INNREPORT.CONF(5)

💖 NAME 💖

innreport.conf — the configuration file for innreport. This is the innreport.conf(5) page from the InterNetNews Documentation, bestie, and we're gonna make it make sense ✨

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

Okay so pathetc/innreport.conf is the file that permits configuring the behaviour of innreport — it's giving “small config, big main-character energy” 💅

It consists of a series of lines. Blank lines are ignored, and so is anything that follows a number sign (#) in a line. The structure of this file is:

section default {
    libpath             "/path/to/libraries";
    logpath             "/path/to/logs";
    module              "innreport_inn";
    display_conf_file   "innreport-display.conf";
    unwanted_log        "unwanted.log";
    text                true;
    html                true;  # Enable HTML reports.
    # Other options to set.
};

Only this default section needs being configured. It begins with section default { and ends with };. Each line in the section consists of an option name followed with one or more spaces or tabulations, its value and a semi-colon ;.

The display_conf_file option defines the name of the display configuration file to use. This file, located in libpath, has the same syntax as innreport.conf. If you want to use a custom display configuration, just rename the default innreport-display.conf file to another name, and set it in display_conf_file (otherwise, innreport-display.conf will be overwritten each time you update INN).

Sections defined in the display configuration file are used to parameterize the display, how and what to report, but should not normally be changed (unless you precisely know what you are doing). These sections are written in a domain-specific language not intended to be modified.

⚠️ warning, bestie: you may break the reports, especially if changing data, double, format, primary, sort, total or value parameters. No cap.

The easiest parameters to change, if needed, would be:

• title — the titles of sections in innreport.
• name — the names of the columns.
• color — the color of curves in the graphs.
• numbering — a boolean value to configure whether each row of HTML reports is prefixed with a rank number.
• text, html, and skip — boolean values to configure whether a given section should be present in respectively text, HTML or both reports.
• top — the maximum number of values to display; you can specify different values for text and HTML reports with top_text and top_html.

✨ OPTIONS ✨

okay bestie, here's the whole menu of stuff you can set in the default section of the general config file innreport.conf. there are so many of them, so buckle up 🫶

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archive

sets whether HTML pages and graphs should get archived when HTML reports are enabled. when this one is "true" — which, heads up, is the default — a date gets added to the file name of every report and every graph. otherwise? only the latest HTML report is kept, everything else gets yeeted into the void 💀

using the -[no]archive flag with innreport(8) takes precedence over the config file, so cli wins. periodt.

casesensitive

when this is "true" (the default, bestie), the searches done in news log files for predetermined patterns are case sensitive. like, Foo and foo are NOT the same thing, ok?

and yeah — the -[no]casesensitive flag on innreport(8) overrides the config file.

cycle

sets how many report files you keep when HTML reports are enabled and archived. default is "0", which literally means all the archives stay. and the value "none" also means "0", so like, two ways to say the same slay ✨

-cycle flag on innreport(8) takes precedence over the config file.

display_conf_file

defines the display configuration file to use — it lives in the directory set with the libpath option. default is "innreport-display.conf".

encoding

specifies the character set used in XML and Content-Type declarations of HTML reports. default is "ISO-8859-1". iconic, retro, slightly vintage of it 💅

footer

specifies a text to append at the end of the latest "<div>" tag of each HTML report, right where the version of innreport is displayed. this option is unset by default.

graph

if the Perl graphic library GD.pm is installed and HTML reports are enabled, graphs also get generated in PNG if it's supported by "GD" — which, ngl, it is in modern versions. otherwise GIF gets generated instead. this option is set to "true" by default, meaning graph generation is on 🔥

-[no]graph flag on innreport(8) takes precedence over the config file.

graph_bg

specifies the background colour of graphs in HTML reports, as an HTML hexadecimal colour value. default is "#FFFFFF" (white). clean, fresh, minimal 🤍

graph_fg

specifies the foreground colour of graphs in HTML reports, also as an HTML hexadecimal colour value. default is "#000000" (black).

graph_width

sets the width in pixels of graphs in HTML reports. default is "550".

html

this one is a mandatory option with no default value — very main character of it. it does two whole jobs: generating HTML reports alongside the plain text report that gets printed to standard output, and configuring — in the sections other than default (in the display configuration file) — whether a section of the report should show up in the HTML output.

so let's break it down:

• if set to "true", and the -nohtml flag is not given when calling innreport, HTML reports get generated. these reports won't contain sections that individually have html set to "false" in the display configuration file (by default, everything is present in the HTML reports). but if the -nohtml flag is given? no HTML reports, none, zero, nada.
• if set to "false", and the -html flag is not given when calling innreport, no HTML reports get generated. but if the -html flag is given, HTML reports get generated — only the sections individually having html set to "true" in the display configuration file will be present in the reports.

iykyk 😌

html_body

specifies additional elements to append to the "<body>" tag of HTML reports. unset by default.

