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.

[lierduh]

Originally Posted by Reeve of shinra

I was thinking of using this with a yahoo group but its
moderated so if my members sent replies via this hack, it would have to use thier email address. Is that possible? Thanks!

Will need to hack the code. It may work for moderated group, but there are problems associated with groups that need subscription.

[lierduh]

Originally Posted by fonzerelli_79

great script

got it working no problem

i got thousands of posts downloaded into my forums using gateway.php

problem is most of them have no content - is this because im using a free server and ive reached my limit. If my limit was reached would posts still be downloaded but would they just be blank?

Need more information. What is the message look like using a normal news reader? What message does it display when you run the debug mode?

[trackpads]

Way to go Lierduh! Excellent!

Is there a way to make the Killfile for the USENET posts only? I had this set up under the old Killfile so that I could take all the political rantings out of the usenet posts but not out of the information mailing lists etc.

Thanks again for all the great work!!

-Jason

[fonzerelli_79]

Originally Posted by lierduh

Need more information. What is the message look like using a normal news reader? What message does it display when you run the debug mode?

no actual message appears - an hour glass appears as if gateway is working

if you load the page again it says "Another instance of gateway.php is running, try again in 30 minutes if the script was crashed." so it should be working ok

i really think its down to me using a free usenet server as the first few hundred were fine with all content etc

[fonzerelli_79]

i checked this morning - all new posts are fine and seem to be working ok - but there are thousands of threads with titles but no actual content -

im not too bothered why this is because they are older threads - though at the same time i really should find out why it did it incase it happens again

[fonzerelli_79]

it seems to be still happening -some posts have content and some dont

is there a way to stop posts with no content being posted?

thanks

[rinkrat]

I've been wanting to do this for years and I finally can!! Thanks for this hack

[Marv]

Originally Posted by lierduh

To upgrade, you only need to open the AdminCP NNTP Settings page. The
upgrade will be carried out automatically in the background.

lierduh, do we have to upload (and overwrite) all of the present files ?
( noticed a missing update note in gateway.php. it still says "define('VERSION', '2.1.0');" )

regards,
Marv.

[lierduh]

Originally Posted by trackpads

Way to go Lierduh! Excellent!

Is there a way to make the Killfile for the USENET posts only? I had this set up under the old Killfile so that I could take all the political rantings out of the usenet posts but not out of the information mailing lists etc.

Thanks again for all the great work!!

-Jason

Please remember the Killfile looks throught the entire header when the 'H:' is used. So you can easily include a unique news post string. eg.
{[B:your search string] AND [H:news.group.name]}

[lierduh]

Originally Posted by Marv

lierduh, do we have to upload (and overwrite) all of the present files ?
( noticed a missing update note in gateway.php. it still says "define('VERSION', '2.1.0');" )

regards,
Marv.

Looks like you do not have the new files. To confirm, I have just downloaded the file and it indeed has 2.2.0 Version gateway.php included.

Yes, you need to replace all the existing files. All the files have been changed since last version.