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.

[lierduh]

Originally Posted by 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

As the message says, the gateway can not connect to the server. You might like to read the third post in this thread for debugging purpose.

[Cold Steel]

Gateway.php is regularly causing the server to have loads of 30+ when it's called.

I'm running 2.1.1 of this script, and 3.0.1 vBulletin. I have three newsgroups. http://forums.asiansinc.com/forumdisplay.php?f=71

Are there any settings or any changes that I can make to prevent the high server loads?

[lierduh]

Originally Posted by john_rsd

I just send you login and account by PM

The password did not work for me when I tried telnet into the server.

-ERR authorization failed

[lierduh]

Originally Posted by Cold Steel

Gateway.php is regularly causing the server to have loads of 30+ when it's called.

I'm running 2.1.1 of this script, and 3.0.1 vBulletin. I have three newsgroups. http://forums.asiansinc.com/forumdisplay.php?f=71

Are there any settings or any changes that I can make to prevent the high server loads?

Basically the script continuesly imports the messages. So the load could be higher than the usual user posts. It needs to build the search index etc. and other server intensive tasks.

For slower servers, you can slow down the script by insert this line

sleep (3);

Just before

} //for each message loop

(should be around line 518)

That will pause 3 seconds after each message is retrieved.

Also how often do you run the script? If you are using the vB built-in cron scheduler, normall it only allows you to run one task each hour. You can create two or more of the same scheduled tasks running in different times of the hour.

[trackpads]

Originally Posted by lierduh

Basically the script continuesly imports the messages. So the load could be higher than the usual user posts. It needs to build the search index etc. and other server intensive tasks.

For slower servers, you can slow down the script by insert this line

sleep (3);

Just before

} //for each message loop

(should be around line 518)

That will pause 3 seconds after each message is retrieved.

Also how often do you run the script? If you are using the vB built-in cron scheduler, normall it only allows you to run one task each hour. You can create two or more of the same scheduled tasks running in different times of the hour.

Hey again!

Is there a way to make the script skip to the next message in a newsgroup if it fails on the last one?

For example, sometimes the script will stop working because of an error importing a single message and I wont realize it for a few days.

It might be better to just have it automatically skip to the next message or whatnot to prevent this?

Thanks again for all the great work!

-Jason

[Cold Steel]

Originally Posted by lierduh

Basically the script continuesly imports the messages. So the load could be higher than the usual user posts. It needs to build the search index etc. and other server intensive tasks.

For slower servers, you can slow down the script by insert this line

sleep (3);

Just before

} //for each message loop

(should be around line 518)

That will pause 3 seconds after each message is retrieved.

Also how often do you run the script? If you are using the vB built-in cron scheduler, normall it only allows you to run one task each hour. You can create two or more of the same scheduled tasks running in different times of the hour.

Thanks. I don't think the server is that slow, but I've made the change anyway.

I had the script running every ten minutes via cPanel cron (couldn't figure out how to work vB cron), but I've cut it back to every half hour.

Thanks again!

[lierduh]

Originally Posted by trackpads

Hey again!

Is there a way to make the script skip to the next message in a newsgroup if it fails on the last one?

For example, sometimes the script will stop working because of an error importing a single message and I wont realize it for a few days.

It might be better to just have it automatically skip to the next message or whatnot to prevent this?

Thanks again for all the great work!

-Jason

This is a good idea. Will include this in the next version.

[Sanjiyan]

Can I ask what is the prefix part of the mailing list options (in admincp) are for?

[kkiely]

anyone know what this error is


Database error in vBulletin :

Link-ID == false, connect failed
mysql error:

mysql error number: 0

Date: Friday 16th of July 2004 03:06:00 PM
Script: http://
Referer:
IP Address:


i get these occasionally but my board seems to be working fine

---------
this was a different error i got on a board after i installed the hack but didnt completely test it

Database error in vBulletin :

Invalid SQL:
SELECT title, data FROM datastore
WHERE title IN ('options', 'cron', 'forumcache', 'usergroupcache', 'stylecache', 'smiliecache', 'bbcodecache', 'attachmentcache')

mysql error: Lost connection to MySQL server during query

mysql error number: 2013

Date: Friday 16th of July 2004 12:12:24 PM
Script: http://www.yourgov.org/newreply.php?...noquote=1&p=37
Referer: http://www.yourgov.org/showthread.php?t=24
IP Address: 65.213.77.129

[john_rsd]

Originally Posted by lierduh

The password did not work for me when I tried telnet into the server.

-ERR authorization failed

Sorry, I made small error on username

Details fixed and send by PM