[ 28 October 1997
 The Linux News HOWTO is not being maintained by the author any
 more.  If you are interested in maintaining the News HOWTO, please
 get in touch with me at <[email protected]>. ]

 The Linux News HOWTO
 Vince Skahan, <[email protected]>
 v1.4, 29 November 1995

 This document describes the setup and care+feeding of USENET News
 under Linux.  You need to read this if you plan to post or read USENET
 news either locally on your site or between your site and other sites.
 You probably do *not* need to read this document if don't plan to pro�
 vide USENET news as a feature of your system.

 1.  Introduction

 The intent of this document is to answer some of the questions and
 comments that appear to meet the definition of "frequently asked
 questions" about USENET News software under Linux in general, and the
 version in the Linux Slackware distribution in particular.

 This document and the corresponding Mail and UUCP "HOWTO" documents
 collectively supersede the UUCP-NEWS-MAIL-FAQ that has previously been
 posted to comp.os.linux.announce.

 1.1.  New versions of this document

 New versions of this document will be periodically posted to
 comp.os.linux.announce, comp.answers, and news.answers.  They will
 also be added to the various anonymous ftp sites who archive such
 information including sunsite.unc.edu:/pub/Linux/docs/HOWTO.

 In addition, you should be generally able to find this document on the
 Linux WorldWideWeb home page at http://sunsite.unc.edu/mdw/linux.html.

 1.2.  Feedback

 I am interested in any feedback, positive or negative, regarding the
 content of this document via e-mail.  Definitely contact me if you
 find errors or obvious omissions.

 I read, but do not necessarily respond to, all e-mail I receive.
 Requests for enhancements will be considered and acted upon based on
 that day's combination of available time, merit of the request, and
 daily blood pressure :-)

 Flames will quietly go to /dev/null so don't bother.

 In particular, the Linux filesystem standard for pathnames is an
 evolving thing.  What's in this document is there for illustration
 only based on the current standard at the time that part of the
 document was written and in the paths used in the distributions or
 'kits' I've personally seen.  Please consult your particular Linux
 distribution(s) for the paths they use.

 Feedback concerning the actual format of the document should go to the
 HOWTO coordinator - Greg Hankins ([email protected]).

 1.3.  Copyright Information

 The News-HOWTO is copyrighted (c)1994 Vince Skahan.

 A verbatim copy may be reproduced or distributed in any medium
 physical or electronic without permission of the author.  Translations
 are similarly permitted without express permission if it includes a
 notice on who translated it.
 Short quotes may be used without prior consent by the author.
 Derivative work and partial distributions of the News-HOWTO must be
 accompanied with either a verbatim copy of this file or a pointer to
 the verbatim copy.

 Commercial redistribution is allowed and encouraged; however, the
 author would appreciate being notified of any such distributions (as a
 courtesy).

 In short, we wish to promote dissemination of this information through
 as many channels as possible. However, we do wish to retain copyright
 on the HOWTO documents.

 We further want that ALL information provided in the HOWTOS is
 disseminated.  If you have questions, please contact Greg Hankins, the
 Linux HOWTO coordinator, at [email protected].

 1.4.  Standard Disclaimer

 Of course, I disavow any potential liability for the contents of this
 document.  Use of the concepts, examples, and/or other content of this
 document is entirely at your own risk.

 1.5.  Other sources of information

 1.5.1.  USENET

    news.admin.misc         General topics of network news administration.
    news.admin.policy       Policy issues of USENET.
    news.admin.technical    Maintaining network news. (Moderated)
    news.software.b         Discussion about B-news-compatible software.
    news.software.nn        Discussion about the "nn" news reader package.
    news.software.nntp      The Network News Transfer Protocol.
    news.software.readers   Software used to read network news.
    news.sysadmin           Comments directed to system administrators.
    news.announce.newusers  Explanatory postings for new users. (Moderated)
    news.newusers.questions Q & A for users new to the Usenet.

 1.5.2.  Books

 The following is a non-inclusive set of books that will help

 �  "Managing UUCP and USENET" published by O'Reilly+Associates is in
    my opinion the best book out there for figuring out the programs
    and protocols involved in being a USENET site.

