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Installing & Upgrading Instructions

To install and set up DNEWS simply follow the installation instructions below. Apart from the site-specific information you will enter during installation, DNEWS is virtually ready to go.

 

Windows NT Installation

  1. To download DNEWS from NETWINSITE.COM click on 'Download' and on the download page click on your operating system : (OR FTP the files from ftp://ftp.netwinsite.com/pub/netwinsite/dnews)
  2. From MSDOS command prompt, type in the file name you downloaded to run the self extracting archive and installation procedure

    Example: dnewsXXX.exe

  3. Run DNEWS Manager to modify the setup further and to start the service. (Note - If you will ONLY be using the server for your own internal discussion groups and do not intend to use Internet news groups then just leave the setup requests for your news feed site blank.)
  4. Point your news reader software at your NT server and try out your new fast news system. (Note - With some news readers you need to exit and then re-open the news reader after setting them to point to your NT server.)
  5. Join the mailing lists for advice and update information, and read the manual to find out how to; manage the server, add local discussion groups and much more........, and don't forget to register :-)
  6. Open DOS Window
  7. then type TELLNEWS REGISTER

Notes:

Windows NT Upgrading

  1. Shut down the server and exit from DNEWS Manager
  2. Run the self extracting archive
  3. dnews42g.exe (or whatever version)
  4. When installation is complete start DNEWS Manager from the DNEWS Admin tool.

Notes for Windows 95 Installation Follow the instructions for Windows NT and mostly it will work except for:

  1. Services don't exist, so you have to run DNews from a DOS prompt. You can put this into your STARTUP group to make it start automatically like an NT service.
  2. NetWin do not recommend the use of Windows 95 as a full news server for large numbers of users. Use NT if possible.

UNIX Installation (or upgrading)

  1. FTP the file in binary mode from ftp://ftp.netwinsite.com/pub/dnews typically dnewsVER_MACHINE.tar.Z, e.g. dnews43c_linux.tar.Z
  2. Before installing you may want to reformat your spool partitions with 'large' blocking factors, e.g. 32k bytes blocks, this will stop fragmentation impacting performance. (Unlike other unix news servers a large blocking factor won't limit the number of items your system can store but will improve performance.)
  3. Extract to a temporary directory in your own account and run the setup utility

    /home/chris> uncompress dnews43a_linux.tar
    /home/chris> tar -xvf dnews43a_linux.tar
    /home/chrisp> cd dnews
    /home/chrisp/dnews> su root
    /home/chrisp/dnews> ./dnews_setup

  4. Skip to step 9 below, or read thru the 'manual' installation instructions if you want to know what the setup utility has done for you:

    Manual installation instructions:

    EDIT dnews.conf

    Modify the file DNEWS.CONF to describe your system by defining the following symbols

    SYMBOL Value Description
    manager system email address or user@site.com
    nntp_feeder news.upstream.site Place to suck news from myname news.your.domain Name of your server
    df /usr/bin/df -k path and options for df command to get posix standard output, df -Pk sometimes works
    diskspace 100 space available in megabytes 1,000,000 bytes (not 1024^2)
    sendmail /usr/bin/sendmail The path and flags for sendmail or equiv.
    confirm *your.domain Enable email confirmation when item is passed up to a feeder site.
  5. Edit your system startup script, the name will vary:

    On LINUX /etc/rc.d/rc.local add a line:

    /usr/local/dnews/dnews_start.sh

    On some systems this is not needed as the run level startup (/etc/rc.d/init.d) will be used via dnews.init, be sure you don't get two dnews processes installed :-)

  6. If your news feeder stamps news items with a name other than the ip name you specified above, then you will need to add an exclude field to the file newsfeeds.conf to prevent your system echoing all news back to the feeder!!! (check the path header of an item to see what it is doing)
  7. Edit access.conf and grant an ip range access to your users by name or number, e.g.

