NNTP Gateway for Usenet ( Newsgroups ), Mailing Lists

The latest version: V3.5.0Alpha 1 (21 Jul 2005)

What is it?

This hack provides a gateway from vBulletin forums to the USENET. It allows forum members to read newsgroup messages as well as to send posts to the newsgroups. In a nutshell, it turns vBulletin forums into a basic function news reader.

For an added bonus, this package also supports mailing list archive and forum to mailing list gateway. The software retrieves messages from a pop3 account and import them into the forums threaded. It also allows a forums user to send messages to the mailing list by the forum posting interface.

Why?

The gateway will be appreciated by forum members who do not know how to set up a news reader, or people who do not have port 119 open in their network. A forum interface to read and post news are often considered to be better than a news reader.

The gateway adds more contents to your forums and allows the members to interact with wider audience. It is common to see new users signing up to use this feature.

History

This hack was originally coded by Gilby for vB2. I modified the hack to work with vB3 and have been maintaining and improving the hack. I have now done the modification for this to work with vB3.5.

The very original hack by Gilby can be found here:

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthrea...7&page=1&pp=15

The vB3 version can be found here:

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=65152

Features

Some of the features and improvement include:

• Handles both newsgroup posts and mailing lists.
• Handles MIME encoded messages and attachment.
• Handles UUEncoded messages.
• Two Admin Control Panels for all settings.
• Automated installation.
• Correct thread implementation. All imported messages and posts sent to newsgroups will be threaded correctly according to References and Message-ID headers.
• Optional setting to thread by subject for mailing lists that strip references header.
• Imported messages will be searchable just like normal forum posts.
• Similar threads are built when the messages are imported if the system setting is on.
• Multiple attachments importing.
• Save attachment to database or file according to vB setting.
• Thumbnail created while importing image files.
• Multiple attachment post to newsgroup is also supported.
• Selectable X-No-Archive header honouring system.
• Light on system resources.
• Global Killfile to filter out unwanted messages. Killfiles can have OR and AND effectiveness.
• Strip footer by setting for incoming messages. Strips out repeated message footers.
• Built options to disable signatures and footers for out going messages.

Future development

• Traditional "> " lead posting interface.

What do you need and do not need?

You do not need to edit vB php files.
No need to manually run SQL.

Installation

Basically the AdminCP interfaces take care of installation as well as upgrade in the background. Back up your database first. The scripts can modify your database without alerting you!

Please follow the instructions in the readme.txt file for more details.

It is not a must to click "INSTALL" for this hack if you use it, I do try better answering the questions from people who do.

Support

Please post your support questions to this thread. Please check the FAQ in the second post within this thread first. It may be surprising, but it is possible your question is answered in the adminCP NNTP settings.

Please always provide more details about your problem. Examples and debug messages will certainly help. Well, if you don't even try to have some effort to compose your question, the answer you get may also not include much effort.

================== UPDATES ======================
Jul 21 2005 (release version 3.5.0 Alpha 1)

AdminCP xml file is written by Kadence.

• Ported to work with vB3.5.
• Existing bug fixes.
• Debug message can be sent by email or logged in vB Tast Scheduler.
• Known problem: image attachment thumb nail creation still needs work.
• Needs to be done: Documentation.

Quick installation instruction:
1) Upload files to their correct directory
2) Enter AdminCP, click on NNTP Settings once to install/upgrade. Change settings to your like.
3) Click on NNTP Groups once to install/upgrade.
3a) For new install. Run once
http://www.yourdomain.com/setlastmsg.php

Delete this file afterwards.
If you are upgrading from an older version. There is no need to upload this file. Actually this file should not be there except brand new install.

4)
Manually run in debug mode: http://forums.yourdomain.com/gateway.php?debug=1

[Salvar]

It is giving me the error:

Getting message number 388042:
This forum does not allow attachments, therefore attachment ignored.

Is this fixed already?

[AWS]

Originally Posted by Salvar

It is giving me the error:

Getting message number 388042:
This forum does not allow attachments, therefore attachment ignored.

Is this fixed already?

That isn't a bug. It means you don't allow attachments in your usenet forums. Enable posting of attachments and you won't get that message. The post is still being imported it is just not grabbing the attachment.

[Maddog417]

Ok, I finally got it running, which was a real chore since the readme was so out of date. I'm using this for a mailing list, not for a newsgroup. Everything seems to be working okay except that, instead of combining the messages into the appropriate thread, it wants to create a new thread for nearly every message.

Anyone else have this working correctly for a mailing list? If so, how did you get it to combine the posts into the appropriate thread instead of creating a new one? It makes it nearly impossible to follow discussions like this and, of course, threaded and hybrid mode are useless.

[toibs]

So.... Have tried reading through the first few pages from this...

I want to be able to pull pages from both a yahoo group and a Newsgroup - dont want to be able to send posts back to them as yer (tho in the future will probably want to..)

Will it do this??

Secondly, has anyone tried this under 3.5.4 yet, and does it work?

Thanks guys
Paul

[Hornstar]

The latest version: V3.5.0Alpha 1 (21 Jul 2005)

Last Update: 04. Aug 2005

I guess this is no longer being updated or supported, and for a great hack like this :/

[toibs]

Originally Posted by Maddog417

Ok, I finally got it running, which was a real chore since the readme was so out of date. I'm using this for a mailing list, not for a newsgroup. Everything seems to be working okay except that, instead of combining the messages into the appropriate thread, it wants to create a new thread for nearly every message.

Anyone else have this working correctly for a mailing list? If so, how did you get it to combine the posts into the appropriate thread instead of creating a new one? It makes it nearly impossible to follow discussions like this and, of course, threaded and hybrid mode are useless.

Yup, exactly the same problems here also - i get a new thread for each message

Anyone any clues??

The newsgroups option works a treat tho!!! Absolutely perfect!!

Paul

[bang]

maybe someone is willing to put together a working version of this hack? it is really great, exept for the fact that it's not being developed any more

[KW802]

Originally Posted by KW802

I'd be interested in seeing the modified version using class_image.php instead, doesn't matter if it's phmtl or php.

Looks like I'll be giving up on trying to get the attachments working correctly for now. I don't have time to debug it properly and nobody who claims that they've got it working properly seems interested in sharing. :ermm:

[KW802]

Originally Posted by bang

maybe someone is willing to put together a working version of this hack? it is really great, exept for the fact that it's not being developed any more

Depends upon your needs. Except for binaries it's working fine so far once you get past the initial hurdles.

[dkendall]

The initial message retrieval from NNTP is not working properly in gateway.php.

When the NNTP server replies that the min. msg index is 1 and the last fetched msg is 0, the code decides to use 1 (min) for lastmsg then iterates from lastmsg+1 to max.

To fix the problem, I changed this line of code:

$lastmsg = ($group['lastmsg'] >= $news->min()) ? $group['lastmsg'] : $news->min();

To this:

$lastmsg = ($group['lastmsg'] >= $news->min()-1) ? $group['lastmsg'] : $news->min()-1;

David