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

[kgroneman]

I'm running it on 4.0.7 currently and it works great except for attachments. Any time it comes across an attachment it hangs. Is anyone else seeing this?

[scottct1]

I don't know what happened. This has been working great for a long time. But yesterday I started getting SQL error when gateway.php runs.

Database error in vBulletin 4.1.0:

Invalid SQL:

SELECT filename,attachmentid
FROM attachment
WHERE postid= 2424829;

MySQL Error : Unknown column 'postid' in 'where clause'

Any ideas?

[SamirDarji]

omg, I've been looking for something like this for almost half a decade! I can't believe I didn't see this before. I just hope it works on v3.8.x.

[hmspain]

I'm running this nntp sync and find myself having to choose between turning on thumbnails in vBulletin, or sync'g attachments.

I get the impression I'm not the only one.

Has anyone found a solution?

[hmspain]

Originally Posted by hmspain

I'm running this nntp sync and find myself having to choose between turning on thumbnails in vBulletin, or sync'g attachments.

I get the impression I'm not the only one.

Has anyone found a solution?

I'm running vBulletin 3.8.6.

[John Diver]

Is there a free server I can use to test this? I have tried 4 or 5 now and none are working.

Thanks

[Rik Brown]

Since no one has come back with a free server suggestion, I might suggest a 14-day free trial with Giganews.com.

-- Rik

ps: used them for years!

[Rik Brown]

After upgrading from vb 4.1.6 to 4.1.7, I got the following error:

PHP Fatal error: Call to undefined function build_post_index() in /home/www/html/subs/forums/includes/functions_nntp.php on line 623

What I found is that in the forum's /include directory there is a file named functions_databuild.php that holds the build_post_index function. I see in the 4.1.6 code that the build_post_index function has all the code between the initiation of the function and the end of the function commented out. In 4.1.7, the function has been totally removed from the functions_databuild.php file.

Since the mod worked fine with vb 4.1.6, this would indicate that the function wasn't being utilized by this mod at all. So I commented out the call to the build_post_index function from within functions_nntp.php. And, as far as I can tell, that gets the mod back up and running again with vb 4.1.7.

[photoads]

Anyone got this still working? I get a connection timeout everytime I try to run it any help appreciated

[hmspain]

Originally Posted by photoads

Anyone got this still working? I get a connection timeout everytime I try to run it any help appreciated

It is working for me, but with limitations. Don't expect it to be perfect :-). The connection timeout sounds like a firewall issue.

Your vBulletin server needs to talk to your news server via port 119. You should be able to test this from your vBulletin server using a command shell window and:

telnet <news server) 119

I'm responding since most of us running this add-on depend on it a great deal and yet posts to this thread are far too often unanswered. I'll answer what I can. I use and depend on this add-on every day to keep my vBulletin forums and DNEWS server in "sync".