[news.software.b] moderators format request

vito@trwspf.TRW.COM (Herb Barad) (12/08/87)

I saw in patch #13 that local moderators are now handled differently.
There is (or should be) a file called "moderators" that lists the
local moderators so that they (and only they) can post to that newsgroup.

What is the format of the moderators file?

Do I need to recompile with certain switches?

By the way, I have seen some articles that talk about patch #14.  I have not
seen this patch.  I suppose that a news glitch that we had over the
weekend caused us to loose it.  Can someone send it to me?  Thanks.

						Herb



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Herb Barad - TRW Data Systems Lab
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pleasant@rutgers.rutgers.edu (Mel Pleasant) (12/08/87)

In article <611@trwspf.TRW.COM> vito@trwspf.TRW.COM (Herb Barad) writes:

> I saw in patch #13 that local moderators are now handled differently.
> There is (or should be) a file called "moderators" that lists the
> local moderators so that they (and only they) can post to that newsgroup.
> What is the format of the moderators file?

First, let me state that it is the definition of MODFILEONLY in your defs.h
file that implements the "(and only they)" restriction mentioned above.
Without the MODFILEONLY definition, /LIBDIR/moderators becomes a list of
entries listing those users and/or groups of users (see below) who can
conveniently forget to include an Approved: header and still have the
posting succeed.  "inews" will include an Approved: header for them.

The LIBDIR/moderators file has a simple format.  Each entry describes users
and/or groups of users (see below) which may act as moderators for the
newsgroup given in the entry.  Continuation of an entry (e.g. lines ending
in a backslash) is not supported.  However, file searching will continue
until a) an entry is found that will allow the user to post to the moderated
group or b) EOF is encountered.  The format of an entry is:

newsgroup:user,user,user,\groupA,user,\groupB,user,etc....

Note the \groupX tokens above.  The backslash indicates that what follows is
a group name as opposed to a username.  If the user attempting to post to
the newsgroup is a member of a listed group (/etc/passwd or /etc/group), the
user is considered to be a moderator of the newsgroup.  That is, all group
members, of groupA and groupB in the example above, are considered to be
moderators for the newsgroup.

BTW: the \group extension has been added to the /LIBDIR/authorized (FASCIST
definition) code as well....

> Do I need to recompile with certain switches?

Not necessarily.  Scanning of /LIBDIR/moderators will take place simply
because it exists.  Reread my first paragraph for details.
-- 

-Mel Pleasant
uucp:   {ames, cbosgd, harvard, moss, seismo}!rutgers.edu!pleasant
arpa:   PLEASANT@RUTGERS.EDU