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.

[Blackbeard]

How do you uninstall this as its takes up to much bandwith went over my forums quoter, good job am on a reselleraccount i run aswell.

Great hack just need to uninstall. How?

[lierduh]

Originally Posted by Blackbeard

How do you uninstall this as its takes up to much bandwith went over my forums quoter, good job am on a reselleraccount i run aswell.

Great hack just need to uninstall. How?

Just remove the files you uploaded and delete the USENET forums. That is all.

[we_are_borg]

I have installed this hack and it worked great but now a couple of day's ago i'm getting errors.

Warning: main(http://www.dwsgebruikers.com/forum/gateway.php): failed to open stream: HTTP request failed! L? Ph??`h?? in /home/dwsgeb/public_html/forum/admincp/cronadmin.php on line 56

Fatal error: main(): Failed opening required 'http://www.dwsgebruikers.com/forum/gateway.php' (include_path='.:/usr/lib/php:/usr/local/lib/php') in /home/dwsgeb/public_html/forum/admincp/cronadmin.php on line 56

I don't know what is going on here but it does not work any more.

[Andy R]

I have this installed on one of my forums and it is working great. I installed it on another forum and all of the scheduled tasks are not working. I have imported 40,000+ threads and would hate to have to re-import them.

The original skin is in place and the $cronjob variable is part of the footer. There is enough traffic to keep the script working... I have asked on vB.com forums but was told I could not get support since the board is "hacked".

Do you all know of anything that might have caused the scheduled tasks to stop working? I was hoping someone out there might have had the same problem but found a way to kick start the tasks?

Thanks,

Andy

[The Prince]

Hi all,

I still can't post to usenet. Everything works fine besides that. I can import all the messages, and post in the thread. But the posts are not getting sent to usenet.

My host has told me that he gets an error stating that there is no "to:" and no email address from the poster. So, I'm guessing since these are missing, the posts are rejected from usenet.

Here's the error message from my host (I've changed my host name and my IP):

-----Original Message-----
From : Mail Delivery System [mailto:Mailer-Daemon@host.com]
To: september 28, 2004 17:35
From : nobody@host.com
Object : Mail failure - no recipient addresses

A message that you sent contained no recipient addresses, and therefore no
delivery could be attempted.

------ This is a copy of your message, including all the headers. ------

To:
Subject: Test...Please ignore
From: ThePrince <ThePrince.0@>
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 17:34:56 -0400
Message-ID: <ThePrince.0@>
Organization:
User-Agent:
X-Originating-IP: 10.50.44.243


test test test


--
ThePrince
------------------------------------------------------------------------
ThePrince's Profile: 1
View this thread: 494


So pretty much everything is screwed up. No to, email, organisation, user-agent and the profile and view this thread also.

I have also attached 2 screenshots of my newsgroup settings from phpmyadmin. (I changed my website name to xyz to protect the guilty ).

Thanks

[RetroDreams]

Can someone post an example of their killfile that has been successful in stopping spam?

[SaN-DeeP]

hi,
This is one of the another awesome hack on vb.org Big thnx for releasing.
* SaN-DeeP installed successfully.

I was able to install this hack successfully though i have a few problems.

1. I have setup a Scheduled Task in my admincp -> scheduled task manager -> named as Gateway threads import with foll. settings:

Day of the Week = *
Day of the Month = *
Hour = *
Minute = 15
Log Entries = Yes
Filename = gateway.php

a. I find that there are no log entries generated for same ?
b. This file is now called every minute, i can see new posts/threads from those servers every new minute on my forums ? (I want to import messages @ an interval of every 15 minutes)

2. Unable to send messages back to those newgroups, from forums. I dont have SSH/TELNET access to my server, confirmed with my host and got a reply that port 119 is enabled both ways..
(Please let me know exactly what logs do i post here, to debug)

3. I have checked some other boards using this hack and found they have filtered there threads titles which contain words Re:
or
there body messages which start with > symbol are not there.
Any general idea, on taking those off would be helpful for me.

Some of the changes I have done to Gatway Settings are as follows:
Title - Varname - Value
Tech-Arena - organization - Tech-Arena - http://207.58.143.178/
User Agent - useragent - vBulletin USENET gateway
Email address domain - email - tech-arena@DoNotSpam.com
Make TinyURL at Length - tinyurl - 70
Honour No-Archive - honor_no-archive - 0
Is Gateway Running - is_running - 1
Send no footer - nofooter - 0
No Organization Check - organization_check - 1
Use Post Time - use_post_time - 1
Skip attachments - no_attach - 1
Pause Between messages - pause_seconds - 0
Send message to USENET - send_message - 1
Find Thread by Subject - thread_by_subject - 0

My Forums URL - http://207.58.143.178/forums/
Expecting a positive feedback soon.

Regards,

[lierduh]

Originally Posted by SaN-DeeP

hi,

1. I have setup a Scheduled Task in my admincp -> scheduled task manager -> named as Gateway threads import with foll. settings:

Day of the Week = *
Day of the Month = *
Hour = *
Minute = 15
Log Entries = Yes
Filename = gateway.php

a. I find that there are no log entries generated for same ?
b. This file is now called every minute, i can see new posts/threads from those servers every new minute on my forums ? (I want to import messages @ an interval of every 15 minutes)

2. Unable to send messages back to those newgroups, from forums. I dont have SSH/TELNET access to my server, confirmed with my host and got a reply that port 119 is enabled both ways..
(Please let me know exactly what logs do i post here, to debug)

3. I have checked some other boards using this hack and found they have filtered there threads titles which contain words Re:
or
there body messages which start with > symbol are not there.
Any general idea, on taking those off would be helpful for me.

Regards,

1. I will check the log problem before next release.
Make sure you do not have another scheduled task which has * set to the minute. If you set 15 to the minute, it should not run every minute!

2. Time and time again, if there is no debug masssage posted, I would not have single idea about why the posts do not go out. People seem think I know all their server situations.

3. No idea about this.

[SaN-DeeP]

Sorry but were do i find those debug messages now ?
i followed the installation files, and did not find anything related to there.

or if i was not able to see them there :S

Thnx.

[wflynn]

I get this on my screen when I import newsgroups:
Gateway version 2.2.1 1 group(s) gatewayed.

Connecting to server, server says: 200 News.GigaNews.Com

Server responded after user name: 381 more authentication required

Server responded after password: 281 News.GigaNews.Com

Info for rec.gambling.poker at news.giganews.com:
211 373019 554640 927658 rec.gambling.poker

Posting Message 'Re: Some ammo for you Online is rigged people' from pokerpartys. Result: 500 syntax error or unknown command
Getting message number 565203:
'Re: Action Flops on Party' from Augie Chiausa. Thread found by References.
Getting message number 565204:

As you can see it gets messages but fails to post. I also tried changing the port references to 80 instead of 119 and get exactly the same thing. Any ideas how I can get this working 100%?

Also assuming I get it working where do I edit to place my custom signature?