README OR ELSE.

**************************************************************

*** NOTE ***

This code is now compiled into Diablo by default - see the
'feederfilter' option in samples/diablo.config and the ESPAM
label in samples/dnewsfeeds.

**************************************************************

This is an _experimental_ modification to Diablo.

It is not guaranteed to work.  It is not guaranteed to compile.  It may,
in fact, format your hard drives and render you sterile.

Use at your own risk.

USE AT YOUR OWN RISK.

Read the remainder of the documentation if these conditions are acceptable.
Erase it all if it's not.

You have been WARNED. - JG19980321

README.

diab-filter is a modification to Diablo to provide for an external filter
program, using a Cyclone-esque filter interface.  It has been tested 
exclusively with Cfilter, but I suspect that it would work with either
SpamHippo-for-Cyclone or CleanFeed-for-Cyclone.  (Anyone who cares to
verify this, drop a note to <jgreco@ns.sol.net>).

It is mildly different, in the following ways:

1) It currently feeds the entire body of an article to the filter program.
   This is optional behaviour with Cyclone.
2) It does not have an "early abort" feature such as Cyclone does.  My
   understanding is that a Cyclone filter may choose to return a response
   code before having read the entire article, which will cause Cyclone
   to stop sending the current article and start the next.  I'm not sure
   of the details.
3) It will attempt to respawn a failed filter process.  The respawn is
   mildly intelligent in that it will back off in the case of repeated
   failures (to avoid decimating your system).
4) It is able to use a remote filter on a remote machine.  A single TCP
   connection is utilized, and the remote filter is expected to both
   send and receive on the connection.  This could be accomplished by
   placing the filter in inetd.conf, for example.

diab-filter works by wedging itself into Diablo's main process and by
running each received article through an external filter before doing
the dnewsfeeds file processing and batching of the received article.
It does _not_ communicate the filter status back to the child process,
although this is conceivably possible.  This means that the child 
process does not "reclaim" the space occupied by the article.  diab-
filter won't save you any disk space, in other words.

Normal operation is unaffected by the presence of the filter.  Your
newsfeeds WILL NOT BE FILTERED UNLESS SPECIFIED IN dnewsfeeds!

You may tag each feed as "nospam" to eliminate articles identified
by the filter (or you may tag a subset of feeds, of course).  Or,
you may tag a feed as "onlyspam", which will result in ONLY articles
identified by the filter being sent.

Please do not write to me asking for support or "how do I..." types
of questions.  I do not have time currently to provide support for
this modification.  Ask your questions in "news.software.nntp".  If
I can answer them, I will, otherwise someone else might be able to.

I'm interested in hearing bug reports though.  :-)

INSTALL.

    To install Joe's filter, edit lib/vendor.h and add:

	#define DIABLO_FILTER	1

    Then 'xmake clean; xmake'.   If your filter is not
    /news/cfilter/run then set the path by adding a
    define in lib/vendor.h for PATH_FILTER, such as:

	#define PATH_FILTER     "/news/cfilter/run"