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

[lierduh]

Originally Posted by ThePimp

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...

Getting message number 971197:
This forum does not allow attachments, therefore attachment ignored.


Any idea for what I might be missing?

The attachment is not fully working at the moment, please wait for next release.

[Cyburbia]

Originally Posted by lierduh

Can't believe you have not checked/tried this.

Change this to 1 !!!

Believe it.

I said I had it at 1 before! I said I turned it back to "0" because I didn't want to keep having empty logs e-mailed to me (and all the forum admins/mods who read the forum e-mail address) every hour.

Lemme' show you again ...



See? do_cron_log 1 And what was the result? I'll show it again.



I swear on a stack of Bibles, Korans, and Torah scrolls that's all I'm getting.

I have done everything precisely as you have said, and I still get minimal logs, and no outgoing e-mail. Sorry, but it's not working. I give up.

[lierduh]

I give up.

Go through the Settings and Re-Read my post.

You have

Send message to USENET send_message 0

You need to set it to bloody 1 to send any messages out!!!

It is things like this makes me giving up giving more support.

We are talking about hacking here. The users can't even bother to go through the settings properly, let alone to wade through the codes to find the problem. No wondering the hackers either start to charge for their effort or just giving up release hacks.

Some may say you don't know php. Hell, when I used Matt Wright's WWWboard in 96, I did not know anything about perl. I still don't know anything about perl, but I went through the codes and used common sense to get it to work the way I wanted. I am not php programmer either, for the record, I am a business man. I bought myself "Teach Youself PHP in 24 hours" book and learn the rest from internet. When I need to re-code the gateway, I still rely heavily on manual even for simple syntax.

Come on, give more efforts if you consider yourself a hacker.

Originally Posted by Cyburbia

Believe it.

I said I had it at 1 before! I said I turned it back to "0" because I didn't want to keep having empty logs e-mailed to me (and all the forum admins/mods who read the forum e-mail address) every hour.

Lemme' show you again ...



See? do_cron_log 1 And what was the result? I'll show it again.



I swear on a stack of Bibles, Korans, and Torah scrolls that's all I'm getting.

I have done everything precisely as you have said, and I still get minimal logs, and no outgoing e-mail. Sorry, but it's not working. I give up.

[Cyburbia]

My stupid. Lemme' try that.

[ThePimp]

I'd like to make a suggestion... Would it be possible to add a feature when you get the attachment portion working properly, to be able to store the images locally or in the database? That way, it can pull images and put them in a local folder, and add the [img] tag if used locally, as opposed to putting a load on the database.

Just a suggestion, I could be wrong in this.

[Cyburbia]

Whee! It works!

I know what confused me - "Send message to USENET". Since the extension works for mailing lists, you might want to change the wording.

Thanks!

[Neal-UK]

Originally Posted by Cyburbia

Whee! It works!

I know what confused me - "Send message to USENET". Since the extension works for mailing lists, you might want to change the wording.

Thanks!

is this worth installing? Looks good, but will it work on rc2 and is it easy to reinstall after each vb update?

[AWS]

Originally Posted by nealparry

is this worth installing? Looks good, but will it work on rc2 and is it easy to reinstall after each vb update?

Very easy to install since no vb files are edited.

[tutorials.de]

Hi together,

I've got a little tricky question for those NNTP Gateway experts out there

As you can see on the first attached screenshot (guests_on_forumdisplay.gif), the username is displayed in the "Last Post" column of forumdisplay.php. Those guys in the example are only "guest posters" from usenet but as you can see, everyone is displayed by his original username.

When we now head up to the next screenshot (guests_on_threaded_view.gif), we look inside an imported usenet thread, where the Threaded Mode feature of vBulletin is active. There you can see, that all guys are named "Newsgroup poster" (that's my alias for the usergroup guest).

I think it would be much better, if the naming of the authors in the Threaded / Hybrid mode box was the same as in forumdisplay.php - everyone, no matter if guest or registered member, should be displayed by his original, individual username. Does anyone have an idea how to achieve that?

Big thanks in advance & keep up the fabulous work!

- Dominik

[wcbryant]

I've got what's probably a silly question, but after doing some reading and searches, haven't been able to find an answer or solution.

My forum defaults to linear, and 99% of my users stick with that. Does anyone know of a way where I can make a forum (the ones using this hack) default to threaded or hybrid mode for all users?