Documentation - Newsd

Name

newsd - erco's simple nntp news server

Synopsis

newsd [ -c config-file ] [ -d ] [ -f ]

newsd -mailgateway group

newsd -newgroup

newsd -rotate

Description

Newsd|(8) is a standalone local NNTP news server for private newsgroup serving on a single server. It is useful for serving private newsgroup(s) to an intranet or the Internet and can act as a simple mail gateway, however it does not interface with other news servers and cannot manage distributed news feeds, i.e. Usenet news.

Each client connection forks a child, and the child remains running until the connection is closed, typically until the user closes their news reader which can mean a long time.

Options supported by newsd:

-c configfile

Use configfile to configure the news server.

-d

Run in the foreground with the log level set to "debug" and all log messages going to "stderr".

-f

Run in the foreground; normally newsd will put itself in the background once it has loaded the configuration file and setup its networking functions.

-mailgateway

Used in /etc/aliases to gateway emails to a newsgroup. See "Configuring a Mail Gateway" below.

-newgroup

Interactively prompts for the creation of a new newsgroup. Administrators should use this to create a new newsgroup. See "Creating New Groups" for an example session.

-rotate

Forces the log file to be rotated.

Administration

The most common thing to administer are the creation and removal of newsgroups.

Creating New Groups

New newsgroups can be created on the fly while the newsd daemon is running using the following commands:

    newsd -newgroup

You will be prompted for the new group's information. Here's an example interactive session; '-->' indicates administrator's keyboard input:

    -->  # newsd -newgroup
    Enter the new group's name (eg. 'electronics.ttl'):
    -->  erco.fovicks

    Is posting to this group allowed? (Y/n):
    -->  y

    Maximum #lines for postings, '0' if no maximum (default=1000):
    -->  1000

    Description of newsgroup in one short line, '-' if none
    -->  Discussion of all things FOVICKS.

    Administrator's email address for group, '-' if none (default='-'):
    -->  erco@3dsite.com

    CC all postings to this email address, '-' if none (default='-')
    -->  erco@3dsite.com

    *** New group erco.fovicks was created.
    *** Use your news reader to post some test messages.
    *** You can edit /var/spool/news/erco/fovicks/.config later
    to make changes.

Removing Groups

To remove a newsgroup, simply run 'rm -rf' on that group's spooler directory. newsd will detect this automatically.

Configuring A Mail Gateway

To correctly configure a mail gateway to the group:

1) Add a 'replyto' line in the newsgroup's .config file, e.g. /usr/spool/news/rush/general/.config:

    replyto rush.general@yourdomain.com

2) Create an entry in /etc/aliases, e.g.:

    rush.general: "|newsd -mailgateway rush.general"

being sure to invoke newaliases|(1) to make the change take effect.

3) Make sure newsd is setuid 'root', eg:

    # ls -la newsd
    -rwsr-xr-x  1 root  mail   470437 Jan  8 02:31 newsd
    ^             ^^^^  ^^^^
    |              |     |
    Setuid       Owner  Group

Use 'chown root:mail newsd' and 'chmod 4750 newsd' to enforce these permissions. If your mail server uses a group other than "mail", use the corresponding group name so that only the mail server and root can execute the newsd program.

Send a test email to rush.general@yourdomain.com to see if the message gets added to the group. If it doesn't, check for a bounced message.

Limitations

By design, newsd does NOT manage usenet news feeds. It acts as a private news server only. Remote readers and posters can be anywhere on the internet. But feeding news to, or pulling news from other servers is neither implemented nor planned.

Authentication is not currently implemented.

Some NNTP commands are not supported, including searching by message id. Grep the code for 'TODO' to see what needs to be added.

There is currently no way to constrain posting or readership to particular IP addresses or domains.

There are probably ways to cause a denial of service.

Reporting Bugs

Report bugs using the form at "http://www.easysw.com/~mike/newsd/".

Supported News Readers

newsd has been tested with Netscape, Mozilla, Microsoft Outlook and the tin|(1) threaded news readers only. It should work with most NNTP news readers, however.

Authors

Greg Ercolano, Topanga CA

Michael Sweet, Hollywood, MD

Copyright

newsd is copyright 2002-2004 by Greg Ercolano and Michael Sweet. This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

No Warranty

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

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