All backend servers are configured in the servers.conf. As with most other configuration file there is one special server which is called default. The default server contains no Hostname or Groups statements, but contains all other possibly needed parameters.
The following example demonstrates the most basic configuration. A binaries server and a text server. The textserver also has the descriptions and knows about active.times.
server default Port 119 Timeout 300 Descriptions False ActiveTimes False Type Spool Policy Single Level 1 SplitList False end server bunnies Groups *bin* Hostname bin.example.com Level 100 end server tekst Groups * Hostname text.example.com Level 999 Descriptions True ActiveTimes True end
Please make sure that you retrieve active.times and newsgroups information from atleast one server. This must be done by setting the options activetimes and descriptions to true. Also note that the most significant servers are listed at the bottom and must have the highest level. If you have servers for single newsgroups or patterns thereof put them at the top and give them a lower level.
SplitList If you have a backend server which doesn't support the LIST ACTIVE command with multiple patterns, set this option to True. For Diablo put it to 1, for INN put it to 0.
You can configure backup or balanced servers by using the same Level and same Groups values. Policy can be either backup or balance. Use a separate level for each set of groups. The level must be between 1 and 1000.
The backup and balancing checks take place upon connecting to a group. Only when a group is selected nntpswitch checks if we need to (re)connect to a different backend server. A backup server is used when the primary server fails, failure is tested on every connect and the primary server will be retried first at all times. The balancing takes place by just selecting a different server on each connect. Only if one of the balancing servers failes, nntpswitch just uses the backup mechanism to find another server.
An example of 2 backup servers. Each connection will try "movies1" first. In case of some connection or NNTP error, the next server "movies2" is tried.
server movies2 Hostname movies-2.example.com Groups alt.binaries.movies*,alt.binaries.multimedia* Policy Backup Level 100 end server movies1 Hostname movies-1.example.com Groups alt.binaries.movies*,alt.binaries.multimedia* Policy Backup Level 100 end
An example of 2 load-balanced servers. Each connection to the backend server will connect to the other one.
server movies2 Hostname movies-2.example.com Groups alt.binaries.movies*,alt.binaries.multimedia* Policy Balance Level 100 end server movies1 Hostname movies-1.example.com Groups alt.binaries.movies*,alt.binaries.multimedia* Policy Balance Level 100 end
Note in the above examples, the server "movies1" is most likely used for updating the groups with the updategroups command.