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

[mattpark]

Hello all.

Im having a problem with this mod at the moment.

Followed setup instructions to the T.

Ran the script.

All imported off the newsgroup, great!

A few hours later i go and setup the cron to run every 15mins.

It runs, and abou 95% of the messages are re-downloaded!

I've tried so many differnt ways of fixing this, but every time, when the script runs again after the initial sync it downloads most the messages again!

No errors, just hundreds of duplicates!

Stupmed? You can see for youself here - http://ukvoiptalk.com/forum/uk-telecom-voip/

Please help.

Matt

EDIT: Just an update to show you what my cron output was.

X-Powered-By: PHP/4.4.3
Content-Type: text/plain
Set-Cookie: bbsessionhash=0935c3032697dfb066954e0d894d42fa; path=/; HttpOnly
Set-Cookie: bblastvisit=1161047701; expires=Wed, 17 Oct 2007 01:15:01 GMT; path=/
Set-Cookie: bblastactivity=0; expires=Wed, 17 Oct 2007 01:15:01 GMT; path=/

[mattpark]

Pretty please guys, can someone give me a had with this?

Thanks
Matt

[mattpark]

Yep, still looking for a little pointer for this one if anyone is willing!?

[Aylwin]

Sorry, I have no idea what might cause this. Seeing as there are no replies so far, I'm guessing no one else has any idea either.

One thing you can check though. If you check NNTP Gateway Newsgroups from Admin Control Panel, what value do you have under Last Message? It should be the same as the last message you imported.

[mattpark]

yeah it is.

Well i deleted the forum and removed all synced posts.
Setup a new forum. Went in to admin CP and set the last post at 12000.

If i run gatway.php it starts importing from 0, and then sets the last imported post correctly. However, if i then run it again, it starts from 0 again even though the last post is incremented!

Thanks for you suggestion bud, but looks like im still stuck.

Matt

[Rik Brown]

Our killfile very often ends up killing the first message in a thread. In those cases, successive messages which have a "Re: " in the message title create new threads such as "Re: Here is my message...".

However, if there is no prior "Here is my message..." message on my system, I would rather NNTP_GW remove the "Re: " and just make the first message "Here is my message..." to which successive replies would append.

Has anyone already written a routine to accomplish this (I assume it would only take 5-10 lines of code) or is there an experienced PHP programmer willing to write it out in a few minutes time?

Thanks. -- Rik

PS:

Frankly, I would just assume remove the "Re: " from all messages as its not necessary for vb. One only needs it when replying back to Usenet.

Update: If you wish to remove the "Re: " from post titles and thread titles, below is a thread at vbulletin.com that shows how to accomplish this retroactively by updating the forum mysql database (backup first, of course):

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=206982

Of course, if someone could adjust gateway.php to accomplish this during the import phase, that would be a better solution.

[babulgogoi]

Hi, am getting this error while running : gateway.php (I run it manually):

http://asiasrc.org/forum3.5/gateway.php

<br /><strong>Warning</strong>: fsockopen() [<a href='function.fsockopen'>function.fsockopen</a>]: php_network_getaddresses: getaddrinfo failed: Name or service not known in <strong>/includes/pop.php</strong> on line <strong>40</strong><br /><br /><strong>Warning</strong>: fsockopen() [<a href='function.fsockopen'>function.fsockopen</a>]: unable to connect to asiasrc.org:110 in <strong>/includes/pop.php</strong> on line <strong>40</strong><br />Success (0)
<br /><strong>Warning</strong>: fwrite(): supplied argument is not a valid stream resource in <strong>/includes/pop.php</strong> on line <strong>107</strong><br /><br /><strong>Warning</strong>: fgets(): supplied argument is not a valid stream resource in <strong>/includes/pop.php</strong> on line <strong>99</strong><br /><br /><strong>Warning</strong>: fwrite(): supplied argument is not a valid stream resource in <strong>/includes/pop.php</strong> on line <strong>107</strong><br /><br /><strong>Warning</strong>: fgets(): supplied argument is not a valid stream resource in <strong>/includes/pop.php</strong> on line <strong>99</strong><br />

any idea.. pls help.

[hostingforum-it]

hmm it stopped to work rgabbig fro newsgroup. If i try to run manyally
the getaway (as thi first time) it ask me to download the file...:alien:
Anyone know what happens?

[chris1979]

Does this work with version 3.6.2 or does anything similar exist for 3.6.2?

[ullo]

Originally Posted by chris1979

Does this work with version 3.6.2 or does anything similar exist for 3.6.2?

It work for me. A part allegated that not work for nothing (disable allegated)