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| Newer page: | version 4 | Last edited on Sunday, November 28, 2004 12:59:29 am | by AristotlePagaltzis | |
| Older page: | version 3 | Last edited on Tuesday, December 30, 2003 7:41:41 am | by JeffHarris | Revert |
@@ -1,310 +1 @@
-News Leafsite mini-HOWTO
-
-
-
-----
-
-!!!News Leafsite mini-HOWTO
-
-!!Florian Kuehnert, sutok@gmx
.dev0.4, 2001-12-01
-
-
-----
-''This HOWTO will help you to configure a small leafsite for Usenet News
-using the free software package Leafnode. For any questions,
-suggestions and comments, please write to Florian Kuehnert
-(sutok@gmx.de). Please send any bugs you found in this document to me
-as well. (C) 1998 by Florian Kuehnert.''
-----
-
-
-
-
-!!1. Why to use Leafnode?
-
-
-
-
-!!2. Where to get Leafnode?
-
-
-
-
-!!3. How do I install it?
-
-
-
-
-!!4. How do I maintain leafnode?
-
-
-
-
-!!5. How does it work?
-
-
-
-
-!!6. What newsreader should I use?
-
-
-
-
-!!7. Where do I get more information?
-
-
-
-
-!!8. Copyright, License, Thanks
-----
-
-!!1. Why to use Leafnode?
-
-
-In normal cases if you want to read news offline on your local computer
-you have to install a news server software like INN or CNews. Also you
-are in the need for an nntp or uucp connection to your newsfeed. In
-fact that such packages contain much more features than you need, you
-run better by installing Leafnode.
-
-
-
-
-
-Leafnode is much simpler to use and very small but there are some
-disadvantages: Leafnode is slow and loses news in about any error
-situation. That's why you shouldn't use it for a big news server,
-nevertheless, it's appropriate for private users who don't want spend
-much time configuring INN.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-----
-
-!!2. Where to get Leafnode?
-
-
-Leafnode is available at
-ftp://ftp.troll.no/pub/freebies/ and has been developed by
-Arnt Gulbrandsen, an employee of Troll Tech AS. The recent version is
-1.4 and in some distributions (for example Debian), Leafnode is
-included. However, be sure to use at least version
-1.4 as several critical bugs were fixed.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-----
-
-!!3. How do I install it?
-
-
-A small installation help comes with the package, but let's do it
-together :-) -- If Leafnode >=1.4 is shipped with your distribution,
-it would be the wisest to use the pre-compiled version and leave out
-the steps 1 to 4.
-
-
-
-
-
-1.) Be sure that there is no other news server running on your
-computer. When you type
- __$ telnet localhost nntp__
-you should get an error message. If you get a connection get back to the
-prompt of your shell, you should uninstall INN, CNews or whatever you're
-running now and comment out the nntp-line in your /etc/inetd.conf.
-
-
-2.) Make sure that there is a user called "news", check in
-/etc/password for the name. If there isn't, create one (either typing
- __$ adduser news__
-or using a tool shipped with your distribution).
-
-
-3.) Unpack the sources:
- __$ tar xfz leafnode-1.4.tar.gz__
-and change into the source directory
- __$ cd leafnode-1.4__
-
-
-4.) Compile the program and install it
- __$ make; make install__
-
-
-5.) Edit /usr/lib/leafnode/config (it may be on any other place like
-/etc/leafnode when you use a pre-compiled version of your Linux
-distribution). The line "server =" should point to the news server of
-your ISP.
-
-
-6.) Edit /etc/nntpserver. It should include your local hostname. If you don't know it, the command `hostname` should help you. If the environment variable NNTPSERVER is defined in some startup file like /etc/profile or ~/.bash_profile, you should adjust it to your computer's name as well.
-
-
-7.) Edit the /etc/inetd.conf: Make sure that there is no line beginning
-with "nntp". If there is such a line, comment it out putting a "#"
-before it. Then add the following line:
- __nntp stream tcp nowait news /usr/sbin/tcpd /usr/local/sbin/leafnode__
-When someone (for example you :-) connects to your computer on the
-NNTP port, leafnode is started as server process.
-
-
-8.) Go online and run the program "fetchnews" as root or news. In older versions, you will run "fetch" instead. The first time
-fetchnews is started, it will download a list of your ISP's newsgroups. This
-may take some time depending on the speed on your connection and the
-number of groups your ISP has in its active-File.
-
-
-9.) Start your favorite newsreader (slrn, (r)tin and knews are not a
-bad start) and subscribe to all your groups you read. Be careful not
-just to subscribe these groups, but also to enter them, even when
-they're empty.
-
-
-10.) Start fetchnews again to download all the news of the groups want to
-get.
