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.

[chopperp1]

Originally Posted by lierduh

How long is <domain>\<user> ?

The user name field is limited to 32 characters. If you need longer, you can modify the database to increase the char length.

If you can access the DB directly, eg. using phpmyadmin, check what exactly is stored in the DB for the user name.

Looks like it is either the length or the "\" causing the issue.

domain as you noticed is "yamner' and user name is 5 characters. I just checked "nntp_groups" table in mysql and I don't see any issues there (server lenght=64; username=32; password=32) all values are correct . :ermm:
But I noticed one thing, when I go to admincp>Execute SQL Query I get the message "You are not authorized to execute SQL queries"- I'm logged in as a superadmin. Do you think this might be my problem? If yes, what file should I modify?
Thx

[john_rsd]

Originally Posted by lierduh

I have merged KevinM's attachment routine into the gateway.php. Please try out.

You now need to run

http://forums.yourdomain.com/gateway.php?debug=1

Without the debug=1, the script won't output anything on the screen.

Cool

Ill try it, is this just the original php file + Kevins mod or
an updated gateway.php + Kevins mod?

Ill run it later and see if I can recreate it.

[KevinM]

Originally Posted by john_rsd

Cool

Ill try it, is this just the original php file + Kevins mod or
an updated gateway.php + Kevins mod?

I updated how part of the script that handles the attachments works (this is not related to any previous mini-hacks I have released). There are 3 minor improvements:
1. The script will now handle attachments as 'save as files' if that is how your version of vb is set-up.
2. It checks attachment permissions against the forum (allow attachments or not) and extension types (as set up in control panel).
3. On some flavours of php installations the making of thumbnails was problematic. It now follows vb's standard way of thumbnail creation.

There may be other improvements made by Lierduh

[vprp]

Add a smallint field on the database record such as "is_usenet" and set it to '1' for the forums that are.

How do you add a smallint field?

[alesis404]

Can someone please tell me how to properly stop attachments being made with posts, I get constant errors sent to my email everytime gateway.php run's , I tried to comment out a small piece in gateway.php and this stopped the attachments and the posts so I must have did something wrong. I re-edited and am getting attachment errors again.

[john_rsd]

Originally Posted by KevinM

I updated how part of the script that handles the attachments works (this is not related to any previous mini-hacks I have released). There are 3 minor improvements:
1. The script will now handle attachments as 'save as files' if that is how your version of vb is set-up.
2. It checks attachment permissions against the forum (allow attachments or not) and extension types (as set up in control panel).
3. On some flavours of php installations the making of thumbnails was problematic. It now follows vb's standard way of thumbnail creation.

There may be other improvements made by Lierduh

Kevin

So is the mini hack for thread by subject enhancement is now integrated or will it need updated again for this version of gateway.php?

[john_rsd]

Its Ok Kevin, I answered my own question (just tried it)

If i add the thread by subject mini hack I get

Parse error: parse error in /home/protelus/public_html/bbs3/gateway.php on line 401

Without it its fine.

[KevinM]

Originally Posted by john_rsd

Its Ok Kevin, I answered my own question (just tried it)

If i add the thread by subject mini hack I get

Parse error: parse error in /home/protelus/public_html/bbs3/gateway.php on line 401

Without it its fine.

I will update it when Lierduh makes an 'official' release.

[lierduh]

Originally Posted by chopperp1

domain as you noticed is "yamner' and user name is 5 characters. I just checked "nntp_groups" table in mysql and I don't see any issues there (server lenght=64; username=32; password=32) all values are correct . :ermm:
But I noticed one thing, when I go to admincp>Execute SQL Query I get the message "You are not authorized to execute SQL queries"- I'm logged in as a superadmin. Do you think this might be my problem? If yes, what file should I modify?
Thx

With pop.php file, please find:

$this->_write("USER $this->username");

and insert the following line before that:

echo "=========USER Name: " . $this->username . " ==========";

This will show the user name entered by the script. I want to confirm if the right username is used by the script at this stage.

Also with gateway.php, find:

$pop_connect = $pop3->connect();

and add the following line after this:

logging($pop3->showlog());

This will show the entire pop3 connection log. No fix at this stage, just need to find out the reason behind this first.

[lierduh]

Originally Posted by alesis404

Can someone please tell me how to properly stop attachments being made with posts, I get constant errors sent to my email everytime gateway.php run's , I tried to comment out a small piece in gateway.php and this stopped the attachments and the posts so I must have did something wrong. I re-edited and am getting attachment errors again.

Have you tried the script I posted in last page?