Usenet gateway

THIS THREAD IS CLOSED!
Posts in here will NOT be answered

This hack has undergone many major changes since this thread was started. Consequently, most of the posts have become dated and of little use. To coincide with the latest major release (20010712), a new one has been started.

See this thread for the latest version and discussion

[fastforward]

Originally posted by webhost
FastForward

I have installled the hack to turn the quote button into a reply button inside the newsgroups. It works fine. One question though by doing this will this also make the quote button in a regular forum other than a newsgroup act the same. It does on mind just need to know if it is suppose to or not?

Joey

It works exactly as it always did in a normal forum.

All it really does differently is to pass the postid of the 'quoted' post as a form parameter back to the script.

[webhost]

Thanks . I think I might have the problem with the lastactivethread I was working on last week I forgot to put the string in the config.php file, Here is where I put it at but when I open the forum it will not open. It's torwards the bottom.

<?php
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// Please note that if you get any errors when connecting, //
// that you will need to email your host as we cannot tell //
// you what your specific values are supposed to be //
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

// type of database running
// (only mysql is supported at the moment)
$dbservertype="mysql";

// hostname or ip of server
$servername="";

// username and password to log onto db server
$dbusername="";
$dbpassword="";

// name of database
$dbname="";

// allow password viewing / editing in control panel
// 0 = not visible or editable
// 1 = not visible, but can be edited
// 2 = visible and can be edited
$pwdincp=0;

// technical email address - any error messages will be emailed here
$technicalemail = "support@realwebhost.net";

// use persistant connections to the database
// 0 = don't use
// 1 = use
$usepconnect = 1;
$lastactivethread_length = 35;
?>

[fastforward]

Originally posted by webhost
Thanks . I think I might have the problem with the lastactivethread I was working on last week I forgot to put the string in the config.php file, Here is where I put it at but when I open the forum it will not open. It's torwards the bottom.

My guess is you somehow have white space at the end or beginning of the file. Also make sure you didn't save it in DOS format.

Finally, you don't actually need that in the config if you are happy with the default of 35 characters.

[dwh]

My usenet template was working fine, then I posted a message and now it's using the default template. The only other thing I did was subscribe to a usenet forum, but that didn't kill it, it was posting a message that caused the problem. I'm racking my brain but have no clue why.

[dwh]

Originally posted by fastforward

To generate a log from your cron job use something like this:

0 0,4,8,12,16,20 * * * nice -20 /home/dbforums/newnews.pl >/var/log/misc/newnews.log 2>&1

If you want the output emailed to you, just leave the redirection bits off completely. The output will be mailed to the owner of the cron job.

Uh, I always found cron complicated. what does 2>&1 do? And sorry, but can you explain the exact line for getting it emailed? Thanks!

If I didn't thank you already, thanks for an awesome script. You should get some benefit for all this hard work!

[dwh]

Originally posted by NgtCrwlr
I'm setting up all usenet forums as moderated posting only so I can keep a close eye on the spam issue.

what an excellent idea. Is this for outgoing posts? I'd like this feature for incoming posts to exclude the really bad profanity!

[dwh]

I don't understand how the spamkiller works at all. I tried to read it but it doesn't make sense to me. Can someone explain what it does and if possible to give examples like you are talking to the dummest perso there is? Thanks!

P.S. the latest instructions seem to still have an error?
Section 4 from vb_code_Changes

c) newreply.php - line 263

OLD CODE
--------
$DB_site->query("INSERT INTO post (postid,threadid,title,username,userid,dateline,at tachmentid,pagetext,allowsmilie,showsignature,ipad dress,iconid,visible,inreplyto) VALUES (NULL,'$threadid','".addslashes(htmlspecialchars($ title))."','".addslashes(htmlspecialchars($postuse rname))."','$bbuserinfo[userid]','".time()."','$attachmentid','".addslashes($mess age)."','$allowsmilie','$signature','$ipaddress',' $iconid','$visible','$inreplyto')");

NEW CODE
--------
// START USENET HACK
$DB_site->query("INSERT INTO post (postid,threadid,title,username,userid,dateline,nn tpdateline,attachmentid,pagetext,allowsmilie,shows ignature,ipaddress,iconid,visible,inreplyto) VALUES (NULL,'$threadid','".addslashes(htmlspecialchars($ title))."','".addslashes(htmlspecialchars($postuse rname))."','$bbuserinfo[userid]','".time()."','".time()."','$attachmentid','".add slashes($message)."','$allowsmilie','$signature',' $ipaddress','$iconid','$visible','$inreplyto')");
// END USENET HACK

----------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------

how could the old code have "inreplyto" as a field?

[fastforward]

Originally posted by dwh

Uh, I always found cron complicated. what does 2>&1 do? And sorry, but can you explain the exact line for getting it emailed? Thanks!

0 0,4,8,12,16,20 * * * /home/dbforums/newnews.pl

Doing the above will email you with any output the script generates.

The redirection bit is to ensure the script output AND the cron output is redirected.

[fastforward]

Originally posted by dwh

what an excellent idea. Is this for outgoing posts? I'd like this feature for incoming posts to exclude the really bad profanity!

A simple little change to one query in newnews.pl will allow the vB moderation system to be honoured. I'll post the fix later tonight.

[fastforward]

Originally posted by dwh
I don't understand how the spamkiller works at all. I tried to read it but it doesn't make sense to me. Can someone explain what it does and if possible to give examples like you are talking to the dummest perso there is? Thanks!

P.S. the latest instructions seem to still have an error?
Section 4 from vb_code_Changes


how could the old code have "inreplyto" as a field?

Just a cut & paste error. I imagine there's a few more errors in the instructions too

As for the spam filters... unless you want to use regular expressions, you can simply enter a string leaving the defaults. If the string is contained in either the header, body or both (whatever you have selected) it will be rejected.

The option to span lines is there for safety when using regular expressions. By default, it will only match if the string is all on one line. Without this check it would be very easy to inadvertently match every message and reject the lot. It's impossible to give you a tutorial on regular expressions in one post. I recommend you do a quick search and put aside a few hours, weeks or days to learn all the possibilities. The script uses standard Perl regular expresions (as opposed to POSIX used by ereg in PHP).

I'll post some examples when I get home later.