 �  "Unix Communications" published by The Waite Group contains a nice
    description of all the pieces (and more) and how they fit together.

 �  "Practical Unix Security" published by O'Reilly+Associates has a
    nice discussion of how to secure UUCP in general.

 �  "The Internet Complete Reference" from Osborne is a fine reference
    book that explains the various services available on Internet and
    is a great source for information on news, mail, and various other
    Internet resources.

 �  "The Linux Networking Administrators' Guide" from Olaf Kirch of the
    Linux DOC Project is available on the net and is also published by
    (at least) O'Reilly and SSC.  It makes a fine one-stop shopping to
    learn about everything you ever imagined you'd need to know about
    Unix networking.

 1.6.  Where NOT to look for help

 There is nothing "special" about configuring and running USENET news
 under Linux (any more).  Accordingly, you almost certainly do *NOT*
 want to be posting generic news-related questions to the
 comp.os.linux.* newsgroups.

 Unless your posting is truly Linux-specific (ie, "please tell me what
 patches are needed to run INN with the bash1.12 in SLS v1.03") you
 should be asking your questions in the newsgroups mentioned above.

 Let me repeat that.

 There is virtually no reason to post anything news-related in the
 comp.os.linux hierarchy any more.  There are existing newsgroups in
 the news.*  hierarchy to handle *ALL* your questions.

 IF YOU POST TO COMP.OS.LINUX.* FOR NON-LINUX-SPECIFIC QUESTIONS, YOU
 ARE LOOKING IN THE WRONG PLACE FOR HELP.  THE USENET NEWS EXPERTS HANG
 OUT IN THE PLACES INDICATED ABOVE AND GENERALLY DO NOT RUN LINUX.

 POSTING TO THE LINUX HIERARCHY FOR NON-LINUX-SPECIFIC QUESTIONS WASTES
 YOUR TIME AND EVERYONE ELSE'S AND IT FREQUENTLY DELAYS YOU FROM
 GETTING THE ANSWER TO YOUR QUESTION.

 2.  Hardware Requirements

 There are no specific hardware requirements for USENET News under
 Linux.  The only requirement of any type is sufficient disk space to
 hold the software itself, the threads database(s), and the amount of
 news you wish to keep on the system.  Figure on a minimum of 10 MB of
 disk space for starters.

 3.  Getting USENET News software

 All the software referenced in this "HOWTO" is available on the usual
 Internet anonymous ftp sites.

 Looking in /networking/news on ftp.uu.net is usually a good way to
 start.

 The newspak-2.4.tar.z distribution contains config files and readme
 files related to building uucp, news, and mail software under Linux
 from the various freely-available sources.  It can usually be found in
 sunsite.unc.edu:/pub/Linux/system/Mail/news.  If you can't find it on
 sunsite, please send me mail and I'll make sure you get a copy of it.

 4.  News Transport Software

 There are two main sets of news "transport" software for *nix these
 days, Cnews and INN.  The old "Bnews" has been declared officially
 dead and unsupported by its authors.

 News "transport" is defined here to be the software that works behind
 the scenes to post and propagate the news articles as well as making
 the articles available for the newsreaders to access.

 You can set your paths to anything you like, as long as UUCP has the
 absolute path to rnews in the Permissions file and as long as you have
 your newsreaders configured so that they can find "inews" and "mail".

 Important - you're asking for trouble if you try to intermix Cnews and
 INN.  Pick one or the other.  It's ok to add the NNTP "Reference
 Release" into Cnews since they're intended to play well together.

 4.1.  Cnews Cleanup Release

 The current de-facto standard news software is Cnews.  It has been
 around for a number of years, I first saw it sometime around 1988.
 The current version at this writing is called "Cnews Cleanup Release,
 with patch CR.G".

 Cnews's main benefit is its maturity.  It runs on about every *nix you
 can find and there are literally thousands of systems running it
 worldwide.

 Its main disadvantage is that it seems to have been intended for uucp-
 over-modem connections between sites and as such requires the addition
 of NNTP software to handle realtime Internet feeds and reading.

