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.

[Imhotep]

I have something to add to this discussion... something I never thought about until someone pointed it out. I have had this hack installed for at least a week and have never been able to get my posts out to Usenet. I just checked with my host and, sure enough, they have outgoing port 119 blocked! :ermm: To make matters worse, they refuse to open it up for my domain.

So, if anyone here is having problems with their posts not showing up, first thing I would do is check to see if your host is blocking outgoing port 119.

I'm screwed unless someone wants to code POP3 to NNTP or something to that effect. :ermm:

this sucks...

To those people who have this thing working, what hosts are you using? Mine is Lunarpages.

[lierduh]

Originally Posted by Imhotep

I'm screwed unless someone wants to code POP3 to NNTP or something to that effect. :ermm:

That won't help your situation, your web server needs to talk to a NNTP server on port 119 to send the news to it. pop3 to nntp is used to post news by email instead of vB.

If you can retrieve news but not post, that means the port is open. Does the news server accepts posts? or does the server accepts posts from your web server's IP range?

If you can ssh to your web server, just try to use one of the Unix news readers from the shell. eg. tin. You can even use lynx to read news. Check Google, I can't remember.

[Imhotep]

If you can retrieve news but not post, that means the port is open.

Open for incoming only! The server is firewalled and port 119 outgoing is blocked! From what the support staff has told me, there is no way in hell I am getting anything out 119... ever. This is their reply.

Unfortunately, we will not open port 119. Usenet has had many longstanding
abuse issues, and opening port 119 would open it for anyone on the server,
which could cause many problems. I am sorry we will not be able to accomodate
you.

[allan grossman]

Some news providers will also let you run NNTP on other ports - like port 80. I'd contact my news provider.

At work the NNTP *protocol* is blocked

[Imhotep]

Originally Posted by allan grossman

Some news providers will also let you run NNTP on other ports - like port 80. I'd contact my news provider.

At work the NNTP *protocol* is blocked

Good idea, Allan... I am going to look into it.

thanks!

[chas_h]

Lierduh,
I'm glad to see you moving this project forward! I'm among the ones who have had your earlier version running for several weeks on my VB-3 forum and I am really looking forward to these updates, especially the admin section.

Thanks!

[KevinM]

Lierduh,

Just got this up and running on a fresh install. Fantastic job. I've used the vb2 version for a year and this is a vast improvement. Particularly appreciated are the no-archive option and UU-encoded attachments (This now opens up all the binary groups which was too problematic with just mime encoded features). Control panel works great as well.

Two questions related to the attachments:

Is there a way of creating the thumbnails at the same time the the messages are downloaded? If you have the thumbnails option active, it shows the broken red x in the message. When you manually run the re-create thumbs option from the update counters menu it does create them, but it means re-creating the entire attachment table.

I can't get the attachments to work when using the 'attachments as files' option (this would be my preferred option with a vast number of attachments). the files download, but when you click the link on the post it can't find the file. When you reverse the process (i.e. switch back from files to db storage) the images reappear.

Thanks for a great upgrade.

[Imhotep]

Ok, so, for those who are following along with my connection "soap opera" woes, here's a bit of good news...

From Giganews...

Feel free to connect on the following ports: 119, 23, and 80(nntp only).

I am dropping Newsguy just as soon as I get home. I asked them about port 80, but apparently I can only use 80 if I go with their $75.00/month blah blah plan. LOL! Um... NO THANKS!

For those who are having problems posting from VB to Usenet, take note, port 119 on your web server may be blocked for OUTGOING data.

[allan grossman]

Originally Posted by Imhotep

Ok, so, for those who are following along with my connection "soap opera" woes, here's a bit of good news...

From Giganews...



I am dropping Newsguy just as soon as I get home. I asked them about port 80, but apparently I can only use 80 if I go with their $75.00/month blah blah plan. LOL! Um... NO THANKS!

For those who are having problems posting from VB to Usenet, take note, port 119 on your web server may be blocked for OUTGOING data.

I've been using this hack with Giganews for quite awhile. Works just fine

Take a look if you like - I've got one newsgroup set to autoprune every day so it only holds 90 days worth of posts, but it works just fine.

Forumhome is at http://ebassist.com/vb3

The only mod to the gateway I've made is to disable signatures in gateway.php - but we discussed that earlier in the thread

edit: Before you switch news providers it might be a good idea to see whether your ISP blocks only port 119 or the entire NNTP protocol. Telnetting to a news server won't tell you whether your ISP blocks NNTP, I'm afraid

[chas_h]

Made the upgrades (including the added sql parts per Erwin, thanks) and the latest gateway hack is working just fine, I like the new interface in the admincp too.

Two questions;

1) Lierduh, when you talk about adding a 'new usenet posts' to the navbar, is that as part of the 'quick links' menu or is it a whole new button on the navbar? I need to add it to quicklinks because I have removed the other 'new posts' thing.

2) when Allan was talking about commenting out the entire signature routine in gateway.php, could someone show exactly what I need to comment out? I would definitely like to remove that part for now.

Thanks Lierduh!