Re: Upcoming Changes to News Server ...

On 2004-11-24, Marc G Fournier From : <scrappy(at)hub(dot)org> wrote:
> andrew+nonews(at)supernews(dot)com (Andrew - Supernews) writes:
>>Any chance of there being regular (or even only occasional) signed
>>checkgroups messages for the new hierarchy?
>
> Sure, but I've never done it before, so if you can help ... ?

Sure. You can reach me by email or on the irc chan. You should already have
a copy of the signcontrol script itself (it's in the INN distribution).
The format of a checkgroups message is simple: one line in the message
body per newsgroup in this format:

group.name(tabs)Description of group

The description must end with " (Moderated)" (without the quotes) if it is
a moderated group in the Usenet sense, and not otherwise. Conventionally
the separator is enough tabs so that the description starts in column 24,
but the only real requirement is that there be one or more tabs (and not
any other sort of whitespace, and no tabs in the description). This is the
same format as the newsgroups file in INN.

For the headers, you want "Control: checkgroups", an Approved header,
and a Newsgroups: header with an appropriate announcement group in
(pgsql.announce should do; the message won't show up to normal readers).

Checkgroups should be posted preferably after any change to the group
list, and once per month or two even if there are no changes. Obviously
you need an appropriate PGP or GPG key (RSA seems to be best as far as
compatibility goes), which has to be published somewhere (but doesn't need
to be on keyservers).

Let me know if you have any questions or if you want me to verify any
messages.

--
Andrew, Supernews
http://www.supernews.com - individual and corporate NNTP services