ACTIVE (5)

NAME
     active, active.times - list of active Usenet newsgroups

DESCRIPTION
     The file <config$_PATH_ACTIVE> lists the newsgroups that the  local  site
     receives.   Each  newsgroup  should  be  listed  only  once.   Each  line
     specifies one group; their order in the file  does  not  matter.   Within
     each   newsgroup,   articles   are   assigned  unique  names,  which  are
     monotonically increasing numbers.

     If an article is posted to newsgroups not mentioned in this  file,  those
     newsgroups  are  ignored.   If  no  valid  newsgroups  are specified, and
     <config$WANT_TRASH> == DONT the article is  rejected.   Otherwise  it  is
     filed  into  the  newsgroup  ``junk''  and  only propagated to sites that
     receive the ``junk'' newsgroup.

     Each line consists of four fields specified by a space:

                  name himark lomark flags

     The   first   field   is    the    name    of    the    newsgroup.     If
     <config$MERGE_TO_GROUPS>  ==  DO  newsgroups  that  start  with the three
     characters ``to.'' are treated specially; see innd(8) .  The second  field
     is  the highest article number that has been used in that newsgroup.  The
     third field is the lowest article number in the group; this number is not
     guaranteed  to  be accurate, and should only be taken to be a hint.  Note
     that because of article cancellations, there may be gaps in the numbering
     sequence.   If  the  lowest  article  number  is greater then the highest
     article number, then there are no articles in the newsgroup.  In order to
     make it possible to update an entry in-place without rewriting the entire
     file, the second and third fields are padded out with  leading  zeros  to
     make them a fixed width.

     The fourth field can contain one of the following flags:

          y        Local postings are allowed
          n        No local postings are allowed, only remote ones
          m        The group is moderated and all postings must be approved
          j        Articles in this group are not kept, but only passed on
          x        Articles cannot be posted to this newsgroup
          =foo.bar Articles are locally filed into the ``foo.bar'' group

     If a newsgroup has the ``j'' flag, then no articles will  be  filed  into
     that  newsgroup and local postings to that group should not be generated.
     If an article for such a newsgroup is received from  a  remote  site,  it
     will  be  filed  into  the  ``junk'' newsgroup if it is not cross-posted.
     This is different from not having a newsgroup listed in the file  because
     sites  can  subscribe  to  ``j''  newsgroups  and  the  article  will  be
     propagated to them.

     If the fourth field of a newsgroup starts with an equal  sign,  then  the
     newsgroup  is an alias.  Articles can be posted to the group, but will be
     treated as if they were posted to the group named after the  equal  sign.
     The  second and third fields are ignored.  Note that the Newsgroup header
     is not modified (Alias groups are typically used during a transition, and
     are  typically  created  with ctlinnd(8) ).  An alias newsgroup should not
     point to another alias.

     The file <config$_PATH_ACTIVETIMES> provides a  chronological  record  of
     when  newsgroups  are  created.  This file is normally updated by innd(8) 
     whenever a ctlinnd ``newgroup'' command is done.  Each  line  consist  of
     three fields:

          name time creator

     The first field is the name of the newsgroup.  The second  field  is  the
     time  it  was created, expressed as the number of seconds since the epoch
     --  i.e.,  a  time_t;  see  gettimeofday(2).   The  third  field  is  the
     electronic mail address of the person who created the group.

HISTORY
     Written by Rich $alz  <rsalz@uunet.uu.net>  for  InterNetNews.   This  is
     revision 1.13, dated 1996/10/29.

SEE ALSO
     ctlinnd(8) , innd(8) .