ietf-nntp LIST DISTRIB.PATS example (was: Commetns on draft-15.pdf)

[Russ Allbery]

Charles Lindsey <chl at clw.cs.man.ac.uk> writes:

> P42. S9.4.4 (LIST DISTRIB.PATS)

> I am even more confused by the LIST DISTRIB.PATS command. Again, can
> someone provide me with examples of how it is actually used?

It's an informational command; the client won't actually use it to do
anything (except for some older versions of INN's inews).

200 nntp.stanford.edu InterNetNews NNRP server INN 1.7.2 08-Dec-1997 ready (posting ok).
list distrib.pats
215 Default distributions in form "weight:pattern:value".
# $Id: distrib.pats,v 2.2 1999/06/04 22:36:22 news Exp $

# Stanford local hierarchies
10:csd.*:su
10:leland.*:su
10:su.*:su

# SLAC hierarchies
10:bes.*:bes
10:cern.*:cern
10:slac.*:slac

# Other special hierarchies
90:redhat.*:redhat
.
quit
205 .

It's not generally useful, but it's the only way of finding out what
distributions the server will add automatically.  Automatically adding
distribution headers for particular hierarchies is valuable for spam
filtering purposes and for providing an additional safeguard in keeping
local articles local.

-- 
Russ Allbery (rra at stanford.edu)             <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>