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TESTHOST(1)            DragonFly General Commands Manual           TESTHOST(1)

NAME
       testhost - test the status of an NNTP news server

SYNOPSIS
       testhost hostname [ -a|-n date time |-o ] [ -M ] [ -s|-S filename ] [
       -e|-E filename ] [ -N port_number ] [ -U userid ] [ -P password ] [ -Q
       ] [ -l phrase_file ] [ -T timeout ] [ -d ] [ -q ] [ -z ]

OPTIONS
       -a     Get the active list from hostname

       -d

       This option tells testhost get the descriptions of the newsgroups on
       the remote server by sending the 'list newsgroups' command.  The remote
       server may or may not support this command.

       -e | -E filename

       These options will send all error messages (normally displayed on
       stderr), to an alternate file.  The lower case version, -e, will send
       the error messages to the compiled-in default defined in suck_config.h.
       The default is suck.errlog.  The upper case version, -E, requires the
       filename parameter.  All error messages will then be sent to this file.

       -l phrase_file

       This option tells testhost to load in an alternate phrase file, instead
       of using the built-in messages.  This allows you to have testhost print
       phrases in another language, or to allow you to customize the messages
       without re-building.  See the "FOREIGN LANGUAGE PHRASES" in suck.1 for
       more details.

       -n date time

       Get the newgroups created on the host since the date and time
       specified. The date must be in YYMMDD format and the time must be in
       HHMMSS format.

       -N port_number

       This option will tell testhost to use an alternate NNRP port number
       when connecting to the host, instead of the default, 119.

       -q

       This option tells testhost to not display the connection and
       announcement messages, rather only display the results of the actual
       command run.

       -s | -S filename

       These options will send all status messages (normally displayed on
       stdout), to an alternate file.  The lower case version, -s, will send
       the status messages to the compiled-in default defined in
       suck_config.h.  The default is /dev/null, so no status messages will be
       displayed.  The upper case version, -S, requires the filename
       parameter.  All status messages will then be sent to this file.

       -T

       This option overrides the compiled-in TIMEOUT value. This is how long
       testhost waits for data from the remote host before timing out and
       aborting.

       -U userid

       -P password

       These two options let you specify a userid and password, if your NNTP
       server requires them.

       -Q

       This option tells testhost to use the environment variable NNTP_USER &
       NNTP_PASS to specify a userid and password, if your NNTP server
       requires them.  This option is provided so that the userid & password
       can't be seen with the ps command, a potential security problem.

       -z

       This options tells testhost to use SSL to talk to the remote server, if
       testhost was compiled with SSL.

DESCRIPTION
       Testhost will query a NNTP news server, specified by hostname.

       The hostname may optionally include the port number in the form
       Host:Port.Iftheportnumberisincluded,theportnumberspecified by the -N
       option will be ignored.

       The default action is to issue the help command to the server, to see
       what software it is running and what commands it accepts.

       If the -a option is used, testhost will display the server's active
       history list.  If the -n date time option is used, testhost will
       display all new groups created on the server since the date and time
       specified.  If the -o option is used, then testhost will display the
       overview format, which is what the XOVER command returns.

       If the -M option is used, the command will be preceded with the "mode
       reader" command, which might be needed by some servers.

EXIT VALUES
       0 on success, -1 on failure.

SEE ALSO
       suck(1), rpost(1), lpost(1).

                                                                   TESTHOST(1)