    *.this.place:read,post:::*
    161.23.4.*:read,post:::*

  8. If you have changed any of the default directories, then edit all the .sh scripts to reflect the changes.
  9. Run the installation script

    su root (You need priv to install the files start dnews)
    ./install.sh

  10. Start the system

    cd /usr/local/dnews
    ./dnews_start.sh

    The system will now try and get a list of news groups from your feeder site. While this is happening it will not respond, but you can check its progress by:

    more dnews.log

    When it has finished (give it 10-20 minutes), you can then try:

    tellnews status

  11. Go to a PC and try out your news reader software pointed at the new system.

Note: With the above setup DNEWS will automatically suck (pull) news from your provider. To set-up DNEWS to receive a traditional full IHAVE feed you should also refer to 'Instructions on setting up DNews to take a full IHAVE feed' in the Feeds In section of this manual.

Swap partition:

NEWS is memory hungry, you don't need a lot of physical memory but you do need a large swap partition. As a rule of thumb 100-200MB is a good idea for 3-10Gig of news, some brands of unix (freebsd and bsdi) seem to need more than others.

LINUX file handles:

If you expect to have more than 125 concurrent users then you will need to modify your kernal to allow more file handles. On linux you would modify these files in the /usr/src/linux... directory.

	in "fs.h"
	NR_OPEN 1024
	
	in "limits.h"
	NR_OPEN 1024
	OPEN_MAX 1024
	
	in "posix_types.h"
	__FD_SETSIZE 1024

Then rebuild the kernal in the normal way (see /usr/src/linux/README)

Also you will need a recent linux5 build of dnews, e.g. dnews47d_linux5.tar.Z

LINUX slackware:

Comes with a dummy nntp daemon installed, you must remove this so dnews can bind to the socket. (so it won't even start up)

edit /etc/inetd.conf (comment out the NNTP line)
kill -HUP
OSF (Digital Unix)

To disable the unaligned access warnings add this line to dnews_start.sh, these unaligned accesses do not affect performance. (or upgrade to DNEWS 4.2i or later)

uac p 0

HP-UX

If you want to use Dnews on HP-UX you have to customize the kernal: Per default a process is only able to allocate 60MB. (This might be not enough for Dnews) You have to set the kernal parameter MAXDSIZ to a higher value. (It is easy to do this using SAM - otherwise you have to take care: the value is in hex (not in dec) and in pages (not in bytes))

We recommend you increase the limit to about 120MB so it will never run out.

FREEBSD

If you need to run with more than 125 concurrent users then add these lines to /etc/rc.local

sysctl -w kern.maxfiles=8192
sysctl -w kern.maxfilesperprocess=8192

On a large system you may need to build a new kernal to increase the memory process limits, here is an example:
/usr/src/sys/i386/conf/YOURKERNELSETTINGSFILE

options "MAXDSIZ=(256*1024*1024)"
options "DFLDSIZ=(256*1024*1024)"

BSDI, Unixware, Sunos, FreeBSD

Some brands of unix (BSDI, Unixware, Sunos) have process limits, the two that will hurt dnews are memory use/datasize, and openfiles. The following commands can remove these limits - you will need to do this for root and news users.

limit memoryuse unlimited
limit openfiles 256
limit datasize unlimited

(Bash Sunos increase file handles) ulimit -n 256

With some operating systems BSDI, HPUX, AIX, you also need to increase the KERNAL memory limits, for BSDI,  FREEBSD  this is done with the following commands, these are permanent settings that remain set even between reboots:

sysctl -w vm.maxssize=90000000
sysctl -w vm.maxdsize=201326592

or
sysctl -w vm.maxdatasize=201326592

You may need to recompile the kernal as well, here are the settings you need to change for BSDI:

Add these options to your config file (/sys/i386/conf/FILENAME) :

# Memory Options
options   "DFLDSIZ=\(128*1024*1024\)"
options   "MAXDSIZ=\(256*1024*1024\)" # max size of a process
options   CHILD_MAX=512 # max live children per parent
options   OPEN_MAX=256 # max number of open files
options   NMBCLUSTERS=2048 # raises mbuf clusters (increases the
       # amount of virtual memory for network
       # buffers)

For most other systems these kernal parameters need to be set in the kernal configuration files before or during the process of building a new kernal.

