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.

[john_rsd]

Originally Posted by lierduh

The >=20 is to do with Characterset/language. Many people suffer this problem, it can almost all go back to Outlook Express generated messages. According to the header, the message should be a pure text message. I myself pretty confused about the problem. Even vB team mentioned this problem makes their support harder.

What language do the senders use usually?

In the next version (I need a good block of time like a free weekend to work on it), I will have an option to disable the importing of attachments.

Most users will post messages in English but I am not sure what the default regional settings would be in windows.

I think I seen some threads at vb forums and I think it was over multiple line breaks.

When the 'reply to forum' feature was available on these forums i never seen this happen, but you could never tell what was replied to by email and what was posted to the forums and it also used named pipes instead of collecting from the mailbox. Perhaps an idea for an option for users who have server which support named pipes and skip the mailbox stage completely (also no need for crons).

vB use a similar system for their support tickets, reply by email, not sure if they see the same issues but I have just looked at the tickets i have submitted and they seem OK also.

This is indeed a great addition to vb, any help you can offer to fix these small things is great.

[john_rsd]

This was one of the thread i was thinking of, but not the exact one, ill keep looking

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showt...ht=line+breaks

[lierduh]

Originally Posted by john_rsd

vB use a similar system for their support tickets, reply by email, not sure if they see the same issues but I have just looked at the tickets i have submitted and they seem OK also.

This is indeed a great addition to vb, any help you can offer to fix these small things is great.

I am just wondering if the pop3 server has to do with this. Do you know what kind of pop3 server you are using? You can "telnet <server address> 110" and find out.

[Taco John]

Got this error:

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

What am I doing wrong? I'm trying to connect to alt.sports.football.pro.denver-broncos

[rinkrat]

All of the sudden my names of every usenet message has gone blank. It was working before. Where should I look for the fis for this?

[Bro_Joey_Gowdy]

clicks install

[john_rsd]

Originally Posted by lierduh

I am just wondering if the pop3 server has to do with this. Do you know what kind of pop3 server you are using? You can "telnet <server address> 110" and find out.

I just send you login and account by PM

[dalecom]

I have installed and tried to run gateway.php for the first time and I get this error :

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

Any ideas ??

tia

[lierduh]

Originally Posted by john_rsd

I just send you login and account by PM

Have been quite busy with things. Will have a look very soon.

[lierduh]

Originally Posted by rinkrat

All of the sudden my names of every usenet message has gone blank. It was working before. Where should I look for the fis for this?

Have you installed other hacks recently?