Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!iuvax!uxc!garcon!mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu!carlson
From: carlson@mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: NNTP <-> Notes
Message-ID: <800005@mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu>
Date: 10 May 89 21:01:00 GMT
Lines: 46
Nf-ID: #N:mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu:800005:000:1499
Nf-From: mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu!carlson    May 10 16:01:00 1989



I wondered what would happen if I sent test notes to a real group :-)
It occurred to me that others might want to try notes<->NNTP.
(I didn't want to wait for a news feed.)
Here are the steps to hook up U. of Illinois notes(1) to NNTP:

To download notes, use (via {): nntpxfer,
hacked to use newsinput instead of inews.
The dbm routines have been deactivated.

To upload to NNTP server, use newsoutput (via {)
with net.how set up as:

Usenet:x:::/usr/spool/notes/.utilities/nntpup

File nntpup contains:
#! /bin/sh
# simulate piped operation by nntpxmit
tmp=nf_nntp$$
cat >$tmp
nntpxmit -a garcon:$tmp
rm $tmp

This note should go out via this very method.

I did some other hacks, such as deactivate load average checking in
nntpxmit (access /dev/kmem).
Also, in several places notes tries to write to a string constant;
this is not allowed on NeXT w/ GNU C, and causes Seg Violations.

Both notes and nntp package came from uxc.cso.uiuc.edu.
I don't really have the time to provide a full cookbook of required
modifications.

Basically nntp->notes uses NEWNEWS command; a timestamp file
is saved for the NEWNEWS command, to suppress old notes.
(Our server still sends a few old notes anyway, I don't know why.
Notes also filters out repeated notes.)

notes->nntp uses IHAVE command, sends only notes server does not have.

--------------------
Brad Carlson  <carlson@mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu> or <b-carlson@uiuc.edu>
University of Illinos at Urbana-Champaign
NeXT guru for the Micro Resource Center