Return to BSD News archive
Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.questions
Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!uniwa!nodecg.ncc.telecomwa.oz.au!tdwyer
From: tdwyer@nodecg.ncc.telecomwa.oz.au (Terry Dwyer 4915161)
Subject: How to Install News for NetBSD - some replies
Organization: Network Computer Centre, Telecom, Perth
Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1993 08:13:43 GMT
Message-ID: <1993Jul23.081343.23926@nodecg.ncc.telecomwa.oz.au>
Lines: 221
Firstly, I attempted reply to the people that responded to my request for
information on installing news software on NetBSD. Unfortunatly, because of
the brain-dead gateway out of Australia, I was unable to respond to some
replies. If the addressee has a name@node.domain.type_of_org.country,
(4 part address) I can mail to him/her. Any less than a 4 part address and
somewhere along the line an ".au" is appended to the address. Of the four
people who supplied info, I can only mail two of them.
two other replies to my post requested info, so here is some _very_
preliminary stuff to get interested parties started.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: exos:alm@netcom.com.au, exos:(Andrew@netcom.com.au
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ - is this your address?? - I don't think so.
Message-Id: <9307230248.AA06754@netcom3.netcom.com>
To: tdwyer
Subject: Re: INN etc.
Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.questions
In-Reply-To: <1993Jul21.103559.13508@nodecg.ncc.telecomwa.oz.au>
Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest)
>Cc:
If you have a copy of the news info, can you forward this to me?
We're trying to put some stuff together for the interim release.
Thanks!
-Andrew Moore <alm@netcom.com>
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Andrew, here is some of the info you asked for. If you can suggest a way around
my mail problem, (see first para), I will be only too happy to pass on anything
I get.
DISCLAIMER: I have not installed any of the recommended software on my
machine yet, so this is an advance notice of what to try
and where to get it from. There may be patches for any or
all of the software listed: go look on your nearest NetBSD/
386bsd support site, the patches, if needed, may be there.
FURTHER POSTS: If as a result of this post, you sucessfully install news
on your NetBSD/386bsd machine, please let me know. I will
add to the collected material and after a suitable period,
post all info to comp.os.386bsd.misc and forward to the
FAQ maintainer.
To those people who responded to my request for info about
installing news on my NetBSD box, thank you.
Credit where it's due (in chronological order):
Dr. Robin M. Braun rmbraun@eleceng.uct.ac.za
Dave Cornejo dave@telco-nac.com
Dean M. Phillips dean@deanstoy.wa.com
Brian Somers brian@awfulhak.demon.co.uk
Here are brief excerpts from some of the replies I've received....
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: rmbraun@eleceng.uct.ac.za
Dr. Robin M. Braun ZR1RMB
Department of Electrical Engineering
University of Cape Town
Robin recommends INN, and explains why:
I am running NetBSD-0.8 with INN-1.4. All works fine, except for the flaky
malloc problem. If have too many active newsgroups all collapses. I am
trying to find a workaround from the net. My machine is [ deleted ]
if you wan't to get any sources/configs from it.
INN builds very easily on 386BSD/NetBSD. Just remember to switch off lint in
the config file. (C-NEWS is a bugger.) INN is the whole hog. NNTP bundled in.
Get hold of the Nutshell book on "Managing UUCP and Netnews" by O'Reilly and
Todino. The malloc prob only surfaces if you have lots of newsgroups. I
believe it may be improved in the new version of NetBSD. Also lots of ram and
swop helps. (I have 8MB but I will shortly upgrade to 16MB.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: David@telco-nac.com
Dave Cornejo
Telco Systems NAC
Fremont, California, USA
From: exos:David@telco-nac.com.au, exos:Cornejo@telco-nac.com.au,
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ - another bogus address
I've found that the easiest route to go is INN rather than Cnews. It
compiles very easily under NetBSD and gives you a nice complete
installation. In addition to the transport you'll need a news
reader. I use trn-3.0 as a reader. It also compiled easily. The
hardest part of the whole thing is writing the newsfeeds file for
INN - though if you give the documentation a good reading, you
should get by. (BTW, the current version of INN is 1.4)
If you're running a production system (i.e. you need to depend upon
news & email) stick with 0.8. I am running exactly this configuration
with INN and email with no serious problems. 0.9 is promised soon,
and will be tested and hopefully stable.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: dean@deanstoy.wa.com.au
I have news running on my 386bsd at home. Here is a quick summary of the
major places to stumble:
1) get bash, gmake, gcc 2.X, cnews, trn (or your favorite reader).
