Chapter 10 Dnewsweb - A Web Based News Server Interface [return to index]

Upgrading DNEWSWEB

To upgrade you simply copy the dnewsweb.exe file into your CGI-BIN directory on your web server. If you are not using top and end files then you should remove the 'headers' setting from dnewsweb.ini

Installing DNEWSWEB

DNEWSWEB is a web to news gateway, it lets you merge your web pages and your news groups.

You must install it on your WEB server, in a directory that you have already setup on your server as containing CGI programs, you must read your server documentation if you don't currently know how to setup a cgi program, typically you would copy the files to a directory like:

SERVER_ROOT\cgi-bin\

Two files should be coppied to this directory

copy \dnews\dnewsweb.exe \SERVER_ROOT\cgi-bin

copy \dnews\dnewsweb.ini \SERVER_ROOT\cgi-bin

In some instances you will have to place the .ini file in a different directory, this is dependent on your server software, sometimes the 'SERVER_ROOT' is the right directory. (Dnewsweb will give an error if it can't find this file, in which case just try moving it somewhere else)

Now edit dnewsweb.ini and define three things

notepad \SERVER_ROOT\cgi-bin\dnewsweb.ini

The name of your DNEWS news server

News groups to appear on the front page

News groups that you are allowing people to access.

WARNING: if you don't limit the news groups people can access, then you may find everyone in the world reading news via your web pages, this may make your site more popular than you would like :-)

Then try it out, point your web server at the address:

(unix) http://your.ip.name/cgi-bin/dnewsweb

(nt) http://your.ip.name/cgi-bin/dnewsweb.exe

It will run with other news servers, however it is much faster with DNEWS and the 'list all newsgroups' function will only work with DNEWS.

HELP, It asked me where to save dnewsweb.exe ????

This means you have failed to tell your web server that the directory cgi-bin/ contains CGI programs and not WEB pages. Go back to your web server administration window and look for help on CGI directories.

(This is the single most common question we get !!)

Header and Footer Files

You can replace the top and end of each page that dnewsweb displays, you may wish to do this to add your own graphics and backgrounds etc.

In dnewsweb.ini define

headers d:\dnewsweb

Then in this directory place files with the following names:

 

File Names Description

main.top main.end List of main news groups

list.top list.end List of all news groups

article.top article.end Individual articles

search.top search.end Full Text Search output

fsearch.top fsearch.end Full Text Search Form

ffind.top ffind.end Search headers in a news group Form

find.top find.end Search headers in a news group

fpost.top fpost.end Posting Form

dir.top dir.end Directory of items in a group

Each .top file should contain somthing like:

<html><head><title>$title$</title>

</head><body>

The $title$ will be replaced with the group name etc as dnewsweb would normally display it.

Each .end file should contain any footer information you wish to add.

The end tags "</body> </html>" are appended so you do not need to include them in your .end file.

Full text search engine

To enable the full text searching button you need to add

search true

to dnewsweb.ini (as well as installing the xmit process to build the indexes, see install.txt from dnews for details)
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