[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

[fastforward]

Originally posted by DarkReaper
Its showing my forum default sig on the usenet itself through a newsreader.

My ICQ is 34206559...it'll help make things easier

I can't seem to send a file via ICQ. Here's the newnews.pl I'm using. It works for me. Try it and see what happens. If it doesn't work, the problem must lie in the way the custom profile is configured.

(the file has been renamed as .txt)

[DarkReaper]

# $Id: newnews.pl,v 20010729 2001-07-29 00:10:31-05 paul Exp $

That's from my newnews.pl file...guess I'm a bit outdated

What's new/fixed in the new file? I noticed there were some problems when using image and url tags when it was sent to the usenet. Is this fixed?

[fastforward]

Originally posted by DarkReaper
What's new/fixed in the new file? I noticed there were some problems when using image and url tags when it was sent to the usenet. Is this fixed?

Possibly This file has been updated as I went along, nothing major, just little tweaks here and there. I haven't really kept track. the latest official release is dated 20010820.

[DarkReaper]

It works now...yay

[Mark Hewitt]

Does this function in 2.2.0?

[tamarian]

Originally posted by Mark Hewitt
Does this function in 2.2.0?

Yes. I've had no problems running it on 2.2

[ryankbrooks]

Even if I have the email address option set, newnews.pl posts my default email address instead of the users addr.

Are other folks using this option successfully?

I don't want to use a custom field.

TIA,

R

[H2Hosting.com]

When 2.2.0 release will be available? Thanks

[Shaman]

I took the plunge. To install the usenet.php file in the administration, all you need to do is add this:

Right under "makenavselect("Templates","<hr>");"

// *************************************************
makenavoption("Options","usenet.php?action=options ","|");
makenavoption("Groups","usenet.php?action=groups", "<br>");
makenavoption("Spam Control","usenet.php?action=spam","<br>");
makenavselect("USENET Control","<hr>");

The rest, you'll have to hack out by hand. It's complex.

[yulee]

Hello there,

I read the entire thread, yeah I'm a bit surprised with your hardworking (in special fastforward, sure!) and now I have a little question: 2.2.1 compliant?

I have seen your site fastforward, and I have seen you have some microsoft newsgroups there. I'm trying to install it to run some microsoft newsgroups, so I'm wondering how is the experience with them? Any other experience about MS newsgroups?

Thank you very much for your really amazing hack!!