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

[KW802]

Originally Posted by kjhkjh

...
I'm registered with http://www.tigerusenet.com/ (I think it's $7.50 a month - for 15GB / month)
This newsserver allows access on ports: 119, 80, 3128, 23, 7000, 8000, 9000

I had to then keep pushing my hosting company to open port 7000 (because they wouldn't open port 119 on a shared hosting plan) eventually they did it. It took 24 hours for them to process this change. They needed to know the ip address of the where the open port was connecting to so I did an ip lookup for news.tigerusenet.com ...

To make your life easier in the future I suggest using port 80 instead. Port 80 is the port that HTML (www.yoursite.com) goes over so it's almost a 'universal' port number. By using port 80 instead of 7000 then if you switch your hosting service to a different company in the future then you'll know that you don't have to go through this all over again with asking them to open up a different port number.

[bashy]

Hi

I have had port 119 enabled on my dedicated server but i still get
Connecting to server, server says: 502 Permission Denied - Permission Denied -- http://www.highwinds-software.com/ (Tornado v1.0.6.380)

Info for uk.media.tv.misc at news.ntlworld.com:

Connecting to server, server says: 502 Permission Denied - Permission Denied -- http://www.highwinds-software.com/ (Tornado v1.0.6.380)

Info for alt.binaries.movies.divx at news.ntlworld.com:

This happens whenever i try to connect to the news.ntlworld.com (free server)
Or when i try to connect to my paid newshosting server

Any thoughts on this please?

[TMM-TT]

Originally Posted by bashy

Hi

I have had port 119 enabled on my dedicated server but i still get
Connecting to server, server says: 502 Permission Denied - Permission Denied -- http://www.highwinds-software.com/ (Tornado v1.0.6.380)

Info for uk.media.tv.misc at news.ntlworld.com:

Connecting to server, server says: 502 Permission Denied - Permission Denied -- http://www.highwinds-software.com/ (Tornado v1.0.6.380)

Info for alt.binaries.movies.divx at news.ntlworld.com:

This happens whenever i try to connect to the news.ntlworld.com (free server)
Or when i try to connect to my paid newshosting server

Any thoughts on this please?

Do you get such errors even if you login manually?

[bashy]

Sorry, can you elaborate, not quite sure what ya mean by login manually?

[KevinM]

Originally Posted by bashy

Hi

I have had port 119 enabled on my dedicated server but i still get
Connecting to server, server says: 502 Permission Denied - Permission Denied -- http://www.highwinds-software.com/ (Tornado v1.0.6.380)

Info for uk.media.tv.misc at news.ntlworld.com:

Connecting to server, server says: 502 Permission Denied - Permission Denied -- http://www.highwinds-software.com/ (Tornado v1.0.6.380)

Info for alt.binaries.movies.divx at news.ntlworld.com:

This happens whenever i try to connect to the news.ntlworld.com (free server)
Or when i try to connect to my paid newshosting server

Any thoughts on this please?

When you say free, do you mean the service which you get with your broadband provider on your home pc? If so, they probably perform an IP check and when it is not coming from a non-NTL line (which your ded server won't), it won't connect. The first time I got this hack I tried using the free BT service I got (and failed).

If you are getting this with a paid service (e.g. giganews, teranews etc), then I would guess the most common reason is username & password issues. Can you log in with these on a normal newsreader? The fact you are getting permission denied errors means the port is problably enabled correctly, or you wouldn't have got this far. What paid service have you gone for?

[bashy]

I am using newshosting, have been for about a year now, i copied and pasted the login details so theres no mistyping..... The only server i have managed to connect to is the free Microsoft 1

[TMM-TT]

Originally Posted by bashy

Sorry, can you elaborate, not quite sure what ya mean by login manually?

Manually with, for example, a news client. I was thinking of the 502-message, that may indicate missing username/password.

[bashy]

ah right, yeah im downloading with grabit as we speak lol

[Rik Brown]

For aesthetic reasons, I prefer not to have the "Re :" in the subject line created by incoming Usenet threads/posts even if it is a reply. vBulletin doesn't use such formatting and any reply post leaving our system via the gateway will get the "Re: " pre-appended to the subject line for Usenet compatability.

If you likewise wish to remove the incoming "Re: " from the subject line, find the following line in gateway.php:

PHP Code:

 $subject = htmlspecialchars(trim($message['subject'])); 


After the above line, simply insert the following:

PHP Code:

if (substr($subject, 0, 4) == 'Re: '){
$subject = substr_replace($subject, '', 0, 4);
} 


If you wish to change your entire message database to remove any prior "Re: " in both threads and posts, just look for my prior post #396 in this thread which indicates the two mySQL queries to do so. Once done, all your threads/posts will be in this same format.

Again, this is only an aesthetic choice for me and shouldn't be considered a bug fix. I hope others might find it useful. If anyone sees any code conflict here, please advise.

Regards. -- Rik

ps: I'm not a PHP programmer so anything I say must be taken at your own risk. Backup your database first. But I've been using this change for several weeks now and all appears working fine.

After the above coding, NNTP_GW attempts to match the incoming post to vb threads "by reference" or "by subject." I'd prefer to make that a single lookup by subject at a future time as threading is already mangled if you are using a killfile that breaks thread sequences. Note, for example, that if the first message in a thread was deleted by your killfile, message #2 will now start a new thread without any "Re: " in it.

[TMM-TT]

Originally Posted by Rik Brown

PHP Code:

if (substr($subject, 0, 4) == 'Re: '){
$subject = substr_replace($subject, '', 0, 4);
} 


How about a single line?

PHP Code:

$subject = preg_replace('[^Re: ]', '', $subject);