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.

[joeMJ]

Ah oops. As I queried phpMyadmin, I don't have this field - I got 2,3,8 and 9, where 2 is city and so on. I disabled Signature in NNTP Settings Menu, but no success - I still get

Datenbankfehler in vBulletin 3.0.7:

Ungueltige SQL-Abfrage: 
			SELECT email, field1 AS signature, usertitle, customtitle
			FROM user AS user
			LEFT JOIN userfield AS userfield
			ON user.userid = userfield.userid
			WHERE user.userid = 1
		
mysql error: Unknown column 'field1' in 'field list'

mysql error number: 1054

Datum: 28.02.2005 22:26:20
Skript: http://www.mobilejoe.de/joeforums/gateway.php
Referer: 
Benutzername: joe
IP-Adresse: 217.84.8.114

The signature is stored in usertextfield - "signature" ... As I am not as good in this - any way to change gateway.php to match these tables in VBulletin I'm using? BTW - It's an out of the box VB3.07 - no changes, hacks, whatever... :surprised:

[lierduh]

Originally Posted by joeMJ

Ah oops. As I queried phpMyadmin, I don't have this field - I got 2,3,8 and 9, where 2 is city and so on. I disabled Signature in NNTP Settings Menu, but no success - I still get

Datenbankfehler in vBulletin 3.0.7:

Ungueltige SQL-Abfrage: 
			SELECT email, field1 AS signature, usertitle, customtitle
			FROM user AS user
			LEFT JOIN userfield AS userfield
			ON user.userid = userfield.userid
			WHERE user.userid = 1
		
mysql error: Unknown column 'field1' in 'field list'

mysql error number: 1054

Datum: 28.02.2005 22:26:20
Skript: http://www.mobilejoe.de/joeforums/gateway.php
Referer: 
Benutzername: joe
IP-Adresse: 217.84.8.114

The signature is stored in usertextfield - "signature" ... As I am not as good in this - any way to change gateway.php to match these tables in VBulletin I'm using? BTW - It's an out of the box VB3.07 - no changes, hacks, whatever... :surprised:

Actually my file has the field name changed already. I can't remember when and why. Anyway, use this attached file instead, and you should be fine.

[joeMJ]

It works! Thank you sooo much !

[Odoin]

Could someone get this:

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=60329

to work with the NNTP mod? I am willing to pay money...

[ironlogik]

hi there

can someone explain why none of the threads are actually showing on the forumdisply.php page? i see the thread and post counts on the forumhome (index), and if i click the thread name in the "last post" column on forumhome, it takes me to the thread no problem. its just not listing the damn threads on the forumdisply page.

please help. thanks.

you can see what its doing at: www.toyotanation.com/forum/

[ironlogik]

n/m problem solved.

it was the modified forumdisply.php from the "Warning System" hack

working perfectly.

BTW - news.astraweb.com is awesome!

[gmtalk]

Is there a way to tie usernames that I pull from yahoo groups or even newsgroups to existing members? I am testing a few feeds out on our test server that has a copy of all users from the live server. Several of our members post on the yahoo, nntp and the forum. I would like to get those members posts from the nntp and yahoo lists tied to their forum name.

I did try the vb built in one, but since the poster is "guest" it is not allowing it.

Any thoughts on this?

[BilldaCat]

When replying to a thread, the 'title' field is left blank. Did I mess up some setting, or is there a way to auto-populate that with 'Re: the-topic-being-discussed'?

Thanks!

[amphicar770]

I have a noob question but first wanted to say that this is an AWESOME hack. I will be using the email gateway to help in transitioning from YahooGroup to VB.

Anyway, for the following instruction under gateway settings I have to confess to having no clue what it means. My site is ammphicar770.com and I have set up a dedicated mailbox at that domain for exchange of the Yahoogroups message. Just have no clue what I should or should not enter for the following setting ...

This domain is used for the msgid of the outgoing post and also for the email address sent to the newsgroups. In the future, I plan to impliment a time limited email address system so replys can go from email to PM. To avoid spams attempting at your server. Please do not use a resolvable domain.
Email address domain email no-mx.amphicarforum.amphicar770.com

Thanks.

[Marv]

Hi,

I don?t know wether I?m the only one having this problem but I wouldappreciate if someone could give me a hint, where and how I could fixthis.

In my forums all posts appear as they should. That means theusenet-code is getting parsed into vb-code, spaces, blanklines..all topnotch.
My problem is the reversed parsing, means vb-code parsed into usenet-code and the appearing in the usenet.

A forum post which looks like this:

This is an example post and in this it has another quoted partlike that:

normal text would go on here and (if long enough) becomes wrapped and parsed in the next line as normal and non-quoted text..

In the usenet post it shows up like this:

This is an example post and in this it has another quoted part like that:

In his post Marv mentioned:
> Quoted message goes here. If this one has more then 72 signs
> it becomes word wrapped as it should..normal text would go on here and
(if long enough) becomes wrapped and parsed in the next line as normal and not-quoted text..

instead of

This is an example post and in this it has another quoted part like that:

In his post Marv mentioned:
> Quoted message goes here. If this one has more then 72 signs
> it becomes word wrapped as it should..
[blank line]
normal text would go on here and (if long enough) becomes wrapped
and parsed in the next line as normal and not-quoted text..

So, it seems that a seperater is missing somewhere and reading of thoseusenet posts via newsreader really becomes a mess if you have a fewqoutes in it beside long text. I?ve tried to fix that on my own but Icouldn?t find out where I?ld have to insert the </br> .

Could someone do me the favor to have a look into the gateway.php ? May be I was just to blind to see..