 Regardless, the beginning USENET admin should probably run Cnews first
 since it's so stable, well documented, and has many thousands of
 experienced administrators who can answer questions.

 The 'Cleanup Release' claims that "Overview support has been fully
 integrated and is faster than it used to be."  The result is that you
 can do things like use Cnews NOV support rather than running external
 threading packages for newsreaders such as nn, tin, and trn.

 I haven't quite figured how to implement this part yet, since I
 switched to INN at home long ago.  If anybody wants to clue me in to
 update this document, please drop me a line via e-mail.

 The newspak distribution on sunsite contains working config files for
 the Cnews Cleanup Release under Linux as well as a couple line patch
 you'll need to make to "doexplode" to get around some problems with
 bash1.12.

 Basically you run the new 'quiz' script and take the defaults.  You'll
 have to refer to your /usr/include tree to answer a number of the
 questions, but that's rather straightforward.

 4.1.1.  Installing Cnews

 Installing the Cleanup Release of Cnews is absolutely a "rtfm"
 project.  Just grab the sources, extract them, and follow the
 instructions.

 The quiz.def in newspak was generated by running "quiz" the first time
 and simply looking up the answers by checking out the /usr/include
 files to get the right answers.

 You'll need a recent 'bash' to have C-news pass its self-tests.   Try
 'bash -version' to find which version you have.  Version 1.14.2 is
 definitely no good.  The current (at this writing) version of 1.14.5
 seems better.

 Steve Robbins also has determined that the recent 'cleanup release' of
 Cnews has found a bug in GNU 'join' from shellutils-1.9.  There are a
 few patches needed to the sources for join to deal with the problem.
 Steve's put them on sunsite as I recall.
 4.1.2.  Configuring Cnews

 At the very least, you need to edit or at least take a look at the
 following files that all should be in /usr/local/lib/news:

 active             - the active file
 batchparms         - batch parameters
 explist            - article expiration setup
 mailname           - name in headers for mailed replies
 mailpaths          - path to mail moderated postings to
 organization       - your "org"
 sys                - control what you take and feed
 whoami             - your hostname for the Path: line

 4.1.3.  Maintaining a Cnews Site

 First, a significant rule of thumb is to not mess with files by hand
 that have utilities that configure them. In particular don't set up
 newsfeeds manually (run "addfeed" instead) and don't mess with your
 active file (run "addgroup").  When in doubt, read and re-read the
 docs in the source distribution.

 Everything else can be done via cron.  My crontab for "news" looks
 like the following:

         # take the compressed batches that came in from other systems
         # also, post (locally) articles that originated here
         20 *       * * * /usenet/sw/news/bin/input/newsrun

         # batch 'em up to go out
         0 *        * * * /usenet/sw/news/bin/batch/sendbatches myfeedsite

         # expire C-news
         59 0       * * * /usenet/sw/news/bin/expire/doexpire

         # monitor stuff and report if needed
         10 5       * * * /usenet/sw/news/bin/newsdaily
         00 5       * * * /usenet/sw/new/bin/newswatch

         # turn processing of incoming news batches off 6:30AM - 4:00 PM
         30 6       * * * /usenet/sw/news/bin/input/newsrunning off
         00 16      * * * /usenet/sw/news/bin/input/newsrunning on

 4.2.  InterNetNews (INN)

 INN is the newcomer on the scene, but it's gaining popularity as it
 matures.  Its main benefit is speed and the fact that it contains an
 integrated nntp package.  Its main drawback is that it's new and that
 it doesn't necessarily install and run flawlessly on the many
 "standard *nixes" yet.  In addition, it operates by having a daemon
 (the innd) always running plus potentially a overchan daemon to do
 threading.  The tradeoff seems to be memory vs. speed.

 I've run up to a 5 MB/night newsfeed incoming over UUCP with INN on a
 8 MB 386-33 (no Xwindows running normally) over a 14.4 KB modem with
 no problems at all.

 New USENET admins should probably not try INN until they have
 experience with either B-news or Cnews.  While it's fast and reliable
 under Linux, it's virtually undocumented for the beginning news
 administrator (though in practice it's rather simple to run once you
 figure it out).

