hash character ``#'' to the end of the line.

Key/value entries are a keyword and a value separated by a colon (which can itself be surrounded by whitespace). For example:

    max-connections: 10

A legal key starts with a letter and contains only letters, numbers and ``_'', ``-''.

There are 5 different type of values: integers, floating-point numbers, characters, booleans, and strings. Integer and floating point numbers are as to be expected except that exponents in floating point numbers are not supported. A boolean value is either ``true'' or ``false'' (case is not significant). A character value is a single-quoted character as defined by the C-language. A string value is any other sequence of characters. If the string needs to contain whitespace, then it must be quoted with double quotes, and uses the same format for embedding non-printing characters as normal C-language string.

Peer entries look like:

    peer <name> {
            # body ...
    }

The word ``peer'' is required. The ``<name>'' is the same as the site name in INN's newsfeeds file. The body of a peer entry contains some number (possibly zero) of key/value entries.

Group entries look like:

    group <name> {
    	# body
    }

The word ``group'' is required. The ``<name>'' is any string valid as a key. The body of a group entry contains any number of the three types of entries. So key/value pairs can be defined inside a group, and peers can be nested inside a group, and other groups can be nested inside a group.

Key/value entries that are defined outside of all peer and group entries are said to be at ``global scope''. There are global key/value entries that apply to the process as a whole (for example the location of the backlog file directory), and there are global key/value entries that act as defaults for peers. When innfeed looks for a specific value in a peer entry (for example, the maximum number of connections to set up), if the value is not defined in the peer entry, then the enclosing groups are examined for the entry (starting at the closest enclosing group). If there are no enclosing groups, or the enclosing groups don't define the key/value, then the value at global scope is used.

A small example could be:

    # Global value for the process
    news-spool:			/var/news/spool/articles
    # Global value applied to all peers that have
    # no value of their own.
    max-connections: 5
    # A peer definition. ``uunet'' is the name used by innd in
    # the newsfeeds file.
    peer uunet {
    	ip-name: usenet1.uu.net
    }
    peer vixie {
            ip-name: gw.home.vix.com
            max-connections: 10      # override global value.
    }
    # A group of two peers who can handle more connections
    # than normal
    group fast-sites {
    	max-connections: 15
    	# Another peer. The ``max-connections'' value from the
    	# ``fast-sites'' group scope is used. The ``ip-name'' value
    	# defaults to the peer's name.
    	peer data.ramona.vix.com {
    	}
    	peer bb.home.vix.com {
    		max-connections: 20	# he can really cook.
    	}
    }

Given the above configuration file, the defined peers would have the following values for the ``max-connections'' key.

    uunet                  5
    vixie                 10
    data.ramona.vix.com   15
    bb.home.vix.com       20

Innfeed ignores key/value pairs it is not interested in. Any config file value that can be set via a command line option, is not used if the command-line option is given.

Config files can be included in other config files via the syntax:
    $INCLUDE filename
There is a maximum nesting depth of 10.

For a fuller example config file, see the supplied innfeed.conf.

GLOBAL VALUES

The following listing show all the keys that apply to the process as whole. These are not required (compiled-in defaults are used where needed).

news-spool
    This key requires a pathname value. It specifies where the top of the article spool is. This corresponds to the ``-a'' command-line option.

input-file
    This key requires a pathname value. It specifies the pathname (relative to the backlog-directory) that should be read in funnel-file mode. This corresponds to giving a filename as an argument on the command-line (i.e. its presence also implies that funnel-file mode should be used).

pid-file
    This key requires a pathname value. It specifies the pathname (relative to the backlog-directory) where the pid of the innfeed process should be stored. This corresponds to the ``-p'' command-line option.

debug-level
    This key defines the debug level for the process. A non-zero number generates a lot of messages to stderr, or to the config-defined ``log-file''. This corresponsds to the ``-d'' command-line option.

use-mmap
    This key requires a boolean value. It specifies whether mmap'ing should be used if innfeed has been built with mmap support. If article data on disk is not in NNTP-ready format (CR/LF at the end of each line), then after mmap'ing the article is read into memory and fixed up, so mmap'ing has no positive effect (and possibly some negative effect depending on your system), and so in such a case this value should be false. This corresponds to the ``-M'' command-line option.

log-file
    This key requires a pathname value. It specifies where any logging messages that couldn't be sent via syslog(3) should go (such as those generated when a positive value for ``debug-value'', is used). This corresponds to the ``-l'' command-line option. A relative pathname is relative to the ``backlog-directory'' value.

backlog-directory
    This key requires a pathname value. It specifies where the current innfeed process should store backlog files. This corresponds to the ``-b'' command-line option.

backlog-highwater
    This key requires a positive integer value. It specifies how many articles should be kept on the backlog file queue before starting to write new entries to disk.

