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