[return to index]Getting News Into your server

This section describes the settings necessary to get news on to the dnews server in the simplest way possible - from a single provider using either of the two main methods used to transfer news items.

Setting up a basic sucking feed

This is the default configuration and Dnews comes setup to do this straight out of the box.

In dnews.conf set the nntp_feeder to the site that you are going to suck from, set the myname variable to the name of the machine that you are running dnews on, e.g.

	nntp_feeder pull-feed-out.internetmci.com * 
	myname news.mydomain.com

Setting up a basic IHAVE (traditional) news feed

In access.conf, give your feed site access to send you ihave messages, sometimes you will have to give several names or a wild card to allow all the news servers that may send you items. Also, it is wise to add the ip numbers if possible then you can turn reverse DNS translation off if necessary.

	news*.mci.com:ihave:::* 
	223.232.11.*:ihave:::*

In dnews.conf, comment out the nntp_feeder definition and add a line:

	# nntp_feeder ...
	cachedall true

In newsfeeds.conf, replace

	site $NNTP_FEEDER 
		groups * 
		builtin 
		posting 
With 
	site my.feeder.site 
		groups * 
		builtin 
And correct the ME feed, the default one does not allow any binary groups in, if you really want a 
full feed fix this by removing the !*binary* 

For an IHAVE feed you must get an active file

You MUST get a copy of active.dat from your provider, the file is simply called the 'active' file on INN or CNEWS, you need to FTP the file and copy it to \dnews\spool\active.dat while the server is NOT running. We do not supply an active file with the installation kit because the list of valid news groups is different in every country in the world. The full list is a combination of world wide groups and local groups. So you should get an active file from your own provider if at all possible. If they will not give you one, then there is a reasonable one on our ftp site that you can use.

If you have a Sucking feed then DO NOT do this, DNEWS will fetch the list of groups itself.

> tellnews exit (to stop dnews, it shouldn't have been started yet)
ftp> ascii
ftp> cd /usr/local/news
ftp> get active
ftp> quit
(NT) > copy active c:\dnews\spool\active.dat
(NT) > net start dnewssvc
> tellnews resetall 	(Never use this command again, 
	              	it clears the values in your active file)

If you ever need to add part of an active file to a running dnews system use the GROUP_MERGE command to add groups that you don't already have.

Adding a sucking feed for a subset of groups

To add a sucking feed there are two legs to consider, sucking the articles in, and sending the articles out. Here is an example of sucking some local groups bank.* from a second server news2.bank.com, and sending any posts back to that server:

In dnews.conf
	nntp_suck2 news2.bank.com bank.*
	suck_at2 20 *

In newsfeeds.conf
	site me
		groups *

	site main.upstream.site
		type builtin
		groups *,!bank.*

	site news2.bank.com
       		type builtin
		groups !*,bank.*
		posting 

Adding a sucking feed for all groups

Some people want to suck news from two different providers, this will 'fill in the gaps' if items are missing from one of the servers. Here is an example of sucking all the groups from two servers.

In dnews.conf
	nntp_suck2 news2.bank.com bank.*
	suck_at2 20 *

In newsfeeds.conf
	site me
	groups *

	site main.upstream.site
	type builtin
	groups *,!bank.*

	site news2.bank.com
 type builtin
	groups !*,bank.*
	posting 

Sucking in UUCP or Satellite articles

DNEWS can read UUCP bag files in standard rnews format, these are often used by satellite systems. To read these files just specify in dnews.conf the directory and file names that dnews should scan. e.g. in dnews.conf

         suck_uucp d:\dnews\uucp\*.bag

The rnews file format is a collection of articles in a single file, each one starts

#! rnews nnn
(News article 1)
#! rnews nnn
(News article 2)

Where 'nnn' is the length of each news article in bytes, counting one character for each end of line. In general the file should be in 'unix' format, that is there should be no 'cr' characters, each line should end in a line feed character.

Adding an IHAVE feed

Adding an incoming IHAVE feed is very easy, you simply add to the access.conf file an entry to let that server send you items.

	second.sending.site:ihave:::*

The only thing you need to consider is if you wish to route items from this server to your other providers, if you don't want to route these items then you must set your exclude paramters carefully so that no messages are routed between the sites e.g.

	site main.upstream.site
		type builtin
		groups *
		exclude second.sending.site
	site second.sending.site
		type builtin
		groups *
		exclude main.upstream.site

If you do wish to route news between these two servers then you should be using live links to handle the volume, e.g.

	site main.upstream.site
		type live
		groups *
	site second.sending.site
		type live
		groups *
		

Example of full feed from UUNET

-------dnews.conf--------- 
# nntp_feeder your.feeder.ohio.edu 
cachedall true 
------newsfeeds.conf cut here ---------- 
site me 
	groups * 
site news.uu.net 
	type builtin
	groups *,!local.* 
	exclude uunet 
site YOUR.MAIL.GATEWAY 
	smtp 
------access.conf cut here and change your domain and ip nnumbers ------ 
# Don't let the world connect :-) 
*:logoff:::* 
# Do let your domain and ip range connect **** CHANGE THIS BIT *** 
*.your.domain:Read,Post:::* 
161.232.32.*:read,post:::* 
# Do let your news feed from UUNET send you items 
news*.uu.net:ihave:::* 

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