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.

[mcyates]

are there any news servers i can use which connect to uk.sport.football which will enable my users to post on it?

[trackpads]

lierduh,

Small question here. I have moderation turned on in a forum that USENET posts are going to but they are going straight to the forum instead of the mod queue. This might be a long stretch but is it possible to have all usenet posts go into the mod queue?

Thanks again for all your work,

-Jason

[lierduh]

Originally Posted by esfron

Uploaded script again (from vbulletin.org), installed on a fresh vb 3.0.3.

Same mysql error:

Database error in vBulletin 3.0.3:

Invalid SQL: UPDATE nntp_settings
SET value =
WHERE varname = 'last_postid'
mysql error: You have an error in your SQL syntax. Check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near 'WHERE varname = 'last_postid'' at line 3

mysql error number: 1064

Date: Saturday 23rd of October 2004 03:03:04 AM
Script: http://www.xxxxxxx/forumtest/gateway.php?debug=1
Referer:
Username: Unregistered
IP Address: xxxxx


Any idea ?

According to the error messsage, the problem is "SET value = ", it is empty instead of a number. The number is fetched through:

"SELECT MAX(postid) as postid FROM post"

This is a very standard query and should work. If you can run MySQL query either through shell or phpmyadmin etc, try out that query and see what error do you get. By the way, what version of MySQL do you run?

[lierduh]

Originally Posted by James T Brock

The debug message doesn't give any errors. It just shows headers for posts being imported and makes no mention of errors or outgoing threads.

Maybe I need to find a new host.

Sorry, can't help without the debug message. You know, if there is embarrassing groups you do not want to show to the public, you can alway edit that out. (only joking)

[lierduh]

Originally Posted by esfron

Is it possible to run gateway in sub-forums i.e. forum/forumhttp/forumnntp ?

Should be ok, but you will need to modify the scripts due to the relative directory locations.

[esfron]

Originally Posted by lierduh

According to the error messsage, the problem is "SET value = ", it is empty instead of a number. The number is fetched through:

"SELECT MAX(postid) as postid FROM post"

This is a very standard query and should work. If you can run MySQL query either through shell or phpmyadmin etc, try out that query and see what error do you get. By the way, what version of MySQL do you run?

Run query but no mysql error. Got: Showing rows 0 - 0 (1 total, Query took 0.0002 sec)
SQL-query:
SELECT MAX( postid ) AS postid
FROM post


MySQL version 4.0.20-standard

Run script on two differents hosts and fresh install with two differents news servers (public and paid). Got same mysql error. I just noticed that Odoin got the same error:

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showpost....&postcount=505
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthrea...022#post550022

[esfron]

Originally Posted by lierduh

It is possible your news server changed your organization to a default one. Please check the header of the messages posted from your forums. You should be able to check with your normal news reader, failing that, use Google.

The original script only checks the useragent. The reason I added the organization check is if two forums are using the same news server with the same useagent, then the messages posted from the fellow forums will be skipped! I can add an option to disable organization check with the next version. Weekend is coming... In the meantime, find:

         if ($message['user-agent'] == $settings['useragent'] AND
                 $message['organization'] == $settings['organization']) {

and replace it with:

         if ($message['user-agent'] == $settings['useragent']) {

I have the same problem. Forum pulls the posts made to it back into the topic so there is double posts..

{I don't find if ($message['user-agent'] == $settings['useragent'] AND
$message['organization'] == $settings['organization']) {

Where is it ?

[lierduh]

Originally Posted by esfron

I have the same problem. Forum pulls the posts made to it back into the topic so there is double posts..

{I don't find if ($message['user-agent'] == $settings['useragent'] AND
$message['organization'] == $settings['organization']) {

Where is it ?

This is referring to an older version. The new version has this function built into AdminCP.

Find: SET value = {$get_max_postid['postid']}
change it to

SET value = $get_max_postid[postid]

and see if you still get the error.

[AWS]

I've had this hack running since it was released. Haven't had one problem. It even brings more traffic to the site and I have users signing up to use the gateway only. Many people don't understand how to use a newsreader or are intimidated by one and this hack makes it easy for them.

Just wanted to say thank you for a great hack.

[Lord Brar]

Don't mean to sound too dumb... But How exactly do I upgrade? there are no instructions for it in the readme file :P