NNTP Gateway for Usenet ( Newsgroups ), Mailing Lists

The latest version: V2.3.2 (31 Oct 2004)

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 is basically a hacked vB2 NNTP gateway written by Gilby to work with vB3. The original hack can be found here:

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthrea...7&page=1&pp=15


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.
• Supports TABLE_PREFIX.
• 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

• AdminCP interfaces. (completed)
• Installation/upgrade script. (completed, coded into AdminCP)
• Traditional "> " lead posting interface.

What do you need and do not need?

You do not need to edit vB php files if you use two bookmarks
You need to edit one vB php file to insert two lines of code if you want direct click links within AdminCP.
No need to 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.

Support

Please post your support questions to this thread. Please check the FAQ in the third post within this thread first.

================== UPDATES ======================
Jul 31 2004 (release version 2.2.0)

• Provided option of not importing attachments
• Provided option of pause between messages
• Provided option of not sending messages to USENET
• Provided mechanism to skip importing a message if it was crashed on it
• Provided "Default Footer" option
• Provided strip_footer function for mailing lists
  (written originally by KevinM)
• Provided Killfile functions with Header/Body/AND/OR settings
• Provided ability to thread messages by subject for mailing lists
• Provided ability to use a single POP3 account for different mailing lists
  (use prefix)
• Merged KevinM's attachment routine, save thumbnail to hard drive
  as vB3.0.3
• Official support to have the script run by Scheduled Tasks
• Many bug fixes

Please note, when you manually run the script, you must turn on the debug mode. Otherwise nothing will be displayed on the screen.

To run as debug mode: http://forums.yourdomain.com/gateway.php?debug=1

25 Oct 2004

• Provided the option of sending posts using the real email address
• Provided the option of sending posts using a fixed email address for
  each group.
• Posts are now held back if they are in the moderating queue
• Scheduled task log is now working
• Provided the option of sending the debug messages to the vB3 cron log
• Bug fixes

31 Oct 2004

Fixed bugs running the gateway by the vB3 Scheduled Tasks

1 March 2004

Uploaded the new zip file. It contains one or two bug fixes.

[scottct1]

I am using the old version of gateway.php (The one that worked with the Beta versions of VB3 where you had to edit the database by hand to add newsgroups)

I am thinking of upgrading to this version.

Do I need to do anything to make this version work, such as

Delete all current Newsgroup forums? (To prevent messages in these forums from being sent back out to the Internet)
Do I need to delete any of the old database enteries?

Anything else I need to do to upgrade from the old version?

Thanks for your help and for what appears to be a great hack!

[Odoin]

Not 100% sure but I do not think there has been any DB changes... I went from the edit by hand DB to the new version with no issues.

[scottct1]

Great did you have to empty your existing newsgroup forums? Or was it fine?

I just dont want to send all the messages I have now to be sent back out to usenet.

[allan grossman]

I''ve been using this since vb 2.30 - upgraded to vb3 and then 3.01. Have upgraded the script several times and have *never* had to empty existing newsgroup forums. The script just works

[Odoin]

Nope... did not have to empty... The major changes are just the way the gateway works and pulls the new messages as well as the admin i face now.

Originally Posted by scottct1

Great did you have to empty your existing newsgroup forums? Or was it fine?

I just dont want to send all the messages I have now to be sent back out to usenet.

[KevinM]

Originally Posted by BustaCap

Every mailing list message that I get has the same text in the footer. It would be great if there was a setting somehwere where I could specify this footer text (its over 13 lines!) and have it stripped before importing the message.

I am having a look at this now, however I don't have any mailing lists which makes it difficult to test.

The way I have it working is, the administrator enters the characters or phrases that starts the footer message into a setting in the cpanel (not the whole footer, just enough that it is 'unique' and is not likely to form part of a genuine message).

You can enter as many different footers as required.

Every mail message gets checked against these, and if there is a match, strips everything from that point onwards from the message. Usenet messages are ignored.

The only situation where this wouldn't work is where a footer is quoted in someone elses reply, and they then bottom post their message beneath this. From memory of using mailing lists I don't recall this happening often, but I need a guide from you. (It would be ton easier to not have to worry about this :nervous: .)

Let me know if this approach will work for your lists, and will you be able to test the script?

[BustaCap]

KevinM, that is exactly the kind of solution I was hoping for The footers in the mailing lists I use alwasy start with the same text and all text after that can be ignored. I'm not too concerned about the quoted footer text myself, so whatever would be easier for you. I would be happy to test it.

Lierduh, are you still supporting this hack? I haven't seen you comment in over a week so I was just wondering.

[KevinM]

What this does:

If you are using this hack to mirror mailing lists you will often find that the mailing list operator adds their own footer to each message which can be quite large.

This function will strip this from the message, prior to insertion into the forum. It can handle multiple different footers (just surround each one with { and }).

I have tested this on a test forum, but I am looking for feedback from a live enviroment.

[BustaCap]

I'll give this a go, thanks!

[BustaCap]

It worked just as I had hoped it would, thanks for taking the time to write that. Messages look much less cluttered now.

One issue that I'm still having is that the vast majority of the mailing list posts are not being threaded and are showing up as individual posts. I thought it may have been an issue of the title changing when people reply and it adds an "RE:" to various places in the subject (see my previous post #140), but after looking at it more closely, posts with the exact same subject are showing up as seperate threads:



I can't figure out why some (very few) posts are threaded but others with the same subject are not. Admittedly, I know zero about coding, but shouldn't it be pretty straightforward to determine which replies should be threaded based on the subject title? I'm wondering if it might have something to do with the "Use Post Time" setting. The default is set to use the time stamp when the messages are imported, which means that all of the posts at the time of import have the same time stamp. I changed it to use the original post time, thinking that posts with the same title and same timestamp might somehow be throwing off the threading. I'll test this and see how it works. Any idea though why the posts are threading correctly?