Newsgroups: comp.sys.apollo
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca!system
From: system@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca (System Admin (Mike Peterson))
Subject: Re:  Info on setting up net news.
Message-ID: <1991Jun9.134222.13142@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca>
Organization: University of Toronto Chemistry Department
References: <9106072205.AA12094@hobbes.mdc.com>
Date: Sun, 9 Jun 1991 13:42:22 GMT

In article <9106072205.AA12094@hobbes.mdc.com> johnb@HOBBES.MDC.COM (John Breen) writes:
>>Could some kind soul point me to the latest versions of the sources [of news
>>software] I will need and point out any configuration problems I should be
>>aware of?  
>
>For an internet (read non-UUCP ?) site, I've been told (by a news administrator
>that I'm going to try to get a feed from) that I would need the following (we're
>connected to the news "source" via NSFNet):
>"  - cnews
>   - nntp
>   - rn, nn, or trn
>   - plenty of disk space..."

Correct on all counts (though you can use B News I suppose).
We have been running NNTP, C News and rn on our Apollo network with no real
problem for a year.

>It looks like the news is actually transferred between the news servers by nntp.

That is the easiest way, if you have direct TCP service between the systems.

>The part cnews plays isn't apparent to me (although I've only glanced at the
>documentation); also, some people have been recommending bnews - I don't know if
>this is due to problems with cnews, or if it's just because it's the one they're
>currently using.  rn, nn, and trn are the "user interfaces" to the news system. 
NNTP handles the transferring of batches of articles between the systems,
C News (or B News) handles the "unpacking" of the articles into the local
/usr/spool/news directory and preparing lists of articles to be
forwarded to other sites; rn/nn/trn are the actual news reading programs
that the users use to read and reply to articles.

>I've used rn (on another system that I no longer have access to) and it seemed
>very nice, although I've seen postings here that indicated that
>rn/telnet/apollos don't mix (there is a "remote" form of rn - would this get
>around the problems?).  I've also seen postings about problems with file locking
>between the news server and the node that the user is reading from (similar, I
>assume, to the sendmail problem described in the FAQ).

Telnet is broken on all Apollo systems, so it messes up anytime the port
is put into "raw" or "cbreak" mode - rn, vi, ..., do this, so a carriage
return gets converted to a line feed; to avoid it, use rlogin. This
problem also causes kermit file transfers to fail over telnet
connections since the carriage return at the end of the packet is never
seen. [Editorial note: come on HPollo, fix this !!!]

The only catch is that you must not permit news readers on
remote Apollo systems to get at the "active" file on the real news
node, since they will lock it, and jam your news unspooling.
We avoid this by copying the active file to each node every so often,
and also fake news posting on the remote nodes so they do a 'rsh' to
the master node. You can also hack on the source of 'rn', which others
have done according to previous postings here. You can also let the news
readers access a copy of the active file on the master news node, and
just update the master copy every so often.

>The above software should be available by anonymous ftp from
>wuarchive.wustl.edu (and undoubtedly others), although I have no idea if it's
>the latest versions.
 
You can also get NNTP and rn from uunet.uu.net, C News from
cs.utoronto.ca (the uunet version should be up to date also, but C News
is/was developed at U/T so they always have the latest).

>The only other tidbit that I've got is the mention of the following book (from
>the cnews README file):
>	"Managing UUCP and Usenet", by Tim O'Reilly and Grace Todino,
>	O'Reilly & Associates, 1989, ISBN 0-937175-48-X.  This latest

Haven't read this (I set up our news before this book was available).
I can send you config files if you want, though they're pretty standard
if you have set up news before.
-- 
Mike Peterson, System Administrator, U/Toronto Department of Chemistry
E-mail: system@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca
Tel: (416) 978-7094                  Fax: (416) 978-8775
