NAME

SYNOPSIS

OPTIONS

-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

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

SEE ALSO