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

[oldengine]

Can this be set up to work exclusively with only one news group?

Edit:
Man that was a dumb question. IT'S WORKING GREAT!
I'm clicked in on 3.0.

[ixian]

Originally Posted by oldengine

Can this be set up to work exclusively with only one news group?

uk.rec.engines.stationary

It can be set up to use as many or as few as you wish, yes.

See my forums for an example of it in action: www.maximumgamer.com/forums

Note that I have also installed the User Agreements Hack specifically for use with this hack - when you first go to view any of my newsgroup forums (I have 3 currently) you have to agree to the rules specific to that forum before you can go on. It works with guests to (although when you delete your cookies you'll have to agree to it again). I mainly use it to warn my regular members that they are entering wild country.

I also installed the Exclude Forums From Search hack which allows users to specify forums they don't want to see when they click "New Posts" or "Today's Posts".

I love this hack, very useful and gets people interested in my forums - I am looking in to adding more newsgroups even. This is with vb 3.5 gold.

[oezer]

@lierduh

have you any ideas about the tricky problem at posting #118 ?

[rfairbairn]

Hi,

We are going to install this on a test board (thats why i havnt clicked install yet),

But we are having problems with installation, mainly how do we install, the readme seams to be outdated, or are we reading it wrongly.

Any help would be great.

Thanks in advance

[lierduh]

Originally Posted by oezer

@lierduh

have you any ideas about the tricky problem at posting #118 ?

News servers do not hold all posts from id 1. They purge older ones regularly. What you see is the max ID number, not total number of posts.

[lierduh]

Originally Posted by rfairbairn

Hi,

We are going to install this on a test board (thats why i havnt clicked install yet),

But we are having problems with installation, mainly how do we install, the readme seams to be outdated, or are we reading it wrongly.

Any help would be great.

Thanks in advance

The readme is outdated as it was written for vB3.0x. However you can always ask which part that you find confusion.

Folks, I had been waiting for Gold before releasing a new version. Now that the Gold is out, but I have been busy with other hacks and I will travel overseas in two days time. So there is no chance we can see a new version for at least two weeks. Everytime I push something out quickly, I tend to introduce many bugs. So I would rather not push it.

[lierduh]

Originally Posted by Aylwin

I plan to use this mod for mailing list archive.

In the readme file, it says:

Warning: Make sure using the new forums you created in step '3.', don't associate
any of your existing forums to a newsgroup, otherwise all posts
currently in there will be exported, so be careful.


But if set Send message to USENET send_message=0, would this help? What happens if I set this to 1 at a later date? Will everything in the forum be sent?

By the way, this mod doesn't seem to support IMAP. Or does it?

I just checked the code. No, it will not send messages if send_message=0, however if you change this to 1 later on. All the held messages will be sent!

No, this hack does not support IMAP. It was originall written for NNTP, that is why a lot of settings names etc. are tied to news instead of mails. No fixed date is planed at the moment to include IMAP support. This hack has become complicated for new users because all the settings I introduced from the past requests. The total number of users are not that many anyway.

[donnacha]

I'm having a problem, suggestions would be very much appreciated.

Following the readme and using the ms newgroup given as an example, I got to section 6:

6. Run the script for the first time by going to
http://www.yourserver.com/vbdir/gateway.php?debug=1
This will take
a while if you are importing a lot of posts for the first time.
Depending on your browser, it may buffer the output and it may
appear like it's hanging. Be patient.

I enter:

http://www.edinburghtalk.com/vbdir/gateway.php?debug=1

but Firefox just displays my domain's homepage. IE does the same. No hanging as described in the readme, no usenet posts appear in the forum (http://www.edinburghtalk.com/forum/f...play.php?f=31).

I wasn't sure if the "vbdir" part of the example URL is meant to be replaced by the actual path I my forum uses, so, I also tried

http://www.edinburghtalk.com/forum/gateway.php?debug=1

... but in both FF and IE that results in the following error:

<br /><strong>Warning</strong>: main(/home/edtalk/public_html/forum/includes/nntp.php): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in <strong>/gateway.php</strong> on line <strong>52</strong><br /><br />
<b>Fatal error</b>: main(): Failed opening required '/home/edtalk/public_html/forum/includes/nntp.php' (include_path='.:/usr/lib/php:/usr/local/lib/php') in <b>/home/edtalk/public_html/forum/gateway.php</b> on line <b>52</b><br />


Any ideas?

[oldengine]

{[H:geilen]}{[H:!!!!]}{[H:***]}{[H:$$]}{[H:MAKE MONEY]}{[H:easy money]}{[H:test]}{[H:smoking gun]}{[H:Humour]}{[H:ebay]}{[H:e-bay]}{[H:dating] AND [B:girl]}

Edit: It works!

Is there any way to make {[H:test]} not kill "testing"?

[Marv]

Lierduh,

could you be so kind to correct the advanced hacking guide ? 3.5 is already out :nervous:

PHP Code:

Modify SHOWTHREAD template

REPLACE this block of code

<td class="smallfont"><a href="newreply.php?$session[sessionurl]do=newreply&amp;noquote=1&amp;p=$FIRSTPOSTID"><if condition="$show['closethread']"><img src="$stylevar[imgdir_button]/reply.gif" alt="$vbphrase[reply]" border="0" /><else /><img src="$stylevar[imgdir_button]/threadclosed.gif" alt="$vbphrase[closed_thread]" border="0" /></if></a></td>

<td class="smallfont"><a href="newreply.php?$session[sessionurl]do=newreply&amp;noquote=1&amp;p=$LASTPOSTID"><if condition="$show['closethread']"><img src="$stylevar[imgdir_button]/reply.gif" alt="$vbphrase[reply]" border="0" /><else /><img src="$stylevar[imgdir_button]/threadclosed.gif" alt="$vbphrase[closed_thread]" border="0" /></if></a></td>
    

WITH

<if condition="$show['closethread']">
<td class="smallfont"><if condition="!$is_usenet"><a
href="newreply.php?$session[sessionurl]do=newreply&amp;noquote=1&amp;p=$FIRSTPOSTID">
<img src="$stylevar[imgdir_button]/reply.gif" alt="$vbphrase[reply]"
border="0" /></a><else />&nbsp;</if></td>
<else />
<td class="smallfont"><a
href="newreply.php?$session[sessionurl]do=newreply&amp;noquote=1&amp;p=$FIRSTPOSTID">
<img src="$stylevar[imgdir_button]/threadclosed.gif"
alt="$vbphrase[closed_thread]" border="0" /></a></td>
</if>

THERE ARE two instances of above.

FIND
$quickreply

REPLACE it with

<if condition="!$is_usenet">
$quickreply
</if> 


Wether there is a second instance nor a $quickreply as you mentioned before in this particular template. Could you update those instructions please ?