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.

[irubin]

Hello

I think the script works much better if it's run using plain cron, not vB scheduler. If i run it through vB scheduler and ouput some variables inside it they are NULL or have strange values.

Also i think one of the problems is not unique msgids. Now i'm using seconds since epoch + microseconds + user name and it helps.

Hope it will help someone

[allan grossman]

Originally Posted by sdsvtdriver

Has anyone figured out or modded the hack to exclude certain forums from sending posts to the Usenet? I have some forums I'd like the users to be able to post to the Usenet on, but other's I wouldn't.

Just remove posting privileges in the forums where you don't want users to post

[allan grossman]

Is anyone else having problems with A Small Orange and Giganews? I got an email from someone else saying their Usenet forums stopped receving posts so I checked mine - nothing new since May 21.

[allan grossman]

Originally Posted by allan grossman

Is anyone else having problems with A Small Orange and Giganews? I got an email from someone else saying their Usenet forums stopped receving posts so I checked mine - nothing new since May 21.

ASO is fixed. They stood up a new firewall and forgot to open port 119

[CarolinaKid]

I assume I am thinking this hack is something other then what it is. I set it to grab group alt.binares.dvdr well that was a mistake. Is there a a way to get it to grab just the headers or something not the whole attachment that is just a bunch of garbage in the post casue it showed up like ASADJJKMSDA><MDSNDLSDJMD>SAD witch i feel sure is the rar file just not as a atachment. I guess basicly I was thinking it would something like newzbin where it just showed the headers. ( altho would be nice if you could make it so it would make a nzb file to download. ) Do I have this hack all wrong in my head?

[Skalek]

Sorry if this has been asked already. I am in the process of setting my site up and importing a lot of newgroup posts. Every once in a while it will just stop for no reason and give no error at all. Then I can change the last run time and start it again.

Any idea what this could be?

[xnt]

Is there a way to support one mailing list email (eg: 1 Yahoo group) going to different forums via the prefix option? Can I remove the database uniqueness restriction on this field (NEWSGROUP in NNTP_GROUPS table) or are there any other ways around this ???

TIA -Xuan

[coreymcl]

How do I make it look for new post. Also do I have to have the last message ID if I am just starting this hack up for the first time?

[Razz]

Originally Posted by Skalek

Sorry if this has been asked already. I am in the process of setting my site up and importing a lot of newgroup posts. Every once in a while it will just stop for no reason and give no error at all. Then I can change the last run time and start it again.

Any idea what this could be?

The time the script will execute before timing out is controlled by your host in the php.ini file.

If you have a low timeout time it can be a pain doing the first import, you could always use the crontab and leave it for a day to do itself.

[Razz]

Originally Posted by coreymcl

How do I make it look for new post. Also do I have to have the last message ID if I am just starting this hack up for the first time?

It will only look for new posts if you put it on crontab or manually run it via the gateway file.

You don't need a last message ID for the first run, it'll fill that in automatically after.