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.

[Highlander]

whoops.. the gateway now reached 120MB download and downloading just more .. is this normally? i just entered the forelast message id (you gave me three posts before) from the group on the msserver! so it normally had to download only 2 topics there .. hmpf.. anyone know why gateway is downloading over 120MB of data and still not stopping .. ?

should i abot it now?

also posted one message and get this error:

1 group(s) gatewayed.
Connecting to server, server says: 200 NNTP Service 6.0.3790.1146 Version: 6.0.3790.1146 Posting Allowed
Info for microsoft.public.access at msnews.microsoft.com:
211 16354 2 73633 microsoft.public.access
Posting Message 'Beta Testing' from Highlander. Result: 441 (629) Article Rejected -- Ill-formed message id '<Highlander.16lqrp@>' in field 'Message-ID:'
Posting Message 'Beta Testing' from Highlander. Result: 441 (607) Article Rejected -- The 'References:' field requires one or more values

[lierduh]

Originally Posted by Highlander

should i abot it now?

also posted one message and get this error:

Yes, stop it.

What is your "Email address domain" "email" setting?

I am confused. You said before after you ran setlastmsg.php, you do not get any posts. Which is correct behaviour. Now you are getting 120MB download?

Please post your settings, and screen dumps. That will be better than any description. See, last post you included the error message, I know straight away need to ask what is your setting regarding "email".

[lierduh]

Originally Posted by xb_

hi

When i don't manually edit the gateway.php to include a valid userid in the posts, the messages won't show up at all on the forumdisplay. I'm not entirelly sure what or why this is happening.
And last, it appears that i'm having alot of 0 byte attachements; It are actually the only attachements i'm getting. So something is wrong with the insertion of those, in my setup.

But besides the above, everything seems to work quiet alrite. Nice work so far, although i would like to see some more discussion about mailing list archive setups.

I will do up the mailing list function on the weekend. If possible, please post a sample raw message that you have problem with. I need the entire header, you can cut out the attachment, but leave the beginning and the end of the attachment.

[lierduh]

Originally Posted by Odoin

One other questions... Is there a way to change the display named on the who is online to something other then showing the gateway.php file being ran from a guest with the cron runs it?

Will need to hack into the vB scripts which I am trying to avoid as much as I can. There is no harm even someone clicks on the link though with the new version.

[lierduh]

Originally Posted by KevinM

I am getting this error whenever it hits a message with an attachment (with the latest script)

Is this related to creating the thumbnail?

What platform is your server based on? Windows? Linux?

Please email me the phpinfo() output. I will have a crack at it.

[xb_]

I editted the above post. As for the attachements, non of the attachements are getting through.
Looking in Mysql, the filename isn't included in the attachement table, nor is the filesize and filehash. The actuall filecontents of the attachements are there.

[lierduh]

Originally Posted by xb_

I editted the above post. As for the attachements, non of the attachements are getting through.
Looking in Mysql, the filename isn't included in the attachement table, nor is the filesize and filehash. The actuall filecontents of the attachements are there.

Did you hack the script to work with mailing list? that probably explains it. Because I had to fix nntp.php and mime.php. I have not checked the pop3 class file.

What I need is the raw message from one of the problem list you have. You need to get it from a normal email reader.

[KevinM]

Originally Posted by lierduh

What platform is your server based on? Windows? Linux?

Please email me the phpinfo() output. I will have a crack at it.

I have sent a PM with the info on it (I couldn't get your email). It worked on your last version (except for the creation of the thumbnail). It is built on a redhat Linux system.

[xb_]

The only hacks/changes i made to it, were changeing the userid into a valid/excisting userid, and added TABLE_PREFIX to the table creation/check routine.
As for the message, i have received it from someone else's mailer (even tho i signed up with a seperate account for this ), but i suppose it is what you requested.

[Highlander]

lierduh i can give you (if you want check for bugs) administrtation account so you can look yourself.

I added an screenshot of the settings!
Also got this error message if i post an QUICK REPLY answer to an post in one of the USENET Forums:

1 group(s) gatewayed.
Connecting to server, server says: 200 NNTP Service 6.0.3790.1146 Version: 6.0.3790.1146 Posting Allowed
Info for microsoft.public.access at msnews.microsoft.com:
211 16354 2 73633 microsoft.public.access
Posting Message 'Beta Testing' from Highlander. Result: 441 (629) Article Rejected -- Ill-formed message id '<Highlander.16lqrp@>' in field 'Message-ID:'
Posting Message 'Beta Testing' from Highlander. Result: 441 (607) Article Rejected -- The 'References:' field requires one or more values

Sometimes i get no posts an only the message:

Connecting to server, server says: 200 NNTP Service 6.0.3790.1146 Version: 6.0.3790.1146 Posting Allowed
Info for microsoft.public.access at msnews.microsoft.com:
211 16354 2 73633 microsoft.public.access

and somteimes its downloading and downlaoding without stoop and any point of return .. my posts are aaways rejected .. and i did alwys set the lastmessage id before i use gateway.

greetings