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(gnus)Changing Servers

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Changing Servers
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   Sometimes it is necessary to move from one NNTP server to another.
This happens very rarely, but perhaps you change jobs, or one server is
very flaky and you want to use another.

   Changing the server is pretty easy, right?  You just change
`gnus-select-method' to point to the new server?

   _Wrong!_

   Article numbers are not (in any way) kept synchronized between
different NNTP servers, and the only way Gnus keeps track of what
articles you have read is by keeping track of article numbers.  So when
you change `gnus-select-method', your `.newsrc' file becomes worthless.

   Gnus provides a few functions to attempt to translate a `.newsrc'
file from one server to another.  They all have one thing in
common--they take a looong time to run.  You don't want to use these
functions more than absolutely necessary.

   If you have access to both servers, Gnus can request the headers for
all the articles you have read and compare `Message-ID's and map the
article numbers of the read articles and article marks.  The `M-x
gnus-change-server' command will do this for all your native groups.  It
will prompt for the method you want to move to.

   You can also move individual groups with the `M-x
gnus-group-move-group-to-server' command.  This is useful if you want to
move a (foreign) group from one server to another.

   If you don't have access to both the old and new server, all your
marks and read ranges have become worthless.  You can use the `M-x
gnus-group-clear-data-on-native-groups' command to clear out all data
that you have on your native groups.  Use with caution.

   After changing servers, you *must* move the cache hierarchy away,
since the cached articles will have wrong article numbers, which will
affect which articles Gnus thinks are read.