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.

[BustaCap]

I haven't had any problems since I've been using the hack, but today I added a new newsgroup and got this error:

Database error in vBulletin 3.0.1:

Invalid SQL: SELECT post.*, thread.*,
post.dateline AS postdateline, post.msgid AS postmsgid,
post.title AS posttitle, thread.title AS threadtitle
FROM post AS post LEFT JOIN thread AS thread
ON (post.threadid = thread.threadid)
WHERE post.isusenetpost = 0 AND
post.postid > 61294 AND
thread.forumid = 34
mysql error: Got error 134 from table handler

mysql error number: 1030

Date: Sunday 11th of July 2004 01:50:23 PM
Script: http://www.mysite.com/forum/gateway.php
Referer:
Username: Unregistered
IP Address: xx.xx.xx.xx

After I got this error, the other two forums that are importing newsgroups stopped updating. Also, for some reason I couldn't connect to my admincp (even though I could for another site running on the same server). And just now, I can't even connect to the forum. I get this error message:

Database error in vBulletin :

Link-ID == false, connect failed
mysql error:

mysql error number: 0

Date: Sunday 11th of July 2004 04:11:01 PM
Script: http://mysite.com/forum/
Referer:
IP Address: xx.xx.xx.x

I had been running gateway.php via a cronjob in my cpanel, but I was worried that gateway.php might have been a runaway job so I deleted it. However, I don't think that actually shut it down.

Any ideas what could be causing this?

[Princeton]

Still waiting for an update.

[lierduh]

Originally Posted by BustaCap

I haven't had any problems since I've been using the hack, but today I added a new newsgroup and got this error:


Any ideas what could be causing this?

One of your table is corrupted. The reason could be a lot of things. One thing the gateway can do is pushing the server to the limit when importing large amount of data, ie. the initial importing for a newsgroup. That should not cause your database to corrupt though.

http://www.google.com.au/search?sour...+table+handler

[rinkrat]

I'm getting prompted to download gateway.php when I try and open it in the browser. Is this what it's supposed to do?

[rinkrat]

Originally Posted by kkiely

I have this script installed with a news feed but when I run go to mysite.com/gateway.php why does it have a pop up that asks me to down the file with the list of posts that it is importing?

Also, can someone cut and paste me their cron script that they use to update it? I cant get mine to work

This is what I'm getting. Now what do we do next?

[lierduh]

Originally Posted by rinkrat

This is what I'm getting. Now what do we do next?

Please refer to the third post on the first page.

[john_rsd]

lierduh

Did you have any ideas on this one?

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showpost....&postcount=315

[lierduh]

Originally Posted by john_rsd

lierduh

Did you have any ideas on this one?

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showpost....&postcount=315

The attachment was not decoded.

If you can post the sample email, I will have a look. I need the email in raw format, you can delete the middle of the attachment. I mainly need to analyse the mime containers.

[john_rsd]

Originally Posted by lierduh

The attachment was not decoded.

If you can post the sample email, I will have a look. I need the email in raw format, you can delete the middle of the attachment. I mainly need to analyse the mime containers.

Would it be better if I resend the email directly to you with attachment?
The file is only very small.

I can go to outbox and resend and just change destination address, that way you can get 100% same as I send.

The email path was from my home PC, directly to the mail server for the domain used (same server) and gatweway.php will collect it locally. Or i can place an email address from you as a forward and you can get the output directly from the server.

The emails for the address used are not held/stored at the server

If it helps the file was packed with winrar, but I use .zip extension as more people understand zip (can be opened in WinXp/zip compatible).

[allan grossman]

lierduh, you've done it again

I installed the latest version and it's got all the options I need - so I don't have to hack gateway.php to get things the way I want them. Works just great.

I especially appreciate the 'no altering vB files' option for the control panel. I've decided with vB3 I'm not installing features that alter vB files - well, I did add a oneliner for photopost integration but that's all

Being able to run nntp_settings and nntp_groups helps me out a lot.

Thanks again -