Deleting all old postings

[Ray Banana]

Russ Allbery wrote:

> Alexander Bartolich <alexander.bartolich at gmx.at> writes:
> 
>> Remove all groups:
>>
>>   awk '{printf "ctlinnd rmgroup %s\n", $1}' /var/lib/news/active
> 
> Be aware that if you're using tradspool, INN doesn't delete the articles
> on disk during rmgroup.  It's a long-standing problem.

The same applies to CNFS buffers. If you ever have to run makehistory -O
after deleting groups by simply rmgrouping them, you should be prepared
for some nasty surprises concerning your article numbers as you will
then have newer articles with low article numbers and old articles with
the higher article numbers from before the rmgroup. The safest way to
delete all groups is IMO to delete both the history and the overview,
overwrite the heads of your CNFS buffers with zeroes, delete your
tradspool and run makehistory -O