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

[solokron]

Of course. Thank you. I have it working now.

Originally Posted by KW802

Find the last post ID in your vBulletin and then insert that ID as the value.

[dodgez]

Originally Posted by AWS

Evidently something changed with the cron scripts in vbulletin. In your cron task uncheck the option to write to log.

Still getting the errors

[AWS]

Don't know what the problem may be then.

I have it running here on 3.7 beta 3. I have modified it several times fixing things that change between vbulletin version so it possible my version has a fix that also fixes a problem with 3.7.

[dodgez]

Maybe it is because I use it for mailing lists?

[mindfrost82]

Originally Posted by TSR

I have been reading through this thread and haven't seen an answer for this yet.

The hack has worked somewhat on vBulletin? Version 3.6.8

I ran it, it imported some threads from Giganews and it stopped working.

I re-ran it with /gateway.php?debug=1 and it just sits there. No threads are imported, no error message, nada. If i stop it and rerun it i get the usual:
Another instance of gateway.php is running, try again in 30 minutes if the script was crashed.

So, i launched it on my dev site and with a different newsgroup i ran into the same issue.

Anyhow, is there a way to resolve this ? I have increased my wait_timeout to 1200

Have you gotten this working at all? I just setup an account with Giganews to try it and I'm having the same issue. It hasn't imported ANY threads with Giganews, it just hangs. Sometimes I'll see:

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

...then it'll just hang. Then the next time I try running the script it just hangs and doesn't try pulling any posts, not even ones using the free Microsoft server.

Everything worked fine with a free server that doesn't require a login, my problem only started once I tried Giganews.

I can verify that my username/password works because I can login using Outlook Express just fine.

[AWS]

The connection is being established.
Try running setlastmsg.php and then running gateway.php after that. Wait a little while in between.

[mindfrost82]

Originally Posted by AWS

The connection is being established.
Try running setlastmsg.php and then running gateway.php after that. Wait a little while in between.

Thanks, that seems to have worked!

[scottct1]

This works great for me on vBulletin 3.7.8 except for some reason new thread notification for those members who subscribe to new thread notification does not work. They are not sent an email that there has been a new post / thread.

Anyone know how I can get that to work?

[kermitklein]

I have installed and is running very well on my 3.6.8. My only problem is that the attach are not imported to threads... Anyone can help me?

[dermax]

Hello,

I face a problem with some groups. Randomly, the gateway.php run stops with the following message:

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

Server responded after user name: 381 more authentication required

Server responded after password: 281 News.GigaNews.Com

Info for it.comp.macintosh at text.giganews.com: 211 678136 438957 1117092 it.comp.macintosh

In this case, the it.comp.macintosh newsgroup seems to be broken: I need to disable the group to make the script run again. I tried to import the messages from the group with a generic usenet client (GrabIt) and it worked absolutely flawless. Does anyone have an idea?

Thanks!