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

[Marv]

Hi lierduh,

thx for the 3.5 release.

In your old version for 3.0.x I thought it would be easier, if the server-settings (newsserver, username & password) could be stored as some kind of global setting for the ng. Regular you only use one newsserver with the same pw und login - and with a global setting it would ease the work if you have 20+ ng to setup.

Would it be a mess to make this an option in the next release ?

[trancetopia]

This hack is awesome...

Everything is working great apart from local posts/repies are not being sent to the newsgroup.

If have the following setting set correctly:

Send message to USENET send_message 1

And the debug mode is saying the message is being posted, but it does not appear in the newgroup.

Any ideas why this would be happening?

Many thanks,
Paul

[trancetopia]

Originally Posted by trancetopia

This hack is awesome...

Everything is working great apart from local posts/repies are not being sent to the newsgroup.

If have the following setting set correctly:

Send message to USENET send_message 1

And the debug mode is saying the message is being posted, but it does not appear in the newgroup.

Any ideas why this would be happening?

Many thanks,
Paul

Managed to find out why. The log was returning 201 which is "server ready - no posting allowed" instead of 200 "server ready - posting allowed"

It's an email to newshosting.com and see if anything can be done.

Again, this is a awesome hack.

[eandhra]

gatewayed some groups and after that when I run gateway.php, it is getting

messages to only one group, I tried somany times, it is always coming to only

one group,

what is the problem?

[Acers]

btw in the advanced gateway hacking guide.. you have

FIND
$quickreply

REPLACE it with

<if condition="!$is_usenet">
$quickreply
</if>

i can't seem to find $quickreply anywhere in showthread template. It was there in 3.0x though.

[Mr.D]

Can some one tell me how to uninstall this hack

[ThePimp]

How do you uninstall the first release of this? No Uninstall instructions were provided.

[trancetopia]

Hi lierduh, i've run into a problem.

Everything is working great apart from posting back to the newsgroups.

I have a forum for jokes which I use alt.jokes and i've just posted a few jokes in there.

I checked via a newsreader to see if they were posted but only the first post was sent or is displaying in the newsgroup. I ran gateway.php?debug=1 after I made the posts and showed they were all posted but only the 1st thread was submitted to the newsgroup.

Any idea why this would happen?

Many thanks for your help.

Paul

[eXtremeTim]

Is anybody else noticing this to run slow? I mean it took me like 13 days to pull 50k messages.

And now its to the point where it just keeps timing out. I am only pulling 9 groups right now.

Also I would like to confirm that it is not my usenet server. I have a premium pay account with a big provider.

Plus now it keeps generating the following.

PHP has encountered a Stack overflow

I need to get this fixed asap.


Oh hell ya. I got this thing moving pretty decent now. My usenet server and many others dont like taking that many connections that fast. They will still see the old ones and cuase the timeout errors becuase of hitting the max connections. Becuase I just split the group connect into its own function and just told it that we are working with only one server right now and presto started moving decent.

Thanks
Tim

[ThePimp]

I would like to uninstall this completely. Can someone give some directions on how to do this?????

Thanks