 INN is very particular about its permissions.  Don't mess with them.

 INN is also very particular about having a "quality" TCP/IP to work
 with.  Linux is not necessarily all the way there at this time, so it
 is recommended that you grab a Linux-specific INN distribution from
 one of the usual Linux archive sites.

 4.2.1.  Installing INN

 ( from Arjan de Vet - [email protected] )

 I've made a patch + config kit for INN 1.4 to get it to run on Linux.
 It can be found at:

 ftp.win.tue.nl:/pub/linux/ports/inn-1.4-linux.tar.gz

 INN depends heavily on a good /bin/sh substitute. I use a beta version
 of bash 1.13 that is now available for Linux on the normal archive
 sites.  bash 1.12 gives some small problems with newgroups not being
 handled correctly (maybe some other problems too, I don't remember).

 4.2.2.  Configuring INN

 Basically follow Arjan's instructions and you'll be all set.  Here's
 the summary of what to do:

 �  In config.data, make sure you have "HAVE_UNIX_DOMAIN DONT"

 �  Add the hostname of the system running innd to hosts.nntp For a
    uucp-only site, that's your sitename.

 �  Make sure you do not have a line for nntp in /etc/inetd.conf

 �  Make sure that you have innshellvars say "HAVE_UUSTAT DO" rather
    than the "DONT" in his example config.data if you have uustat from
    the Taylor UUCP package installed.  If you have this defined wrong,
    it'll result in no outgoing news getting batched.

 �  If you run INN, definitely define the recommended syslogd stuff
    because it is very, very helpful.

    There is a spectacular (!!!!) FAQ for INN that comes out monthly.
    Look on rtfm.mit.edu:/pub/usenet-by-hierarchy/news for it.  You'll
    be glad you did.

 4.2.3.  Maintaining a INN Site

 I've found that there's essentially zero care-and-feeding of a Linux
 INN site other than having a working cron.  Basically you want a
 crontab that looks something like the following:

         # daily maint, also expire the .overview database and articles
         1 0 * * * /usenet/sw/inn/bin/news.daily expireover delayrm < /dev/null

         # send 'em out
         5 * * * * /usenet/sw/inn/lib/send-uucp

 ( if you switch to bash1.13, the "< /dev/null" above is not needed )

 4.3.  Other News Transport Agents

 The following is a non-inclusive list of other news transport software
 known to work under Linux:

 �  dynafeed

 �  nntp1.5.11

 �  slurp1.05

 5.  News Readers

 There is no "one true newsreader".  As a result, there are many well-
 known newsreaders that port easily to Linux in particular.  At this
 writing, "tin", "trn", and "nn" are in most of the commonly available
 distributions of Linux and in newspak.

 When picking a newsreader, you basically want to find something that
 is easy to use, very configurable by the user, with threading and kill
 files (to select interesting articles or make the non-interesting ones
 not appear at all).

 You can set your paths to anything you like as long as all the
 newsreaders can find "inews" from your Cnews or INN installation and a
 "mail" program to send mail replies to posts.

 This section will talk briefly about several of the most popular ones.
 Before you ask, I use "nn" for lots of reasons :-)

 5.1.  Tin

 Tin is a threaded newsreader generally intended to be easy for new
 users.  It supports kill files and NOV threading.  If you're running
 INN, it will read NOV .overview files by default and not write index
 files.

 To compile Tin under linux, basically just edit the makefile to set
 the locations of the software (especially the location of inews) and
 type "make linux".  There are no patches required for tin under Linux.

 For threading, you can basically just say "tin -u" to update the index
 files.

 To enable the ability to read via NNTP, compile with "NNTP_ABLE"
 defined.  This will result in a file called "tin" for local and one
 called "rtin" for NNTP reading.  "tin -r" will also get the same
 behavior as "rtin".

 Iain Lea recommends the following crontab entry and says that you need
 to do a "make daemon" to make tind.

         # thread the database
         35 * * * * /usenet/bin/tind -u

 I've run tin over a SLIP link as a NNTP-based newsreader.  If you're
 connecting to a system that has a full newsfeed, you will grow
 extremely old waiting for it to load up the "active" file.

