tdx-util documentation

[Russ Allbery]

Here's a copy of the documentation for tdx-util so that people will know
what sort of recovery tools I'm working on for the new implementation.
I've already implemented all of the code to support an option parallel to
-A that tries to fix inconsistencies in the database, but I've not yet
added the stub to tdx-util to call it.

NAME

    tdx-util - Tradindexed overview manipulation utility

SYNOPSIS

    tdx-util [-Agio] [-a *article*] [-n *newsgroup*] [-p *path*] [-R *path*]

DESCRIPTION

    tdx-util is an administrative interface to the tradindexed overview
    method for INN.  It only works on tradindexed overview databases, not on
    any other type of INN overview.  It allows the administrator to dump
    various information about the internal state of the overview, audit it
    for errors, and rebuild portions of the overview database.

    The tradindexed overview method should lock properly and therefore it
    should be safe to run this utility and perform any operation it
    performs, including full repairs or per-group overview rebuilds, while
    the server is running.  However, note that some of the operations
    performed by this utility can take an extended period of time and will
    hold locks in the overview database during that period, which depending
    on what the server is doing may cause the server to stall until tdx-util
    completes its operation.

    The dump operations are -g, which dumps the master index for the
    overview database, -i, which dumps the index for an individual group,
    and -o, which dumps the overview information for a particular group
    (including the additional metadata stored in the index).  For -i and -o,
    the -n option must also be given to specify a newsgroup to operate on.

    To audit the entire overview database for problems, use -A.  Any
    problems found will be reported to standard error.  There is not (yet) a
    corresponding option to correct the errors found.

    To rebuild the database for a particular newsgroup, use -R.  The -R
    option takes a path to a directory which contains all of the articles
    for that newsgroup, one per file.  The names of the files must be the
    numbers of the articles in that group.  (In other words, this directory
    must be a traditional spool directory for that group.)  The -n option
    must also be given to specify the newsgroup for which the overview is
    being rebuilt.

    For all operations performed by tdx-util, a different overview database
    than the one specified in inn.conf may be specified using the -p option.

OPTIONS

    -A  Audit the entire overview database for problems.  This runs the
        internal consistency checks built into the tradindexed overview
        implementation, checking such things as the validity and
        reachability of all group index entries, the format of the
        individual overview entries, the correspondance of index entries to
        overview data, and similar such things.  No changes will be made to
        the database, but problems will be reported to standard error.

    -a *article*
        The article number to act on.  Only useful in combination with the
        -o option to dump overview information.

    -g  Dump the master index of the overview database.  This contains
        similar information to the server active file, such as high and low
        water marks and moderation status, and is the information that nnrpd
        hands out to clients.

        The fields are, in order, the newsgroup name, the high water mark,
        the low water mark, the base article number (the point at which the
        group index begins), the count of articles in the group, the group
        status flag, the time (in seconds since epoch) when that newsgroup
        was deleted or 0 if it hasn't been, and the inode of the index file
        for that group.

    -i  Dump the index of a particular group.  The fields are, in order, the
        article number, the offset of the data for that article in the
        overview data file for that group, the length of the overview data,
        the time (in seconds since epoch) when the article arrived on the
        server, the time (in seconds since epoch) when the article should
        expire based on its Expires header (or 0 if there is no Expires
        header), and the storage API token of the article.

        If this option is given, the -n option must also be given to specify
        the newsgroup on which to act.

    -n *newsgroup*
        Specify the newsgroup on which to act, required for the -i, -o, and
        -R options.

    -o  Dump the overview information for a newsgroup, in the same format as
        it would be returned to clients but with one modification.  Appended
        to the end of each entry will be four additional pieces of data: 
        the article number according to the index file for that group, the
        storage API token for that article, the arrival date for that
        article on the server in RFC 822 date format, and the expiration
        date for that article (from the Expires header) in RFC 822 date
        format if there is any.

        If this option is given, the -n option must also be given to specify
        the newsgroup on which to act.  By default, all of the overview
        information for that newsgroup is dumped, but the -a option may be
        given to restrict the dump to the information for a single article.

    -p *path*
        Act on the overview database rooted in *path*, overriding the
        overview path specified in inn.conf.

    -R *path*
        Rebuild the overview for a given group from the articles stored in
        *path*.  The articles must be in the form of a traditional spool
        directory; in other words, each article must be in a separate file
        and the name of the file must match the article number of the
        article.

        If this option is given, the -n option must also be given to specify
        the newsgroup on which to act.

EXAMPLES

    Dump the master index for the overview database in /news/overview,
    regardless of the overview path specified in inn.conf:

        tdx-util -g -p /news/overview

    Dump the group index for example.test:

        tdx-util -i -n example.test

    Dump the complete overview information for example.test:

        tdx-util -o -n example.test

    Audit the entire overview database for any problems:

        tdx-util -A

    Rebuild the overview information for example.test from a traditional
    spool directory:

        tdx-util -R /news/spool/articles/example/test -n example.test

    The last command may be useful for recovering from a bad crash or
    corrupted overview information for a particular group, if you are also
    using the tradspool article storage method.

HISTORY

    Written by Russ Allbery <rra at stanford.edu> for InterNetNews.

    $Id: tdx-util.pod,v 1.1 2002/08/27 04:07:55 rra Exp $

SEE ALSO

    makehistory(8)

-- 
Russ Allbery (rra at stanford.edu)             <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>

    Please send questions to the list rather than mailing me directly.
     <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/faqs/questions.html> explains why.