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.

[trackpads]

When I run the Gateway.php file via telnet I keep getting this error-

Gateway version 2.1.0 13 group(s) gatewayed.

Connecting to server, server says: 200 Randori News http://www.randori.com (Tornado v1.0.5)

Server responded after user name: 381 More Authentication Required

Server responded after password: 281 Authentication Accepted

Info for alt.military at news.randori.com:
211 11542 235125 251459 alt.military

Getting message number 235431:
Segmentation fault

It has run a few times but it fails, is there something I should check?

Thanks again for all the work,

-Jason

[lierduh]

Originally Posted by trackpads

When I run the Gateway.php file via telnet I keep getting this error-




It has run a few times but it fails, is there something I should check?

Thanks again for all the work,

-Jason

How do you run gateway.php? by a lynx session or your php is running as cgi?
If your php is running as cgi, what version? I remember reading somewhere about problems with php running as cgi. The newer version of php fixes that.

Also check your web error log.

[trackpads]

I have the latest PHP and its not running as CGI for sure. I have tried both, via telnet and with the browser. I didnt want to put it into cron until I got the messages downloaded for the first time.

If I run it via shell it will tell me about the segmentation error, if I run it via the browser it just says that its getting message # 231456 and then quits.

Thanks again for all of the help!!!!!!

-Jason

P.s. Great hack!

[lierduh]

Originally Posted by trackpads

I have the latest PHP and its not running as CGI for sure. I have tried both, via telnet and with the browser. I didnt want to put it into cron until I got the messages downloaded for the first time.

If I run it via shell it will tell me about the segmentation error, if I run it via the browser it just says that its getting message # 231456 and then quits.

Thanks again for all of the help!!!!!!

-Jason

P.s. Great hack!

segmentation error is memory related. If you can control php.ini, check the memory_limit setting. The default is 8MB. vB3 often gives error with 8MB. Up it to 16 is a must for vB3. It is also possible the #231456 message has a large attachment.

You can always manually change the lastmsgid in the control panel to be higher than 231456, so that it will bypass this article and only get the aritcles with higher message id.

[trackpads]

Thanks! It was that message I think. I had it skip that one and now it is working.

Thanks!!!!!

-Jason

[BustaCap]

Looking at the header of my outgoing messages, I see that my email address is being scrambled by adding several characters to the end of my name (eg, BustaCap.17laj@site.com). Also, the domain is wrong too (as per the "email address domain in the NNTP Gateway settings). This is great for posts going to newsgroups, but it is preventing me from sending posts to email lists that require a confirmed email address.

Would it be possible to keep the option of scrambling the email address for posts going to newsgroups but allowing for propper email addresses to go out to email lists? If both options aren't possible, perhaps just the ability to have a proper email address go out.

Thanks,
BC

[Marv]

First of all I?ve gotta say, thank you.
The hack is running without any problems and the installation went like a charme. So far, so good..

But now I?ve got some serious problems with other things. I?m living and running my site here in germany and the newsgroups we want to im- and export the postings to/from need correct headers so that outgoing postings to ng?s are available on the newsserver. These are restrictions we simply have to obey.

What am I asking for ?
By now the headers of forum to newsserver-postings are loking like this:

From: Marv <marv.17reqy@usenet.xxx.de>
Newsgroups: de.just.another.newsgroup
Subject: Another posting
Date: Sun, 13 Jun 2004 00:41:09 +0200
Organization: http://www.xxx.de
Lines: 13
Message-ID: <marv.17reqy@usenet.xxx.de>
X-Trace: news.t-online.de nBvEcr5K7cscegZwMIQyfAm1Tzv5/YBpPbMRd52RdGRKaKp4VT
User-Agent: vBulletin USENET gateway
X-Newsreader: vBulletin USENET gateway
X-Originating-IP: 2xx.xxx.xx.xx
Xref: news.t-online.com de.test:578574

To have our postings showing up in our target newsgroup we are forced to complete the headers with the statements:

Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

so that endusers and checkbots read the complete header similiar like this one:

From: Skuld Article Checker <checkbot@ds9.gnuu.de>
Newsgroups: de.just.another.newsgroup
Subject: Re: Another posting
Date: Sat, 12 Jun 2004 15:48:01 GMT
Organization: Goddess Newsfeed
Lines: 44
Sender: <checkbot-owner@ds9.gnuu.de>
Message-ID: <caf88i$rh2$03$1%news.t-online.com@checkbot.fqdn.net>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
X-Complaints-To: abuse@ds9.argh.org
Xref: news.t-online.com de.test:426397

Would be very important for us (and 2000+ others on our site) that someone could write this into this hack or could show us, how to fix that problem in another way. Has anyone an idea?

Regards & TIA,
Marv.

[trackpads]

Has anyone seriously given more thought to the Filter idea? I would love to get that on my site since I primarily want the military realted newsgroups but not all the anti-bush spam that ruins them.

Thanks alot for the hard work,

-Jason

[lierduh]

Originally Posted by BustaCap

Looking at the header of my outgoing messages, I see that my email address is being scrambled by adding several characters to the end of my name (eg, BustaCap.17laj@site.com). Also, the domain is wrong too (as per the "email address domain in the NNTP Gateway settings). This is great for posts going to newsgroups, but it is preventing me from sending posts to email lists that require a confirmed email address.

Would it be possible to keep the option of scrambling the email address for posts going to newsgroups but allowing for propper email addresses to go out to email lists? If both options aren't possible, perhaps just the ability to have a proper email address go out.

Thanks,
BC

It is simple to fetch the real email address from the user table, but remember every forum user can post yet unlikely everyone of them have subscribed to the list. You naturally do not want other people to post under your email address to the list.

[lierduh]

Originally Posted by Marv

Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

Marv.

Find $newthread['postdateline']).

Insert these lines after that:

"\r\nMime-Version: 1.0\r\n" .
"Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1\r\n" .
"Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit" .

should work although not tested. I must say it is quite strange that you need to have these to be able to post to the ng.