 5.2.  Trn/Mthreads

 trn is a threaded derivative of the "rn" newsreader.  trn3.2 and newer
 has the nice ability to select either the "mthreads" (trn's threading
 package) or NOV (threader from INN) threading.

 To compile it, just run Configure and take the calculated defaults.
 You might need to have lib4.4.1 and bash-1.13 (there is a beta now
 available on the various Linux archive sites) to successfully run
 Configure.  You'll probably need both bash1.13 and libs4.4.1 to get
 the new Configure to run properly.

 The newspak distribution on sunsite contains working config files for
 trn under Linux.

 It's probably unwise to try to edit a trn config.sh by hand unless
 you're doing something *VERY* simple like changing the paths to fit
 your tastes.  If you do so, you'll need to run "Configure -S" before
 you "make depend", "make", and "make install".

 Although "Configure" fails generally under Linux with bash1.12,
 "Configure -S" work fine so if you take the newspak config.sh as a
 starting point, you'll be very close.

 Compiling for NNTP reading is as simple as answering "yes" when
 Configure asks you if you want to do so (assuming Configure runs ok on
 your system).  A future release of newspak will include a config.sh
 for NNTP reading as well as the existing one for local reading for
 those of us who are still "bash-impaired" :-)

 I've run trn over a SLIP link as a NNTP-based newsreader.  If you're
 connecting to a system that has a full newsfeed, you will grow
 extremely old waiting for it to load up the "active" file and to
 thread the articles.

 There are dozens of command line switches for trn to get all kinds of
 behavior.  Read the "trn" man page for details.  I use a nice feature
 to set all the switches easily:

 �  make a file with all the settings in a file called  /.trnrc

 �  export TRNINIT=" /.trnrc"

 The current newspak has a copy of my .trnrc file as an example.

 trn3.2 and above has support for NOV or mthreads threading that's
 user-selectable.  Accordingly, I recommend building the software to
 allow both threading mechanisms (it's a question in Configure).  To
 pick one at runtime, try "trn -Zo" for NOV and "trn -Zt" for mthreads.
 I do it my aliasing trn to the right thing.

 To build the mthreads database, do something like the following in the
 "news" crontab:

         # thread the trn database
         35 * * * * /usenet/bin/mthreads all

 5.3.  NN

 The newspak distribution on sunsite contains working config files for
 nn6.4.18 that you can drop into place and type "make" under Linux.
 They also work with the 6.5b3 beta of the coming nn6.5 update.

 When you're done compiling, you need to do the following:

 �  - run the "inst" program to install things.  (install everything)

 �  - initialize the database

 �  - fire up nnmaster

 See the nn docs for details.  Compiling, configuring, and running nn
 under Linux is no different than running nn on any other *nix with the
 exception that you may want to run nnmaster as a cron entry rather
 than as a daemon.  If you run it as a daemon under linux, it may not
 tend to wake up properly (the net effect of running it from cron is
 the same anyway).

 Support of "nn" is as simple as the following crontab entries:

         # run nnmaster to collect "nn" stuff
         # (not needed if you use NOV from INN in nn-6.5beta3)
         25 * * * * /usenet/sw/nn/lib/nnmaster

         # expire the nn database
         # (not needed if you use NOV from INN in nn-6.5beta3)
         0  4       * * * /usenet/sw/nn/bin/nnadmin =EYW

         # stash a copy of the active file for "nngoback" and keep last 7
         0 3 * * * /usenet/sw/nn/lib/back_act 7

 I've experimented a little with running nn as a NNTP-based newsreader
 over a SLIP connection.  In this case, you'll want to edit the
 config.h file slightly.  See the comments in the file for details.
 When running as a NNTP-based reader, nn runs a local copy of nnmaster
 to keep the threads database on the local system so that article
 selection is very fast (although you of course wait for the arcticle
 text a little if you're running SLIP over a modem).

 The new version (6.5.x) of nn has support for INN's NOV database which
 makes it unnecessary for you to run nnmaster at all.  This
 configuration is highly recommended, since as a result you won't have
 to spend the cpu time to run nnmaster at all and you won't get its
 database and the actual news articles available out of synch.

