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.

[dethfire]

alot of my imports have RE: in the title, how can I go through and delete that part from all my thread titles?

[allan grossman]

Originally Posted by lierduh

allan, you are using the very original table created by Gilby's original hack. I remember in that SQL, the tables were created as ISAM.

If someone started new with the vB3 hack, the tables will be created using MyISAM table type.

I can't see the reason why MyISAM will cause the script to fail. Both of my nntp tables are MyISAM.

Thanks, lierduh - I'll convert the table. I guess I have been running this thing for awhile

edit: Converted the table to MyISAM. All is well - thanks, lierduh

[john_rsd]

lierduh

Thanks for the updated mime.php file, i have uploaded it now. The forums should fill up a bit now.

Excellent work my friend!

[john_rsd]

Error messages

After isntalling the new mime.php i now get this error when importing some messages

Warning: Unknown modifier 'b' in
/home/protelus/public_html/bbs3/gateway.php on line 346 />

Warning: Unknown modifier '>' in
/home/protelus/public_html/bbs3/gateway.php on line 346 />

Warning: Unknown modifier 'a' in
/home/protelus/public_html/bbs3/gateway.php on line 346 />

You can see the whole message here
http://proteluser.com/bbs3/showthread.php?t=2400

Never seen this error before, ill investigate more

Any information appreciated

[lierduh]

Originally Posted by john_rsd

Error messages

After isntalling the new mime.php i now get this error when importing some messages



You can see the whole message here
http://proteluser.com/bbs3/showthread.php?t=2400

Never seen this error before, ill investigate more

Any information appreciated

Edit gateway.php, around line 333, replace the whole block with the following:

PHP Code:

[code]
                                if (!$message['text'] and $message['html']){
                                        $pattern = array(
                                                "/\n/",
                                                "/<br([^>]*)>/siU",
                                                "/<[\/]*(div|p)([^>]*)>/siU",
                                                "/<b>(.*)<\/b>/siU",
                                                "/<i>(.*)<\/i>/siU",
                                                "/<a[^>]*href=([^ >]*)>(.*)<\/a>/siU"
                                        );
                                        $replace = array(
                                                " ",
                                                "\n",
                                                "\n\n",
                                                "[b]\\1[/b]", 
                                                "[i]\\1[/i]", 
                                                "[url=\\1]\\2[/url]"
                                        );

                                        $message['text'] = strip_tags(preg_replace($pattern, $replace, $message['html']));
                                } 

[/code] 


[lierduh]

Originally Posted by xb_

I've set you up an account, details are in pm. There are only a few examples at this moment, since most of them i had already merged manually.

[edit] ok by now there are plenty examples [/edit]

Actually I need the original message headers.

[Marv]

Originally Posted by Marv

Hi lierduh,

if possible, could you tell me what I have to do to make gateway.php pause between connecting to different ng?s ? Some newsservers are blocking the script in case the gateway is way to fast for an old and slow newsserver. (Err-Msg: "Too many connections. Your IP is temporarly blocked.")

Could someone help me with that problem ? I can run the gateway only once a day connecting to 9 newsgroups. That means I receive ~50 posts from the first newsgroup and while they are ported over to the db my Server-IP becomes blocked :ermm:
I guess the script works perfect as it should. I only must connect to a newsserver that seems to accept only 5 request per second. 5 connections to newsgroups are working fine - everything above becomes blocked. I guess that?s because the script doesn?t loop through each ng like the script imports the single posts. Instead it gateways all ng?s with only one request which means multiple connections at one time. (True or false ?)

Is there a way that gateway.php could pause between two ng?s for ? seconds ?

Regards,
Marv.

[Blackbeard]

I have also just installed this hack, seems i have got to 2 posts in the forum and the debug as stopped
refreshed and got this

Another instance of gateway.php is running, try again in 30 minutes if the script was crashed.

please help.

[Blackbeard]

Now all the post started appiering and as a test i used the microsoft one in the readme file, after 1000's of post appear on my forum i selected gateway to disable, but posts keep posting on the forum, why? when you start it dont it stop?

[john_rsd]

Originally Posted by lierduh

Edit gateway.php, around line 333, replace the whole block with the following:

Thank you, off to try now.