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.

[Princeton]

thanks kevin,
I did a clean install and everything is working as it should.

However the "preview" hack doesn't work. It's not fetching $postid.
Taken from partial error report

SET firstpostid =

It would be great to have an option to modify past posts that have "unwanted footers".

Hey, no one has responded to a post I created a few days ago ... in regards to $subject. It needs to be wrapped in htmlspecialchars() - - some titles may have html in it.

thanks again

[Cold Steel]

I figured out why giganews suspended my posting privileges.

Someone sent in a complaint about one of the posts that one my users made.

[Princeton]

Originally Posted by Cold Steel

I figured out why giganews suspended my posting privileges.

Someone sent in a complaint about one of the posts that one my users made.

that's why it would be good to have an option to disable upload (to newsgroup/mlist) of postings made within the forum

[KevinM]

Originally Posted by princeton

However the "preview" hack doesn't work.

?5 says it does :nervous:

[Princeton]

well ... it doesn't work for me. :ermm:

I'll look again ... it was working before.

[john_rsd]

I have just installed this mod and I am having trouble getting it to run.

First i tried NNTP and that failed.

So then i tried to collect from a pop3 mail account and I got this error when running gateway.php for the first time.

I am sure I did not make an error as the installation is pretty straight forward.

Gateway version 2.1.0 1 group(s) gatewayed. Could not connect to NNTP-serverNot connectedNot connected


There seems to have been a slight problem with the Forums database.
Please try again by pressing the refresh button in your browser.

An E-Mail has been dispatched to our Technical Staff, who you can also contact if the problem persists.

We apologise for any inconvenience.

If ran from scheduled task manager in vb3

Database error in vBulletin 3.0.1:

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 3

mysql error number: 1064

Date: Wednesday 23rd of June 2004 04:17:56 PM
Script: http://www.proteluser.com/bbs3/admin...cron&cronid=13
Referer: http://www.proteluser.com/bbs3/admincp/index.php
Username: Site_Admin
IP Address: 217.43.199.18

Otherwise the forums work OK

Any help apprciated.

[john_rsd]

Sorry, it was my own fault, email works now.

But I have another few questions on some things I would like to do.

The mail list that i am backing up requires registration to post and the backup i will make on the forum should be read only. i don't want to spam the list with test messages to try this one out so i thought i would ask.

If I simply change the forum permissions to prevent usergroups from being able to post/reply for that forum, should that be sufficient to stop forum users from using the email gateway to post messages to the mail list server?

Also when messages are delivered they sometimes are prefixed "RE:...." or "FW:...." Can these characters be stripped?
If I could strip things like FW: and RE: I could forward old messages to test threading etc (which does not seem to work).
Each post has a fixed name enclosed with suqare brackets always, like [listname]

Any help appreciated

[BustaCap]

Originally Posted by john_rsd

Sorry, it was my own fault, email works now.


If I simply change the forum permissions to prevent usergroups from being able to post/reply for that forum, should that be sufficient to stop forum users from using the email gateway to post messages to the mail list server?

Yes, that will work.

Originally Posted by john_rsd

Also when messages are delivered they sometimes are prefixed "RE:...." or "FW:...." Can these characters be stripped?
If I could strip things like FW: and RE: I could forward old messages to test threading etc (which does not seem to work).

Use KevinM's hack to thread properly and that will get rid of the "RE's".

Originally Posted by john_rsd

Each post has a fixed name enclosed with suqare brackets always, like [listname]

You can get rid of those by using the Replacement Variable Manager. Go to your Admin CP, select Styles and Templates, then Replacement Variable Manager. For the style you want this to apply to, select add new replacement variable, then enter the text you want removed (eg, [yourlistname]), and leave the replacement blank. That will do the trick. Note, the text isn't actually stripped, it's just hidden from view.

[Cold Steel]

Originally Posted by princeton

that's why it would be good to have an option to disable upload (to newsgroup/mlist) of postings made within the forum

What is the point of having newsgroups in the forums, then? Just another content source?

[john_rsd]

Cheers Dave

I applied Kevins mod, but it seems erratic. As the mail list is not public and the posts spread reasonably evenly across the day I do not think its a server issue.

Screenshot is below.

A couple of posts were threaded correctly, then some were not, then another 2, then some were not.

Perhaps related to time received? I think the threaded mod should filter by subject no problem regardless of when it is received, if i read the functions correct, or is the filtering done after messsages are batch downloaded or per message. The mail server from which it collects the messages is the same as the site is hosted on, so no delays there.

you can see from the list that one subject was threaded OK (after Kevins mod) then another, but the posts after that were not, even although subject lines were identical.

Any ideas?