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

[Mum]

Apart from just Yahoo groups, can you use myspace groups? Any other ideas what other ones you can use?

[silurius]

I am having trouble with scheduling this to run in a standard cron job.

Cron job:

/usr/local/php5/bin/php /home/myuser/mysite.com/forum/gateway.php

I believe init.php is designed to use a relative path on line 42 and if that fails it grabs the full path from config.php, as shown here:

// #############################################################################
// fetch the core includes
require_once(CWD . '/includes/class_core.php');

// initialize the data registry
$vbulletin =& new vB_Registry();

// parse the configuration ini file
$vbulletin->fetch_config();

if (CWD == '.')
{
    // getcwd() failed and so we need to be told the full forum path in config.php
    if (!empty($vbulletin->config['Misc']['forumpath']))
    {
        define('DIR', $vbulletin->config['Misc']['forumpath']);
    }
    else
    {
        trigger_error('<strong>Configuration</strong>: You must insert a value for <strong>forumpath</strong> in config.php', E_USER_ERROR);
    }
}
else
{
    define('DIR', CWD);
}

if (!empty($vbulletin->config['Misc']['datastorepath']))
{
        define('DATASTORE', $vbulletin->config['Misc']['datastorepath']);
}
else
{
        define('DATASTORE', DIR . '/includes/datastore');
}

if (!$vbulletin->debug)
{
    set_error_handler('vb_error_handler');
}

Unfortunately, even when I specify the full path in config.php the cron job fails. And when I enter the full path in line 42 of init.php, my whole site breaks. I've highlighted the bad path here.

Error:

Warning: require_once(/home/.saint/user/includes/class_core.php): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/.saint/user/mysite.com/forum/includes/init.php on line 42

Fatal error: require_once(): Failed opening required '/home/.saint/user/includes/class_core.php' (include_path='.:/usr/local/php5/lib/php:/usr/local/lib/php') in /home/.saint/user/mysite.com/forum/includes/init.php on line 42

Anyone have ideas?

[joined]

Hi to all.

I have make some changes and fixes.



// Modified by Fabio Dell'Aria on 20-Sep-2007 (fabio.dellaria@gmail.com)
// Modified Files: nntp.php, functions_nntp.php
// ---------------------------------------------------------------------
// Changes:
// --------
// 1)...Added the ability to can works with local NNTP servers;
// 2)...Added the ability to can avoid duplicated NNTP messages;
// 3)...A little NNTP Send speed improvement;
// 4)...Increased the Debug details;
// 5)...Fix a bug that caused "Invalid From address" NNTP error;
// 6)...Fix a bug that caused "Duplicated Message" NNTP error.
// ---------------------------------------------------------------------

How I can includes them in the OFFICIAL release?

[arkadia]

hello,

i try to download this newsgroup: nzn.fr.delphi (server server.amis.tv) and i can't !! it's work for some time (sometime i can download 500 messages, sometime 3000), but i always have : Fatal error maximum execution time of 1800 seconds exceeded in nntp.php on line 121 !

where the problem is? what can i do?

thanks you by advance !
stéphane

[TMM-TT]

Originally Posted by arkadia

Fatal error maximum execution time of 1800 seconds exceeded in nntp.php on line 121 !

where the problem is? what can i do?

Large posts that makes the script time out maybe? I had a similar problem myself on some groups before, and that was unfortunately never solved for me..

[arkadia]

yes, but in fact it's impossible to make the script workin ... i always have this error !! this is on the line : $response = trim(fgets($this->fp, 128));

when i check on outlook express, the server work perfectly without any probleme ! you can try : nzn.fr.delphi (server server.amis.tv)

[dotcomguy]

Originally Posted by arkadia

hello,

i try to download this newsgroup: nzn.fr.delphi (server server.amis.tv) and i can't !! it's work for some time (sometime i can download 500 messages, sometime 3000), but i always have : Fatal error maximum execution time of 1800 seconds exceeded in nntp.php on line 121 !

where the problem is? what can i do?

thanks you by advance !
st?phane

I think I had the same problem with execution time when I first used this mod. However it was only a problem initially because I was downloading everything. I just had to keep running it automatically until it had everything downloaded. Now it runs frequently enough that it is able to download all the messages without any trouble.

[arkadia]

But now i have a BIG problem! it's sometime crash php-cgi.exe (with big windows error popup) !!!

[itdevil]

I am having similar issues, the mod put too much load on the server, i am 2x DualCore Xeon 2.8 with 2GB ram 100mbit.... Cron set to run every 24hrs or midnight ... once the cron run the load shoots up to 6 - 20 till apache crashes....

even now the server is dead slow due the gateway.php cron

xyz 18394 11.2  3.6  86660 74972 ?        Ss   00:00  25:39 /usr/bin/php /home/xyz/public_html/forum/gateway.php

i have also noticed, sometimes gateway file (but stop leeching from news server) never get killed automatically, on next cron another process is created...

This is a great hack, but someone need to update and optimize the code.

[KW802]

Most likely you're trying to grab too many threads (aka: articles) in one session resulting in the timeout. Before bringing in a new group check to see what the last article ID is and then retrieve only the last hundred or so articles. Do that and add one group at a time and see if there if a difference in your results.