Path: utzoo!utgpu!cunews!bnrgate!brchh104!bgrgh51!pulcher
From: pulcher@bgrgh51.BNR.CA (Harold Pulcher)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apollo
Subject: Re:  Info on setting up net news.
Message-ID: <3779@brchh104.bnr.ca>
Date: 10 Jun 91 22:23:13 GMT
References: <9106072205.AA12094@hobbes.mdc.com>
Sender: news@brchh104.bnr.ca
Reply-To: pulcher@bgrgh51.BNR.CA (Harold Pulcher)
Organization: Bell-Northern Research Ltd.
Lines: 89

In article <9106072205.AA12094@hobbes.mdc.com>, johnb@HOBBES.MDC.COM
(John Breen) writes:
|>...
|>For an internet (read non-UUCP ?) site, I've been told (by a news
administrator
|>that I'm going to try to get a feed from) that I would need the
following (we're
|>connected to the news "source" via NSFNet):
|>"  - cnews
|>   - nntp
|>   - rn, nn, or trn
|>   - plenty of disk space..."
|>
|>
|>It looks like the news is actually transferred between the news
servers by nntp.
|>The part cnews plays isn't apparent to me (although I've only glanced at the
|>documentation); also, some people have been recommending bnews - I
don't know if
|>this is due to problems with cnews, or if it's just because it's the
one they're
|>currently using.  rn, nn, and trn are the "user interfaces" to the
news system. 

I would strongly reccomend Cnews.  I have read news on both systems and
both seem to 
work equally well.  However, Bnews is not as robust as Cnews and will
require more work
to keep it running well.  I have just recenlty inherited a Bnews system
and can attest to 
the fact that it takes more work than Cnews.  As far as news readers go,
RN is the true
work horse.  I would reccomend though that you find yourself the source
for TRN.  TRN is 
an extension to RN.   It will do everything RN does, but adds the
ability to read news by 
the subject threads.  This is a very nice feature and RN is hard to go
back to once
you have been exposed.  By way, 200 megs should give you enough room for
all of news.
If you have more use it.  The 200 megs works well with expire times of
about 5-7 days.
If you don't know what expire times are, you will find out as you get
into news.

|>I've used rn (on another system that I no longer have access to) and
it seemed
|>very nice, although I've seen postings here that indicated that
|>rn/telnet/apollos don't mix (there is a "remote" form of rn - would this get
|>around the problems?).  I've also seen postings about problems with
file locking
|>between the news server and the node that the user is reading from
(similar, I
|>assume, to the sendmail problem described in the FAQ).

Here comes the other use for nntp.  RN and TRN can be set up in remote
mode.  They use 
nntp to contact the server node ( much like how the news is transferred
).  However, RN/TRN
only request the newsgroup articles that you are about to read.  

|>The above software should be available by anonymous ftp from
|>wuarchive.wustl.edu (and undoubtedly others), although I have no idea if it's
|>the latest versions.

They are.

|>The only other tidbit that I've got is the mention of the following
book (from
|>the cnews README file):
|>
|>	"Managing UUCP and Usenet", by Tim O'Reilly and Grace Todino,
|>	O'Reilly & Associates, 1989, ISBN 0-937175-48-X.  This latest
|>	edition covers C News as well as B News.  It's not perfect but
|>	it's lots better than nothing.  Inquiries to nuts@ora.com or
|>	uunet!ora!nuts.
|>
|>I have not yet been able to locate a copy of this (although I haven't looked
|>that hard).

Good book, but news software has changed some since the book was
written.  It will give
you a good ideal of how set things up.

                                                                  
(      -----  /\    |\  /|     |  I ride a moped and I'm proud of it!!!! )
(        |   /__\   | \/ |     |  Whats mine is mine!!!                  )
(      \_|   |  |   |    |     |  			Harold Pulcher   )
(         M a e s t r o        |  			pulchar@bnr.ca   )