2) Make uucp work. (Read the info files that come with the original
distribution for the whole scoop on configuration files.)
3) Edit all the scripts which come with cnews and replace every occurence
of /bin/sh with /usr/local/bin/bash (or wherever you put it).
4) Build cnews using bash, gmake and gcc 2.x
5) Install cnews in the directories you want it. Some hand-hacking of the
intall scripts is required (Too long ago to remember the details).
6) Change the permissions on all the scripts from execute only to read-execute
for group and other. (On 386bsd, if you can't read a script, you can't
execute it).
7) Set up uucp to accept news
8) Post an article and steal it out of the uucp queue before it gets sent.
Feed it to your rnews (as user uucp) instead and make sure that it
does not bomb out with permission denied or some such.
9) Have fun!
Dean M. Phillips
dean@deanstoy.wa.com
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: brian@awfulhak.demon.co.uk (Brian Somers)
I've just completed the installation of a news server on my machine
which runs 386bsd + pk 0.2.4.
I use inn-1.4 (walton.maths.tcd.ie and numerous others) as a server,
and although I currently feed no other machines, it is configurable.
This package needed no alterations but is fairly difficult to configure.
I use slurp (ftp.demon.co.uk) to receive news from a remote news server
at news.demon.co.uk. This package needed no alterations and is easy to
configure.
I use GNUS (an emacs package) to read and post news, although non-emacs
users would probably prefer rn (ask archie). GNUS needed no alterations
and practically no configuration.
My machine is standalone, and I use slip (a metamorphasised daemon version
of tip) to connect, log in and establish a SLIP line to demon.co.uk. This
package (originally csn) needed a fair bit of re-working and is fairly
easy to configure (tip style + a bit).
Tieing it all together, I have a script called connect containing the
following relevant lines:
slip gate # establish connection
su news # exchange news (as user news)
# The login script contains the following relevant lines
ctlinnd flush demon # Flush outgoing news
nntpsend -d # Send news (conf'd for news.demon)
slurp -d news # Receive new news
sendmail -q # exchange mail
pkill slip # If you want a quick call
# pkill kills the named process(es)
rnews -U # Un-batch news
ctlinnd flush ME # Flush incomming news
It also contains various flags to turn on and off various features etc.
If enough people are interested, I'll send the lot as one package to the
patck-kit people for inclusion in future releases.
Send me email <brian@awfulhak.demon.co.uk> if you're interested in some
or all of these packages, or if you have any problems configuring them.
--
Brian <brian@awfulhak.demon.co.uk>
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
sources available from: uunet.uu.net anonymous FTP
SMAIL-3.1.28
/mail/smail/smail-3.1.28.tar.Z
CNEWS
/news/cnews/README
/news/cnews/c-news.tar.Z
/news/cnews/known.problems.11jan1993
TIN-1.21
/news/readers/tin/Index.Z
/news/readers/tin/README.Z
/news/readers/tin/tin-1.21.tar.gz
XRN6-17
There is a patch for this:
Not sure where it came from, ask Archie or look at 386bsd sites
xrn6-17.patch.386BSD
/news/readers/xrn/xrn6-17.tar.Z
INN-1.4:
/news/transport/inn/README
/news/transport/inn/inn1.4.tar.Z
/news/transport/inn/inn-faq.Z
/news/transport/inn/inn-tutorial.Z
/news/transport/inn/inn.usenix.ps.Z
TRN-3.0
/news/trn/trn-3.0.tar.Z
--
--
_-_|\ Terry Dwyer E-Mail: tdwyer@nodecg.ncc.telecomwa.oz.au
/ \ System Administrator Phone: +61 9 491 5161 Fax: +61 9 221 2631
*_.^\_/ Australian and Overseas Telecommunications Commission (AOTC)