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.

[sanereddy]

Hello All,

Could some one help me how to remove or replace the '=?Utf-8?B?UmFqYQ==?= ' in teh place of user name .. tried to find the answer in the forum, I could not find it.. I am sorry if it's answered. Could you please give me the link how we can replace that with guyest or something...

Regards,

[sdsvtdriver]

Originally Posted by Gutspiller

Come on people! I took the time to install this mod, the least somebody could do is help me on how I fill in the info boxes to get it to pull the content it's suppose to.. :disappointed:

you need to subscribe to a Usenet server service for best results.

Giganews, Usenetserver, etc

you can use your local ISP's but they tend to have little retention. Regardless of which you use, they'll provide you with the proper information.

[sanereddy]

Hello sdsvtdriver,

Do you know how I can remove those junk user id's.....

Can I use giganes on the forum without any reststrcitions?

Thanks,

[blist]

What are the recommended settings for a read-only setup, on a mailing list for example?

[TMM-TT]

I'm not sure if this has been discussed before, but I have experienced some problems with Xrefs and messages that has been crossposted. It seems like the importer only looks for the first xref (or something like that) in the header, so if there's crossposts the import stops completely and I have to update the postcount manually for those groups. Is that a known problem or something that only I have seen?

[sensimilla]

great hack ! thanks

[frakman]

(CUT silly first message about how to get pop3 working)
amazing the difference some sleep makes.

Ok - I know somewhere in this thread is "mbox" but I cannot find it.

I have a 10k message mbox extracted from Yahoo. Is there a way of importing that directly into the system - other than copying the file to a POP3 mail folder and getting via POP3?

Cheers,
Mathew

[Gutspiller]

Originally Posted by SEO Report

Newsgroup/Mailing list E-mail = the name of the newsgroup you want to import (that would be alt.games.video.xbox)

Server = the name of your nntp provider (ie. news.blabla.com)

HTH,
-k

How do we find out who is our "nntp provider "? Is this something you have to pay for or is there a question I should ask my host to find this out? Something that is setup on my server or what?

[DefenceTalk]

I am getting 404 errors when trying to run

gateway.php?debug=1

Any idea why?

thanks

[eljeffe]

I've waded through the replies in this thread, and I still have a few questions.

We are looking for a hack that allows our members to participate via email. Receive posts via email, make posts via email, and reply to posts via email. We have a email server that has mailing list capabilities, but I'd like to understand more about how this feature works. There is TONS of information on how to interact with usenet via NNTP, but I do not find much information on how to interact with mailing lists and allow our members to treat the vBulletin forums like they do with a Yahoo Groups or other email list based community.

If anyone has implemented this hack in the manner I described above, please reply or send me a PM with some of your experiences.

Thanks