
                       README FOR 'REBATCH' VERSION 1.0
                             (12TH FEBRUARY 1995)
                                       
   No responsibility is taken by the author for the consequences of using
   this software. All trademarks are acknowledged.
   
   Comments, complains, suggestions, bug fixes can be made to the author:
   
     Russell Street (r.street@auckland.ac.nz)
     
Contents

     * Introduction
     * Requirements
     * Credits
     * Availability and Distribution
       
   
     _________________________________________________________________
   
Introduction

   rebatch is a script that cleans up after nntplink. When nntplink is
   run in 'stdin' mode as a channel feed from InterNetNews (INN), it can
   leave batch files of articles it was unable to send in the out.going
   directory.
   
   A program external to nntplink needs to clean these files up. nntplink
   comes with such a program, called links but the I was unhappy with it.
   
   
   rebatch is designed to be run from a crontab and will collect into a
   single batch file all of the files nntplink will leave behind. The
   companion script where.to will tell you how many articles in the
   rebatch batch files, how many have been transmitted and the estimated
   time to completion based on the average transmission rate.
   
   See the file INSTALLATION for details of how to install, test and run
   rebatch. See the file THEORY for details on how the package interacts
   with INN and nntplink.
     _________________________________________________________________
   
Requirements

   Both of these scripts require Perl and its libraries to be installed
   on your system. It runs under both Perl 4.036 and Perl 5.000 without
   modification.
   
   rebatch has only been tested with INN 1.4 and nntplink. I use nntplink
   3.3beta1PL3 (22-Jun-94) on Solaris 2.3. I have used it with nntplink
   3.2.
   
   Success has also been reported on:
     * HP/UX 9.00 (with Perl 4.035)
       
   
     _________________________________________________________________
   
Credits

   rebatch was written solely by Russell Street.
   
   Much inspiration was taken from INN, especially nntpsend and shlock.
   
   Many thanks to my beta tester(s)
     * SO Kwok-tsun, Alan <ktso@decmgt.csc.cuhk.hk>
       
   
   
   The documentation was written in html and nroff man macros. The plain
   text of the version of the html files was produced with lynx.
   
Availability and Distribution

   An up-to-date copy of this package should be available from:
   
     ftp://ftp.auckland.ac.nz/pub/news/rebatch.tar.gz
     
   and online documentation from
   
     http://www.auckland.ac.nz/cc/People/RS/rebatch/
     
   rebatch may be freely distributed in its unmodified form. If you
   modify rebatch, and redistribute the modified package, you must
   clearly document your changes and make it clear that it is modified
   and where to get the original. Please give me credit for the work I
   have put into this.
     _________________________________________________________________
   
    Part of the rebatch package
    Russell Street (r.street@auckland.ac.nz)
    Last updated: 12th February 1995