-
-
-
-----
-
-!!4. How do I maintain leafnode?
-
-
-Now you have got a working news system up and running, but there are
-still some things to do. You may edit the file /usr/lib/leafnode/config
-to set the expire dates of your groups. This number means, when old
-messages should be deleted. The standard time of 20 days is much often
-too long if you read some groups with much traffic, 4 days or a week
-are in most cases a good time for your system. You may change the value
-for all groups ("expire = n" to hold all groups n days), but you tell
-leafnode to change this time for some separate groups writing
-groupexpire foo.bar n
-to set the expire time for the group foo.bar to n days.
-
-
-This setting alone won't make leafnode deleting old messages, a
-separate program is responsible for this: texpire. It may be started
-as a cron job or by command line. If your computer is up all the time,
-you may want to add the following line to news' crontab file (to edit
-it, log in as news and type "crontab -e" or as type root "crontab -u
-news -e"):
- 0 19 * * * /usr/local/sbin/texpire
-This line causes the cron daemon to star texpire every day at
-19:00. Check the crontab manual page for further adjustment. If
-your computer is not regularly switched on, you may start texpire
-just from time to time, when you notice that fetchnews gets slower. It
-works fine as with the "cron-method".
-
-
-
-----
-
-!!5. How does it work?
-
-
-Leafnode is a "real" NNTP server, which means that you can also login
-from a different computer (via Internet, the local network
-etc.). Every time you enter a group in your newsreader, your reader
-sends the information to leafnode and requests it. If the group does
-not exist, leafnode will create an empty file
-/var/spool/news/interesting.groups, named like the group. When you run
-fetchnews the next time, it will fetch the messages of the group. If a
-newsgroup has not been visited for a certain time, leafnode will stop
-fetching its articles and delete its name in
-/var/spool/news/interesting.groups. So, if you just subscribed to a
-high traffic newsgroup by accident, you may delete its file there by
-hand for that you won't have to download all the postings there for
-the next week.
-
-
-A week is not enough for you? You want to go on holiday for three weeks
-and still get news? Unfortunately, there is no option in leafnode to
-change it. But you can edit the file leafnode.h and recompile it. The
-#defined constants are TIMEOUT_LONG and TIMEOUT_SHORT, just set the
-time in seconds up. Another, simpler solution is to define a cron-job
-that does "touch /var/spool/news/interesting.groups/*" every night.
-
-
-If you want to get a list of all avaible groups, look into the file
-/usr/lib/leafnode/groupinfo, where you will find a short description
-on the group.
-
-
-If you want to re-read the list of newsgroups from your newsfeed (for
-example when you want to read a new group), just delete the file
-/var/spool/news/active.read. Fetchnews will create it the next time and
-get the new list. Fetchnews will also re-read the grouplist from time to
-time, so you don't have to do it by hand.
-
-
-
-----
-
-!!6. What newsreader should I use?
-
-
-There is not *the* newsreader for Linux, like there is not *the*
-editor. My favourite newsreader is emacs in gnus mode which is the
-most configurable reader for Linux. Many people are using slrn and
-tin on a terminal, many people use knews under X. There are also trn,
-nn and a lot more readers, so just try what you like. The only reader
-you shouldn't use is Netscape; it is big, feature-less, unstable, and
-it creates sometimes broken postings. However, it is your personal
-decision.
-
-
-Anyway, knews is no bad idea for your first experiences as it is very
-user-friendly and easy to understand.
-
-
-----
-
-!!7. Where do I get more information?
-
-
-Some documentation is provided with the Leafnode package (read the
-files INSTALL and README, the sources are also quite interesting). If
-you want to know more about "professional" and "big" news servers,
-check the INN FAQ (they are provided with the INN package). To get
-information about your newsreader, type man "name of your newsreader"
-or check for other files in /usr/doc.
-
-
-If you have any questions concerning the news system, just ask in an
-appropriate newsgroup (look in the news.software.ALL hierarchy).
-
-
-If you have any question, comments or corrections concerning this
-HOWTO, just write to me (sutok@gmx.de).
-
-
-
-----
-
-!!8. Copyright, License, Thanks
-
-
-This document is Copyright(c) 1995, Florian Keuhnert.
-
-
-It is distributed under the GNU Free Documentation License, which you
-should have received with it. You can also read it at
-http://www.fsf.org/licenses/fdl.html.
-
-
-I would like to thank Michael Schulz (michaels@home.on-luebeck.de)
-for his help concerning some language problems and Cornelius Krasel
-(krasel@wpxx02.toxi.uni-wuerzburg.de) for his "touch *"-trick.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-----
+Describe [HowToNewsLeafsite] here
.
