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

[Rik Brown]

Originally Posted by KW802

For the most part. The only problem I have yet is where if a new thread arrives with a subject of something like "RE: Whatever..." and "Whatever..." doesn't already exist then it seems like it keeps creating new "RE: Whatever..." threads with each import (as opposed to keeping them all together). I haven't looked at the code lately in an attempt to fix it.

Thanks for the feedback.

Regarding the "Re: " problem, I have that too. But I've been running a query against our forums after each mail exchange to remove the "Re: " in current vb thread titles before the next NNTP mail exchange. It seems to help somewhat in this respect, but not 100%.

If I get to understand PHP coding better, I'd like to alter the mod to remove the "Re: " part from all incoming titles as vb doesn't need them (and it looks better without them).

Thanks. -- Rik

[kjhkjh]

Originally Posted by Rik Brown

Donnacha:

I just upgraded to vb 3.6.4 and exported messages in debug mode. It showed the messages being exported to my newsgroup server. I also logged onto the newsgroup server with my newsgroup reader and confirmed that my messages were there and that nothing looked strange in the headers, etc. Hopefully, it was just a temporary glitch for you?

Regards. -- Rik

Have other people found this easy to install and get working with vb 3.6.4?

I think that I'm gonna try it now. Is it just the same file that I have to use as the 3.5 that is downloable from the top post?

Thanks.

[Rik Brown]

Originally Posted by kjhkjh

Have other people found this easy to install and get working with vb 3.6.4?

I think that I'm gonna try it now. Is it just the same file that I have to use as the 3.5 that is downloable from the top post?

Thanks.

It is easy to install. However, there are many mods that have been applied to this mod since the last release. You will likely want to go through the notes in this thread and apply most of the mods created by dkendall and a few others as well. It may well be that people here are operating many different versions of this mod.

As for vb 3.6.4, this mod basically works well for me but I only exchange Usenet newsgroups and do not utilize features for binary files or maillists. Others would have to give you feedback there.

Regards. -- Rik

ps: Its definitely worth the effort to get it going. We went from a few thousand messages to 450,000 online in one month.

[LPH2004]

If I use vbulletin cron then the scheduled tasks stop but using the plesk interface to setup the job fails with errors from line 1-6 about files not existing. I can manually run the gateway.php file from the browser and there is an import.

Any thoughts on the matter?

Update: The error messages:

full/path/of//gateway.php: line 1:
?php: No such file or directory
full/path/of//gateway.php: line 2: :
command not found
full/path/of//gateway.php: line 3: P:
command not found
full/path/of//gateway.php: line 4:
Release: command not found
full/path/of//gateway.php: line 5:
*/: No such file or directory
full/path/of//gateway.php: line 6:
/********************************************: No such file or directory
full/path/of//gateway.php: line 7:
syntax error near unexpected token `Usenet/Newsgroup'
full/path/of//gateway.php: line 7: `
NNTP (Usenet/Newsgroup) Gateway 1.9'

Update In Case Others See This:

The first line comes from <?php ...
The other lines are from comments in the gateway.php script. But the script does not seem to run so there must be something that I set wrong in the plesk interface.

[woodp]

Originally Posted by LPH2004

full/path/of//gateway.php: line 1:
?php: No such file or directory

That sure doesn't look like a proper path ...

Shouldn't it be more like ./gateway.php assuming you dropped the scripts in your /forum/ subdirectory?

[LPH2004]

The cronjob is definitely running every 15 minutes but with the errors and so the php file does not execute. I updated my message with the ideas that the comments in the gateway.php file are causing the error. I just removed those comments from the file and will see what the next run through says. This is what was entered into the plesk interace. Do I also need to tell it about php?

0,15,30,45 * * * * /full/path/gateway.php

Thanks for the help.

Update: OK. After removing the comments from the script ... these are the 'new' errors

full/path/of//gateway.php: line 1:
?php: No such file or directory
full/path/of//gateway.php: line 2: :
command not found
full/path/of//gateway.php: line 3:
syntax error near unexpected token `E_ALL'
full/path/of//gateway.php: line 3:
`error_reporting(E_ALL & ~E_NOTICE);'

So - the php being interpretted. Hmm. Google search time

[woodp]

Originally Posted by LPH2004

0,15,30,45 * * * * /full/path/gateway.php

Nope, there's no way a normal UNIX setup is going to place files at /full/path - Just ain't gonna happen.

Please provide the full path to your forums and the full path to your gateway.php script. If you can telnet, simply type 'pwd' from the forum subdirectory.

I'm guessing it's something like /home/{youruserid}/public_html/forum ...

[LPH2004]

Thank you. I figured out the correct line now. The php interpreter does need to be stated prior.

0,15,30,45 * * * * /full/path/to/php /full/path/gateway.php

The space between is important. Another way would be for the user to add the information into the gateway.php script. Something like

#!/usr/local/bin/php

as the first line.

Now, I am a happy camper :glasses:

Thank you for all of your help.

Oh - additional instructions in case someone else trips over this post...

If you need to find the path of your php interpreter then use the php info in the admincp.

[bashy]

Hi

What do i need to have this up and running, Does it have to be used for posting, can it just be used for downloading the binaries?

I am a little baffled with regards to setup requiering email addresses as so on...

In the server setup side of it, what do i put in here "Newsgroup/Mailing list E-mail" please?

Can i use NTL's free server for this news.ntlworld.com?

[growler]

I'm running 3.6.4,

What file do I add the two (construct_nav_option) lines from the installation instructions to? I've looked in a few files and don't see:

Edit ./admincp/index.php file

construct_nav_option($vbphrase['vbulletin_options'], 'options.php?null=0', '<br />');

-Thank you,
Growler