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

[TMM-TT]

Originally Posted by jarosciak

This is working nicely for USENET groups, but is there any way to import Google Groups?

Set up a mailsubscription for them and import them as regular mail

[toibs]

Would just like to second this - seems to work really well - thanks TMM-TT for your help in getting it up and working again in Vb4. I shall donate something as a way of saying thanks (when i get paid later in the week!) for breathing new life into this!!

As an add-on (as D8tabyte had previously mentioned) is there any way of adding the users that are "created" as guests in this process to maybe a new "group" so they are separate from the rest of the members?? This way, if anyone wanted to join the forum from the group that was downloaded, the option would be there just to change the group that the person was in, and also it would effectively "reserve" the username.

The only downside would be if the "username" already existed, in which case maybe a 1/2/3 etc could be added to the next username.

Just a thought. Obviously not essential to do this, just a nice to have

Finally. and maybe the biggest want i would have, is there any way to import yahoo groups to this? it would have to scrape the web page and d/l the text from the messages i guess, however not being a coder i dont know how possible this would be!

Many thanks again
Paul

[TMM-TT]

I've just discovered a bug: Attachments seem to not work properly...

[hmspain]

Me too :-).

I'm having problems with attachments not coming over from NNTP/DNEWS to vbulletin via the NNTP gateway properly. Suggestions would be very welcome!

[toibs]

I'm seeing an interesting problem. When i download files everything goes fine, however it gets so far and then stops.....

'Re: Adding service outlet to re-import' from Gregory J Gabborini. Thread found by References.
Getting message number 758459: 
'Re: finder's fee philosophy' from frog. Thread found by References.
Getting message number 758460: 
'Re: Who sells Pop Bumpers?' from Johnspinballnutz. Thread found by References.
Getting message number 758461: 
'United's Blazer' from pinmass. New thread.

all stops. Have checked the original post and there's nothing encoded or unusual - just text. No attachments (tho i'm about to retry with attachments "disabled" to see if there's a difference!)....

I've skipped forward a hundred of messages, nothing, just the header. If i move back it works fine, (obviously comes up with "duplicate file" and ignores), however makes me wonder if there's some kind of limit in the code??!?!

I have created another forum, and tried importing to this one, and the same happens!!!

Anyone got any clues?!?!?

Thx
Paul

[TMM-TT]

A solution for attachments in vB4:

http://tmm.tornevall.net/dev/functio...00326_2217.tar

Details: http://tmm.tornevall.net/blog/2010/0...atibility-fix/

Source is included in the post. And here's the attachment-test made out of the code, from de.alt.dateien.misc:

http://forum.tornevall.net/showthrea...er-Heldenplatz

[KW802]

Speaking of attachments... any work-around for multi-part binaries?

[James T Brock]

This works out of the box on vbulletin 3.8 or do I have to install some additional files/hacks to get it to work?

[tpearl5]

Anyone planning a version of this for vb4?

[AWS]

With the fixes in this thread it works with vbulletin 4. I have it running on my test server on 4.0.3. Everything works fine with the exception of similar threads which I have a fix for. I just have to check and make sure it works. Once it does I'll post that in the thread and then this will be working 100% with 4.0.x.

I would expect this to work until the admincp is revamped. I don't expect the db layer to change much if any so the core should continue to work. If it does it would probably be minor changes to this script to fix things.