 5.4.  Other newsreaders

 The following is a non-inclusive list of newsreaders said to install
 and run under Linux:

 �  tass

 �  xrn

 �  gnus

 6.  Acknowledgements

 The following people have helped in the assembly of the information
 (and experience) that helped make this document possible:

 Ed Carp, Steve Robbins, Ian Taylor, Greg Naber, Matt Welsh, Iain Lea,
 Arjan de Vet

 If I forgot anybody, my apologies.

 7.  Frequently Asked Questions about USENET (in c.o.l.* anyway)

 7.1.  Why can't I post to moderated groups ?

 Probably because the newsreader is trying to call /bin/mail to send
 the mail and it doesn't like it.  Replace the /bin/mail in old
 versions of SLS with the port of mailx-5.5.tar.z from a modern
 Slackware and use Slackware's pkgtool to install the kit and you'll be
 all set.

 Another possibility is that you have a moderated newsgroup set up on
 your local system as not-moderated and somebody upstream is quietly
 deleting the article (some system's software, not a person).  Make
 sure you run a "checkgroups" every now and then when the checkgroups
 article rolls by in news.admin every few weeks.

 7.2.  Why do I have problems that appear to be permission-related ?

 Because they are :-)

 Check to see that your permissions are right and that you have a
 "news" username and group in /etc/passwd and /etc/group that matches
 the binary distribution you grabbed.  It seems that there is not yet a
 Linux-standard for commonly available accounts.

 All the stuff in /usr/local/lib/news should be news.news except
 /usr/local/lib/news/setnewsids which should be setuid root.

 You can use whatever UID and GID you want for "news".

 7.3.  Why can I post articles locally, but they don't show up or get
 fed downstream ?

 Probably because you didn't call newsrun from cron.  Maybe because you
 edited your sys file and messed it up.  Maybe because you don't have a
 /usr/spool/news/out.going tree or something.   Maybe because you
 grabbed a distribution that has the 'Performance' or 'Cleanup'
 releases of Cnews, which batch things up and need 'newsrun' running
 from cron to process them to feed the other sites and to have them
 visible locally.

 Do not create newsgroups or feeds by editing the active or sys files.
 Use the utilities in /usr/local/lib/news/bin/maint to do it.

 7.4.  Why doesn't my binary distribution have nntp ?

 Because it's supposed to be plug-n-play under Linux and because I
 didn't want to make SLS's news stuff doubly big by having to maintain
 both nntp and non-nntp versions of the newsreaders and news transport
 programs.  Also because it compiles in localized information that is
 not overridable at runtime via a config file.

 7.5.  Why does doexpire (or relaynews or) say "severe space shortage"
 when there's lots of room ?

 Because it can't read /etc/mtab.  Make it mode 644.  This happens when
 you unmount a mounted filesystem by root with a umask that doesn't
 permit world-read of files owned by root.

 7.6.  Why does everything look normal, but posting doesn't happen ?

 Older versions of Linux had a "broken" sed that Cnews was prone to
 blow up.  In particular, if you've installed over an old SLS, be sure
 to check /bin and /usr/bin to be certain you have only one copy of sed
 and that it's a modern one.

 Because as of the 'Performance Release' in about February 1993, you
 have to have 'newsrun' run from cron periodically to process things.
 That's a feature that apparently suprises some people.

 7.7.  the various independent thread databases ?  Can I hook the new
 news overview (NOV) stuff into trn/tin/nn to replace

 Yes. trn, tin, and the beta of nn support it now.

 You can hook it into the Performance and Cleanup Releases of Cnews and
 various other readers as well.

 The beta copy of nn6.5 I have here has NOV support and it works just
 dandy under Linux.  I run it here and have nn running without having
 to run nnmaster (!).  Look on uniwa.uwa.edu.au for a copy of it.

 7.8.  Why can't we have a binary distribution of NNTP ?

 Because significant local-only information is compiled-in and cannot
 be determined auto-magically at runtime.  If you're that into things,
 please grab INN rather than rolling your own with Cnews plus NNTP.

