NNTPFS(4)NNTPFS(4)
NAME
nntpfs – network news transport protocol (NNTP) file system
SYNOPSIS
nntpfs
[
-a
]
[
-s
service
]
[
-m
mountpoint
]
[
system
]
DESCRIPTION
Nntpfs
dials the TCP network news transport protocol (NNTP)
port, 119, on
system
(default
’$nntp’)
and presents at
mountpoint
(default
/mnt/news)
a file system corresponding to the
news articles stored on
system.
If the
-s
option is given, the file system is posted as
/srv/service.
If the
-a
option is given,
nntpfs
authenticates to the system with a user name and password
obtained from
factotum(4).
The key specifier is
proto=pass service=nntp server=server user? !password?
The file system contains a directory per newsgroup,
with dots turned into slashes, e.g.,
comp/os/plan9
for
comp.os.plan9.
Each newsgroup directory contains one
numbered directory per article.
The directories follow the numbering used by
the server.
Each article directory contains three files:
article,
header,
and
body.
The
article
file contains the full text of the article,
while
header
and
body
contain only the header or body.
Each newsgroup directory contains a
write-only
post
file that may be used to post news articles.
RFC1036-compliant articles should be written to it.
The
post
file will only exist in a given newsgroup directory
if articles are allowed to be posted to it.
Other than that, the
post
file is
not
tied to its directory’s newsgroup.
The groups to which articles are eventually posted
are determined by the
newsgroups:
header lines in the posted article,
not by the location of the
post
file in the file system.
The qid version of a newsgroup directory
is the largest numbered article directory it
contains (~0, if there are no articles).
The modification time on a newsgroup
directory is the last time a new article was recorded
during this
nntpfs
session.
To force a check for new articles,
stat(2)
the newsgroup directory.
To force a check for new newsgroups,
stat(2)
the root directory.
Note that this causes the entire list of groups,
which can be about a megabyte,
to be transferred.
To terminate the connection,
unmount
the mount point.
Nntpfs
makes no effort to send “keepalives” so that
servers do not hang up on it.
Instead, it redials as necessary when hangups are detected.
EXAMPLE
Authenticate to a private news server:
% echo key proto=pass service=nntp server=nose.mit.edu \
user=rsc !password=secret >/mnt/factotum/ctl
% nntpfs -a nose.mit.edu
SOURCE
/sys/src/cmd/nntpfs.c
BUGS
Directories are presented for deleted articles;
the files in them cannot be opened.