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

[Deepdog009]

By george i C it now, tricky aint it

Keep up the good work:banana:

[hostingforum-it]

"dkendall" can you tell me please wich of your BugFix will fixe the double posting (double message count) ? I have running this script in a subforum and it double all the post (and counts) to the main forum.

Thanks

[hostingforum-it]

ok forget what i wrote below.... it works!!!. The newsserver nedded a few mins to show the new posts.
But i have a question:
How to modify the attached message that will be send to the newsgroup It currently send this:
----------
uername Profile: http://forums.yourdomain.com.au/member.php?userid=34
View this thread: http://forums.yourdomain.com.au/showthread.php?t=3247
----------





just curiouse... how does the script post to newsgroups? it seems to post on forum but Not to the newsgroup.
The news server i use allow to post (i are able to send mails via outlook express to the newsgroup)
Thanks

[athloni]

I installed this hack and I am currently getting this error (using GigaNews)

Gateway version 2.3.2  1 group(s) gatewayed.
Could not connect to NNTP-server. (Connection timed out (110))

Not connected
Not connected

[athloni]

Someone please, I need some help. I have had some smart people look at my install and no one knows what is going on.

I am hosted at Asmallorange.com in shared hosting.



I have had a ticket escalated all the way to the admin:

I tested this out and it appears to be working. Although, I'm unfamiliar with this script. If you can do some more testing and also contact the developers of it to see what could be wrong with the server, we'd be more than happy to resolve this for you.

Regards,
Ryan

I am trying to connect to GigaNews. I have tried editing nttp.php several times to change the port to 23, 80, and 119, all of which GigaNews accepts. All of them returned the same error:

Gateway version 2.3.2 1 group(s) gatewayed.
Could not connect to NNTP-server. (Connection timed out (110))

Not connected
Not connected

[hostingforum-it]

are you able to connect to the news server though another newsreader (eg. outlook express)?

[athloni]

Originally Posted by hostingforum-it

are you able to connect to the news server though another newsreader (eg. outlook express)?

Yes.


and actually the thing 'magically' started working. Importing topics STILL

Fantastic hack.

[dkendall]

We found that some articles posted in vBulletin were not showing up in the NNTP newsgroups, and the following error was logged:

Posting Message 'Re: blah blah blah' from testuser. Result: 441 (615) Article Rejected -- Duplicate Message-ID <testuser.25r4mk@ultrasoft.com> (GLE=0)

This error is caused by the following code in sendnews in functions_nntp.php:

$msgid = $u . '.' . base_convert ($msgid_date, 10, 36) . '@'.$nntp_settings['email'];
$msgid_date++;

Note that $msgid_date is a local variable, initialized from the global $nntp['msgid_date']. The next time this function is called, it uses the same value of $nntp['msgid_date'].

Consequently, if the same user posts twice (or more) all their messages get the same Message-ID.

The fix is simple. Use the global variable instead, as follows:

$msgid = $u . '.' . base_convert ($nntp['msgid_date'], 10, 36) . '@'.$nntp_settings['email'];
$nntp['msgid_date']++;

You can also get rid of the earlier initialization of the $msgid_date local variable, as it's no longer needed.

While we don't use moderation, a similar bug would seem to be the cause of the problem Deepdog009 reported with moderated posts getting left behind when non-moderated posts are replicated (causing the last_postid to get incremented).

Again in function sendnews in functions_nntp.php, the $good_to_set_postid variable is local in scope. When a moderated post is replicated, the local variable is set to zero (false), rather than the $nntp['good_to_set_postid'] global variable.

Having done these fixes, I found an additional problem whereby replies to the posts that had failed to replicate were themselves being rejected (because their parent posts were missing in NNTP).

I worked around this by setting the last_postid value in the NNTP Gateway Settings page to zero, then re-running the gateway. It won't duplicate posts because those already sent to NNTP are flagged in the database.

Regards,
David

[athloni]

I the forums are updating at around 1 post per second. Is the the normal rate that everyone else is getting?

It seems like downloading a few hundred MB of text should take minutes... not a week. Is it because it has to put into the db and posted?

[newmomsforum]

Hey Guys, having some frustrating times with this, the latest posts are being pulled down and sync'd with my forum fine, however when I post I'm getting a 441 posting failed error:

The Full text from gateway.php?debug=1 is:

Gateway version 2.3.2 2 group(s) gatewayed.

Connecting to server, server says: 200 News.GigaNews.Com

Server responded after user name: 381 more authentication required

Server responded after password: 281 News.GigaNews.Com

Info for misc.kids.pregnancy at news.giganews.com: 211 146164 682173 828336 misc.kids.pregnancy

Can we post? server responded: 340 send article
Posting Message 'Re: Andrea update' from Claire. Result: 441 posting failed

Any ideas where I can start to look to get this sorted?

Thanks in advance

Claire.