gilbertd@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (Don Gilbert) (03/18/90)
A brief guide to installing and reading Internet news from a networked VMS- Vax: VAX computers using the VMS operating system, when connected via Ethernet to a network that includes tcp/ip links to the internet, can be set up to let you easily read network news, including the bionet.* newsgroups for research biologists. Requirements: * VMS-Vax computer with an ethernet connection * TCP/IP software to provide communications link * VNews or ANU-News newsreader software * A local area NNTP netnews server computer Does your Vax have an ethernet connection to the internet? This requires an ethernet board and cable connections. The cost for a board for a microVax is in the $1000 range. Do you have a local NNTP netnews server computer? This is probably a Unix computer which runs netnews software and serves out news messages following NNTP protocols. You need to check with your campus computer administrators for the IP address of a local server that you can read news from. How to get and install VMS TCP software: There are several vendors of tcp/ip software for VMS Vaxes. Two popular ones, which VNews reader supports, are Multinet and Wollongong. Our university runs both, but network people here and elsewhere tend to favor the Multinet product. Multinet costs somewhere in the $1000 range; I don't have a price for Wollongong. These products need to be installed by a Vax system administrator. You can obtain Multinet product info from: TGV Inc., 15139 Old Ranch Road Los Gatos, CA 95030 Kenneth Adelman, Adelman@WARBUCKS.AI.SRI.COM, (415) 859-4419 You can obtain Wollongong product info from: The Wollongong Group, Inc. 1129 San Antonio Road, Palo Alto, Ca 94303 (415) 962-7100 How to get and install the VNews software: VNews is available in versions for Multinet and Wollongong (WINS) software. The distribution includes fortran source, and executables for VMS 5. You can find the original distribution from anonymous ftp to krypton.arc.nasa.gov, directory [pub.nntp] as vnews_multinet.bck for Multinet or vnews_wins.bck for Wollongong. These are also available via anonymous ftp to iubio.bio.indiana.edu in directory [archive.util.vms.netnews]. These files are VMS backup save sets, you may also need fixrec.exe or fixrec.c, in [archive.util.vms] to correct the backup record size after ftp transfer. Use binary ftp transfer. To install Vnews, you may use the supplied executable, and set some logical names to tell VNews the IP address of your local news server. Or you can edit a section of the source and recompile the program. The installation instructions included are clear and simple, and may be done without help of a vax system administrator. If you recompile this and are using Multinet, you will need a Multinet library called lib.olb. Unfortunately, the new release of Multinet, version 2.1, does not include this, but release 2.0 lib.olb works. Vnews operates much like rn on Unix. The first time you run it, it will create a file XX.newsrc which contains a list of all newsgroups. This may be quite long, and you can edit it to remove groups you don't want to read. Documentation and online help are included, but are not extensive. How to get and install the ANU-News software: The ANU-News software, with C source and executables, can obtained by anonymous ftp to kuhub.cc.ukans.edu or to iubio.bio.indiana.edu, in diretory [archive.util.vms.netnews] as anunews*.*. These files are compressed, backup sets. You will need lzdcmp.exe to decompress these, as from [archive.util.vms]. I have had no success yet in getting ANU-News to talk with local NNTP server computers. Others, however, have successfully used it to connect to NNTP servers. ANU-News also operates as a news server. Don Gilbert biocomputing office / archive for gilbertd@iubio.bio.indiana.edu / molecular & general biology biology dept., indiana univ., / ftp iubio.bio.indiana.edu bloomington, in 47405, usa / (129.79.1.101) user anonymous