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.

[lierduh]

Originally Posted by Highlander

okai thx .. what about the posting .. i mean exporting to a newsgroup. a user told me that when i post a horroble wide range of unsorted html tags showed up, so that my postings there messed up the whole style .. nearly unreadable with some vb-tags and many html tags.

I have no idea what you have done. No, html should not show up. Check your post in your post table. If you see html, then the problem is nothing to do with gatway.

[Erwin]

lierduh - I like the way you coded the AdminCP files. Very smart.

[Mike11212]

When I run the gateway.php file. It pulls the first 2 post but then it just hangs and does nothing else.

Have I done something wrong?

[webrats]

Originally Posted by Mike11212

When I run the gateway.php file. It pulls the first 2 post but then it just hangs and does nothing else.

Have I done something wrong?

ditto how long should i wait?

[lierduh]

Originally Posted by Mike11212

When I run the gateway.php file. It pulls the first 2 post but then it just hangs and does nothing else.

Have I done something wrong?

More information will help. What is your lastmsg ID for this group? Have you follow the readme file to find out the last message ID for the group? how many groups do you have? What is displayed on the screen? Is there any errors in your web log?...

[lierduh]

Originally Posted by Erwin

lierduh - I like the way you coded the AdminCP files. Very smart.

Thanks Erwin, that is probably the best one can expect from a fellow coder.

[BustaCap]

Two questions:

1. How does the mailing list archive look when it's viewed? Does it look just like how the usenet gateway looks? I'm thinking of archiving a yahoo mailing list and was wondering if it would look like how the usenet posts look (ie, threaded posts). If you reply to a mailing list post, will it be sent to everyone else on the mailing list?

2. I tested the usenet gateway function and it works well on my 3.01 board. However, when I was importing the posts from a group (about 1,000 posts), the reported serverload in my vB CP went through the roof. Before importing they were at 18, 19, 22. During the import they went up to 155, 140, 55. I can't imagine my host is gonna appreciate that since I'm using a shared server. Is there some way you could reduce the load on the server during imports?

[Princeton]

excellent hack

[lierduh]

Originally Posted by BustaCap

Two questions:

1. How does the mailing list archive look when it's viewed? Does it look just like how the usenet gateway looks? I'm thinking of archiving a yahoo mailing list and was wondering if it would look like how the usenet posts look (ie, threaded posts). If you reply to a mailing list post, will it be sent to everyone else on the mailing list?

2. I tested the usenet gateway function and it works well on my 3.01 board. However, when I was importing the posts from a group (about 1,000 posts), the reported serverload in my vB CP went through the roof. Before importing they were at 18, 19, 22. During the import they went up to 155, 140, 55. I can't imagine my host is gonna appreciate that since I'm using a shared server. Is there some way you could reduce the load on the server during imports?

1. It will look just like the Usenet messages, threaded. When you make a post to the mailing list forum, it effectively sends an email to the mailing list as your group setting. If the list accepts posts from anyone, you are on.

One thing I will add into the next version is: right now, the "From: " email address is the same format as the USENET ones, ie. it does not contain the real email address due to spam prevention. There should be an option for the mailing list forums to send real email address. Some mailing lists only accept subscribed member's posts.

2. There are many things the script needs to do when importing a message. I doubt there will be much room to improve. You normally do not experience the high server load, because no one is doing the continuing posts one after another for 1000 times. For a start, a server load of 18 is already too high. I am surprised it did not fall apart. You can always only import new messages as per readme.

[Princeton]

anyone has a good USENET list? or, could direct me to one

thanks