Here is an example of dnews_start.sh for BSDI

#!/bin/sh
cd /usr/local/dnews
ls -ald /usr/local/dnews
chown news /usr/local/dnews/*
chown news /usr/local/dnews
rm nohup.old
mv nohup.out nohup.old
limit datasize unlimited
limit openfiles 256
limit memoryuse unlimited
nohup ./dnews_start &

Here is an example of dnews_start.sh for Unixware (2.03)

#!/bin/sh
cd /usr/local/dnews
ls -ald /usr/local/dnews
chown news /usr/local/dnews/*
chown news /usr/local/dnews
rm nohup.old
mv nohup.out nohup.old
ulimit -n 256
ulimit -d 60000
ulimit -v 60000
nohup ./dnews_start &

To test these limits are really removed, use the commands:

tellnews test_mem
tellnews test_files

You must stop and restart dnews after running these tests. You should see about 200 free file handles and about 30MB or more of memory that can be allocated, if you see less then you haven't removed the limits.

UNIX Upgrading from INN or CNEWS

First, follow the above unix installation instructions, but don't start dnews.

You can copy the following files from your UNIX system:

active  -->  /var/spool/dnews/active.dat
active.times  -->  /var/spool/dnews/active.times
newsgroups  -->  /var/spool/dnews/active.names

Then start dnews, if you want to run both DNEWS and INN at the same time while testing you can even do this, define port in dnews.conf to some port other than 119. (e.g. 1119)

Now if you have enough disk space (2x spool area) then you can import the spool area into dnews, and run it in parallel until you are happy.

tellnews spool_import /var/spool/news

If you don't have enough disk space to do this, you might just convert a small part of the spool area for testing, e.g.:

tellnews spool_import /var/spool/news/comp/lang

If you then decide you are happy with dnews and you want to convert the entire spool area, deleting the INN files as they are converted (to create enough space) then you can use the command:

tellnews spool_convert /var/spool/news

If you do not mind whether dnews uses exactly the same item numbers as the INN system then you can add this setting to dnews.conf

convert_add true

VMS_Installation

  1. FTP the files from ftp://ftp.netwinsite.com/pub/netwinsite/dnews/vms/alpha (or /vax)
    - extract.com (ascii)
    - install.txt (ascii)
    - dnews.zip (binary)
    - unzip.exe (binary)
  2. @extract Extracts the required files from the saveset
  3. $ edit sys$manager:systartup_vms.com Add a call to dnews_start.com
  4. $ edit sys$sylogin: Add the symbol, see dnews_login.com
  5. $ edit dnews_top:dnews.conf
  6. Modify the file DNEWS.CONF to describe your system by defining the following symbols
    SYMBOL EXAMPLE
    manager system (email address or user@site.com)
    nntp_feeder news.feeder.site
    myname news.this.place
    timezone nzst (new zealand standard time)
    diskspace 100 (space available in megabytes)
    mail smtp (the foreign email protocol name)
    confirm *.this.place Enable email confirmation when item is passed up to a feeder site.
  7. If your news feeder stamps news items with a name other than the ip name you specified above, then you will need to add an exclude field to the file newsfeeds.conf to prevent your system echoing all news back to the feeder!!! (check the path header of an item to see what it is doing)
  8. $ edit access.conf Grant an ip range access to your users. e.g.

    *.this.place:read,post:::* (by name)
    161.23.4.*:read,post:::* (by number)

  9. $ @dnews_start Start the system

    $ @dnews_login (to define the symbol tellnews)

    The system will now try and get a list of news groups from your feeder site. While this is happening it will not respond, but you can check its progress by:

    $ type dnews.log

    When it has finished (give it 10-20 minutes), you can then try:

    $ tellnews status

    Go to a PC and try out your news reader software pointed at the new system.

With the above setup DNEWS will automatically suck (pull) news from your provider. To set-up DNEWS to receive a traditional full IHAVE feed you should also refer to 'Instructions on setting up dnews to take a full IHAVE feed' in the Feeds In section of this manual.

NETWARE 4.x Installation

WARNING: DO NOT USE ON NETWARE 5.x

This version of dnews DOES NOT WORK on netware 5.x, we may build a netware 5 version but when we do, this warning will be removed so if you are reading this don't use dnews on netware 5. (It almost runs but gets into a cpu loop due to some change in the directory scanning functions between netware 4 and netware 5.)

