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1.1 root 1: .\" @(#)b.interface 6.1 (Berkeley) 5/26/86
2: .\"
3: .ls 1
4: .ap B "Interfacing Notesfiles to News"
5:
6: The News system provides functions similar to
7: those provided by the Notesfile system.
8: It is possible to gateway articles between the two systems.
9: In USENET, a common configuration is for several notesfiles
10: sites to form a subnetwork of USENET and
11: gateway articles between the local notesfile network and
12: the rest of USENET.
13: These articles propogate across USENET in the news system.
14: Article originating in the news system are gatewayed into
15: the notesfile network.
16: When several notesfile networks exist as subnetworks of
17: a larger news network (such as USENET), articles written
18: in one notesfile network will be correctly interpreted
19: when arriving at another notesfile network.
20: ``Correctly'' interpreted includes proper linking of
21: responses to their true parents;
22: this is sometimes not possible with articles written in the
23: news system.
24:
25: The notesfile gateway code recognizes articles meeting
26: the USENET standards.
27: Additionally, the A-news protocol and older B-news protocols
28: are recognized.
29: Incoming (news \(-> notes) articles are parsed and placed in the
30: appropriate notesfiles.
31: Articles written within a notesfile subnetwork are formatted according
32: to USENET standards and transmitted to the news system.
33:
34: .a1 "Configurations for Sites without News"
35:
36: Sites running notesfiles without the news program have
37: several possible configuations.
38: If your site is part of a notesfile subnetwork and you wish to
39: have your articles gatewayed to the news system and the
40: rest of USENET, you must find a site who will act as a
41: gateway for your articles.
42: The gateway code performs its task in such a way as to allow
43: several sites to gateway the same article into the news system;
44: the multiple copies will have identical unique identifiers
45: and one copy will be canceled when they meet on a remote system.
46:
47: .a2 "Sites with no News Neighbors"
48:
49: If you have no immediate neighbor running news, there is
50: no particular action you should take other than to reassure
51: yourself that some site in the notesfile subnetwork is gatewaying
52: notes-generated articles to the news system.
53: This can be done in one of several ways.
54: If the site wants to gateway articles specifically from your
55: machine, the following command should be executed on that site
56: occasionally. This is typically done through cron(8).
57:
58: newsoutput -syoursite notesfile-list
59:
60: A more typical arrangement is where the gateway site sends all
61: notes-generated articles that arrive on its system into the
62: news system.
63: In this case, the gateway site will execute a command such as
64: the following:
65:
66: newsoutput -a notesfile-list
67:
68: A site gate using this command line will automatically gateway
69: articles written at your site and eliminates the need of running
70: a command similar to the first command line.
71:
72:
73: .a2 "Sites with Neighbors running News"
74:
75: If a neighboring system runs both notes and news, you
76: have the option of gatewaying your own articles or allowing
77: the neighbor to gateway articles for you.
78: If the neighbor does not run the notesfile system, you must
79: provide your own gateway functions.
80:
81: Gatewaying can be done similarly to the site without
82: a news neighbor. You can let your articles propogate across
83: a notesfile network to a gateway site which will send them
84: to the news system.
85: Another option is to gateway your articles,
86: and possibly any notesfile-generated articles,
87: into the news system at the neighboring site.
88: This gets your articles into USENET as quickly as possible.
89: The two options are not mutually exclusive;
90: you can gateway your own articles and allow another site to
91: gateway them.
92: When copies of the same article meet on a news system, the
93: extra copy will be removed from the network.
94:
95: To gateway articles into news, you must modify the
96: file
97: /usr/spool/notes/.utilities/net.how
98: to tell the newsoutput
99: program how to get to the news system.
100: More information on this can be found in the section
101: ``Copying Notesfiles to News'' later in this appendix.
102:
103: To gateway from the news system to the notesfile
104: system, you must arrange to have the news system at the remote
105: site send articles as standard input to the program
106: /usr/spool/notes/.utilities/newsinput
107: on your system.