backlog-ckpt-period
    This key requires a positive integer value. It specifies how many seconds between checkpoints of the input backlog file. To small a number will mean frequent disk accesses, to large a number will mean after a crash innfeed will re-offer more already-processed articles than necessary.

backlog-newfile-period
    This key requires a positive integer value. It specifies how many seconds between checks for externally generated backlog files that are to be picked up and processed.

dns-retry
    The key requires a positive integer value. It defines the number of seconds between attempts to re-lookup host information that previous failed to be resolved.

dns-expire
    The key requires a positive integer value. It defines the number of seconds between refreshes of name to address DNS translation. This is so long running processes don't get stuck with stale data, should peer ip addresses change..

close-period
    The key requires a positive integer value. It is the maximum number of seconds a connection should be kept open. Some NNTP servers don't deal well with connections being held open for long periods.

gen-html
    This key requires a boolean value. It specifies whether the status-file should be HTML-ified.

status-file
    This key requires a pathname value. It specifies the pathname (relative to the backlog-directory) where the periodic status of the innfeed process should be stored. This corresponds to the ``-S'' command-line option.

connection-stats
    This key requires a boolean value. If the value is true, then whenever the transmission statistics for a peer are logged, then each active connection logs its own statistics. This corresponds to the ``-z'' command-line option.

host-queue-highwater
    This key requires a postive integer value. It defines how many articles will be held internally for a peer before new arrivals cause article information to be spooled to the backlog file.

stats-period
    This key requires a positive integer value. It defines how many seconds innfeed waits between generating statistics on transfer rates.

stats-reset
    This key requires a positive integer value. It defines how many seconds innfeed waits before resetting all internal transfer counters back to zero (after logging one final time). This is so a innfeed-process running more than a day will generate ``final'' stats that will be picked up by logfile processing scripts.

initial-reconnect-time
    This key requires a postive integer value. It defines how many seconds to first wait before retrying to reconnect after a connection failure. If the next attempt fails too, then the reconnect time is approximately doubled until the connection succeeds, or max-reconnection-time is reached.

max-reconnect-time
    This key requires an integer value. It defines the maximum number of seconds to wait between attempt to reconnect to a peer. The initial value for reconnection attempts is defined by initial-reconnect-time, and it is doubled after each failure, up to this value.

stdio-fdmax
    This key requires a non-negative integer value. If the value is greater than zero, then whenever a network socket file dcescriptor is created and it has a value less than this, the file descriptor will be dup'ed to bring the value up greater than this. This is to leave lower numbered file descriptors free for stdio. Certain systems, Sun's in particular, require this. SunOS 4.1.x usually requires a value of 128 and Solaris requires a value of 256. The default if this is not specified, is 0.

GLOBAL PEER DEFAULTS

All the key/value pairs mentioned in this section must be specified at global scope. They may also be specified inside a group or peer definition. Note that when peers are added dynamically (i.e. when innfeed receives an article for an unspecified peer), it will add the peer site using the parameters specified at global scope.

article-timeout
    This key requires a non-negative integer value. If no articles need to be sent to the peer for this many seconds, then the peer is considered idle and all its active connections are torn down.

response-timeout
    This key requires a non-negative integer value. It defines the maximum amount of time to wait for a response from the peer after issuing a command.

initial-connections
    This key requires a non-negative integer value. It defines the number of connections to be opened immediately when setting up a peer binding. A value of 0 means no connections will be created until an article needs to be sent.

max-connections
    This key requires positive integer value. It defines the maximum number of connections to run in parallel to the peer. A value of zero specifies an unlimited number of maximum connections. In general use of an unlimited number of maximum connections is not recommended. Do not ever set max-connections to zero with dynamic-method 0 set, as this will saturate peer hosts with connections. [ Note that in previous versions of innfeed, a value of 1 had a special meaning. This is no longer the case, 1 means a maximum of 1 connection ].

dynamic-method
    This key requires a value between 0 and 3. It controls how connections (up to max-connections) are opened up to the maximum specified by max-connections. In general (and specifically, with dynamic-method 0) a new connection is opened when the current number of connections is below max-connections, and an article is to be sent whilst no current connections are idle. Without further restraint (i.e. using dynamic-method 0), in practice this means that max-connections connections are established whilst articles are being sent. Use of other dynamic-method settings imposes a further limit on the amount of connections opened below that specified by max-connections. This limit is calculated in different ways, depending of the value of dynamic-method. Users should note that adding additional connections is not always productive - just because opening twice as many connections results in a small percentage increase of articles accepted by the remote peer, this may be at considerable resource cost both locally and at the remote site, whereas the remote site might well have received the extra articles sent from another peer a fraction of a second later. Opening large numbers of connections is considered antisocial. The meanings of the various settings are:

    0 no method
        Increase of connections up to max-connections is unrestrained.

