Re: [boost] Need volunteer to supply Boost NNTP/newsgroup server

From: James Kanze (kanze_at_[hidden])
Date: 2002-04-08 01:44:53

Dietmar Kuehl <dietmar_kuehl_at_[hidden]> writes:

|>  Beman Dawes wrote:

|>  > Dave's right.  Normally we could do some private experimentation,
|>  > learning as we go, and then go public when a service is working
|>  > properly.  But where Boost doesn't have our own server or Internet
|>  > connection, we can't do that.  It is very frustrating.

|>  I don't think that things are that bad: It should be possible to set
|>  up an nntp server on an arbitrary UNIX box, if necessary
|>  disconnected from the internet, and play with the necessary scripts
|>  there. To test posting to the real thing, alt.tests can be
|>  used. Also, there are several packages for moderation available.

|>  The only tricky part is the actual official newsgroup creation: If
|>  it is desired to have it in comp.*, a RFD and CFV are necessary
|>  which is likely to take something like three month (the minimum time
|>  for each is one month; well, that is, it was that way I haven't
|>  checked whether the times are changed). This should be plenty of
|>  time to set up the moderation software.

I pretty much agree with what you are saying.  The real question, in my
mind, is the name of the group, or more correctly, what hierarchy to put
it in.  If we go for comp (comp.lang.c++.boost), we have guaranteed
propagation.  On the other hand, the group is very public, and the
creation process involves quite a bit of politics.  The results are
quite different than those of a mailing list; anyone can just drop in
anytime (including for posting).  Although I think that there is a need
for such a group, at least for users, I think that a private group
(hierarchy boost.*) would be better as a replacement for the mailing
list.  The only problem with a private group (except for finding a
host), is propagation.  My newsreader (GNUS) allows specifying different
news sources for different hierarchies, so propagation isn't an issue; I
just declare the host as the news source.  But I don't know if this is
generally the case.

    [...]

|>  Implementing this shouldn't be too hard if Perl, a commandline
|>  program posting an article, and a commandline program sending an
|>  e-mail are available. I can provide the necessary scripts but I
|>  would like help from someone who is at least willing to review the
|>  scripts (I'm not a Perl expert...).

So what's wrong with Bourne shell:-)?  It works on all Unix boxes, and
the CygWin toolset is probably close enough for NT.

In addition to the commands to send email and post articles, of course,
you need the possibility to feed incoming email into your script(s).

All of these are readily available on any Unix box, but you need a
special user to pick up the incoming email.  (There are alternatives,
but a special user is definitly the preferred solution.)

-- 
James Kanze                                mailto:kanze_at_[hidden]
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