108:
109: Information on mapping functions between notesfiles
110: and news, how to configure a news system to send articles to
111: a notesfile system,
112: and
113: how to have a notesfile system send articles to a news system
114: can be found later in this appendix.
115:
116: .a1 "Configurations for Sites running News"
117:
118: A site running both notesfiles and news will typically
119: perform gateway functions in both directions,
120: from the notesfile system to the news system
121: and
122: from the news system to the notesfile system.
123: In these cases all the operations are local.
124:
125: .a1 "Gatewaying between Notesfiles and News"
126:
127: The two notesfile programs ``newsoutput'' and ``newsinput''
128: perform gatewaying between notesfile and news systems.
129: Newsoutput takes notesfile-generated articles, formats them,
130: and hands them to the news system.
131: Newsinput takes articles from the news system and inserts
132: them in the notesfile system.
133:
134: .a2 "Copying News to Notesfiles"
135:
136: The news system maintains ``subscription lists'' for
137: each neighboring system.
138: The subscription list is stored in the file /usr/lib/news/sys
139: on a B-news system.
140: On an A-news system, the subscription list is in
141: /usr/spool/news/.sys
142:
143: News feeds articles to neighboring systems as they
144: arrive.
145: In many cases, the article is queued for transmission.
146: In other cases, the article is given to a batching program
147: which collects a number of articles for transfer
148: and sends them to an appropriate un-batching program at
149: the receiving end.
150:
151: In the case where the notesfile system resides on another
152: machine, the news subscription line should be generated similarly
153: to that for a normal news feed with several exceptions.
154: The first is that the newsinput program does not understand about
155: batching; articles must be sent one at a time.
156: Also, one must specify the method of transmitting the article.
157: To feed the system ``somesite'' with news, the
158: neighbor will add a line of the following form to his /usr/lib/news/sys:
159:
160: somesite:subscription::uux - -n somesite!/usr/spool/notes/.utilities/newsinput
161:
162: Of course, networks other than UUCP can be used.
163:
164: To forward to a notesfile system on the same machine as the
165: news system, create a pseudo site which doesn't exist elsewhere
166: (a sitename such as ``nf_sys'' works), and add a line like:
167:
168: nf_sys:subscription::/usr/spool/notes/.utilities/newsinput
169:
170: Articles arriving at the local system will now be forwarded to
171: the notesfile system.
172: By default, news articles are placed in notesfiles with the
173: same name.
174: To map newsgroups to particular notesfiles, see the later
175: section ``Naming Notesfiles and Newsgroups''.
176:
177: .a2 "Copying Notesfiles to News"
178:
179: The newsoutput program transfers notesfile-generated
180: articles from the notesfile system to a news system.
181: The news system does not have to be on the same machine.
182:
183: Newsoutput accepts parameters telling it to gateway
184: articles from specific systems or any system.
185: Additional options allow backwards compatible
186: headers for older versions of the notesfile software.
187: A typical newsoutput invocation looks like:
188:
189: newsoutput -a notesfile-list
190:
191: The -a parameter indicates that notesfile generated articles
192: from any site are to be sent to the news system.
193: Under no circumstances will newsoutput transfer an article
194: to the news system if it has passed through the news system
195: before.
196: Thus if a notes generated article passes from one notesfile
197: subnetwork to another through the news system, the
198: article will not be sent into the news system by anyone in
199: the second notesfile subnetwork.
200:
201: The ``notesfile-list'' can contain a mixture of
202: specific notesfiles, wild-card specifications (net.*),
203: or ``-f file'' parameters which specifies a file
204: containing a list of notesfiles to send.
205:
206: Alternatively, articles for only one system can be
207: gatewayed with a command line of the form:
208:
209: newsoutput -ssitename notesfile-list
210:
211: This invocation method maintains a sequencer for each system;
212: the -a option maintains a single global sequencer.