    1 maximize articles per second
        Connections are increased (up to max-connections) and decreased so as to maximize the number of articles per second sent, whilst using the fewest connections to do this.

    2 set target queue length
        Connections are increased (up to max-connections) and decreased so as to keep the queue of articles to be sent within the bounds set by dynamic-backlog-low and dynamic-backlog-high, whilst using the minimum resource possible. As the queue will tend to fill if the site is not keeping up, this method ensures that the maximum number of articles are offered to the peer whilst using the minimum number of connections to achieve this.

    3 combination
        This method uses a combination of methods 1 and 2 above. For sites accepting a large percentage of articles, method 2 will be used to ensure these sites are offered as complete a feed as possible. For sites accepting a small percentage of articles, method 1 is used, to minimize remote resource usage. For intermediate sites, an appropriate combination is used.

dynamic-backlog-low
    This key takes a value between 0 and 100 and represents (as a percentage) the low water mark for the host queue. When the host queue falls below this level, when using dynamic-method 2 or 3, if 2 or more connections are open, innfeed will attempt to drop connections to the host. An IIR filter is applied to the value to prevent connection flap (see dynamic-filter). A value of 25.0 is recommended. This value must be smaller than dynamic-backlog-high.

dynamic-backlog-high
    This key takes a value between 0 and 100 and represents (as a percentage) the high water mark for the host queue. When the host queue rises above this level, when using dynamic-method 2 or 3, if less than max-connections are open to the host, innfeed will attempt to open further connections to the host. An IIR filter is applied to the value to prevent connection flap (see dynamic-filter). A value of 50.0 is recommended. This value must be larger than dynamic-backlog-low.

dynamic-backlog-filter
    This key takes a floating-point value between 0 and 1 which represents the filter coefficient used by the IIR filter used to implement dynamic-method 2 and 3. The recommended value of this filter is 0.7, giving a time constant of 1/(1-0.7) articles. Higher values will result in slower response to queue fullness changes, lower values with faster response.

max-queue-size
    This key requires a positive integer value. It defines the maximum number of articles to process at one time when using streaming to transmit to a peer. Larger numbers mean more memory consumed as articles usually get pulled into memory (see the description of use-mmap).

streaming
    This key requires a boolean value. It defines whether streaming commands are used to transmit articles to the peers.

no-check-high
    This key requires a floating-point number which must be in the range [0.0, 100.0]. When running transmitting with the streaming commands, innfeed attempts an optimization called ``no-CHECK'' mode. This involves not asking the peer if it wants the article, but just sending it. This optimization occurs when the percentage of the articles the peer has accepted gets larger than this number. If this value is set to 100.0, then this effectivly turns off no-CHECK mode, as the percentage can never get above 100.0. If this value is too small, then the number of articles the peer rejects will get bigger (and your bandwidth will be wasted). A value of 95.0 is usually pretty good. NOTE: In innfeed 0.9.3 and earlier this value was in the range [0.0, 9.0].

no-check-low:
    This key requires a floating-point number which must be in the range [0.0, 100.0), and it must be smaller that the value for no-check-high. When running in no-CHECK mode, as described above, if the percentage of articles the remote accepts drops below this number, then the no-CHECK optimization is turned off until the percentage gets above the no-check-high value again. If there is small difference between this and the no-check-high value (less than about 5.0), then innfeed may frequently go in and out of no-CHECK mode. If the difference is too big, then it will make it harder to get out of no-CHECK mode when necessary (wasting bandwidth). Keeping this to between 5.0 and 10.0 less than no-check-high is usually pretty good.

no-check-filter
    This is a floating point value representing the time constant, in articles, over which the CHECK / no-CHECK calculations are done. The recommended value is 50.0 which will implement an IIR filter of time constant 50. This roughly equates to making a decision about the mode over the previous 50 articles. A higher number will result in a slower response to changing percentages of articles accepted; a lower number will result in a faster response.

port-number
    This key requires a postive integer value. It defines the tcp/ip port number to use when connecting to the remote.

no-backlog
    This key requires a boolean value. It specifies whether spooling should be enabled (false, the default) or disabled (true). Note that when no-backlog is set, articles reported as "spooled" are actually silently discarded.

backlog-limit
    This key requires a non-negative integer value. If the number is 0 then backlog files are allowed to grown without bound when the peer is unable to keep up with the article flow. If this number is greater than 0 then it specifies the size (in bytes) the backlog file should get truncated to when the backlog file reaches a certain limit. The limit depends on whether backlog-factor or backlog-limit-high is used.