⚠️ heads up bestie: using this option leads to invalid XHTML. instead, you should provide a custom CSS file using the html_css_url option. do not come for me, I'm just the messenger 😭

html_css_url

specifies the name of a CSS file used to apply a custom style to HTML reports. the file lives in the directory set with the html_dir option. it may also be a URL, in which case the file can be chilling in another location entirely.

if unset — which is the default — innreport creates a default innreport.css custom style sheet in html_dir and uses it for HTML reports. cute of it 🎀

and if you wanna supply your own style, go peek at what's defined in the default CSS and the HTML reports, then adapt it for your needs. one thing though: across several innreport releases the classes may change, so make sure to keep old class definitions for backward compatibility with previously generated HTML reports that still refer to that custom file. don't break the old ones, fr fr.

html_dir

sets the directory for web pages when HTML reports are enabled. default is the value of pathhttp as set in inn.conf.

-dir flag on innreport(8) takes precedence over the config file.

html_file_extension

defines the file extension of generated HTML reports, if enabled. a dot (".") should begin the extension. default is ".html".

you may wanna use ".xhtml" instead so the web server serves the correct MIME type, since innreport generates XHTML 1.1 pages ✨

html_footer_file

specifies the name of a file in html_dir whose contents get appended just before the "</body>" tag of each HTML report. unset by default.

html_header_file

specifies the name of a file in html_dir whose contents get appended just after the "<body>" tag of each HTML report. unset by default.

html-unknown

whether to report unknown entries from news log files in HTML reports, when set to "true". by default, this option takes the same value as the one for text plain reports (as set with the unknown option). besties matching besties 💖

-[no]html-unknown flag on innreport(8) takes precedence over the config file.

html_xsl_url

specifies the name of an XSL file used to apply styling operations to HTML reports. the file lives in the directory set with the html_dir option. it may also be a URL, in which case the file may be somewhere else entirely.

this option is unset by default. when set, a corresponding XML style sheet declaration is added to HTML reports. it may be useful for XHTML compliance with older browsers — see <https://www.w3.org/MarkUp/2004/xhtml-faq#ie>.

more generally, if you're into XSL transformation, you might wanna have a look at innreport-filter.xslt provided in the contrib directory. go explore 🦋

img_dir

sets the web path for pictures in HTML pages when HTML reports are enabled and graphs are wanted. the path is relative to the directory set with the html_dir option. default is "pics".

-webpath flag on innreport(8) takes precedence over the config file.

index

sets the name of the index web page when HTML reports are enabled. default is "index.html".

you may wanna use "index.xhtml" instead so the web server serves the correct MIME type, since innreport generates XHTML 1.1 pages 🌸

-index flag on innreport(8) takes precedence over the config file.

libpath

defines the directory where the Perl module set with the module option lives. this option is mandatory, and usually set to the same value as pathlib in inn.conf.

logpath

defines the directory where the log file for newsgroups not locally carried by the news server lives — that's the file set with the unwanted_log option. this option is mandatory, and usually set to the same value as pathlog in inn.conf.

max_unknown

how many unrecognized entries from news log files to report, when the unknown or html-unknown options are set. default is "50". using "-1" means there's no limit at all — chaos mode activated 😈

-maxunrec flag on innreport(8) takes precedence over the config file.

module

defines the Perl module used by innreport to parse and summarize log files. this option is mandatory, and usually set to "innreport_inn". this value should not normally be changed unless you know exactly what you're doing — like, truly, this is not the moment for experimental vibes. the Perl module that gets loaded is module.pm located in the directory set with the libpath option.

separator

sets the separator between hours, minutes and seconds in file names when HTML reports are enabled and archived. default is "." since ":" may not be properly read by all web browsers.

⚠️ be careful not to use "/" as a separator, and use only a valid file name character. seriously. don't do it 💀

-separator flag on innreport(8) takes precedence over the config file.

text

this is a mandatory option with no default value. no cap.

• if set to "true", innreport prints its text report to standard output. that report won't contain sections individually having text set to "false" in the display configuration file (by default, everything is present in the text report).
• if set to "false", innreport only prints to standard output the sections individually having text set to "true" in the display configuration file (by default, the text report will be empty).

title

specifies the text used as the first words of text and HTML reports, plus in the title of HTML reports. by default, "Daily Usenet report" is used. a classic 👑

transparent

if set to "true", the background of generated graphs in HTML reports becomes transparent. default is "false". omg imagine the layering possibilities ✨

unknown

whether to report unknown entries from news log files in plain text reports, when set to "true". this option is enabled by default — so yeah, it's on unless you say otherwise.

-[no]unknown flag on innreport(8) takes precedence over the config file.

unwanted_log

defines the name of the file innreport uses to keep a count of the number of articles that were rejected because they were posted to newsgroups that don't exist in the active file of the news server. this file gets updated by innreport while it processes the news.notice log file, and it's maintained in reverse numeric order (most popular rejected group first, obviously 💅).

this option is mandatory, and usually set to "unwanted.log". this value should not normally be changed unless you know exactly what you're doing. the file lives in the directory set with the logpath option.

⚠️ note that logtrash has to be set to true in inn.conf for this file to even get generated. otherwise it's just… nothing. 🫠

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🌈 HISTORY 🌈

Written by Julien Elie for InterNetNews. king behaviour, honestly 👑

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💜 SEE ALSO 💜

• innreport(8).

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and that's the whole page, bestie! this one comes from INN 2.7.4, dated 2023-03-07 — so go forth, configure your innreport.conf with confidence, and remember: every single flag we talked about is real, none of them are made up, and the CLI flags always win over the config file. slay 🎀✨🦋