WARNING: MEMORY

DNEWS expects virtual memory, as netware has none you have to make sure your system has sufficient REAL memory. For a sucking feed you will need 8MB free, for a full IHAVE feed you will need 16MB-60MB of free memory (these are estimates).

WARNING: GROUPS

This release for NETWARE is limited to 10,000 groups - this is plenty if you take care with the 'ME' setting in newsfeeds.conf

WARNING: BETA RELEASE

This is a beta release, NetWin do not recommend that you install this on a mission critical server. Please report any problems you find.
attach myserver
File, Run, dnewsnw23f.exe (or whatever the latest version is)
Answer the configuration questions.
In your autoexec.ncf script add the following lines.
load netdbattach myserver
load dnews attach myserver
Load the server by hand.
load netdb
load dnews
Go to a PC and try out your news reader software pointed at the new system. On windows 95 you can run the DNEWSMAN configuration utility to setup or modify your configuration.
Use the command:

load tellnews status To see what it's doing
load tellnews register To see what it's doing
load tellnews exit To shutdown dnews nicely

load tellnews help For other commands.

NEVER shutdown the service with the 'unload' command. Always use load tellnews exit instead.

With the above setup DNEWS will automatically suck (pull) news from your provider. To set-up DNEWS to receive a traditional full IHAVE feed you should also refer to 'Instructions on setting up dnews to take a full IHAVE feed' in the Feeds In section of this manual.

OS/2 Installation

  1. FTP the files from netwinsite.com

    ftp://netwinsite.com/dnews/dnews3.XX_os2.zip

  2. 2) Unzip the files

    pkunzip c:\dtemp\dnews2.XX_os2.zip

  3. Run install.cmd to rename files and copy them to the destination (typically c:\dnews), you can edit this script to define the destination first:

    e install.cmd
       set config=d:\dnews
    Then run the installation:
       install

  4. Edit dnews.conf

    e dnews.conf

    Modify the file DNEWS.CONF to describe your system by defining the following symbols

    SYMBOL EXAMPLE
    manager youremail@your.site
    nntp_feeder news.upstream.site
    myname this.machine.name
    diskspace 100 Space available in megabytes.
    Confirm *.this.place Enable email confirmation when item is passed up to a feeder site.
  5. Add dnews to the startup folder:

    - Double click on OS/2 System
    - Double click on Startup
    - Right click on any object
    - Left click on Create Another
    - Change 'New Name:' to DNEWS NNTP Server
    - Click on Create
    - Set Path to: c:/dnews/dnews.exe
    - Set Work Directory: c:/dnews
    - Click on Session
    - Click on Start Minimized
    - Close the dialogue

  6. If your news feeder stamps news items with a name other than the ip name you specified above, then you will need to add an exclude parameter to the file newsfeeds.conf to prevent your system echoing all news back to the feeder!!! (check the path header of an item to see what it is doing)
  7. Edit access.conf Grant an ip range access to your users.

    e access.conf
       *.this.place:read,post:::* (by name)
       161.23.4.*:read,post:::* (or by number)

  8. Start the server by double clicking on the dnews icon in the startup window.

    Check the log file and status to see if its running:
    > cd \dnews
    > dtail dnews.log
    > tellnews status

    Now try reading news, it may take a minute or two to fetch the list of groups from your server.

  9. Go to a PC and try out your news reader software pointed at the new system.

With the above setup DNEWS will automatically suck (pull) news from your provider. To set-up DNEWS to receive a traditional full IHAVE feed you should also refer to 'Instructions on setting up dnews to take a full IHAVE feed' in the Feeds In section of this manual.

Macintosh Installation

DNews is distributed as a self extracting archive dnewsmac2.7ri.sea you double click on this to install the software and choose a location for it in the normal way. This will create a folder in that location called DNews, this folder could be placed anywhere but would normally be on your startup disk along with other application folders. If you are upgrading from a previous version of DNews simply replace the two current applications (DNews and TellNews Control) with the new ones. Your current preferences will be maintained.

