DControl Manual

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Contents

Introduction
Installation
Signcontrol Configuration
DControl Configuration
Using DControl


Introduction

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This manual contains information on installing, configuring and running DControl. It is assumed that you will have some experience with NNTP control messages. If not, it is recommended that you read and understand the following documents prior to installing and using DControl:



Installation

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DControl is supplied as a ZIP archive, DControl.zip. To install DControl:

  1. Create a target directory (e.g. "c:\dcontrol")
  2. Unzip DControl.zip into the target directory

Note that if you want to use PGP authentication, you must have installed a version of PGP which runs from the command line, and added the public key of all users authorised to send control messages.

A version of PGP (which may not be suitable for users in the U.S.A.) can be obtained from ftp://ftp.no.pgpi.com/pub/pgp/2.x/pc/msdos/pgp263i.zip



Signcontrol Configuration

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If PGP authentication is being used, signctrl.ini will need to be edited.

The default signctrl.ini file contains:

	# pathname of pgp executable
	pgp_path c:\pgp\pgp.exe

	# pgp userid of sender
	sender UserID

Change the pgp_path value from 'c:\pgp\pgp.exe' to the pathname of the PGP executable on your machine. Then, change the sender value from 'UserID' to the PGP userid of the user who will be using DControl.

NOTE: Firstly, if the public key of the sender specified is unknown to the news server, no control messages will be actioned. Secondly, it is possible to hard-code additional flags into the pgp_path value.



DControl Configuration

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DControl itself is almost entirely interactive. With the exception of the checkgroups command, all information is obtained from the user at runtime. However, it is possible to specifiy some information about the news server, and the user, in a file called dcontrol.ini.

If this file is found in the same directory as dcontrol.exe, DControl will obtain some information from it. This is the format of dcontrol.ini, and some sample values:

	#address of the sender of the control message
	personal_address user@domain.com

	#address of the user who is approving the control message
	approver_address user@domain.com

	#specify if DControl should sign the control message
	sign true

	#specify whether the news server requires authentication
	authenticate true

	#name or IP of the server
	server_name localhost

	#port on the server
	server_port 119

	#username on the server
	server_username test

	#group to which to post the control message
	post_group test.local


Using DControl

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As stated above, it is best to have an understanding of newgroup, rmgroup and checkgroups control messages prior to using DControl.

DControl allows the user to perform the following actions:

Having chosen from the above options, the user will be prompted for any information that is required, along with further explanation where necessary. Once the user has given DControl enough information to create a control message, DControl will perform the following steps:

  1. Create a temporary file containing the message
  2. If desired, sign the message using PGP
  3. Send the message to the specified server

Note that it is possible to run Signctrl independantly from DControl. This useage is not supported, however, as the Signctrl program was designed to be called from DControl. For more information, see the documentation file Signctrl.htm.