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

[poliveira]

I am receiving this error:

Database error in vBulletin 3.5.4:

Invalid SQL:
UPDATE nntp_settings
SET value = WHERE varname = 'last_postid';

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 'WHERE varname = 'last_postid'' at line 2
Error Number : 1064
Date : Saturday, April 8th 2006 @ 10:18:32 PM
Script : http://.../forums/gateway.php
Referrer :
IP Address : ...
Username : ...
Classname : vB_Database

[phill2003]

This is great, It does exactly what it says on the tin.

Thanks for this it really is awesome...

[newmomsforum]

Wish it did for me Phill2003

Still getting the 441 posting failed errors as above. So near and yet so far.

Does anyone have any ideas where I can start to look for this?

Could it be a server issue? I run the site on a dedicated server so have no issues tweaking settings if required.

Are there any NTTP options I need enabled within Apache to enable me to post back?

Thanks anyone for any advice

Claire

[phill2003]

Are you sure the news server your using allows posting quite a lot of the free ones dont, I used a premium service for mine and it worked straight away?

[newmomsforum]

Hey phill2003, thanks for the response

Yeh I'm using a premium service too (giganews) and if you look at the error message I'm getting:

Can we post? server responded: 340 send article
Posting Message 'Re: Andrea update' from Claire. Result: 441 posting failed

The newserver is confirming we can post but when the post is being seent, its at this point that it fails.

[dwbro1]

Mine was working fine updating messages for days now and it was almost caught up to current in the two groups I have added and then it seems to have just stopped. I use giganews and it was up to about 79K post in just one of the groups when it has just stopped. Still about 6 more months worth of post to catch all the way up too.. .. When I run the task from the scheduler it says:

UseNet Update

Done

but the post counts are not climbing. I checked giganews and I have not used but a 1/4 of my monthly quota so thats not it. Any thoughts on what I can do to find out what is happening?

[dwbro1]

Any ideas?

[newmomsforum]

dwbro1, try manually increasing the Last Message count by by 1 or two.

Ie, if your current message count is 754545 change it to 754546 and run gateway.php again.

See if this works

Claire

[dwbro1]

Yeah I did and nada. I finally just jumped from 7-22-05 to the first msg on 1-1-06 and started again and it worked. Just lost 4 to 5 months worth but thats ok.

[newmomsforum]

Fair enough..glad you got it working dwbro1, minus a few thousand posts anyway

Quick question if anyone has any ideas.

Many of the posts I'm pulling for one of my sites from a particular usenet newsgroup includes posts from what I guess can only be described as a competitor, made to the usenet group via a similar (if not the same) hack.

Thats not the problem, what is the problem is every post from said site has a nice big footer including the text:

"This post was made at http://www......XXXXX - Click here for the best information about" etc etc.....

I don't add anything similar to my footers and although I don't mind general links in any posts I 'grab'; I don't want to be actively driving potential new members to this other site.

I know this can be done with mailing lists but is their a way to strip out certain footers for usenet syncs?

I thought that I might have been able to use the turn signature off for guests option but as these footers form part of the main text thats not really an option.

I have also tried the censorship option , however you don't appear to be able to censor full phrases, just individual words which is of no help to me.

I'm still pretty new to VB so I may be missing something. Any ideas / help is really appreciated.

Cheers all

Claire