http://www.perlmonks.org?node_id=304347

Hello, all.

I've been working for a while on a perlmonks -> nntp gateway, and it's finaly ready for release. You can find it on desert-island.dynodns.net, on the normal port (119). Currently, there is no login/password required, and all the gateway is unidirectional. All groups are readonly, except for perlmonks.nntpdiscuss, which is for discussing the gateway itself.

There's a more complete announcement on the server itself, in perlmonks.nntpdiscuss.

The server is currently loaded with the last 7 days of traffic, and will be updated at 15-minute intervals.

I look forward to your comments, and even your bug-reports.


Warning: Unless otherwise stated, code is untested. Do not use without understanding. Code is posted in the hopes it is useful, but without warranty. All copyrights are relinquished into the public domain unless otherwise stated. I am not an angel. I am capable of error, and err on a fairly regular basis. If I made a mistake, please let me know (such as by replying to this node).

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Perlmonks -> NNTP gateway
by ysth (Canon) on Nov 04, 2003 at 08:46 UTC
    It doesn't say it is unidirectional:
    $ telnet desert-island.dynodns.net 119
    Trying 217.186.77.68...
    Connected to desert-island.dynodns.net.
    Escape character is '^]'.
    200 Hi, you can post (sn version 0.3.6)
    list
    215 list follows
    perlmonks.poll 43 10 y
    perlmonks.obfuscated 13 10 y
    perlmonks.qanda 24 10 y
    perlmonks.snippet 16 10 y
    perlmonks.pmdiscuss 56 10 y
    perlmonks.sopw 604 10 y
    perlmonks.news 10 10 y
    perlmonks.nntpdiscuss 11 10 y
    perlmonks.meditation 158 10 y
    perlmonks.codecatacombs 17 10 n
    perlmonks.poetry 13 10 y
    perlmonks.cufp 21 10 y
    perlmonks.craft 0 0 y
    perlmonks.tutorial 0 0 y
    
      The server isn't unidirectional, the gateway is. Meaning that if you post to the groups, what you post won't show up as a PerlMonks node.

      (Though you're right, actually we should disallow external posting to them, to avoid confusion..)

      C.

      Sorry, I accidently only had codecatacombs marked readonly. Fixed now, and it looks like nobody took advantage of the overpermissiveness. All groups except perlmonks.nntpdiscuss are now returned as readonly by list.

      It looks like nobody actualy attempted to post anything, and even if they had, it wouldn't have ended up on perlmonks -- the code for that isn't written yet. Instead, it would have just cluttered up the GW NNTP server.


      Warning: Unless otherwise stated, code is untested. Do not use without understanding. Code is posted in the hopes it is useful, but without warranty. All copyrights are relinquished into the public domain unless otherwise stated. I am not an angel. I am capable of error, and err on a fairly regular basis. If I made a mistake, please let me know (such as by replying to this node).

        attempted to post anything [...] it wouldn't have ended up on perlmonks -- the code for that isn't written yet.

        *shudder*

                        - tye
Re: Perlmonks -> NNTP gateway
by Jaap (Curate) on Nov 04, 2003 at 11:31 UTC
    That is pretty neat! Although not all threads in SOPW are threaded the right way, there are some separate replies.

      If you can track this down to some header that I'm not setting correctly, I'd love to hear about it. Otherwise, I can't be of much help. Almost everything I know about NNTP/internet "news"/usenet I learned for this project, and I'm still learning bits.

      I've seen this behivior in three cases. One is where the replies are young enough to be on the server, but the root node they go with is not. Not much I can do about this, I have to make a cutoff point somewhere. Note that sn, my news server, whole threads always expire at once, so this will become less of an issue with time.

      One is where the root node changes sections between when it is originaly put on the gw and when replies are put on, in some cases. Nodes are never moved, or otherwise changed, after being initialy created. The reason for this is a mix of the nature of usenet, implementation details on my end, and implementation details of perlmonks, but it's unlikely to change anytime soon. This rarely splits threads in half, though, because of caching of the node XML views.

