paulg@iisat.UUCP (Paul Gauthier) (04/26/89)
I noticed a bit of discussion happening about news software for
IBMs. I run a BBS using the Citadel-86 BBS system on my IBM. When I
first started the system my ultimate goal was to open a gateway into
Usenet so my system could pick up the Usenet news feeds and I could offer
the users the use of Usenet mail.
Well, I wrote the gateway a few months ago, and have been running
it since then with only minor bugs that have quickly been corrected. The
software simply converts messages from Citadel's native message base into
the proper files for UUPC and places them in the user-defined spooldir.
All news is batched and mail is sent regularly. UUPC is run, transferring
the outgoing files to my host system.
UUPC understands both the rmail command and the rnews command.
Mail is placed, by UUPC, in your maildir (/usr/spool/mail on most systems).
News, in batched form, is dumped in the rnews dir
(spooldir/rnews/YYMMDD/HHMMSS.XXX is the file path for each file of batched
news UUPC receives. If spooldir is defined as /usr/spool you end up with
/usr/spool/rnews/YYMMDD/HHMMSS.XXX where YYMMDD is the year, month and
day the file was created. HHMMSS is the time, and XXX is an index number
that simply numbers the file).
The second half of the gateway software is then run which unbatches
the news and converts the file formats to Citadel format. It does the
same for the mail, and then the incoming messages are integrated into
the regular BBS message base.
Users can then use the regular Citadel commands and functions to
read and post news and mail. All in all the whole project has been a large
sucess. The latest version of Citadel is rumored to have the ability to
pass mail indirectly through the Citnet to other Citadels, a capability
formerly lacking. Once I get some more specs on this the gateway software
will be updated to support passing of mail through the Citnet to the
receiver even if he is remote from the gateway site.
Writing news unbatching and reading software for PCs shouldn't
be much of a challenge and I'm surprised it hasn't already been done.
The Usenet format files are easy enough to handle and process.
If anyone is interested in seeing the results of the gateway
feel free to call my system at (902)462-7245. It's an open system, you
get full access first call. Call at 3/1200 baud (8N1) 24h/7d.
Future plans for the system include writing a mail based
file server for the PC and gateways into other networks. This will be on
hold until I upgrade my modem to a speed that could more adequately handle
the traffic running a file server would impose.
--
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= Cerebral Cortex BBS: (902)462-7245 300/1200 24h/7d N81 =