ARPAVAX:usenet (06/08/82)
B news version 2.7 is out! The diffs from 2.6 can be found on newsgroup net.sources. New features in 2.7: Several bug fixes from 2.6. In addition to some uninteresting ones, noteworthy bug fixes include: Two bugs in expire. One prevented the expiration of all new without an explicit expiration date, and the other prevented expiration of news on pdp-11's. A bug preventing the secure installation of news on USG systems (requiring 777 mode directories and a 0 umask) has been fixed. This problem, of course, only made it possible for local users to clobber news, not for remote users to steal it. Some problems with array sizes have been fixed, making large articles and small machines easier to deal with. The .newsrc file can contain newsgroup lines with an ! as well as a : after the newsgroup name, e.g. net.garbage! 1-52 which means that the user does not want to subscribe to this newsgroup. For users with long options lines like options -n all !this !that !the.other.thing it is possible to replace these lines with options -n all and ! out the individual lines. This takes off much of the pressure on the maximum option line size, and makes netnews a bit faster. In a related change, the new readnews command 'u' (unsubscribe) will ! out the current newsgroup and go on to the next newsgroup. The new readnews 'v' command prints the current version. There is a new control message "version" which sends the author the version number of netnews you are running. The version of netnews is now taken to be the variable news_version in defs.h, not the sccs id in control.c. A security bug in the rmgroup control message has been fixed. Sites can configure a "recording" message to be shown to users posting news go certain newsgroups. The user will be asked to read this message and reply that s/he understands it before the news can be posted. This is intended for companies that are worried about proprietary information accidently getting out. Example: (all files in /usr/lib/news) recording net.all /usr/lib/news/net.recording fa.all /usr/lib/news/fa.recording net.recording Posting to this newsgroup will cause your article to be broadcast to the entire USENET, including sites outside of Bell Labs. You should not include any proprietary information in this article. fa.recording Read the directions! You're supposed to use mail to post to fa newsgroup, not inews! Also, don't include any proprietary information. inews now takes the full name of the author of the news from /etc/passwd's gcos field, if it's there. The full text of the default uux command to use to transmit news is now in defs.h in place of the UUXZ option. Some locking code that locks on a per-article basis has been added. This should prevent the propagation of duplicate articles. The new readnews command line option -f will prevent any followup articles from being shown. This is intended for people who only want to read announcements to newsgroups like net.general. It may eventually make net.followup obsolete. Backspace is now allowed in articles. This makes nroff output more legible. The environment variable NEWSRC is checked for a path to .newsrc. This is for people who share one login. Unrecognized message headers are now passed through.