NNTP Gateway for Usenet ( Newsgroups ), Mailing Lists

The latest version: V3.5.0Alpha 1 (21 Jul 2005)

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 was originally coded by Gilby for vB2. I modified the hack to work with vB3 and have been maintaining and improving the hack. I have now done the modification for this to work with vB3.5.

The very original hack by Gilby can be found here:

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthrea...7&page=1&pp=15

The vB3 version can be found here:

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=65152

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.
• 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

• Traditional "> " lead posting interface.

What do you need and do not need?

You do not need to edit vB php files.
No need to manually 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.

It is not a must to click "INSTALL" for this hack if you use it, I do try better answering the questions from people who do.

Support

Please post your support questions to this thread. Please check the FAQ in the second post within this thread first. It may be surprising, but it is possible your question is answered in the adminCP NNTP settings.

Please always provide more details about your problem. Examples and debug messages will certainly help. Well, if you don't even try to have some effort to compose your question, the answer you get may also not include much effort.

================== UPDATES ======================
Jul 21 2005 (release version 3.5.0 Alpha 1)

AdminCP xml file is written by Kadence.

• Ported to work with vB3.5.
• Existing bug fixes.
• Debug message can be sent by email or logged in vB Tast Scheduler.
• Known problem: image attachment thumb nail creation still needs work.
• Needs to be done: Documentation.

Quick installation instruction:
1) Upload files to their correct directory
2) Enter AdminCP, click on NNTP Settings once to install/upgrade. Change settings to your like.
3) Click on NNTP Groups once to install/upgrade.
3a) For new install. Run once
http://www.yourdomain.com/setlastmsg.php

Delete this file afterwards.
If you are upgrading from an older version. There is no need to upload this file. Actually this file should not be there except brand new install.

4)
Manually run in debug mode: http://forums.yourdomain.com/gateway.php?debug=1

[kgroneman]

We've got it working very nicely, but have had to modify the code a bit to get it working right. If anyone wants it, I'll send you the files I have. Currently running on 4.1.9 PL1 without problems at http://forums.novell.com and http://forums.opensuse.org (nntp servers: forums.novell.com and forums.opensuse.org) Email me at kgronemanREMOVE@REMOVEnovell.com (sentient beings will know what to take out of that email address to make it work) We're still playing trying to get the NNTP cancel command to work, but we'll figure it out. Cancel was working but with one of the recent forum upgrades, it stopped so we'll have to find out what changed.

[TMM-TT]

Originally Posted by Rik Brown

After upgrading from vb 4.1.6 to 4.1.7, I got the following error:

PHP Fatal error: Call to undefined function build_post_index() in /home/www/html/subs/forums/includes/functions_nntp.php on line 623

What I found is that in the forum's /include directory there is a file named functions_databuild.php that holds the build_post_index function. I see in the 4.1.6 code that the build_post_index function has all the code between the initiation of the function and the end of the function commented out. In 4.1.7, the function has been totally removed from the functions_databuild.php file.

Since the mod worked fine with vb 4.1.6, this would indicate that the function wasn't being utilized by this mod at all. So I commented out the call to the build_post_index function from within functions_nntp.php. And, as far as I can tell, that gets the mod back up and running again with vb 4.1.7.

I'd rather patch that one, for "compatibility":

PHP Code:

        // Index post for searching
        if (function_exists('build_post_index')) build_post_index($postid, $foruminfo); 


[toibs]

Strange,
For some reason cant seem to re-install this on 3.8.5 - i know ive had this working on this version before...

Anyhow, getting the following :

Invalid SQL:

			INSERT INTO nntp_groups
			(newsgroup, forum, prefix, lastmsg, server, username, password, sender, checkuser, enabled)
			VALUES
			('ukpinball', 4, '[ukpinball]',
			0, 'text1', 'text2',
			'pass1', '', 0, 1);

MySQL Error   : Unknown column 'checkuser' in 'field list'
Error Number  : 1054
Request Date  : Thursday, April 5th 2012 @ 05:42:03 PM
Error Date    : Thursday, April 5th 2012 @ 05:42:03 PM
Script        : http://www.name.com/community/admincp/nntp_groups.php?do=insert
Referrer      : http://www.name.com/community/admincp/nntp_groups.php?do=add
IP Address    : 82.69.165.76
Username      : Paul
Classname     : vB_Database
MySQL Version : 5.1.60-rel13.1

Erm ... Help?!?!!

Cheers
Paul

[Rik Brown]

Planning to change Usenet providers. Any recommendation for a good/inexpensive provider that works well with this mod?

Thanks. -- Rik

[TMM-TT]

Originally Posted by Rik Brown

Planning to change Usenet providers. Any recommendation for a good/inexpensive provider that works well with this mod?

Thanks. -- Rik

All providers theoretically works, but many of them only allows one user per account. The problem is to find which provider that allows multiple users to send posts via their services.

news.tornevall.net is unfortunately down for the moment (I'm working on it) - that service allowed this.

[donholloway]

I am using Usenetserver.com and they seem to be pretty responsive. They have a 24x7 online chat, also respond to email.

Thanks to everyone here for contributing, it took me much longer than I would have liked to get things working again. I had used the mod before, had mail servers working, but was struggling with Usenet.

My shared hosting provider had blocked port 119, found that they and my news provider were both supporting port 25, then spent many hours trying to find the port references in the php files. I found one in gateway.php, one in nntp.php, and setlastmsp.php. Still couldn't connect and was getting a timeout and it wouldn't connect.

Finally overnight, my ISP relented and unblocked port 119. I went to Tornevall's files that he posted on his webpage a couple of years ago (Tack för utstationering på engelska), made one edit to change for my host and it is now connecting and working.

I have that nice rush that you briefly have when you finally solve a tough one.

It was brief enough, the test post that downloaded was yEnc encoded and looks like gibberish. On to the next challenge. Thanks to everyone for supporting this. I will try to help improve the documentation a little bit.

Will try to share my experiences as I encounter the next challenge.

[toibs]

Donholloway,

Any chance you could share your changes in total? I'm about to move back to vB and would love to be able to re-install this again with minimal pain

or that applies to anyone - would anyone be willing to share their files with all the edits and changes rather than go through it all again?

Cheers
Paul

[Rik Brown]

Would love to hear feedback on whether the mod works with vb5 as soon as someone has tested it.

[toibs]

I will as soon as they get their fingers out and make it easy to upgrade from 3.x to 5... Cant do it online... and i havent had chance to call them...

[tpearl5]

FYI, Mine was getting an error when there was an apostrophe in the e-mail.

I added

PHP Code:

//remove apostrophe from email
$from_email = preg_replace('/\'/', '', $from_email); 


before

//Check if the sender is a user

which simply strips an apostrophe if present