The program provides a better way to handling batching of USENET news
to neighboring sites.  IT works with 2.10B and later, including
2.10.3B, which provides compression batching.

Please send any questions and bug reports to me (bpa!espo) for
distribution to the net.  This software is public domain, and cannot be
sold for any profit.

Nbatcher was written for UNIX (trademark of AT&T) System V, but should
be compatible with most version currently being used today.  It is
presently running on a VAX (trademark of DEC) 11/780 feeding 5 remote
sites with news.  Two important issues MUST be noted here.

Since nbatcher checks the UUCP directory for each site listed in the
control file, directory configuration should be UUCPDIR/sitename, e.g.
/usr/spool/uucp/foo for site foo.  But since not everyone is generic,
I've allowed nbatcher to skip over the UUCP byte counting routine if
this is not so.  In addition to this, some uucpcleanup daemons remove
the site directory if there's nothing spooled there.  When this
happens, nbatcher will notify you of this and continue on.

The other issue is that you MUST configure your NEWSLIB/sys file using the
batch syntax as described in the USENET Installation document.  Field 3
should contain the `F' flag indicating a batched transmission for that
site and field 4 should contain the filename where news article's full
pathname will be appended to.  Nbatcher requires that the filename in
field 4 match the sitename in the control file.  For example, the entry:
	foo:net,mod,usa,na,to.foo:F:/usr/spool/batchnews/foo
says that all news articles going to site `foo' will be batched, using
the file `foo' in /usr/spool/batchnews.  Nbatcher's control file entry:
	foo:3,14,22:16:150000:
will get the news article's full pathname from /usr/spool/batchnews/foo
for batching.  This requirement MUST be adhered to for nbatcher to work
correctly.  I believe most sites that batch news use this type of
configuration, since its easy to keep track of a remote site's work.
Note that the name of the directory "/usr/spool/batchnews" is set
in the Makefile.

The manual page describes the control file, as does nbatcher.doc.  Note
that even though nbatcher indicates max bytes has been reached, if that
site gets compressed batches, the next time nbatcher runs for that site
work could get scheduled.

Also included is a utility program called "bst," BatchSTatus, which
shows who many news articles are currently in the batch file for each
system.  Just type "make bst" for that and copy it to where you want,
usually LIBDIR.  Note that bst does reads on the directory structure
directly.

Installation is simple:  look at the first few #define's in nbatcher.h;
also edit the Makefile for the appropriate BATCHDIR and LIBDIR for your
site.  Type "make" or "make install."

NOTE:  Read the comments in parse.c concerning MAX_BYTES.  This is the
maximum amount of bytes per site that's allowed in the control file for
m_bytes.  Change it at your own risk!

    Bob Esposito   bpa!espo
    Bell of Penna.
