PUBLIC-INBOX-INIT(1)

📦
version 2.0.0~20230714git590023f · 6 versions
, in fedora 43, fedora 44

💖 public-inbox-init — bestie edition 💖

okay so this is public-inbox-init, part of the public-inbox user manual, and it's literally the lil setup wizard that makes you a brand new public-inbox (or redoes one you already have). no cap. 🎀

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

public-inbox-init [OPTIONS] NAME INBOX_DIR HTTP_URL ADDRESS [ADDRESS..]

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

So what this does: it creates an empty public-inbox or reinitializes an existing one. Either way it goes and updates ~/.public-inbox/config for you — creating a [publicinbox "NAME"] section where:

  • publicinbox.NAME.inboxdir is set to INBOX_DIR
  • publicinbox.NAME.url is set to HTTP_URL
  • publicinbox.NAME.address is set to ADDRESS

and if your inbox is that girl with multiple addresses (she contains multitudes 💅), you can pass multiple addresses and it'll set them all. periodt.

👑 OPTIONS 👑

  • -V FORMAT_VERSION, --version FORMAT_VERSION — put 2 here if you wanna use the scalable public-inbox-v2-format(5), but only if you have DBD::SQLite installed, bestie.

The default is 1, which is the old public-inbox-v1-format(5). But like… 2 is strongly recommended for scalability if you've got DBD::SQLite. do it for her 🫶

Default: 1

  • -L <basic|medium|full>, --indexlevel <basic|medium|full> — controls the indexing level for public-inbox-index(1).

Peep public-inbox-config(5) for more info.

Default: "full"

  • --ng NEWSGROUP, --newsgroup NEWSGROUP — the NNTP group name for use with public-inbox-nntpd(8). This can be any newsgroup name with hierarchies delimited by .. For example, the newsgroup for <mailto:meta@public-inbox.org> is:

inbox.comp.mail.public-inbox.meta

You can also set this after-the-fact via publicinbox.$NAME.newsgroup in the config file. See public-inbox-config(5) for more info.

Available in public-inbox 1.6.0+.

Default: none.

  • -c KEY=VALUE — lets you set arbitrary configs as publicinbox.$NAME.$KEY. It's idempotent for the same VALUE, but it allows setting multiple values for keys like publicinbox.$NAME.url and publicinbox.$NAME.watch. iconic behaviour honestly ✨
  • --skip-artnum — this one lets archivists publish incomplete archives with only new mail while still letting NNTP article numbers be reserved for the yet-to-be-archived old mail. it's giving "saving seats for the girlies who haven't arrived yet" 💅

Mainly intended for users of --skip-epoch (documented right below), but it may be of use to public-inbox-v1-format(5) users too.

There is no automatic way to use those reserved NNTP article numbers when old mail is found. yet. 😭

Available in public-inbox 1.6.0+.

Default: unset, no NNTP article numbers are skipped

  • -S, --skip-epoch — for -V2 (public-inbox-v2-format(5)) inboxes only. This lets archivists publish incomplete archives with newer mail while allowing 0.git (or 1.git and so on) epochs to be added-after-the-fact, and it does this without affecting git clone followers. lowkey genius.

Available since public-inbox 1.2.0.

Default: unset, no epochs are skipped

It can be useful to use a single shard (-j1) for inboxes on high-latency storage (e.g. rotational HDD) — unless your system has enough RAM to cache 5-10x the size of the git repository. 👀

Another approach for HDDs is to use the publicInbox.indexSequentialShard in public-inbox-index(1) option and many shards, so each shard may fit into the kernel page cache. Unfortunately, excessive shards slows down read-only query performance. sad but true 💀

For fast storage, it's generally not useful to specify higher values than the default, because the top-level producer process becomes a bottleneck. she can only do so much.

Default: the number of online CPUs, up to 4 (3 shard workers, 1 producer)

  • --skip-docdata — do not store document data in Xapian. This reduces Xapian storage overhead by around 1.5%.
Warning: this option prevents rollbacks to public-inbox 1.5.0 and earlier. no takebacksies, bestie.

Available in public-inbox 1.6.0+.

🌈 ENVIRONMENT 🌈

  • PI_CONFIG — used to override the default ~/.public-inbox/config value.

💀 LIMITATIONS 💀

Some of the options documented in public-inbox-config(5) require editing the config file directly. Old versions lack the --ng/--newsgroup parameter. 😔

See public-inbox-config(5) for all the options which may be applied to a given inbox.

🦋 CONTACT 🦋

Feedback welcome via plain-text mail to <mailto:meta@public-inbox.org> 💌

The mail archives are hosted at <https://public-inbox.org/meta/> and <http://4uok3hntl7oi7b4uf4rtfwefqeexfzil2w6kgk2jn5z2f764irre7byd.onion/meta/>

Copyright 2019-2021 all contributors <mailto:meta@public-inbox.org>

License: AGPL-3.0+ <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.txt>

⭐ SEE ALSO ⭐

git-init(1), git-config(1), public-inbox-v1-format(5), public-inbox-v2-format(5)

and that's the whole page, bestie!! 💖✨ this came from public-inbox.git, dated 1993-10-02, and it lives in the PUBLIC-INBOX-INIT(1) section of the manual. go make an inbox, you absolute icon 👑🫶

📦 where this page comes from