213:
214: A third invocation method of newsoutput uses the
215: ``-c'' option and specifies a specific set of systems to
216: gateway articles for. The command looks like:
217:
218: newsoutput -c gateway-site-file notesfile-list
219:
220: The ``gateway-site-file'' specifies a file containing a list
221: of sitenames.
222: Articles written at any of these sites are gatewayed to the
223: news system.
224: Thus newsoutput has the ability to send articles to news
225: for a single system, several systems, or any system.
226:
227: Newsoutput assumes that a news system is installed
228: on the local system.
229: If the news system is in a non-standard location on the
230: local system or
231: the news system is on a different machine, newsoutput
232: can be told where to send articles.
233: The file /usr/spool/notes/.utilities/net.how contains
234: command templates for notesfile networking.
235: To specify a non-standard place for the ``rnews'' program,
236: add a line of the form:
237:
238: Usenet:x:::uux - -n myneighbor!/usr/bin/rnews
239:
240: Non-UUCP connections and the like can be specified.
241:
242: .a2 "Naming Notesfiles and Newsgroups"
243:
244: Notesfiles and newsgroups for the same topic can have
245: different names.
246: Notesfiles are currently limited in the last component of
247: their name to the length of a filename;
248: under V7, System III, System V, and 4.1 Bsd this is 14
249: characters. 4.2 Bsd extends the length of a filename
250: to a maximum of 255 characters per component.
251: Newsgroup names are no longer limited in total length;
252: the only restriction in current news versions is
253: that each component (between .'s) is unique in
254: the first 14 characters.
255:
256: The file ``/usr/spool/notes/.utilities/newsgroups''
257: defines the relationships between notesfiles and newsgroups.
258: Lines in the file have the general form:
259:
260: notesfile:base_newsgroup:respone_newsgroup
261:
262: Lines beginning with the ``#'' character are considered
263: comment lines.
264: The ``response_newsgroup'' field and the colon separating
265: it from the base_newsgroup field are optional.
266:
267: Entries in this file need be made for only a few reasons:
268: (1) The newsgroup which matches the notesfile is longer than fourteen
269: characters,
270: (2) the notesfile and the newsgroup are different names
271: (e.g. the notesfile `Bnews' can be linked to the newsgroup `net.news.b'
272: with an entry of `Bnews:net.news.b'),
273: (3) you want several newsgroups linked to a single notesfile,
274: and
275: (4) notes and responses from a notesfile should go to
276: different newsgroups (net.general/net.followup is one example).
277: The file is scanned from the beginning until EOF or a match is found.
278: When no match is found, the code returns the original argument as if
279: it had matched itself.
280: The process is similar to having placed a sentinel line of the
281: form:
282:
283: myarg:myarg
284:
285: at the end of the file.
286:
287: The optional third field in the line is used to send
288: notes and responses from a notesfile to separate newsgroups.
289: The net.general/net.followup convention is an example of
290: how this would be used.
291: Typically the net.general and net.followup newsgroups are
292: mapped into the same notesfile.
293: To preserve peace with news users, responses written in a
294: notesfile `net.general' should go to the newsgroup `net.followup'.
295: The following pair of lines will map all news from net.general
296: and net.followup into the notesfile net.general.
297: Base notes from the notesfile net.general will go to the newsgroup
298: net.general;
299: responses in the net.general notesfile will be sent to
300: the net.followup newsgroup.
301:
302: .nf
303: net.general:net.general:net.followup
304: net.general:net.followup
305: .fi
306:
307: The first line maps news in net.general to the notesfile net.general.
308: It also does the mapping from notesfiles to newsgroups.
309: The second line maps news from net.followup into the notesfile
310: net.general.
311: Note that the response field is not used in the mapping from
312: newsgroups to notesfiles; it is used only for mapping notesfile
313: responses into a different newsgroup.
