NNTP Gateway (Usenet/Newsgroups)

This hack provides a gateway to any NNTP newsgroup such as those from Usenet and other newsgroup servers. Selected newsgroups are imported from your news server and post on the forum are sent out to the newsgroup. This hack was greatly inspired by fastforward's usenet gateway hack. This one is a complete rewrite of that hack written in PHP and works with vB 2.2.2.

Installation:
Installation is pretty simple. No modifications to the vB php files are needed and it simply consists of dropping in the files to your forums directory, running the SQL modifications, and modifying the newsgroup settings for your desired newsgroups. For the complete installation details, read the readme.txt file.

Here are some of the features:

• Real cool vbcode to text conversion!
• All posts are inserted, even if parent thread cannot be found for replies
• Guests posts also get sent to the newsgroup.
• Importing of attachments from the newsgroup
• Poll info sent to newsgroup
• Attachment link sent to newsgroup
• Supports unlimited newsgroups and servers.
• email notification of new replies, just like regular forum posts
• Can import HTML messages and convert to limited vb code.

For control panel integration, please check out GameCrash's Graphical Interface addition.

What's not in it that was in fastforward's usenet gateway hack:

• No control panel integration at the moment. (Available separately)
• Does not support separate footers
• Does not allow custom email address to be used via the users option
• No spam control or string replacement support.
• No purging or autoexpire.

There is still lots that I'd like to add to it, but this is competely functional for basic newsgroup gateway support. It is most likely not free of bugs. If you have questions, suggestions or annoyances, please post in this thread.

vb3 support
lierduh modified this to provide support for the beta versions of vb3. When the release candidates of vb3 come out, I plan to add support for vb3 and add other features to this hack. If you have suggestions for new features, let me know.

E-mail gateway support
New in this version, you can now gateway with an email list. This will fetch emails from a POP email account and send via php's mail function to the mailing list's email address. To set up the list, in the newsgroup field, enter in the email address to send outgoing posts to. In the server field, enter in the pop3 server, and in the username and password fields enter in, you guessed it, the username and password to your pop account. Note: the email gateway capabilities has not been fully tested, so it might not work with your POP server. Also, it does not work in combo with a news<->forum gateway in the same forum (you can use either kind though in differnet forums within your forums).

[Erwin]

Originally Posted by Gilby

I do still plan to upgrade the scripts for vb 3, but haven't had a chance to do so yet. I'll be out of town over the next week, but I hope to work on it within the next few weeks.

For those that just can't wait to upgrade to vb3, lierduh's hack of this script should hold you over until I get an official one made for vb3.

If you have any suggestions about new features to add or any bugs or problems you've encountered, now is the time to let me know (you can post here or email me through the forums here).

How's the update going? Would your update be similar to the current lierduh's version, or different? I don't want to use lierduh's version, and then find out yours is very different necessitating a complete redo.

[Bro_Joey_Gowdy]

/me waits patiently for an official release for vb3

[chas_h]

I'm getting some Sql errors when I try to run the newer VB-3 gateway.php posted by Lierduh. Anybody have a clue where to look for this??

Chas.

"Database error in vBulletin 3.0.0:

Invalid SQL: SELECT
post.postid,post.username,post.userid,post.datelin e,post.pagetext,post.showsigna ture,post.ipaddress,thread.pollid,thread.title,pos t.threadid,post.attach,thread. forumid
FROM thread,post WHERE post.isusenetpost=0 AND thread.threadid=post.threadid AND
post.dateline=thread.dateline AND post.userid=thread.postuserid AND
(thread.forumid=)
mysql error: You have an error in your SQL syntax. Check the manual that
corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near ')' at
line 1

mysql error number: 1064

[lierduh]

The error is at: (thread.forumid=)

That means the script did not retrieve the correct forum IDs.

The code for above is:

thread.forumid=". implode(" OR thread.forumid=", $group[forum])

You probably have not set up "nntp_groups" table properly.

[chas_h]

Originally Posted by lierduh

The error is at: (thread.forumid=)

That means the script did not retrieve the correct forum IDs.

The code for above is:

thread.forumid=". implode(" OR thread.forumid=", $group[forum])

You probably have not set up "nntp_groups" table properly.

Thanks for responding. I have got the proper group ID# in there, but it's hard to tell now because I put the entries in the field that had the description and I can't see the description anymore. Also, my view if PHPMyadmin looks alot different than the screenshots at the beggining of this thread.
I'm trying to set it up as a mail gateway, not a usenet gareway, I'll go back and try again.

Chas.

[chas_h]

I see where I was going wrong with the entries in MySql. Now that it is fixed I am still getting one small error when I run the gateway.php, see below

"1 group(s) gatewayed.<br />
<b>Fatal error</b>: Cannot instantiate non-existent class: pop3 in <b>/var/www/html/forum/gateway.php</b> on line <b>76</b><br />"

Has anyone got this to work with mail on VB-3? I would apreciate any input, good or bad, I just need to know if this can be done or not.

Thanks.

[Erwin]

Okay, I'm using lierduh's version, and it seems to be working with vB3 Gold. Thanks!

[chas_h]

Originally Posted by Erwin

Okay, I'm using lierduh's version, and it seems to be working with vB3 Gold. Thanks!

Hi Erwin, thanks for responding. I think that you and I host at the same place, at least I think I've seen some of your posts in the forums there. If so, have you had any trouble using this as a mail to forum integration using RedHat ES/Ensim combo (if that is what you use)? Any special setup with that?

TIA,
Chas.

[lierduh]

Originally Posted by chas_h

Hi Erwin, thanks for responding. I think that you and I host at the same place, at least I think I've seen some of your posts in the forums there. If so, have you had any trouble using this as a mail to forum integration using RedHat ES/Ensim combo (if that is what you use)? Any special setup with that?

TIA,
Chas.

I have disabled the mail post function. You can try to uncommon the require_once("class.POP3.php3"); line and upload the class file.

[chas_h]

Originally Posted by lierduh

I have disabled the mail post function. You can try to uncommon the require_once("class.POP3.php3"); line and upload the class file.

Hi Lierduh,
Thanks, I have done what you said and now mail is going from the forum to the mailing list I have set up, that is a big step forward! But I am not able to send from mailbox to forum. Additionally, the mail that arrives from the forum to the mail has a return address of;
"admin.14j7a0@timelimit.yourserver.com"
Which is not the address of the mailing list.

I have seen something like this hack work on phpBB, but in that case all you need to do is subscribe to the forum setup for mail, you don't have to join the mail list. I can't seem to figure out how to subscribe to a 'froum' in VB-3. only a thread, so it is necesary to join the mailing list to receive mail.
Any thoughts from anyone on this would be greatly appreciated.

Chas.