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.

[AWS]

Originally Posted by Ian Cunningham

Is there any way to make the posts load into more than 1 forum at a time, and to stage the import slowly - so as not to bring the server to its knees?

I'm trying to import a few newsgroups with lots 50,000 posts in each and it brings my server to a halt!

It has a built in function to pause after so many topics are imported. Check in the settings page.

[Ian Cunningham]

Originally Posted by AWS

It has a built in function to pause after so many topics are imported. Check in the settings page.

I must be silly as I can't find that setting anywhere? Do you know the title of it?

I've just checked how you have implemented yours and that is similar to what I am trying to do - nice site!

[Marv]

Originally Posted by lierduh

This occures when someone replies to the quote straight after the vbcode. eg. Instead of writing the reply in the new line. They reply was written like like:

PHP Code:

... 


PHP Code:

Reply was here 


I will check the code out in a few days.[/QUOTE]

Hi lierduh,

may be you already found a solution for the problem described in https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showpost....&postcount=794 and just forgot to let us know how we can get rid of it?

Only wanna kindly bump it again

[AWS]

Originally Posted by Ian Cunningham

I must be silly as I can't find that setting anywhere? Do you know the title of it?

I've just checked how you have implemented yours and that is similar to what I am trying to do - nice site!

yes it doesn't seem to be there any longer. I know there used to a way to pause the script for x number of seconds. Don't know what happened to it.

[Ian Cunningham]

Originally Posted by AWS

yes it doesn't seem to be there any longer. I know there used to a way to pause the script for x number of seconds. Don't know what happened to it.

Not to worry, cheers anyway

I've got another problem now :speechless: I keep getting "PHP has encountered a Stack overflow" errors on certain posts, if I skip them it works fine, but I have to tell the script to start on a post count 1 higher than previously - is there any way to fix this? (or at least ignore it?).

[Devereaux]

Hi,

Sorry if this is obvious but I'm a bit confused - a few questions:

1. The readme says to set up the forums as usual. I did that. Should I be setting up the forums through the VB3 forum manager and then also go in and set up the newsgroups with the same names in the nntp settings??

2. Second, I input everything and the page just hangs when I execute the gateway.php file. Here is what I get - then the page says DONE in the status bar and nothing else happens, script locks for 30 minutes, no sign of posts being read into my forums:

Any help is GREATLY appreciated!

--------

Gateway version 2.3.2 2 group(s) gatewayed.

Connecting to server, server says: 200 Supernews server ready - posting allowed

Server responded after user name: 381 PASS required

Server responded after password: 281 authentication succeeded

Info for rec.models.rc.soaring at news20.forteinc.com: 211 1841 34684 36524 rec.models.rc.soaring group selected

[Devereaux]

Is anyone supporting this hack??

[James T Brock]

Originally Posted by Devereaux

Hi,

Sorry if this is obvious but I'm a bit confused - a few questions:

1. The readme says to set up the forums as usual. I did that. Should I be setting up the forums through the VB3 forum manager and then also go in and set up the newsgroups with the same names in the nntp settings??

Yup.

Originally Posted by Devereaux

2. Second, I input everything and the page just hangs when I execute the gateway.php file. Here is what I get - then the page says DONE in the status bar and nothing else happens, script locks for 30 minutes, no sign of posts being read into my forums:

Try it again with different newsgroups.

[lierduh]

Originally Posted by Devereaux

Is anyone supporting this hack??

Not for at least another week from me while I am abroad.

[esfron]

@ chas_h

I have the same gateway.php working for two forums on the same server.