Sharing .newsrc.eld files

Sharing .newsrc.eld files

[Rick Payne]

I have two synchronised news servers (one on my main machine, and a slave
on my portable). I'm gating mailing lists into these, so I can catch up on
my news/mail whilst travelling.

Is there any known way to synchronise the .newsrc.eld files, or can I make
Gnus read 2 .newsrc.eld files? The two news servers keep article-id's in
sync.

Thanks,

Rick

Re: Sharing .newsrc.eld files

[Kai.Grossjohann]

Rick Payne <rickp@rossfell.co.uk> writes:

  > Is there any known way to synchronise the .newsrc.eld files, or can I make
  > Gnus read 2 .newsrc.eld files? The two news servers keep article-id's in
  > sync.

The name of the news server does not appear in (my) .newsrc.eld, so
why don't you just use one file for both servers?

kai
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Re: Sharing .newsrc.eld files

[Rick Payne]

Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE writes:

> The name of the news server does not appear in (my) .newsrc.eld, so why
> don't you just use one file for both servers?

Thats possible - but would require me to stop reading news on one machine,
copy the file over etc.

I was wondering if there was a way of merging in a .newsrc.eld file? I
tried calling gnus-read-newsrc-el-file but I think thats more for the
initial internal setup.

Your other suggestion doesn't help, as I read from the local spools on both
machines.

Thanks

Rick

Re: Sharing .newsrc.eld files

[Kai.Grossjohann]

Rick Payne <rickp@rossfell.co.uk> writes:

  > Thats possible - but would require me to stop reading news on one
  > machine, copy the file over etc.

Oh, I see now.  Hm.  If you have NFS between the two machines, maybe
the following works?

Before loading (!) Gnus, you set gnus-home-directory to
"/user@host:/path/to/dir/" and rely on ange-ftp to access all files
relevant to Gnus.

Dunno if this works.  First, you might wish to try to create a new
local dir and move all Gnus-related files and directories there, then
try starting Gnus with gnus-home-directory set to that local
directory.  Then, you can try the ange-ftp trick on the other machine.

kai
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Re: Sharing .newsrc.eld files

[Kai Blauberg]

Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE writes:

> Before loading (!) Gnus, you set gnus-home-directory to
> "/user@host:/path/to/dir/" and rely on ange-ftp to access all files
> relevant to Gnus.

Great to hear!

> 
> Dunno if this works.  First, you might wish to try to create a new
> local dir and move all Gnus-related files and directories there, then
> try starting Gnus with gnus-home-directory set to that local
> directory.  Then, you can try the ange-ftp trick on the other machine.

However I do not get it working, neither with 5.6.23 nor with 0.84 under
GNU Emacs 20.3.1 (sparc-sun-solaris2.7, X toolkit).

I try first the local directory alternative, and move the .gnus and .newsrc* 
files into the directory and specify the directory with setq in the scratch 
buffer. The variable is set, F1-v has the correct value. When I start gnus,
the .gnus is read only from the alternate directory, if the path does not 
contain a slash as the last string. If the slash is included into the string
no .gnus is read. In the next stage I see that gnus treats me 
as a first time user, so the .newsrc.eld file from the alternae directory is 
not read. If I save the .newsrc file it is saved into my original home directory.

The same behaviour I can observe with the ange-ftp alternative. Here also
the .newsrc.eld file is saved under my local home directory.

Does somebody have a suggestion to get this going?

Kai Blauberg

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Kai Blauberg				Email:	kai.blauberg@metla.fi
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Re: Sharing .newsrc.eld files

[Kai.Grossjohann]

Kai Blauberg <kai.blauberg@metla.fi> writes:

  > I try first the local directory alternative, and move the .gnus
  > and .newsrc* files into the directory and specify the directory
  > with setq in the scratch buffer. The variable is set, F1-v has the
  > correct value. When I start gnus, the .gnus is read only from the
  > alternate directory, if the path does not contain a slash as the
  > last string. If the slash is included into the string no .gnus is
  > read. In the next stage I see that gnus treats me as a first time
  > user, so the .newsrc.eld file from the alternae directory is not
  > read. If I save the .newsrc file it is saved into my original home
  > directory.

Please note that the variable is a bit fragile.  You must not have any
part of Gnus loaded when you set the variable.  Did you start a fresh
Emacs to test this, and did you put the setq early enough in the
.emacs file?

I think you should start by getting the local part working, then worry
about the ange-ftp part only when the local part works.

I haven't actually tested any of this, though.  But
gnus-home-directory is documented to do what I said, so if it doesn't,
that must be a bug and maybe it should be reported?

kai
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Re: Sharing .newsrc.eld files

[Kai Blauberg]

Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE writes:

> Please note that the variable is a bit fragile.  You must not have any
> part of Gnus loaded when you set the variable.  Did you start a fresh
> Emacs to test this, and did you put the setq early enough in the
> .emacs file?

Yes, I did this. I evaluated the expression in the scratch buffer, later
I put the setq in the top of my .emacs. There is just no difference in
the outcome. It seems that the .newsrc.eld is not read from the alternate
location.

> 
> I think you should start by getting the local part working, then worry
> about the ange-ftp part only when the local part works.
> 
> I haven't actually tested any of this, though.  But
> gnus-home-directory is documented to do what I said, so if it doesn't,
> that must be a bug and maybe it should be reported?

This most likely a bug.

Kai

> 
> kai
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Kai Blauberg				Email:	kai.blauberg@metla.fi
Finnish Forest Research Institute	WWW: 	http://www.metla.fi/
Unioninkatu 40 A			Tel.:	+358-9-857 05 1
FIN-00170 Helsinki 			Fax:	+358-9-857 05 717

Re: Sharing .newsrc.eld files

[Kai.Grossjohann]

Rick Payne <rickp@rossfell.co.uk> writes:

  > Is there any known way to synchronise the .newsrc.eld files, or can I make
  > Gnus read 2 .newsrc.eld files? The two news servers keep article-id's in
  > sync.

Another thing which came to my mind: if your select method is

(setq gnus-select-method '(nntp "news.foo.com"))

then Gnus will read ~/.newsrc-news.foo.com.eld if this file exists.
That way, you can exit Gnus, change gnus-select-method, and reenter
Gnus, and read two different .newsrc.eld files.

kai
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