      The final, and most common reason, seems to be an annoying limitation in mozilla-thunderbird. When the article's title changes other then a 'Re: ' being prepended, it will break off the thread, and start a new one. Many newsreaders (or at least mailreaders) seem to do this optionaly, but I don't see an off-switch for it in thunderbird. This is a client problem, not a server one, as can be seen by the fact that the other replies are threaded properly, so I can't do much about it.


      Warning: Unless otherwise stated, code is untested. Do not use without understanding. Code is posted in the hopes it is useful, but without warranty. All copyrights are relinquished into the public domain unless otherwise stated. I am not an angel. I am capable of error, and err on a fairly regular basis. If I made a mistake, please let me know (such as by replying to this node).

      Where, exactly? Are just the parent nodes missing? (probably too old), or are actual replies not attched to parents? Can you give an example?

      C.

        It's all old replies from root nodes you don't have. Don't worry about it.
Re: Perlmonks -> NNTP gateway
by batkins (Chaplain) on Nov 04, 2003 at 11:56 UTC
    Looks cool. Is there any chance of that being added to Google Groups?
    Are you sure it was a book? Are you sure it wasn't.....nothing?

      This is more of a question for Google Groups then for me. So I asked them, or at least read their FAQ, which says, amongst other things, that they only index groups that are officaly added and approved by the usenet community. They link to the news.newusers.questions FAQ on creating new groups. I'm not willing to take the time to deal with the long political process it describes, though I'll be happy to offer assistance, and rename the groups when required. (The process, BTW, is only slightly shorter and less political with alt.* groups.)

      OTOH, groups.google.com indexes a number of perl mailinglists that are not offical newsgroups under the perl.* hierarchy, so they may be amenable to pulling from my humble server as well. If you want to explore the avenue of asking them humbily, be my guest.

      Updated: fixed spelling error, thanks, Corion.


      Warning: Unless otherwise stated, code is untested. Do not use without understanding. Code is posted in the hopes it is useful, but without warranty. All copyrights are relinquished into the public domain unless otherwise stated. I am not an angel. I am capable of error, and err on a fairly regular basis. If I made a mistake, please let me know (such as by replying to this node).

        So you mean if we ask nicely, we can get a web-viewable version of the NNTP version of a web forum? Sweet!



        If God had meant us to fly, he would *never* have given us the railroads.
            --Michael Flanders

Re: Perlmonks -> NNTP gateway
by ysth (Canon) on Nov 04, 2003 at 14:16 UTC
    How does the gateway handle updated nodes?

      For the most part, it doesn't. Between NNTP not supporting updated articles, and perlmonks' support for updating nodes being poor, it just isn't worth it to support this until one of those things (most likely the later) gets better.


      Warning: Unless otherwise stated, code is untested. Do not use without understanding. Code is posted in the hopes it is useful, but without warranty. All copyrights are relinquished into the public domain unless otherwise stated. I am not an angel. I am capable of error, and err on a fairly regular basis. If I made a mistake, please let me know (such as by replying to this node).

Re: Perlmonks -> NNTP gateway
by thens (Scribe) on Nov 04, 2003 at 14:53 UTC

    Iam not able to access this, as Iam behind a firewall and all my requests are routed through a proxy. Is there any other way I can access this mirrored Newsgroup.

    -T

    use perl; use strict;

      Well, there's the normal firewall-piercing techniques, or you can just read the web site, the normal way, but nothing else, no.


      Warning: Unless otherwise stated, code is untested. Do not use without understanding. Code is posted in the hopes it is useful, but without warranty. All copyrights are relinquished into the public domain unless otherwise stated. I am not an angel. I am capable of error, and err on a fairly regular basis. If I made a mistake, please let me know (such as by replying to this node).