 7.9.  storing any news articles or databases locally.  How do I set up
 NNTP to allow read/post across the network while *not*

 ( [email protected] (Matt Welsh) )

 �  1) Grab the "reference implementation" of nntp and a copy or rn
    from your local archive site.  If you connect to ftp.uu.net you'd
    grab:

    nntp.1.5.11.tar.Z from ftp.uu.net:/networking/news/nntp

 �  2) compile nntp as follows:

    copy common/conf.h.dist to common/conf.h.

    Edit common/conf.h to set certain options: The only ones I set
    were:

    DOMAIN: undefine it (i.e. change the line to #undef DOMAIN).

    REALDOMAIN: Define this. It looks up the domain using the
    libraries.
    SERVER_FILE: Set this to the name of the file which will contain
    the hostname of the news server (i.e. the machine you'll read and
    post news through). I use "/usr/local/lib/news/server".

    PASSFILE: If your news server requires authorization (i.e.  some
    kind of username/password) to post, set this to the name of the
    file which contains the username and password (described below).  I
    use "/usr/local/lib/news/nntppass".

    I decided to keep all of the other news stuff in
    /usr/local/lib/news.  So I set all of the rest of the pathnames in
    the file (i.e.  ACTIVE_FILE, NEWSGROUPS_FILE, etc.) to use
    /usr/local/lib/news.  Many of these files are only used by the NNTP
    server, not the client, but to be safe I changed them all to point
    to the right directory. You can of course use the default
    pathnames; just make sure you create the directory accordingly.

    3) Create the user "usenet" if you haven't already. The inews
    program runs as this user. All you need is a userid; you don't need
    a home directory or shell or anything for the user. Just plop the
    following line into your /etc/passwd:

                                    usenet:*:13:1::/:

 Make sure you set the userid ("13", above) to something unique. The
 group can be anything; I use "daemon" (gid 1).

 �  4) Create the SERVER_FILE, above. For example, my news server is
    "wonton.tc.cornell.edu", so I created the file
    /usr/local/lib/news/server which contained one line:

                     wonton.tc.cornell.edu

 �  5) Create the PASSFILE. This file contains lines of the form

                    <server name> <username> <password>

 Let's say that your news server (the one in SERVER_FILE, above) is
 "shoop.vpizza.com", and to post on that machine you need to be autho�
 rized as the user "news" with a password of "floof". Thus, in the
 PASSFILE (I use /usr/local/lib/news/nntppass), you need the line

                 shoop.vpizza.com news floof

 �  6) Make this file secure! The inews program runs as the user
    "usenet", so make this news directory owned by that user and the
    nntppass file as well.

            chown usenet /usr/local/lib/news
            chmod 755 /usr/local/lib/news
            chown usenet /usr/local/lib/news/nntppass
            chmod 600 /usr/local/lib/news/nntppass

 So nobody else can read this file. No, the passwords in it are not
 encrypted.

 �  7) Go back to the nntp.1.5.11 source directory; issue "make
    client".  At this point you'll build the NNTP version of inews,
    which is the only software used by the NNTP client.
    When I built inews, there was a bug in the library which caused the
    function uname() in uname.c to call itself eternally. This should
    be gone now; however, if inews seems to hang and your system starts
    slowing down *a lot* you should rename the function "uname()" in
    uname.c to something like "my_uname()", and change the calls to it
    (in inews.c) to call my_uname() instead. Mail me if you run into
    this problem.

                    (VDS note - this means mail to Matt-not me :-) )

 �  8) Issue "make install_client". This will install the inews stuff.
    Also link /usr/local/lib/news/inews to /usr/local/bin/inews

    Now you should be able to happily post (by hand). Try something
    like the following:

                    $ inews -h << EOF
                    Newsgroups: misc.test
                    From: [email protected]
                    Subject: Testing
                    Reply-To: [email protected]

                    This is a test.
                    EOF

 If this works, inews should post the article. You'll know because
 test-responders on misc.test will reply to the address on the Reply-To
 line, above. Please don't do test postings on real groups, like c.o.l.
 :)

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