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 Marv

lierduh,
after upgrading the files I was wondering wyh nothing happend. So I manually run the gateway.php and received this:



I?m not very familiar with the sql database. vBulletin has a prefix "vb3" in the database - is that part of the problem ? At least I don?t really understand what this error-msg is trying to tell me... :ermm:

It means the gateway.php can not connect to the server for that query.
Please try again, and let me know if it persists.

[Rob Eh]

lierduh, that cured the problem with blank posts.

Thanks! :up:

[john_rsd]

Dear lierduh

Originally Posted by lierduh

The software retrieves messages from a pop3 account and import them into the forums threaded.

>snip<

Jul 31 2004 (release version 2.2.0)[list][*] Provided ability to thread messages by subject for mailing lists

I have 2.2.0 but thread by subject does not seem to work. Very strange

[xb_]

Originally Posted by lierduh

You have a very wierd problem there. sessions.php is not involved with the gateway.php, how can you have error message associated with it?

heh. i'm not sure, my only guess would be that vbulletin has reorganized the including of files in 3.0.3. However because of your reply i decided to give it another go with the newer version. Which didn't give me a session error, but it did give me a prefix error

Invalid SQL: UPDATE forums_ thread
SET firstpostid = 3214
WHERE threadid = 1858
mysql error: Table 'www.forums_' doesn't exist

mysql error number: 1146

Date: Tuesday 03rd of August 2004 12:08:12 PM
Script: <masked>/gateway.php
Referer:
Username: Unregistered

That seems to be a problem around line nr 1050; one space too much. After i've removed that space it started importing.

Still i was left with two messages:

Warning: array_merge() [function.array-merge]: Argument #1 is not an array in <somepath>/htdocs/global.php on line 334

Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in <somepath>/htdocs/includes/functions.php on line 2223

Both seem to be related with a certain template array.
It appears to work alright tho, besides those messages. yet i'm crossing my fingers for attachements.

[john_rsd]

http://proteluser.com/bbs3/showthread.php?t=2074

I sent 2 messages to check thread by subject which failed.

I then sent a reply to see of the RE part was needed in the subject.

The last message i sent was corrupted and instead of looking like this as it was in the first post

At a gathering of science reporters several years ago, Dr. George
Lundberg, former editor of the Journal of the American Medical
Association, said that the Internet "is the most important advance in
medical communications since the printing press." If Dr. Lundberg is
correct, perhaps one of the Web's most useful tools for advancing
medical communications is e-mail.

It now looked like this

> At a gathering of science reporters several years ago, Dr.=20
> George Lundberg, former editor of the Journal of the American=20
> Medical Association, said that the Internet "is the most=20
> important advance in medical communications since the=20
> printing press." If Dr. Lundberg is correct, perhaps one of=20
> the Web's most useful tools for advancing medical=20
> communications is e-mail.
>=20

We looked at this before but now i can replicate it as it was me who sent the message and replied to it. All messages were sent from outlook2003 in plain text format.

[trackpads]

Originally Posted by lierduh

Please remember the Killfile looks throught the entire header when the 'H:' is used. So you can easily include a unique news post string. eg.
{[B:your search string] AND [H:news.group.name]}

I could but the problem is that I have about 60 usenet forums where I want the killfile but never need it in the Mlists. I would have to add a kill word for each of the 60 usenet forums to get the same affect.

Thanks again!

-Jason

[fonzerelli_79]

the old gateway.php file looks to have fixed it - now all i have to deal with is the fact ive got thousands of threads with no content!!!

[Rob Eh]

Prune those threads, reset your last article # and let it start again.

[fonzerelli_79]

does anyone know if there is a way to mass prune threads in a specific forum where the posts are blank - doesnt seem to be this option in the mass prune forum tools admin page

thanks

[lierduh]

Originally Posted by trackpads

I could but the problem is that I have about 60 usenet forums where I want the killfile but never need it in the Mlists. I would have to add a kill word for each of the 60 usenet forums to get the same affect.

Thanks again!

-Jason

You can surely find the common words amongst the news groups where the mailing lists do not possesss. eg. the news server? look for things in the Path: and Xref...