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From: trinkle@arthur.cs.purdue.edu.UUCP
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: using NFS to read news
Message-ID: <1054@arthur.cs.purdue.edu>
Date: Mon, 16-Mar-87 11:06:56 EST
Article-I.D.: arthur.1054
Posted: Mon Mar 16 11:06:56 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 17-Mar-87 03:38:51 EST
Organization: Department of Computer Science, Purdue University
Lines: 112

We successfully use news via NFS allowing posting from all machines.
We mount /usr/spool/news on all machines (I encourage read-only mount
option) that want news access.  The trick is to have a version of
inews on the non-server machines that is setuid news and does an rsh
to the "real" news machine.  This is how I have things set up.  Arthur
is the main news server (VAX 8600), Bors is a typical client (Sun).

	/* the spool directory */

arthur 51: ls /usr/spool/news
batch/		junk/		maps/		news/		sci/
comp/		lib/		misc/		purdue/		soc/
control/	lost+found/	mod/		rec/		talk/

	/* the local lib directory */

arthur 52: ls -l /usr/local/lib/news
ls -l /usr/local/lib/news
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root           19 Nov 19 12:11 /usr/local/lib/news@ -> /usr/spool/news/lib

	/* the remote lib directory */

arthur 53: rsh bors ls -Flg /usr/local/lib/news
total 146
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root     staff          26 Mar 12 16:25 active -> /usr/spool/news/lib/active
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root     staff          27 Mar 12 16:25 aliases -> /usr/spool/news/lib/aliases
-rwxrwxr-x  1 root     staff       90112 Mar 12 16:29 caesar*
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root     staff          33 Mar 12 17:07 distributions -> /usr/spool/news/lib/distributions
-r--r--r--  1 root     staff        1077 Mar 12 16:27 help
-rwsr-sr-x  1 news     daemon      49152 Mar 12 16:27 inews*
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root     staff          24 Mar 12 16:25 maps -> /usr/spool/news/lib/maps/
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root     staff          30 Mar 12 16:25 moderators -> /usr/spool/news/lib/moderators
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root     staff          30 Mar 12 16:25 newsgroups -> /usr/spool/news/lib/newsgroups
-r--r--r--  1 root     staff        1300 Mar 12 16:27 vnews.help
arthur 54: 


Notice that /usr/spool/news/lib can be shared with everyone.  I then
install the normal {check,post,read,v}news utilities in
/usr/local/bin.  Here is the source for the remote inews

------------------------------inews.c------------------------------
#include <stdio.h>
#include <pwd.h>
#include <strings.h>
#include <sys/param.h>
#include <sys/types.h>

#ifdef sun
#define MAXHOSTNAMELEN 64
#endif

char *sbProgName;

main(csbArg, rgsbArg)
int csbArg;
char *rgsbArg[];
{
	char *sbLogin, *pch;
	char sbCmd[2048], sbThisHost[MAXHOSTNAMELEN + 1];
	int status;
	struct passwd *ppwe;

	sbProgName = rgsbArg[0];
	if (pch = rindex(rgsbArg[0], '/'))
		sbProgName = pch + 1;

	/* get the name of this host */
	if (gethostname(sbThisHost, MAXHOSTNAMELEN))
		ErrorExit("this machine does not have a name");

	/* get /etc/passwd entry for this user */
	if ((ppwe = getpwuid(getuid())) == NULL)
		ErrorExit("you do not exist on this machine");

	/* some bogosities to get rid of phone numbers, etc */
	if (pch = index(ppwe->pw_gecos, ','))
		*pch = '\0';
	if (pch = index(ppwe->pw_gecos, ';'))
		*pch = '\0';

	/* do the rsh as news */
	if (setuid(geteuid()))
		ErrorExit("cannot set userid");
	if (setgid(getegid()))
		ErrorExit("cannot set groupid");
	sprintf(sbCmd, "/usr/ucb/rsh %s %s/inews -h -f \\\"%s@%s \\(%s\\)\\\"", 
		NEWSHOST, LIBDIR, ppwe->pw_name, sbThisHost, ppwe->pw_gecos);
	exit(system(sbCmd) ? 1 : 0);
}

ErrorExit(sb)
char *sb;
{
	fflush(stdout);
	fprintf(stderr, "%s: %s\n", sbProgName, sb);
	exit(1);
}
------------------------------inews.c------------------------------

It is not very secure, but then we are not too concerned with the
security of news articles.

Daniel Trinkle			trinkle@cs.purdue.edu			ARPA
Computer Science Department	trinkle%purdue.edu@relay.cs.net		CSNET
Purdue University		{ucbvax,decvax,ihnp4}!purdue!trinkle	UUCP
West Lafayette, IN 47907	(317) 494-7832				PHONE
-- 
Daniel Trinkle			trinkle@cs.purdue.edu			ARPA
Computer Science Department	trinkle%purdue.edu@relay.cs.net		CSNET
Purdue University		{ucbvax,decvax,ihnp4}!purdue!trinkle	UUCP
West Lafayette, IN 47907	(317) 494-7832				PHONE