[RELEASE] Usenet Gateway for vB 2.01

Description:

This hack provides a gateway to selected usenet groups. The entire usenet group is mirrored locally. Posts submitted locally to mirrored newsgroups will also be sent out to usenet. A single perl script is executed via cron that collects news and posts any outgoing articles. Incoming messages are parsed against customizable spam filters and threaded correctly before being placed in your forums. By default, no personal information is sent to usenet other than the posters username and whatever you have globally configured as a footer and organization. The option does exist for a user to include a custom email to use for usenet posts. After initial installation (which involves creating some new tables, adding a few columns to existing vB tables, and entering the database connection information to the news script) configuration is completed via the vB control panel.

• See it in action at dBforums.com (usenet forums are at the bottom)
• Download latest version for vB 2.2.4

Current version is 20020323 for vB2.xx

Current feature list:

• correct threading of outgoing posts on usenet
• full control panel integration
• email notification to usenet replies
• emoticon translation into vb icons
• vb code removal or conversion prior to posting to usenet
• hyperlinked urls in messages
• color coded, italicized & indented quotes
• vB style quote to usenet style quote conversions for outgoing posts
• logging of outgoing posts
• support for multiple news servers
• support for seperate footers per forum in outgoing posts
• multi-language (selectable) handling of quoted MIME printable headers (for all those funny foreign characters)
• handling of mailing archive groups
• flexible spam control and replacement variable options for incoming and outgoing messages
• configurable auto-expire option
• option for users to show email address in their outgoing usenet posts (may be different than normal one in profile
• option to enable/disable user signatures on outgoing posts.
• fully compatible with vB moderation functions

Still to be done:

• canceling of messages after they have been sent to usenet via control message in accordance with RFC1036.
• binary attachment support
• email to PM gateway

Screeshots:
Main Options
More Options
Configuration of Newsgroups
Add New Newsgroups
Spam Control
What an imported usenet article looks like in vB

The latest version of this hack will always be in this first post of the thread.

Before asking questions in this thread, please read all the posts in this thread. If your question goes unanswered, it will probably be because the question has already been answered countless times in this thread.

This hack was created for use on my forums and will only be supported as time permits.


Links to required Perl Modules

• News::NNTPClient
• Net::SMTP
• MIME::WordDecoder
• Text::AutoFormat
• Mail::Address
• URI::Find
• DBI
• DBD::MySQL
• Date::Parse
• HTML::Entities

[kaiwang]

Can you guys recommend a good NNTP service provider to use with this mod? Thanks!

[Gardener]

02-11-03 at 04:13 AM fastforward said this in Post #516
The new and improved version of this hack is already re-written and has been running on my site for several months. It's all object oriented and just requires a drop-in 'forum' module to work with vB3 or any other version. Obviously a 2.2.9 module is already written.

Basically, an article object is passed to the forum module for insertion, so any forum vendor or version can be easily supported.

The reasons I haven't released it yet are:
1) I still make tweaks every week to the code.
2) There is no easy upgrade path from the existing version.

But rest assured, as soon as vB3 is released, it will be released.

Any updates on the release of the new version?

[Gutspiller]

How difficult is it to install this hack?
What type of fee would I be looking at if I had someone do it for me?
How much of this stuff could I get my host to do for me?

Can somebody please help? I'm interested in installling this beast.

[Gardener]

Yesterday at 11:33 PM Gutspiller said this in Post #533
How difficult is it to install this hack?
What type of fee would I be looking at if I had someone do it for me?
How much of this stuff could I get my host to do for me?

Can somebody please help? I'm interested in installling this beast.

This is a very easy hack to install. Just download the file and read the instructions. If you still can't figure it out, PM me and I'll install it for you for free.

If you are going to use this on a shared hosting server, make sure you have plenty of space because the database can get very large very quickly.

[PurpleCow]

Hello fastforward,

The new and improved version of this hack is already re-written and has been running on my site for several months. It's all object oriented and just requires a drop-in 'forum' module to work with vB3 or any other version. Obviously a 2.2.9 module is already written.

Basically, an article object is passed to the forum module for insertion, so any forum vendor or version can be easily supported.

The reasons I haven't released it yet are:
1) I still make tweaks every week to the code.
2) There is no easy upgrade path from the existing version.

But rest assured, as soon as vB3 is released, it will be released.

Can i get a copy of your current version to use on my upcoming forums ?? I will most probably not be upgrading to vB3.0 when its out. So, i wanna install your NNTP gateway hack now and use it for my vB2.3.0 stable relase.

Thanks for any help.

Cheers

[gmtalk]

I too am interested in this for vb3. I had it installed on 2.3.0 and would like to have it back. Any updates. Yes I am aware that no hacks for 3.0 until RC or gold.

[MaDCaT75]

I'm too stupid to understand the installation instructions :cry:

[PhoenixBB]

Does this work okay on 2.26?

I'm currently using Gilby's without problems, however because it apparently 'top posts' and my newsgroups are not very tolerant, I won't switch the reply function on and they have to go use googles interface if they want to post.

I just had a look at VB3 for it's threaded feature, but I won't be installing. Would this hack do the job? The features sound fine, and I don't use binary groups so no problem. Just want it so that when it posts it will go to the correct thread on Usenet.

Also a bit worried about the Perl thing. I hear a lot of complaints about it; is it bad or something? My host has all the modules installed, and even though I'm on a shared server I've had no server probs with the php usenet hack. Will Perl double the server load or something, or is it just a techie preference??

Thanx for any advice.

[cyc]

Hi

This hack worked without any problems for almost a year

I've just moved to a new news server and have a small problem when pulling new posts. The first post in each new batch is downloaded but the rest give this error: NNTPERROR: 430 No Such Article


-> fetching articles 658907 to 658910...
-> fetching 658908... OK
NNTPERROR: 430 No Such Article
NNTPERROR: 430 No Such Article
<snip ~1000 errors>

If I re-run it I get this:

-> fetching 658909... OK
NNTPERROR: 430 No Such Article
NNTPERROR: 430 no such article
<snip ~1000 errors>

I'm using giganews, its works fine if I use Outlook express to pull the posts.

cheers

[rishel]

Ok, this is a very serious question.

I have this script running on several sites.

I am getting posts from one NG, because a guy on there doesnt want us to connect to that public newsgroup.

He is infuriated, and is trying to cause trouble, and threatening legal action.

He is saying, all newsgroups, are private intellectual property, and that a site running this script is breaking the law.

Now what is the truth about this?

If that is true, then how does Yahoo, Google, and all the others do it?

This makes no sense. So as I understand what he is saying, we cant legally use this script?

How in the world can a newsgroup be a private posting area? Someone please shed some light on this?