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.

[KevinM]

Originally Posted by Cold Steel

Is there anyway to set it so vB signatures ARE passed into the newsgroups?

It's an option in the control panel (nntp gateway settings). Set the 'send no signature' to 0.

Keep in mind that most groups have rules on the size of the sigs, mostly 2 lines or 4 lines and with VB3 your users could have much, much bigger sigs.

[Princeton]

Does anyone have the "mailing-list footer stripper" working (released by KevinM)?

If I understand correctly you are suppose to add the first line of the footer between { } and it should strip the remaining lines -- is this correct?

If it is - than I must be missing something.

[Princeton]

Request
An option to NOT send posts (created by forum members) to newsgroup.

eg:
Send posts created by members to newsgroup? Yes/No
(The best place to put this would be in the gateway settings.)

[Cold Steel]

Originally Posted by Cold Steel

How come some posts go through, but some don't?

This one didn't go through - http://forums.asiansinc.com/showpost...04&postcount=2

But these four did - http://forums.asiansinc.com/search.php?searchid=20571

I don't think posts from members with longer usernames or spaces in their usernames are going through. Any idea why?

[Qwest]

Important,

This hack is great but it's driving my post count on my site INSANE!!

Is there anyway to run this hack but have the posts NOT counted towards your BOARD'S total posts?

NOTE: I said BOARD total not USER total. Everywhere I ask this people tell me about teh option in the admincp to not count posts towards USER totals.

[lierduh]

Originally Posted by Cold Steel

I don't think posts from members with longer usernames or spaces in their usernames are going through. Any idea why?

Space in user name is not a problem. Length should not be too.

Please try to capture the screen when you run it manually.

[lierduh]

Originally Posted by Qwest

Important,


This hack is great but it's driving my post count on my site INSANE!!

Is there anyway to run this hack but have the posts NOT counted towards your BOARD'S total posts?


NOTE: I said BOARD total not USER total. Everywhere I ask this people tell me about teh option in the admincp to not count posts towards USER totals.

I think you may have to disable the thread/post counts in the usenet forums (by altering code).

[Cold Steel]

Originally Posted by lierduh

Space in user name is not a problem. Length should not be too.

Please try to capture the screen when you run it manually.

It's attached. The usernames of "Webmaster" and "teapot" have no problems being posted to usenet -- I've checked through Agent.

However, the usernames "The Invisible Man" and "Three Gun Fish" haven't gotten through.

[lierduh]

Originally Posted by Cold Steel

It's attached. The usernames of "Webmaster" and "teapot" have no problems being posted to usenet -- I've checked through Agent.

However, the usernames "The Invisible Man" and "Three Gun Fish" haven't gotten through.

I can't see the post by Webmaster or teapot being sent too. Are you talking about an old post which was not sent? you need to test on a freshly posted message.

[Cold Steel]

Ok, I made a post http://forums.asiansinc.com/showthre...054#post476054 but for some reason it gave me a 500 error when running gateway.php.

So I disabled signatures and tried again, same result.

See attached.