[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 tamarian


Yes, I have the latest version with this signature:

$Id: newnews.pl,v 20010721 2001-07-21 03:06:32-05 paul Exp $

Nope... that's the last but one. The latest is
# $Id: newnews.pl,v 20010729 2001-07-29 00:10:31-05 paul Exp $

I've just checked the file pointed to in the links and it definately points to the version from July 29th.

All you need to do is replace newnews.pl.

[tamarian]

Originally posted by fastforward

Nope... that's the last but one. The latest is
# $Id: newnews.pl,v 20010729 2001-07-29 00:10:31-05 paul Exp $

I've just checked the file pointed to in the links and it definately points to the version from July 29th.

All you need to do is replace newnews.pl.

Cool, thanks!

Hi, just like to say fantastic hack, but just one small problem. When I post on the forum, it send's the post to the newsgroup very nicely, and retrives the new posts.

But then the next time script runs, it grabs the post I've just made, so I have a duplicate post every time someone posts through the forum.

Eg: http://www.frankw.net/network/nthell...&threadid=1042

Thank's in advance.

-Frank

[webhost]

I ran a test post from my forum, I have a signature in my profile, just like the one attached to the bottom of this reply it works fine in vb and also on my vb board, but this is how it looks on the newsgroup server at the other end. Any idea how to correct this.
without the top and bottom lines.

also got this in results file but I never received email?

-> finding replies...
-> 2...
email notification sent to joeymoses1@home.com
Sending email to Watcher regarding reply to threadid 12547



==============================================

Joey Moses-
[bhttp://www.realwebhost.net"]Real Web Host
Reliable Web Hosting starting at $15.95 a month. Includes 24/7 Support, http://faq.realwebhost.net]
Full Knowledgebase[/url] FAQ
Real Web Host Forums! Go there! [bhttp://forums.realwebhost.net"]Forums
[bhttp://www.secureserver.net/default.asp?prog_id=RealWebHost"]Domain Names Starting @ $12.95
================================================

[fastforward]

Originally posted by Franky
Hi, just like to say fantastic hack, but just one small problem. When I post on the forum, it send's the post to the newsgroup very nicely, and retrives the new posts.

But then the next time script runs, it grabs the post I've just made, so I have a duplicate post every time someone posts through the forum.

Eg: http://www.frankw.net/network/nthell...&threadid=1042

Thank's in advance.

-Frank

Several posible reasons:

1. Your 'useragent' setting in the control panel is not set
2. Your 'useragent' setting in the control panel was changed between posting and retrieving
3. You have 're-import local posts' set to on in your control panel
4. When you instaled the hack, some of the SQL statements failed, ie the create unique index or add key statements.

The most likely is the last option.

[fastforward]

Originally posted by webhost
I ran a test post from my forum, I have a signature in my profile, just like the one attached to the bottom of this reply it works fine in vb and also on my vb board, but this is how it looks on the newsgroup server at the other end. Any idea how to correct this.
without the top and bottom lines.

also got this in results file but I never received email?

-> finding replies...
-> 2...
email notification sent to joeymoses1@home.com
Sending email to Watcher regarding reply to threadid 12547



==============================================

Joey Moses-
[bhttp://www.realwebhost.net"]Real Web Host
Reliable Web Hosting starting at $15.95 a month. Includes 24/7 Support, http://faq.realwebhost.net]
Full Knowledgebase[/url] FAQ
Real Web Host Forums! Go there! [bhttp://forums.realwebhost.net"]Forums
[bhttp://www.secureserver.net/default.asp?prog_id=RealWebHost"]Domain Names Starting @ $12.95
================================================

Converting of urls has always been a problem. It's very difficult to trap for every possible format. I intend to add a seperate field that will alow you to have a seperate signature purely for usenet posts (similar to the 'Public Email' option). This will mean you can create it without bbcodes and it will be displayed in usenetposts exactly as you enter it.

[webhost]

thanks any ideas on the reason why i didn't recieve a email when it said it had been sent?

[fastforward]

Originally posted by webhost
thanks any ideas on the reason why i didn't recieve a email when it said it had been sent?

Once you see the 'email notification sent to ....' message on the console, you know for sure that the sendmail function was definately called. You should have seen an error if your SMTP server did not accept your mail for delivery for delivery. Does it happen every time?

[webhost]

Sorry for the dealy Paul was running a few test.

First every test post I make from board that gets a reply to it from the newsgroup it states in results that a email is sent but it never shows up tried 5 different groups all the same.

Have you tried yours sent version 2.0.3 came out?

Hi Paul,

regarding the parse error i mentioned before, it's still there but stuff is working anyways, so what

Only when reading a certain group, im getting this error:

---------------------------------
Pulling alt.games.unreal.tournament.clans... No new messages.


Query failed:
UPDATE LOW_PRIORITY forum SET replycount=replycount+1 ,lastpost=996769546,lastposter='Martin H. Sluka',lastactivethread='FLOCK Fehlermeldung' WHERE forumid IN ()

DBD::mysql::db do failed: You have an error in your SQL syntax near ')' at line 1 at newnews.pl line 597, <SOCK1> line 8.
Pulling alt.games.half-life.counterstrike... No new messages. -> 41... bash-2.04$
------------------------------------

Well, somebody has stated the same error some posts earlier, but there was no reply to it so far.

This is just to let you know i have the same problem.
I suppose this support to all of us has become a full time job... No need to rush

-Alex