Installing Dnews [return to index]


VMS_Installation

1) FTP the files from ftp://ftp.netwinsite.com/pub/netwinsite/dnews/vms/alpha (or /vax)

2) @extract Extracts the required files from the saveset

6) $ edit sys$manager:systartup_vms.com Add a call to dnews_start.com

7) $ edit sys$sylogin: Add the symbol, see dnews_login.com

8) $ edit dnews_top:dnews.conf

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

SYMBOLEXAMPLE
managersystem (email address or user@site.com)
nntp_feedernews.feeder.site
mynamenews.this.place
timezonenzst (new zealand standard time)
diskspace100 (space available in megabytes)
mailsmtp (the foreign email protocol name)
confirm*.this.place Enable email confirmation when item is passed up to a feeder site.

9) 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)

10) $ 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)

11) $ @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 happenning it will not respond, but you can check it's progress by:

$ type dnews.log

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

$ tellnews status

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

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UNIX Installation

1) FTP the files from ftp.std.com ftp/vendors/netwin/dnews...

dnewsVER_MACHINE.tar.Z (binary)

(e.g. dnews30a_linux.tar.Z )

2) Extract to a temporary directory in your own account

uncompress dnews30a_linux.tar

tar -xvf dnews30a_linux.tar

3) EDIT dnews.conf

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

SYMBOLEXAMPLE
managersystem (email address or user@site.com)
nntp_feedernews.feeder.site
mynamenews.this.place
dfdf -k (path and options for df command to get posix standard output, df -Pk somtimes works)
diskspace100 (space available in megabytes)
sendmailsendmail (The path and flags for sendmail or equiv.)
confirm*.this.place Enable email confirmation when item is passed up to a feeder site.

4) 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 

5) 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)

6) Edit access.conf Grant an ip range access to your users. by name or number, e.g.

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

7) If you have changed any of the default directories, then edit all the .sh scripts to reflect the changes.

8) Run the installation script

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

9) 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 happenning it will not respond, but you can check it's progress by:

    more dnews.log 

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

    tellnews status

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

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 <pid of inetd process> 

BSDI, Unixware, Sunos

Some brands of unix (BSDI, Unixware, Sunos) have process limits, the two that will hurt dnews are memoryuse/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

Here is an exmple 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 &
  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.

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Windows NT Installation

1) FTP the files from ftp://ftp.netwinsite.com/pub/netwinsite/dnews/dnews30a.exe

2) Run the self extracting archive and installation procedure

      dnews30a.exe

3) Run DNEWS Manager to modify the setup further and to start the service

4) Point your news reader software at your NT and try out your new fast news system.

5) Join the mailing lists for advice an update information, and don't forget to register :-)

Open DOS Window

then type TELLNEWS REGISTER

6) Instructions on setting up dnews to take a full IHAVE feed.


Windows NT Upgrading

Shutdown the server and exit from DNEWS Manager

Run the self extracting archive

dnews30a.exe (or whatever version)

When installation is complete start DNEWS Manager from the DNEWS Program Group. And click on 'Start Service'

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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.

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NETWARE 4.x Installation

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 heaps 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 dnews

Load the server by hand.

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.

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OS/2 Installation

1) FTP the files from netwinsite.com

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

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:

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 it's 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.

10) If you have a full IHAVE feed coming in, then you must read the instructions in 'INSTALL.TXT' on setting up an incoming IHAVE feed.

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Macintosh Installation

After running the self extracting archive, open the file install.txt for instructions.

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Calculating memory use

This is a rough guide to calculating how much memory dnews will use. This is VIRTUAL memory, you dont' 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 lets 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 Artilces = 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 100's of users, if you are running a smaller system you don't need all this as REAL ram, that's what virutal 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:

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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