slrnpull(1)

💅 slrnpull — the user manual, but make it cute

okay bestie, welcome to slrnpull(1), straight outta the User Manuals section. this is the page for the little news-puller that could. let's get into it 🫶

✨ NAME ✨

slrnpull — pull a small newsfeed for offline reading. that's it. that's the whole vibe. 🌸

🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

slrnpull [-d spooldir] [-h server] [--debug file] [--expire]
[--fetch-score n] [--help] [--kill-log file] [--kill-score n]
[--logfile file] [--marked-bodies] [--new-groups] [--no-post] [--post]
[--post-only] [--rebuild] [--version]

look at her. iconic. no notes. 💅

👑 DESCRIPTION 👑

so like, slrnpull pulls a small newsfeed from an NNTP server, right? and then it dumps all those articles into a spool directory, and later slrn can just. read them. from there. whenever it wants. even if the server is literally unreachable at that moment. 😭

the way this is so useful if you don't have a permanent network connection?? genuinely a lifesaver. offline girlies rise. 🌈

🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

these are the options you can use when you call slrnpull from the command line. buckle up, there's a bunch, and we're doing all of them, no skips. ✨

• -d spooldir — sets slrnpull's root directory for this run to spooldir. it overrides the $SLRNPULL_ROOT environment variable. take that, env var. 💅
• -h host[:port] — connects to the NNTP server on host, overriding the $NNTPSERVER environment variable. if you don't give a port, it uses the default NNTP port, which is 119. 🔥
• --debug file — writes the whole dialogue with the server, plus some extra debugging output, into file. receipts, basically. 🧚
• --expire — expires (aka removes) old messages from the spool, but does not fetch news. it's giving cleanup era. 🧹
• --fetch-score n — automatically fetches article bodies with a score of at least n. and heads up: in true offline mode, the default is to fetch only the bodies that were explicitly marked by the user. so this changes the game. 👑
• --help — shows help for command line switches. classic. 🫶
• --kill-log file — keeps a log of all the articles that got killed by the scorefile, written into file. by default? no such logfile is created. sorry babe. 💀
• --kill-score n — kills all articles with a score below n. the default value for this is 0. brutal. slay. ⭐
• --logfile file — logs the messages and errors that slrnpull prints to the screen into file. by default, they get written to the file log in slrnpull's root directory. ✨
• --marked-bodies — only fetches bodies that were marked for download within slrn. picky, and honestly? valid. 💅
• --new-groups — checks for new groups, appending them to the file new.groups in the data directory. new friends!! 🌸
• --no-post — does not post any articles to the server. silent mode, but for posting. 🙈
• --post — obsolete version of --post-only. she's retired, bestie, but she's still in the list. 😭
• --post-only — posts outgoing articles, but does not fetch news. sending without receiving. main character energy. 👑
• --rebuild — like --expire, but it also rebuilds the overview information. use this one when the overview information is damaged. glow-up for broken metadata. 🔥
• --version — prints the version number. gotta know which queen you're running. ⭐

🌈 ENVIRONMENT 🌈

slrnpull reads the following environment variables. but not me reminding you that they can all be overridden by command line switches. 💅

• NNTPSERVER — you can use this variable to tell slrnpull which NNTP server to connect to. it can be overridden by the command line option -h.
• SLRNPULL_ROOT — defines the directory where slrnpull will look for its configuration files and spool the articles. an absolute filename is needed here, fr fr. this can be overriden by the option -d.

💖 FILES 💖

• $SLRNPULL_ROOT/authinfo — if the server requires authentication, this file needs to contain the data: username in the first line, password in the second.

⚠️ be careful not to make this file world-readable! seriously. that's your password in there. protect her. 🔒

• $SLRNPULL_ROOT/log — the default file to log status and error messages to.
• $SLRNPULL_ROOT/score — if you want slrnpull to apply scoring rules to decide which articles to download, put them into this file. the girl has taste. 👑
• $SLRNPULL_ROOT/slrnpull.conf — the main configuration file. it tells slrnpull how many articles to get from which groups and when to expire them. it's giving project manager. 💅

🦋 SEE ALSO 🦋

the documentation that comes with slrnpull, especially README and SETUP. also the FAQ of slrn answers some questions about slrnpull. 🌸

you might also want to look at slrn's official home page, http://slrn.sourceforge.net/, or post to news.software.readers if you have a question that isn't covered by the existing documentation. 🫶

the latest version of slrnpull is part of the slrn package, available from http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/slrn/. ✨

💜 AUTHOR 💜

John E. Davis <davis@space.mit.edu>

please send any bug reports to the current maintainer, Thomas Schultz <tststs@gmx.de> 🎀

okay and that's the whole page!! this one's from the Unix manual, dated September 2004, and yes bestie, slrnpull(1) really did serve all of that. periodt. 💅✨