When looking at my active file in vi I am seeing this...

free.fr.test.ÏÏ<84>Ï<86>-8 0000000000 0000000001 y

I don't seem to be able to get rid of it with ctlinnd rmgroup.

I tried create a script file to do it, obviously replacing <84> by
using ^Vx84 and ^Vx86 in vi but to no avail. Any suggestions?

Thanks,

--
End Of The Line BBS - Plano, TX
telnet endofthelinebbs.com 23

Hi Nigel,

> When looking at my active file in vi I am seeing this...
>
> free.fr.test.ÏÏ<84>Ï<86>-8 0000000000 0000000001 y
>
> I don't seem to be able to get rid of it with ctlinnd rmgroup.

Looks like a problem of encoding. The ctlinnd rmgroup command should
provide the same newsgroup name as the one in your active file.
If your terminal uses a different encoding than the one of the active
file you're reading, then some characters may be encoded twice, and INN
does not find the given newsgroup name on command line.

--
Julien ÉLIE

« Traversez la rivière en foule, le crocodile ne vous mangera pas. »
(proverbe malgache)

On Wed, 05 Apr 2023 17:53:26, Julien ÉLIE <iulius@nom-de-mon-site.com.invalid> wrote:
>> free.fr.test.ÏÏ<84>Ï<86>-8 0000000000 0000000001 y
>>
>> I don't seem to be able to get rid of it with ctlinnd rmgroup.
>
> Looks like a problem of encoding. The ctlinnd rmgroup command should
> provide the same newsgroup name as the one in your active file.
> If your terminal uses a different encoding than the one of the active
> file you're reading, then some characters may be encoded twice, and INN
> does not find the given newsgroup name on command line.

news% ctlinnd rmgroup $(awk '/^free\.fr\.test\./ { print $1; }' /var/lib/news/active)
Ok

did the job for me.

Nigel Reed <sysop@endofthelinebbs.com> wrote:

> When looking at my active file in vi I am seeing this...
>
> free.fr.test.??<84>?<86>-8 0000000000 0000000001 y

Maybe this will do the trick?

echo -ne "%s" | xargs -0 ctlinnd rmgroup

Where %s is a group name with all non-printable characters replaced with
their hex equivalents (\x84 for example).

On Wed, 5 Apr 2023 17:53:26 +0200
Julien ÉLIE <iulius@nom-de-mon-site.com.invalid> wrote:

> Hi Nigel,
>
> > When looking at my active file in vi I am seeing this...
> >
> > free.fr.test.ÏÏ<84>Ï<86>-8 0000000000 0000000001 y
> >
> > I don't seem to be able to get rid of it with ctlinnd rmgroup.
>
> Looks like a problem of encoding. The ctlinnd rmgroup command should
> provide the same newsgroup name as the one in your active file.
> If your terminal uses a different encoding than the one of the active
> file you're reading, then some characters may be encoded twice, and
> INN does not find the given newsgroup name on command line.
>

I hate encoding with a passion...can't we all just get along! My active
file had fileencoding set to latin1 and my script to delete the group
was utf-8. Once I changed that to latin1 it worked. Thanks for the hint.

It's amazing how much crap has built up in the active group over the
years, not so much the obsolete groups, but groups that have invalid
characters, end in a period, some group names are truncated, etc. While
my server isn't perfect, I've tried to clean a lot of stuff up.

I've removed all the binary and picture groups I could identify, any
groups that don't contain a-z A-z 0-9 or +-_, those with a period at
the end, some groups with truncated names, pedo groups (except those
naming pedophiles) most of the alt.hipcrime and numerous variations
thereof.

My peers are welcome to pull my list and sync with it, and I especially
appreciate feedback to fix anything else that's spotted. I will be
running the scripts to cleanup obsolete/incorrect groups as and when
they get identified. Anyone else interested is also welcome to a copy.

Also, I have yet to update the newsgroups file but I should have that
done this evening.

newsfeed.endofthelinebbs.com port 119

Note, I have a lot of blocked netblocks due to abuse from shared
hosting/vps providers. If you find you're blocked, drop me a note at
sysop at the endoftheline and I'll put an exception rule in for you.

OK, that's all :)

Thanks,

--
End Of The Line BBS - Plano, TX
telnet endofthelinebbs.com 23

Nigel Reed <sysop@endofthelinebbs.com> writes:

> It's amazing how much crap has built up in the active group over the
> years, not so much the obsolete groups, but groups that have invalid
> characters, end in a period, some group names are truncated, etc. While
> my server isn't perfect, I've tried to clean a lot of stuff up.

Yeah, the code that maintains the ftp.isc.org active file goes to quite
some lengths to try to filter out all that crap. But not all the other
spite groups and random personal insults disguised as group names and
similar junk.

(Personally, I just don't carry free.* at all and only add alt.* groups
that look specifically interesting, but I've never liked free-for-all
group creation so this probably isn't news to anyone.)

> My peers are welcome to pull my list and sync with it, and I especially
> appreciate feedback to fix anything else that's spotted. I will be
> running the scripts to cleanup obsolete/incorrect groups as and when
> they get identified. Anyone else interested is also welcome to a copy.

You may find the logic in control-archive worth reviewing, although it's
not as comprehensive as what you've mentioned.

https://github.com/rra/control-archive/blob/master/scripts/process-control#L256

--
Russ Allbery (eagle@eyrie.org) <https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>

Please post questions rather than mailing me directly.
<https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/faqs/questions.html> explains why.

On Wed, 5 Apr 2023 19:37:12 -0000 (UTC)
gof-cut-this-news@cut-this-chmurka.net.invalid (Adam W.) wrote:

> Nigel Reed <sysop@endofthelinebbs.com> wrote:
>
> > When looking at my active file in vi I am seeing this...
> >
> > free.fr.test.??<84>?<86>-8 0000000000 0000000001 y
>
> Maybe this will do the trick?
>
> echo -ne "%s" | xargs -0 ctlinnd rmgroup
>
> Where %s is a group name with all non-printable characters replaced
> with their hex equivalents (\x84 for example).

Thanks but it's sorted.
--
End Of The Line BBS - Plano, TX
telnet endofthelinebbs.com 23