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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!simtel!news.kei.com!news.mathworks.com!tank.news.pipex.net!pipex!btnet!dispatch.news.demon.net!demon!palmer.demon.co.uk!palmer.demon.co.uk!not-for-mail From: gary@palmer.demon.co.uk (Gary Palmer) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,demon.tech.unix Subject: Re: Workstation Reading News Date: 1 Oct 1995 06:00:12 +0100 Organization: none Lines: 61 Message-ID: <44l78s$32q@palmer.demon.co.uk> References: <300871056wnr@falstaf.demon.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: pc.my.org X-NNTP-Posting-Host: palmer.demon.co.uk In article <300871056wnr@falstaf.demon.co.uk>, Robin Birch <robin@falstaf.demon.co.uk> wrote: >Has anybody set up a standalone unix pc to read news, just for itself, >from an nntp news server provided by my Internet service provider. In >this case demon. Yes, I have done it, as proven by the fact I am replying to this posting (even from a Demon account!) :-) (BTW: sorry if you have posted to the demon groups before about this, I don't always read news, and I also don't currently read any of the demon newsgroups) >I want to connect to news.demon.co.uk down the SLIP line and read in a >set of news articles defined by an active file. These would then be >read, ideally by an X based news reader, by the users on falstaf. The >users could then submit/post articles in reply and these would be sent >to demon to send onwards. >So, what do I need and how should it be set up?. OK, there are 3 items of software which you will need to download, compile and configure. The first is the news server. Yes, OK, you can get away without using a news server, but posting is difficult if not impossible. I generally recommend INN (/usr/ports/news/inn), and it's what I run here. If you need help compiling/installing INN, drop me a line and I'll see what I can do. The second piece of software you'll need is called `slurp', and is available from Demon's FTP server (which reminds me, I'll need to do a port RSN). I seem to remember that it's somewhere under ftp://ftp.demon.co.uk/pub/news, and is called `slurp-1.10.tar.Z', although a later version may now be available. The docs supplied with slurp are fairly self-explanatory and you shouldn't have any problems compiling/installing slurp The third piece of s/w you'll need is a newsreader. There is only one freely available X based news reader that I know of, and that is xrn, which doesn't seem to exist as a port yet. If you want to use xrn, I believe that you'll need to get version 6 or higher or you'll have problems compiling it due to changes in X11R6 (I can't remember the exact version no. that is known to work under FreeBSD). For text based readers, tin and trn are available in /usr/ports/news/. Once it's all compiled and installed, you'll probably want to set up a couple of cron jobs to do the news up/downloading from Demon. Although it may not be clear from the docs, you'll want to use a program called `nntpsend' to upload news (nntpsend is part of INN). In addition, you'll need to run news.daily once a day (best to do it late at night) to expire old news articles and to perform general housekeeping activities. This is covered in the docs supplied with INN. Hope this helps Yours Gary -- FreeBSD Core Member E-Mail: Gary@Palmer.Demon.co.uk, gpalmer@FreeBSD.org