backlog-factor
    This key requires a floating point value, which must be larger than 1.0. It is used in conjunction with the peer key backlog-limit. If backlog-limit has a value greater than zero, then when the backlog file gets larger than the value backlog-limit * backlog-factor, then the backlog file will be truncated to the size backlog-limit. For example if backlog-limit has a value of 1000000, and backlog-factor has a value of 2.0, then when the backlogfile gets to be larger than 2000000 bytes in size, it will be truncated to 1000000 bytes. The front portion of the file is removed, and the triming happens on line boundaries, so the final size may be a bit less than this number. If backlog-limit-highwater is defined too, then backlog-factor takes precedence.

backlog-limit-highwater
    This key requires a positive integer value that must be larger than the value for backlog-limit. If the size of the backlog file gets larger than this value (in bytes), then the backlog file will be dhrunk down to the size of backlog-limit. If both backlog-factor and backlog-limit-highwater are defined, then the value of backlog-factor is used.

PEER VALUES
As previously explained, the peer definitions can contain redefinitions of any of the key/value pairs described in the GLOBAL PEER DEFAULTS section above. There is one key/value pair that is specific to a peer definition.

ip-name
    This key requires a word value. The word is the host's FQDN, or the dotted quad ip-address. If this value is not specified then the name of the peer is taken to also be its ip-name. See the entry for data.ramona.vix.com in the example below.

RELOADING

If innfeed gets a SIGHUP signal, then it will reread the config file. All values at global scope except for ``backlog-directory'' can be changed. Any new peers are added and any missing peers have their connections closed.

EXAMPLE

Below is the sample innfeed.conf file.
    #
    # innfeed.conf file. See the comment block at the
    # end for a fuller description.
    #
    ##
    ## Global values. Not specific to any peer. These
    ## are optional, but if used will override the
    ## compiled in values. Command-line options used
    ## will override these values.
    ##
    news-spool:             /var/news/spool/articles
    pid-file:               innfeed.pid
    debug-level:            0
    use-mmap:               false
    log-file:               innfeed.log
    stdio-fdmax:            0
    backlog-directory:      /var/news/spool/innfeed
    backlog-rotate-period:  60
    backlog-ckpt-period:    30
    backlog-newfile-period: 600
    dns-retry:              900
    dns-expire:             86400
    close-period:           3600
    gen-html:               false
    status-file:            innfeed.status
    connection-stats:       false
    host-queue-highwater:   200
    stats-period:           600
    stats-reset:            43200
    max-reconnect-time:     3600
    initial-reconnect-time: 30
    ##
    ## Defaults for all peers. These must all exist at
    ## global scope. Any of them can be redefined
    ## inside a peer or group definition.
    ##
    article-timeout:        600
    response-timeout:       300
    initial-connections:    1
    max-connections:        5
    max-queue-size:         25
    streaming:              true
    no-check-high:          95.0
    no-check-low:           90.0
    no-check-filter:        50.0
    port-number:            119
    backlog-limit:          0
    backlog-factor:         1.10
    backlog-limit-highwater:0
    dynamic-method:         3
    dynamic-backlog-filter: 0.7
    dynamic-backlog-low:    25.0
    dynamic-backlog-high:   50.0
    no-backlog:             false
    ##
    ## Peers.
    ##
    peer decwrl {
            ip-name:                news1.pa.dec.com
    }
    peer uunet {
            ip-name:                news.uunet.uu.net
            max-connections:        10
    }
    peer data.ramona.vix.com {
            # ip-name defaults to data.ramona.vix.com
            streaming:              false
    }
    peer bb.home.vix.com {
            ip-name:        192.5.5.33
    }
    # Blank lines are ignored. Exerything after a '#'
    # is ignored too.
    #
    # Format is:
    #               key : value
    #
    # See innfeed.conf(5) for a description of
    # necessary & useful keys. Unknown keys and their
    # values are ignored.
    #
    # Values may be a integer, floating-point, c-style
    # single-quoted characters, boolean, and strings.
    #
    # If a string value contains whitespace, or
    # embedded quotes, or the comment character
    # (``#''), then the whole string must be quoted
    # with double quotes.  Inside the quotes, you may
    # use the standard c-escape sequence
    # (	,,').
    #
    # Examples:
    #       eg-string:      "New	Config	file
    #       eg-long-string: "A long string that goes
    #                       over multiple lines. The
    #                       newline is kept in the
    #                       string except when quoted
    #                       with a backslash #                       as here."
    #       eg-simple-string: A-no-quote-string
    #       eg-integer:     10
    #       eg-boolean:     true
    #       eg-char:        'a'
    #       eg-ctrl-g:      ' 07'

HISTORY
Written by James Brister <brister@vix.com> for InterNetNews.

SEE ALSO
innfeed(1), newsfeeds(5)