[Howto] Setup and use Leafnode-2 with the newsreader slrn

[andrew.46]

First of all thanks for your time write the tutorial..

I followed your tutorial carefully, seems my setup is working. I use gnus instead of slrn.

Great news . I will admit that I had thought this guide had been dead and buried for some time so good to hear that it has still proven useful.

Two nitpicks right now is, there is no inetd.conf on default ubuntu installation. first one has to install inetutils-inetd package.

second, no syslog.conf, So look for rsyslog.conf and rsyslog.d/ forlder.

Things have obviously changed a little since I last ran through this guide. I have to have a serious think about whether to update the guide or get the Forums moderators to mark it as officially outdated. I will admit to a few doubts as to how many Ubuntu users would find this guide useful.....

My question is, how to have full control on leafnode fetchings,
suppose, I want to have totally fetched group locally.
I dont want to news to be expired and deleted.( cheap memory after all). etc

I believe the global setting you are after is:

expire = 24800

in /etc/leafnode/config and this will keep all messages in all groups for 68 years. Have a look at groupexpire as well to manipulate settings for individual groups. BTW I maintain the Leafnode 2 package for Slackbuilds.org, you might be interested in using another patch that I have added in for Slackware users:

http://slackbuilds.org/slackbuilds/1..._plugleak.diff

It can be added in the same manner as the gcc patch I have used in the Ubuntu guide.

Andrew

[orphean]

Slrn has really good support for customizing the colors it uses. I'm a Zenburn junkie and just wanted to share a reasonable approximation of Zenburn in slrn:

color unread_subject    "color188"              "color237"      "bold"
color article           "color188"      "color237"
color author            "color223"      "color237"
color boldtext          "color188"      "color237"      "bold"
color box               "color237"              "color234"
color cursor            "color109"      "color237"
color date              "color188"      "color237"
color description       "color188"      "color237"
color error             "color174"              "color237"      "blink"
color frame             "color144"      "color236"
color from_myself       "color133"      "color237"      "bold"
color group             "color188"      "color237"      "bold"
color grouplens_display "color188"      "color237"
color header_name       "color65"               "color237"      "bold"
color header_number     "color65"               "color237"
color headers           "color223"      "color237"
color neg_score         "color65"               "color237"
color pos_score         "color109"              "color237"
color high_score        "color174"              "color237"      "bold"
color italicstext       "color133"      "color237"      "bold"
color menu              "color108"      "color234"
color menu_press        "color188"      "color237"
color message           "color188"      "color237"
color normal            "color188"      "color237"
color pgpsignature      "color188"      "color237"
color quotes            "color109"              "color237"
color quotes1           "color174"      "color237"
color quotes2           "color181"              "color237"
color quotes3           "color223"              "color237"
color quotes4           "color187"              "color237"
color quotes5           "color116"              "color237"
color quotes6           "color217"              "color237"
color quotes7           "color133"              "color237"
color response_char     "color65"               "color237"      "bold"
color signature         "color174"              "color237"
color selection         "color144"      "color234"      "bold"
color status            "color108"      "color234"
color subject           "color188"      "color237"
color thread_number     "color188"      "color237"      "bold"
color tilde             "color65"               "color237"      "bold"
color tree              "color174"              "color237"      "bold"
color underlinetext     "color188"              "color237"      "underline"
color url               "color188"              "color237"      "bold"
color verbatim          "color65"               "color237"

And a quick picture of the results:


Not trying to hijack the thread but if you're setting up slrn anyway I thought this might be a good place to share this.

Edit: Changed picture to a less polemic usenet post, whoops.

[andrew.46]

I have an advantage in that I created and maintain the slrn website so my own setup can be seen here:

Screenshots of slrn at work
http://slrn.sourceforge.net/screenshots.html

but the whole Neo thing is no longer present on my setup .

[pajus]

Hello,
I have little problem.
I would like to run netnews/usenet on my server.
I just need run nntp server, and use it like private newsgroup. To communicate with my colleagues.


I've installed leafnode2. It works properly (I can do telnet).

But now I need to add some newsgroup, but I don't know why. I've found on the internet, that I have to create newsgroups in

/var/lib/news/leafnode/active

but this is not working. I only know newsgroups like a user, so I am not really sure how should I continue to set newsserver properly.
Actually I've found some "how to" in book, where are chapters about Cnews or Inn. I thought with leafnode it would be much easier

Could anybody help? Thank you

[andrew.46]

It sounds like you are after 'local' groups. Have a look here for a quick explanation:

http://www.andrews-corner.org/leafnode.html#local

Hopefully this is what you mean?

[pajus]

Yep. I have found it yesterday, but thanks.

I have one more question. Is it somehow possible to delete articles and messages (I mean manually, for example if i write something by mistake)? or make backup of spool and use same newsgroup articles and messages on other server?

[andrew.46]

Yep. I have found it yesterday, but thanks.

That is my page btw, I maintain the leafnode 2 slackbuild script for slackbuilds.org. It is my shame that the Ubuntu guide is in a little disrepair at the moment though .

I have one more question. Is it somehow possible to delete articles and messages (I mean manually, for example if i write something by mistake)? or make backup of spool and use same newsgroup articles and messages on other server?

Best way is to catch your message in out.going and edit or delete there, the little utility newsq will be useful there. As for backing up and transporting the news spool this is answered well in 2.11 of the leafnode FAQs and hopefully one of these techniques will work for you.

[pajus]

Thank you very much again!
The web page is very useful. I've found there almost everything that I needed. Under Ubuntu Leafnode2 is very similar.
Only to restart inet.d I used

$/etc/init.d/openbsd-inetd restart

and I didn't need some things to set, but that is because way I use newsgroup.

[andrew.46]

OK I have reworked the guide somewhat to work with Natty Narwhal and also added in a few of the patches I have used in my other distro. I will rewrite some of the blurb tomorrow evening and then do a clean install on my 64 bit VM and hopefully this will future proof the guide a little.

I have absorbed a few suggestions from this thread, only oddity being that when I installed the openbsd-inetd super server I had a default inetd.conf which I know was not the case for one user. I shall have a close look tomorrow when I install on a clean system....

[silveringking]

Hey here is a problem:

root@ns353440:~/leafnode_build/leafnode-2.0.0.alpha20081229a# --sysconfdir=/etc/leafnode \
>
-bash: --sysconfdir=/etc/leafnode: No such file or directory
root@ns353440:~/leafnode_build/leafnode-2.0.0.alpha20081229a#

Btw since I installed all those packages this nasty > keeps appearing to me. What can I do about these two things?

Again it is 10.04...