From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.emacs.gnus.general/60576 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: david@adboyd.com (J. David Boyd) Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.gnus.general Subject: Re: backing up read messages, and subscribed lists. Date: Fri, 15 Jul 2005 14:33:29 -0400 Message-ID: <81mzonj4w6.fsf@adboyd.com> References: <813bqivjvo.fsf@adboyd.com> <4nackojd23.fsf@lifelogs.com> <81oe94xe9a.fsf@adboyd.com> <4n3bqghvtg.fsf@lifelogs.com> <81k6jsxblp.fsf@adboyd.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: main.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1121452555 15709 80.91.229.2 (15 Jul 2005 18:35:55 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 15 Jul 2005 18:35:55 +0000 (UTC) Original-X-From: ding-owner+M9104@lists.math.uh.edu Fri Jul 15 20:35:47 2005 Return-path: Original-Received: from malifon.math.uh.edu ([129.7.128.13]) by ciao.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1DtV25-0001UR-D3 for ding-account@gmane.org; Fri, 15 Jul 2005 20:35:33 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.math.uh.edu ident=lists) by malifon.math.uh.edu with smtp (Exim 3.20 #1) id 1DtV0W-0006KS-00; Fri, 15 Jul 2005 13:33:56 -0500 Original-Received: from util2.math.uh.edu ([129.7.128.23]) by malifon.math.uh.edu with esmtp (Exim 3.20 #1) id 1DtV0R-0006KN-00 for ding@lists.math.uh.edu; Fri, 15 Jul 2005 13:33:51 -0500 Original-Received: from quimby.gnus.org ([80.91.224.244]) by util2.math.uh.edu with esmtp (Exim 4.30) id 1DtV0O-0001Ws-1c for ding@lists.math.uh.edu; Fri, 15 Jul 2005 13:33:48 -0500 Original-Received: from main.gmane.org ([80.91.229.2] helo=ciao.gmane.org) by quimby.gnus.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 1DtV0M-0002V0-00 for ; Fri, 15 Jul 2005 20:33:46 +0200 Original-Received: from list by ciao.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.43) id 1DtV08-00016b-IJ for ding@gnus.org; Fri, 15 Jul 2005 20:33:32 +0200 Original-Received: from rrcs-67-78-201-138.se.biz.rr.com ([67.78.201.138]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Fri, 15 Jul 2005 20:33:32 +0200 Original-Received: from david by rrcs-67-78-201-138.se.biz.rr.com with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Fri, 15 Jul 2005 20:33:32 +0200 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ Original-To: ding@gnus.org Original-Lines: 54 Original-X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: rrcs-67-78-201-138.se.biz.rr.com User-Agent: Gnus/5.11 (Gnus v5.11) Emacs/22.0.50 (cygwin) Cancel-Lock: sha1:9Z+MBtcPobCrGIrSDHznhvS29/w= X-Spam-Score: -4.9 (----) Precedence: bulk Original-Sender: ding-owner@lists.math.uh.edu Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.gnus.general:60576 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.gnus.general:60576 "Steven E. Harris" writes: > david@adboyd.com (J. David Boyd) writes: > >> It's no problem at all to set up a script that sends over my >> newsrc.eld right at the end of the work day, and retrieves it from >> home at the beginning of the work day. > > But that's not enough, and won't work properly if you use the agent > for your IMAP groups. We've been over this a few times over the last > couple of years. > > At present I use unison (rsync works fine too) to synchronize > everything under ~/doc/news, excluding ~/doc/news/agent. I used to > synchronize ~/.newsrc and ~/.newsrc.eld, but was advised against > it. Supposedly the per-backend marks files take care of whatever state > is represented in .newsrc.eld. > > However, you'll find that your IMAP groups don't behave properly after > this kind of syncing. New messages appear as expected, but Gnus loses > track of which read messages are on the server and which ones are > marked for expiry. > > For example, if at work you received and read three new messages, then > go home and synchronize your Gnus files, you'll find that Gnus at home > won't realize that those three messages you read at work are present > on the server. You can kick it into doing so by manually running > `gnus-agent-expire-group', but this also has the unfortunate > side-effect of losing your expiry marks previously set at home.¹ > > Note that I'm not syncing the agent files. My take on it is that the > agent is good for local caching; I don't want to synchronize the > cached copies of messages I've read in one location to another. But > cached articles aside, apparently some extra files conveying some > agent-related state must be necessary to prevent the lossy behavior > I'm describing. > > > Footnotes: > ¹ Note that this is still the case even with an IMAP server that > supports user-defined flags such as "gnus-expire" and > "gnus-dormant". > Thanks for the caveat. I'm not using IMAP for mail with Gnus, just reading newsgroups, so I'm going to try and synch up the .newrc, .newsrc.eld, and files in ~/News, and see how it goes. Thanks for the lucid explanation! Dave