A News Server that sends discussion groups to another server communicates with the receiving server about when to create a discussion group, delete an outdated discussion group, cancel an article, and so on. This information is transmitted in articles that are called control articles.
Control articles are sent just like other news articles and are stored in the control discussion group. The RFC 1036 defines the format for these articles. Control articles are sent with a control header or a subject header that starts with the characters CSMG.
Generally, control articles are sent automatically as the result of an administrative action you perform. For example, when you create a discussion group, a newgroup control article is sent to your server to create the discussion group.
The following control articles are supported by the News Server.
The rmgroup and newgroup control articles apply to a specific discussion group sent from a specific replication host. The other three control articles specify information about replications in general.
You can specify how you want your News Server to handle control articles that it receives. It is possible to handle control articles differently from each remote host.
If you want manual control over articles, you can specify that control articles be e-mailed to you for immediate appraisal on an individual basis. If you choose this option, you become a moderator for your News Server. For each control article you receive, you can decide whether you want to allow the action to be performed on your News Server. If you do not want the action to be performed, you can ignore the request. If you want the action to be performed, you must save the article as a file, edit it, and post it via your NT console. For more information about moderating, refer to Moderating a Discussion Group.
You can specify that control articles be entered into the server log so you can quickly review them in their entirety and choose whether to accept them or not. You can choose the logging option if you do not plan on changing the discussion groups and articles your News Server offers, but just want to be aware of what remote servers are sending you.
If you do not want manual control over any action that can affect your News Server, you can specify that control articles should be handled automatically as they are received. In general, it is easier to administer replicated internal discussion groups if you allow control articles to be executed automatically.
You can also specify that your News Server ignore control articles. For example, if you do not want discussion groups created on your server, you can specify to ignore newgroup control articles.
To specify how to handle control articles:
From the General Administration page, click the News Server server name button > Discussion Replication > Control Article Handling.
Click the Checkgroups drop-down list > select how you want checkgroups to be handled.
You specify the admin e-mail address in the Mail Notices to News Administrator form (from the News Server interface, click Reports > Mail Notices).
Click the Sendsys drop-down list > select how you want sendsys to be handled.
Click the Version drop-down list > select how you want version to be handled.
Click OK.
The handling of newgroup and rmgroup is specified in the Configure Replication Host form (from the News Server interface, click Discussion Replication > Configure Replication Host).