public-inbox-init1

Usage

Overview

Creates an empty public-inbox or reinitializes an existing one. It updates "~/.public-inbox/config" by creating a "[publicinbox "NAME"]" section where "publicinbox.NAME.inboxdir" is "INBOX_DIR", "publicinbox.NAME.url" is "HTTP_URL", and "publicinbox.NAME.address" is "ADDRESS". Multiple addresses may be specified for inboxes with multiple addresses.

Options

-V FORMAT_VERSION

--version FORMAT_VERSION

Specify 2 here to use the scalable public-inbox-v2-format(5) if you have DBD::SQLite installed.

The default is 1 for the old public-inbox-v1-format(5), but 2 is strongly recommended for scalability if you have DBD::SQLite.

Default: 1

-L <basic|medium|full>

--indexlevel <basic|medium|full>

Controls the indexing level for public-inbox-index(1)

See public-inbox-config(5) for more information.

Default: "full"

--ng NEWSGROUP

--newsgroup NEWSGROUP

The NNTP group name for use with public-inbox-nntpd(8). This may be any newsgroup name with hierarchies delimited by ".". For example, the newsgroup for <mailto:[email protected]> is: "inbox.comp.mail.public-inbox.meta"

This may be set after-the-fact via "publicinbox.$NAME.newsgroup" in the configuration file. See public-inbox-config(5) for more info.

Available in public-inbox 1.6.0+.

Default: none.

-c KEY=VALUE

Allow setting arbitrary configs as "publicinbox.$NAME.$KEY". This is idempotent for the same "VALUE", but allows setting multiple values for keys such as "publicinbox.$NAME.url" and "publicinbox.$NAME.watch".

--skip-artnum

This option allows archivists to publish incomplete archives with only new mail while allowing NNTP article numbers to be reserved for yet-to-be-archived old mail.

This is mainly intended for users of "--skip-epoch" (documented below) but may be of use to public-inbox-v1-format(5) users.

There is no automatic way to use reserved NNTP article numbers when old mail is found, yet.

Available in public-inbox 1.6.0+.

Default: unset, no NNTP article numbers are skipped

-S

--skip-epoch

For "-V2" (public-inbox-v2-format(5)) inboxes only, this option allows archivists to publish incomplete archives with newer mail while allowing "0.git" (or "1.git" and so on) epochs to be added-after-the-fact (without affecting "git clone" followers).

Available since public-inbox 1.2.0.

Default: unset, no epochs are skipped

-j JOBS

--jobs=JOBS

Control the number of Xapian index shards in a "-V2" (public-inbox-v2-format(5)) inbox.

It can be useful to use a single shard ("-j1") for inboxes on high-latency storage (e.g. rotational HDD) unless the system has enough RAM to cache 5-10x the size of the git repository.

Another approach for HDDs is to use the "publicInbox.indexSequentialShard" in public-inbox-index(1) option and many shards, so each shard may fit into the kernel page cache. Unfortunately, excessive shards slows down read-only query performance.

For fast storage, it is generally not useful to specify higher values than the default due to the top-level producer process being a bottleneck.

Default: the number of online CPUs, up to 4 (3 shard workers, 1 producer)

--skip-docdata

Do not store document data in Xapian, reducing Xapian storage overhead by around 1.5%.

Warning: this option prevents rollbacks to public-inbox 1.5.0 and earlier.

Available in public-inbox 1.6.0+.

Environment

PI_CONFIG

Used to override the default "~/.public-inbox/config" value.

Limitations

Some of the options documented in public-inbox-config(5) require editing the config file. Old versions lack the "--ng"/"--newsgroup" parameter

See public-inbox-config(5) for all the options which may be applied to a given inbox.

Contact

Feedback welcome via plain-text mail to <mailto:[email protected]>

The mail archives are hosted at <https://public-inbox.org/meta/> and <http://4uok3hntl7oi7b4uf4rtfwefqeexfzil2w6kgk2jn5z2f764irre7byd.onion/meta/>