Quickstart:

  1. Run the TellNews Control Application.

    - You use this to set various options such as your own IP number.
    - You must set the news server you are going to get your news feed from.

  2. Then select 'start' to startup the DNews news server.

    - You start and stop DNews by using the TellNews control application.
    - You can monitor memory usage by choosing "About This Mac" from the finder before starting DNews.
    - DNews must have sufficient memory to work correctly.
    - If you want DNews to always run on startup, setup an alias to the DNews application and put it in your startup folder.

  3. Run a news reader and try reading news from the DNews server.
  4. You can check the status of DNews by using the control application Tellnews. Three useful buttons are:

    - Start to start the DNews application
    - Stop to close down DNews
    - Status to display current status of DNews.
    - See the Command menu for other available manager commands.
    - Balloon help is available for all the other controls in Tellnews control.

  5. There is no 5 - it really is as simple as that!

With the above setup DNEWS will automatically suck (pull) news from your provider. To set-up DNEWS to receive a traditional full IHAVE feed you should also refer to 'Instructions on setting up dnews to take a full IHAVE feed' in the Feeds In section of this manual.

Sizing your system

Are you going to take a full traditional news feed including binaries?

If so then you will need about 1-2 Gig per day of news you want to store. (This is an estimate - the volume doubles every 6-12 months.)

If you have less than 4000 users, or if your users are very similar (e.g. your users are all from one company and have similar interests) then sucking news may be a good option.

If you plan on more than 100 concurrent users, then using DMULTI will be essential to give good performance. I recommend it above about 50 concurrent users.

For a full feed system:

spool size = days_of_news * 1.5 Gig
ram = spool_gigs * 5 + 32MB + 200K*concurrent_users

So let's take an example of a full feed, with approx 10 days of news and 100 concurrent users.

Spool_size = 15 Gig
ram = 75 + 32 + .2*100 = 32 + 75 + 20 = 120MB
Processor: Pentium 100 or better.

If you exclude binary groups then the spool would be 7-200Gig.

If you suck news and exclude binaries, then 2-8 gig would be heaps and you could run it on 64MB of RAM.   Adding memory is the cheapest upgrade available, and extra 256mb of ram will really improve usenet server performance :-). 

See this page for more details on sizing a large system.

Calculating memory use

This is a rough guide to calculating how much memory DNews will use. This is VIRTUAL memory, you don't need this much physical memory (but it will go faster if it does :-)

(Concurrent connections) * 200K
(Articles in history file - see expire processed) * 12
(Spool Gig's) * 1MB
(Max article size accepted) * 2
(Number of news groups) * 100
head_cache (default 200) * 3k
xover_cache (default 3000) * 300
Program static data 4mb

So let's take a smallish system with 20,000 news groups, 10 concurrent connections, 200,000 lines of history data, 1 Gig of spool, 1MB articles.

10 * 200K = 2MB
200,000 * 12 = 2.4MB
1Gig = 1MB
1MB Articles = 2MB
20,000 News groups, = 2MB
head_cache (default 200) * 3k = 600K
xover_cache (default 3000) * 300 = 900K
Program static data = 4mb
Total memory use = 14.9MB

NOTE: You DO NOT NEED THIS MUCH RAM. DNews is designed to deal with multiple full feeds and hundreds of users. If you are running a smaller system you don't need all this as REAL RAM, that's what virtual memory is for, it just slows down a little.

Typically on a small system where you wish to reduce the memory use you need to look at:

Total groups
History remember setting.
Maximum article size

You can drastically reduce memory use with these settings:

(in expire.conf) remember 4
(in dnews.conf) item_max 200000 (stops large binary items!!!)
(in newsfeeds.conf change your ME feed to only allow groups that really exist in your country-area)
   site ME
   groups !*,rec.*,comp.*,alt.*,news.*,soc.*,bit.*,bionet.*,sci.*
   tellnews matchfeed
   tellnews purgegroups
(restart dnews to free up the memory)

As a rule of thumb to avoid calculations with unix and NT, create a 100MB swap/page file as a first step. If you are running a big system, then 200mb would be a wise choice.

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