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

[esfron]

First of all, thanks for this wonderful hack. I've been using this successfully for months. However it doesn't work correctly with 3.6.

The biggest issue is when i click on the 'go to last post' button on forumhome, it says no thread specified and it leads to: /showthread.php?p=0#post0. I have noticed that last button code does not seem the same between 3.5x and 3.6: .../forum/showthread.php?goto=lastpost... and .../forum/showthread.php?p=...#post...

I didn't test mailing list, attachments, export to usenet.

Thanks for any feedback on this issue

[KW802]

Would appreciate any insight on this one...

vB 3.6.0 -- Incoming feeds are working. Outgoing feeds though are a problem. According to the logs everything is working fine... the outgoing posts are giving a status code of 240 and no errors are record.

The outgoing posts, though, never appear on the news server.

Thoughts? Anybody know of a free NNTP server that I can use for testing just to see if the problem is with my site or my news provider?

[TMM-TT]

Originally Posted by KW802

Thoughts? Anybody know of a free NNTP server that I can use for testing just to see if the problem is with my site or my news provider?

I can set up an account for you at news.tornevall.net. Just send me a PM if you're interested.

[KW802]

TMM-TT,

Thanks for the offer. I seem to have solved my issue, though. I switched from Supernews (via Forte's Agent News provider) to Giganews and everything is working fine again.

Thanks,
Kevin

[TMM-TT]

Originally Posted by KW802

Thanks for the offer. I seem to have solved my issue, though. I switched from Supernews (via Forte's Agent News provider) to Giganews and everything is working fine again.

Perfect. Just tell me if there's any interest of forum-usenet-accounts..


Another question -

When posts are made into the forum, I sometimes can see duplicate posts; just after the post, the imported one repeats itself so it looks like duplicates in the forum. Does anyone know if there's any dupechecking somewhere, or is it like this for you too?

Edit: My little solution didn't work, so I wonder if there is any other to prevent dupes instead. :P

[dethfire]

I'm finding most free servers are supporting only NNRP, any way to implement this?

[TMM-TT]

Originally Posted by dethfire

I'm finding most free servers are supporting only NNRP, any way to implement this?

200 news.tornevall.net InterNetNews NNRP server INN 2.4.3 ready (posting ok).

NNRP is the NNTP server for reader clients, that comes with the INN server package, a news-server running under Linux.

[KidCharlemane]

Are there any decent free servers for text only? I have a Giganews account but they tie you to a single IP so if youre logged in with a client on your home machine, the server cant log in to process messages.

I was hoping using their text only server they might let it slide but alas, they dont.

[dethfire]

I can't connect to anything all of a sudden. Is there something on a server that would deny access? Some security thing?

[KidCharlemane]

Anyone gotten this to work with Google Groups? Not Google's Usenet archive but the Google email groups.