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

[KW802]

Anybody else having problems exporting posts that contain list, quote, code, or php tags? If any of those tags are used in a thread then the post has nothing exported.

I can see in functions_nntp.php in the format_text function that it attempts to convert those tags to be plain text dashes but I'm not seeing where the problem might be.

Thoughts?

[jarosciak]

I am having a real problem in 3.5.3

When I run gateway.php in debug mode:

Gateway version 2.3.2 101 group(s) gatewayed.


Connecting to server, server says: 200 SurgeNews Text-East.u (Version 2.0a-4) http://surgenews.com posting OK

Server responded after user name: 381 Helo myusername password required

Server responded after password: 281 Authorization accepted

Info for sci.lang at text-east.usenet.com: 211 46541 245219 291997 sci.lang selected (items,min,max)

Getting message number 288938:

'Re: Time in various languages...' from Peter T. Daniels. Thread found by References.

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<title>S...

And it displays the whole posts and gateway.php stops.

and below that is:

Database error in vBulletin 3.5.3:

Invalid SQL:
INSERT INTO post
(postid, threadid, title, username, userid, dateline, pagetext,
allowsmilie, showsignature, ipaddress, iconid, visible,
isusenetpost, msgid, ref, parentid) VALUES
(NULL, 214260, 'Re: Time in various languages...',
'Peter T. Daniels', 0, '1137363805',
'Se?n O\'Leathl?bhair wrote:
[color=blue][color=green]
&gt; &gt; &gt; &gt; Let\'s check that I understand you. Is the following correct?
&gt; &gt; &gt; &gt;
&gt; &gt; &gt; &gt; German \&quot;Halb Neun\&quot; meaning 08:30 is reasonable.
&gt; &gt;
&gt; &gt; Sure. It\'s halfway through t

[jarosciak]

Can Someone help out. I spent last 4 hours trying to figure this one out.
Looks like there is something with posting to post database.
But why doesn't it work?
Joe

[sensimilla]

looks like this topic is unsupported anyway.. its a pity , great addon in my opinion

[jarosciak]

Lierduh, can you please look at the code above?
I can even give you ftp and forum access if needed.
Please let me know
joe

[Deepdog009]

only probs is the gateway.php file doesn't continue in the cron area, so must setup server cron. also have prob with exporting sometimes, it works and then it doesn't work depending on the auth from server. some hosts dont support import or export. other than that its hecca cool dude. thanks a mil Lierduh. if i had some extra cashola, I be PP U.

[jarosciak]

Could anyone look at the problem above?
My whole forum is stuck for couple of days now, no support here.
I will gladly pay to someone who can figure out what is causing my problem.
Joe

[KW802]

Re: /includes/functions_image.php

So am I missing something obvious or do we need to use a modified version of functions_image.php from vB 3.0.x with vB 3.5.x in order to get the attachment thumbnails working?

[Deepdog009]

Thread Items of interest

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=65152
3.0 version / take a look my help solve some problems with 3.5
lierduh page 1

http://gt500forums.com/testvb/index.php
dodgez page 2

http://phorums.com.au/forumdisplay.php?f=21
lierduh page 5

http://www.cyburbia.org/forums/
Cyburbia page 5

http://www.techenclave.com/forums/
Acers page 7

You won't find smtp in the scripts. If you need more info about mail(), please check:
http://php.mirrors.ilisys.com.au/ma...nction.mail.php

Ok, I think I have it partially figured out re: attachments... But I'm getting this debug message, and have set everything to allow attachments... Any idea for what I might be missing?
The Pimp / page 4

Getting message number 971197:
This forum does not allow attachments, therefore attachment ignored.
http://www.maximumgamer.com/forums
ixian page 9

http://www.edinburghtalk.com/forum/
donnacha page 9

The Gateway script is not picking up attachments!!!

http://www.asiasrc.org/forum3.5/showthread.php?t=32
The attachment is available in the pipermail archive on Mailman.. at: http://asiasrc.org/pipermail/pleasu...ber/000052.html
Any idea pls?
babulgogoi page 11

The problem happens when you have a completely empty forum. I fixed that in the CVS a while back, but having trouble to find time to release a new version.
lierduh page 12

1.) add a plugin, the hook you want is "showthread_start"
2.) product is vbulletin (or you can create a product just for nntp hacks)

PHP Code:

global $vbulletin;
$thread = verify_id('thread', $threadid, 1, 1);
if ($thread) {
$sql = "SELECT newsgroupid FROM " .
TABLE_PREFIX .
"nntp_groups WHERE forum = " .
$thread['forumid'];
if($vbulletin->db->query_first($sql)) {
unset($threadedmode);
$vbulletin->userinfo['threadedmode'] = 2; // 1 - threaded, 2 - hybrid
}
}
scruby page 12

Look at my site http://ms-os.com. You can see new threads and posts. Those are all usenet forums.
That error happens when there is a problem with an image attachment in a usenet post. I get it from time to time. Go to newsgroup settings and dit each groups message id number. Increment it by one.
AWS page 13

Here's how I resolved my issue of masking email addresses, in case anyone else is interested.

Find:

Quote:
$message['text'] = preg_replace('/([-_.\\w]+)@([\\w]+[-\\w]+)\\./', '\\1 (AT) \\2 (DOT) ', $message['text']);

Replace with:

Quote:
$message['text'] = preg_replace('/([-_.\\w]+)@([a-zA-Z0-9\.]+)/', '\\1@xxxxxx', $message['text']);

Find:

Quote:
$from_name = from_name($message['from']);

Replace with:

Quote:
$sender_name = from_name($message['from']);
$from_name = preg_replace('/([-_.\\w]+)@([a-zA-Z0-9\.]+)/', '\\1', $sender_name);

I'm sure it's not the most efficient want to do it, but it seems to work for me.
http://vfrworld.com/forums/vf-vfr-mailing-list/
volarium page 14

Hope all dont mind if posting sites again to view by new installers.
This hack is very useful and should be given more attention.
Hope this helps somebody.

[sensimilla]

@Deepdog009
Outstanding reply, thanks alot!