Is the Usenet Gateway mod suitable for a shared server?

[boatdesign]

I asked this question a few days ago and one person was nice enough to share their experience running the mod via email, but I wanted to get some more feedback and specifics. The original question got lost in the 17 page thread (original: http://vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?threadid=7100) so I thought I would break it off and start a new thread to see if this is something I could install on a shared server:

I am very excited about the possiblity of integrating 2 usenet newgroups with my vBulletin forums, but I'm worried about doing anything which might endanger my hosting account.

1.) Can this script be run on a virtual/shared host? (300 other hosting accounts per RH Linux server, P3 800, 1 GB Ram)
Is anyone running this on a shared host, or is it for dedicated servers only?

2.) What kind of server resources would be required if I was looking at including 2 usenet groups which currently have 100 messages per day max?

3.) What happens if connection to the news server hangs? (lingering processes?)

Also, I am a little worried about the possibility of being targeted by a spammer who could use my forums to spam usenet and thus get my hosting account suspended.

4.) Is there any type of post rate limiter designed in?

5.) Is there an option to allow only moderated posts to usenet (or maybe an option to have them appear in the forum before being approved for posting to usenet?)

Thanks very much - this is a fantastic option. I just hope that I will be able to use it.

And thanks again for any feedback... just want to make sure I won't endanger my hosting account by installing this.

[PurpleCow]

Hello,

This thread was started a very long time ago.
Sorry to bump it up back.

But, i found the questions raised here to be very useful to me too, if some one can help us with some answers.

I'd be interested to hear from u.

Thanks for ur time.

Cheers

[PhoenixBB]

I'm using it on a shared server without any probs. I talked to my host beforehand and he monitored server usage when it was installed. Saw no noticeable difference in bandwidth or server load.

However I've only got a couple of text groups, and I don't yet have the reply function switched on (tho I doubt that would make a difference),. If you were planning on loads of binary groups or dumping thousands of posts in at once you might have problems. Otherwise if you use common sense I doubt you'll give your host any cause for complaint.

Re the question about spammers from your forum: perhaps ensure that only registered users can post and have a moderater check before they are sent out. I've not got round to setting a Cron job yet but it's easy enough to run manually.

Incoming spam you have to get rid of manually which is a pain.

I've not really had any 'hanging' problems - occasionally it takes a couple of minutes to download (when there is about 50 messages) but other than that, no probs. Acts much like a normal forum.

Did have a bit of a scare when someone was posting binaries to the group and it showed up on the thread as an attachment. I'd switched attachments off in that forum, so I checked the DB to be sure. Nothing there, which was a relief!

I had very little probs with it once I figured I needed to get the last message ID from the news source I'd be using (they are all different apparently). I'd been taking it from Easynews via my newsreader, when I was using a free teranews account for yhe hack, and the ids were different. Once that was sussed, everything was fine.

Oh but I did turn off the option to index post for searching (in the gateway file). Had probs before with the search index getting too big so I played safe and switched it off.

As it is essentially another forum, there shouldn't be any problems if you keep it pruned regularly because it'll fill up much faster than a regular forum.

It's a great hack so go for it.

Good luck!