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 szy

So, should I still expect your help, Lierduh?

Szy.

PS. I've changed the URLs above.

Don't know what is the problem. Perhaps something very basic is not configured properly, or perhaps the files are corrupted. You did sent the files as ASCII instead of binary?

[lierduh]

Originally Posted by MrDegree

Is there a way to change the "Originating IP" when posting to Usenet? I would like to say from my host's IP. Right now it's actually funneling the IP from the actual user on the my board who is doing the post.

Thanks.

You would need to hack the hack for this.

[lierduh]

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!

"Pause Between messages" "pause_seconds"

[lierduh]

Originally Posted by Marv

Thx, lierduh.

Which version of the script are you using? I think I have already included the fix in the recently one of two releases.

Please check functions_nntp.php, around line 68, you should have:

$parsed_body .= "\n\n";

[SEO Report]

I have a big problem here, many posts are imported twice (some even 3+), causing me a maintenance nightmare with some bigger newsgroups.

I see that at least another member experienced this, has this bug been fixed yet?

Anyway, kudos for this wonderful hack!

[lierduh]

Originally Posted by SEO Report

I have a big problem here, many posts are imported twice (some even 3+), causing me a maintenance nightmare with some bigger newsgroups.

I see that at least another member experienced this, has this bug been fixed yet?

Anyway, kudos for this wonderful hack!

You probably had cron/scheduled tasks set up before the initial message importation was completed.

The scripts has the ability to detect if there is another instance of script already running, but only if the other script was started to run less than 1/2 hour ago. As the initial importation may take well over 1/2hour. Two scripts could have run side by side causing double messages.

[szy]

Lierduh, thanks for your time, one more question...

gateway.php starts to work when i... delete these line:

require_once('include/functions.php');

... and then I get:

Gateway version 2.3.2  1 group(s) gatewayed.

Connecting to server, server says: 200 NNTP Service 6.0.3790.206 Version: 6.0.3790.206 Posting Allowed 

Info for microsoft.public.access at msnews.microsoft.com: 211 15392 1 139321 microsoft.public.access

Getting message number 2:

... and nothing more.

So, could you please what exactly functions from functions.php you use in this hack? It will be easier to find the reason... :|

Thx,
Szy.

[lierduh]

Originally Posted by szy

Lierduh, thanks for your time, one more question...

gateway.php starts to work when i... delete these line:

require_once('include/functions.php');

... and then I get:

Gateway version 2.3.2  1 group(s) gatewayed.

Connecting to server, server says: 200 NNTP Service 6.0.3790.206 Version: 6.0.3790.206 Posting Allowed 

Info for microsoft.public.access at msnews.microsoft.com: 211 15392 1 139321 microsoft.public.access

Getting message number 2:

... and nothing more.

So, could you please what exactly functions from functions.php you use in this hack? It will be easier to find the reason... :|

Thx,
Szy.

You can check the web server log and see what sort of errors you had. I couldn't remember what functions were used. It will be too time consuming for me to go through all the scripts and find the functions. Actually it is near impossible without writing an auto script to do so.

[szy]

In PHP error log:

[Wed Apr 27 11:16:26 2005] [error] PHP Fatal error:  Cannot redeclare construct_phrase() in ./includes/functions.php on line 36

Lines 34-72 of vB's functions.php are:

function construct_phrase()
{
	static $argpad;

	$args = func_get_args();
	$numargs = sizeof($args);

	// if we have only one argument, just return the argument
	if ($numargs < 2)
	{
		return $args[0];
	}
	else
	{
		// call sprintf() on the first argument of this function
		$phrase = @call_user_func_array('sprintf', $args);
		if ($phrase !== false)
		{
			return $phrase;
		}
		else
		{
			// if that failed, add some extra arguments for debugging
			for ($i = $numargs; $i < 10; $i++)
			{
				$args["$i"] = "[ARG:$i UNDEFINED]";
			}
			if ($phrase = @call_user_func_array('sprintf', $args))
			{
				return $phrase;
			}
			// if it still doesn't work, just return the un-parsed text
			else
			{
				return $args[0];
			}
		}
	}
}

Hm?

Szy.

[Marco van Herwaarden]

This error means that the function "construct_phrase" is being defined for the second time. This can have different causes:
- Your custom script defines a function with the same name before calling functions.php.
- You made an edit somehow duplicating that function in functions.php
- You are using a "include" or "require" of functions.php instead of "include_once" or "require_once" making the functions.php to be loaded twice.

And probably some more i didn't think of now.