-T option to actsync in INN 2.4.3 doesn't work

[Mike Brudenell]

Greetings -

There appears to be a problem with the "-T" option to actsync in INN  
2.4.3.

This option is meant to synch new groups on the remote news feed site  
onto your own local server, but only if you already take that  
hierarchy (ie, have some groups within it).

When the "-T" option is used NO new groups are created on the local  
server, even when new groups exist on the remote server within  
hierarchies taken on the local host.

In INN 2.1 the test to see if a new group was within an already  
existing hierarchy on the local server was achieved by using chdir()  
to move to the overview spool directory and then using stat() to  
check for a directory named with the first component of the remote  
newsgroup name being considered for synching.

We have (at last) upgraded to INN 2.4.3 and are now using the new  
buffindexed overview storage.  This means that there is no longer a  
traditional overview directory structure.

However the code in actsync still expects to be able to use stat() to  
check for the presence of the top-level hierarchy's directory within  
a traditional spool directory structure.  In particular note the code  
in backends/actsync.c => new_top_hier() which is unchanged since INN  
2.1.

Also note that the "-S" option (to specify the location of the spool  
directory) is no longer supported by actsync, and the associated chdir 
() to relocate to that directory ready for the stat() calls to work  
is now omitted.  Therefore a workaround is to create a directory  
containing a sub-directory named for each top-level hierarchy you  
currently carry.  Changing to this directory before running actsync  
causes it to work properly.  (Of course this workaround is also a  
nasty Gotcha, meaning your results are currently dependent on which  
directory you currently happen to be in when running actsync, with  
the possibility of messing up your active file depending on that  
directory's content.)

I assume that new_top_hier() should now use some other test to check  
whether a group is within an already existing top-level hierarchy on  
the local server.

Cheers,
Mike Brudenell

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