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From: [email protected] (Bob Sloane)
Newsgroups: news.software.anu-news,news.answers
Subject: FAQ: news.software.anu-news
Followup-To: news.software.anu-news
Date: 16 May 2004 00:10:00 -0500
Organization: University of Kansas Computing Services
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Summary: frequently asked questions for news.software.anu-news
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Archive-name: anu-faq

FAQ for NEWS.SOFTWARE.ANU-NEWS. Last update 24-Aug-1998.



This monthly posting is edited by Bob Sloane, University of Kansas.
Please send any suggestions for improvement to [email protected].

1.  What is ANU News?

ANU NEWS is a computer-based conferencing system for OpenVMS systems.  ANU
NEWS can be connected into the Global USENET news network and/or any other
news network.  ANU NEWS supports both DECnet and TCP/IP (Multinet, WIN/TCP,
Ultrix Connection, EXCELAN TCP, and CMU) as transports.

The current version of ANU NEWS is 6.2.

2.  Purpose of News.software.anu-news

The purpose of news.software.anu-news is to discuss any and all ANU NEWS
related issues.  It is the primary support channel for ANU NEWS users.
New versions, fixes, workarounds, etc are posted to the newsgroup.  Bug
reports/fixes and suggestions for improvement are always welcome.  Please
always RTFM (Read The Friendly Manual) before posting.

3.  How to subscribe

On USENET, news.software.anu-news is a regularly available newsgroup.  In
general, it is preferable to read the newsgroup instead of the mailing list.

Email users may send MAIL to [email protected] or
LISTSERV@NDSUVM1 with the first line of the TEXT or BODY of mail
being:

     SUB ANU-NEWS firstname lastname   (e.g. SUB ANU-NEWS John Doe ).


4.  Frequently Asked Questions:

Q: How do I acquire a copy of ANU News?  A: ANU News is available for
  anonymous FTP from kuhub.cc.ukans.edu (Kansas, USA).  Other sites may
  also have it available..

  Archives of the mailing list/newsgroup are available via anonymous ftp
  from listserv.nodak.edu.

  Patches are available via anonymous ftp from perl.newman.upenn.edu.

Q: Does anybody have documentation for ANU News?
A: At the anonymous FTP sites, you will find another compressed backup
  saveset called something like NEWS_V61-BETA10_DOC.ZIP.  It contains the
  documentation for ANU News.

Q: What should I do about all these compilation errors in V6.1b10?

A: The u_int problem is fixed by an ECO from Cisci/TGV.  Ftp to
  eco.tgv.cisco.com, username anonymous, password decc052h, grab
  the header files, and put them in [multinet.include.sys].

  The getopt problems are cured by editing inpaths.c and changing all
  strings "getopt" to "my_getopt".

  You may also need to edit nntpinclude.h and delete the definition
  of getpeername around line 127

  You may also need to edit newsutility.c and delete the definition of sleep.

  You may still get a few warnings but you can probably ignore them.
  (Thanks to James Kirkpatrick for this answer)

Q: Does ANU News support XOVER in the NNTP Server?
A: Well, sort of.  There is some simple minded XOVER code in the V6.1b10
  server.  First, you needed to get patch 950817_NNTP_SERVER.PATCH
  from the patch archives at perl.newman.upenn.edu and apply it.  Then put
  "#define XOVER" near the beginning of NNTP_SERVER.C and rebuild NEWS.
  A better version of XOVER support is available in V6.2, but the
  "#define XOVER" is still needed.

Q: NEWS is sending everything I get back to my feed system. What do I do?
A: Make sure that the system name in NEWS.SYS matches what your feed
  system puts in the Path: header.

Q: I am remote reading (diskless client) with ANU from a Cnews site and
  my users regularly crash due to memory problems.
A: Verify that NNTP on the Cnews side is returning the correct message
  numbers on the list command.  If not, then ask the remote system's news
  administrator to run upact on a regular basis to update the number in
  the active file.

Q: How do I connect to an NNTP server?
A: Try "news/netsever=newshost/netproto=tcp" where "newshost" is the name
  of the NNTP server. Note this connects over a TCP/IP network and requires
  that News was built to support to support that service. Also requires
  that the server accept a connection from your system.

Q: News is awfully slow to start up. Especially for NNTP connections.
A: News> set profile/fastload
  Will configure news to only load those newsgroup in which you are registered.
  This makes the start up considerably faster but you don't have access to
  groups you're not registered in.  There have been reports of problems
  such as access violations and hangs when using this feature.

Q: News is still slow to start up to an NNTP server.
A: News> set profile/display=(unseenstack,nolines,nopost)
  Will configure news to only show you new articles and will not retrieve
  the line count or posting date. This is especially useful if you're
  running off of an NNTP server that doesn't support ANU extensions to NNTP.
  Retrieving line counts and posting dates is notoriously time consuming.

Q: How do I get a signature file appended to my articles?
A: News> set profile/signature=file.name
  Note you should keep your signature file brief -- no more than three
  lines.

Q: How do I get my full name into my return address?
A: News> set profile/personal_name="Your Name"

Q: I want to use emacs as my editor.
A: News> set profile/editor=emacs
  Note this requires, of course, that you have emacs installed on your
  system.

Q: Command recall doesn't work.
A: Of course it does -- use CTRL-B to go back a command. The arrow keys
  have been bound to other commands.  If you would prefer to use the arrow
  keys for command recall, then do: News> set profile/line_editing

Q: Do I need this big newsrc. file?
A: News> set profile/rcfilter
  Will store only the registered groups in your newsrc. file, this makes
  rewritting the file quicker. Note that this will prevent you from
  accessing any groups not in your newsrc. file.

Q: I want to display groups in a different order.
A: News> set profile/rcorder
  Will display newsgroups in the order they are listed in your newsrc.
  file -- edit the file to order things accordingly.

Q: I have just installed the NEWS server software.  When I ran it the first
  time, I got the message:
       RMS-E-FNF, file not found
       RMS-F-IFI, invalid internal file identifier
A: Either there is some problem with your NEWS logicals, the NEWS
  executable is not properly installed, or the account that you started
  NEWS from the first time doesn't have the NEWS manager id granted to it.

Q: I am having problems getting KILL filters to work.
A: In some versions of NEWS there is a bug in KILL/FROM.  Just do
  MODIFY KILL n where n is the number of the kill filter that isn't
  working and delete the from: from the beginning of the filter.
--
USmail: Bob Sloane, University of Kansas Computer Center, Lawrence, KS, 66045
E-mail: [email protected] http://www.ukans.edu/home/sloane Phone:(785)864-0444
--
--
USmail: Bob Sloane, University of Kansas Computer Center, Lawrence, KS, 66045
E-mail: [email protected], Phone: (913) 864-0444, FAX: (913) 864-0485