314:
315: To map several newsgroups into the same notesfile,
316: place lines of the following form in the ``newsgroups'' file:
317:
318: .nf
319: somenotesfile:newsgroup1
320: somenotesfile:newsgroup2
321: .fi
322:
323: If you wish to have articles from the notesfile ``somenotesfile''
324: go to both of the newsgroups, insert a line before the above lines
325: to map articles going to notesfiles.
326: The result would look like:
327:
328: .nf
329: somenotesfile:newsgroup1,newsgroup2
330: somenotesfile:newsgroup1
331: somenotesfile:newsgroup2
332: .fi
333:
334: The first line is the one used for articles going from notesfiles
335: to news; the newsgroups specification ``newsgroup1,newsgroup2''
336: is used on those articles.
337: Articles coming from the newsgroup ``newsgroup1'' will fail to
338: match the first line, since the program expects exact matching.
339: They will match the second line and be mapped to the
340: notesfile ``somenotesfile''.
341:
342: .a1 "Typical Configurations"
343:
344: A typical notesfile subnetwork contains a number of
345: pure notesfile sites and several sites running both news and
346: notesfiles.
347: In these situations, some subset of the sites running
348: both notes and news
349: act as gateway sites.
350: The pure notesfile sites don't concern themselves with
351: gateway operations.
352: The gateway sites typically gateway all notes-generated
353: articles to news.
354: Duplicate articles, gatewayed at several sites,
355: will propogate across the news network.
356: When two or more of these articles meet at some site, the
357: superflous copy will be removed from the network.
358:
359: If none of the sites in the notesfile subnetwork
360: run the news program,
361: the gateway site will be one or more of the sites having
362: neighbors that do run news.
363: These gateway sites will run newsoutput and direct the
364: output to the news site by making the appropriate
365: entry in /usr/spool/notes/.utilities/net.how
366: for the pseudo-site ``Usenet''.
367:
368: .a1 "News Gateway Installation Checklist"
369:
370: The following checklist covers the variables in the
371: ``newsgate.h'' file which may need to be changed on your system.
372: It also mentions which files to modify to automate the transfer
373: of articles between the two systems.
374:
375: .bz
376: .iz
377: [edit] src/newsgate.h
378: .iz
379: MYDOMAIN.
380: This should be set to the domain your site is in.
381: Typical domains are ``UUCP'' and ``ARPA''.
382: .iz
383: DFLTRNEWS.
384: The news receiving program.
385: This can normally be left as is;
386: alternate news insertion methods can be specified
387: with more flexibility through the net.how file.
388: .iz
389: EXPANDPATH.
390: If defined, the code looks in the file specified
391: by PATHMAP for a route to an author's system.
392: The code which does this is in ``src/newspath.c''
393: and expects a particular format in the PATHMAP
394: file.
395: You may wish to replace it with code of your own if
396: your data base is in a different format.
397: .iz
398: PATHMAP.
399: This is the full pathname of the routing tables
400: used if EXPANDPATH is defined.
401: .iz
402: [finished editing] src/newsgate.h
403: .iz
404: make newsouput newsinput.
405: This will recompile the notesfile/news gateway programs.
406: .iz
407: Check /usr/lib/news/sys
408: to see that news will be forwarded to the notesfile system.
409: .iz
410: Make entries in /usr/lib/crontab to
411: invoke newsoutput occcasionally.
412: We use every 6 hours.
413: .iz
414: If the news system is on another machine or in a non-standard
415: place,
416: modify
417: /usr/spool/notes/.utilities/net.how.
418: Add a pseudo-site ``Usenet'' which specifies how to
419: get to the remote machine. One example is:
420: .br
421: Usenet:x:::uux - -z neighbor!/usr/bin/rnews
422: .iz
423: Check /usr/spool/notes/.utilities/newsgroups.
424: A sample of how this file will look is included in the
425: ``Samples'' directory of the distribution.
426: .iz
427: Everything should be configured now.
428: You will probably want to run several tests on local
429: or limited distribution newsgroups to satisfy yourself
430: that it works.
431: .ez
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