NewsConfig.2.0.README

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NewsConfig for NEXTSTEP

by Tom Hageman <tom@rna.nl>
(version: 1.4)
July 1995

This is the source distribution of NewsConfig, a simple yet effective application to help you setup your C News site. It is part of NeGeN/NiNe's suite of connectivity tools: NewsConfig is included in NeGeN's binary CNews distribution, which can be found at <ftp://ftp.nl.net/pub/comp/next/>.

The application offers on-line help that should guide you through the configuration of your news system. it is a simple tool, meant to setup your news site in such a way that it can receive news, from a single newsfeed, quickly and easily. It does not address the more arcane aspects of C News configuration, like: multiple newsfeeds, expire control, send batch control, mailpaths, newgroup/rmgroup authentication, checkgroups authentication and nntp access control. These are explained in more detail in the section ``Advanced News Configuration'' of NewsConfig's on-line help. Reasonable (we hope) defaults are established for these aspects when you install CNewsTools for the first time. Also keep in mind that it only sets up your end of the news system; you'll almost certainly have to contact your news provider to actually get any news.

INSTALLATION

Before you start building the application, you may want to obtain recent copies of the `active' and `newsgroups' lists from your provider, and replace the distributed ones with these. That way you'll have an up-to-date view of the news hierarchy, including local newsgroups that may not show up in the distributed lists. This is not strictly necessary though, certainly not if you're only interested in established newsgroups (like the `big 7' and alt hierarchies.) and want to be up-and-running quickly.

NewsConfig has been made to work with an enhanced version of the C News software, but it will also work with the standard C News distribution. The differences, as far as NewsConfig is concerned, are that the standard distribution does not allow configuration of automatic .signature attachments (the standard distribution always attaches the first 4 lines of the .sig), and does not allow automatic removal of empty directories in the news article spool. Also the standard C News Cleanup Release does not support immediate handling of incoming news anymore, although the old 20feb93 Performance release did. Context diffs for the enhanced version against the standard C News (both 20feb93 and Cleanup Release) distribution are available on request.

NewsConfig looks for C News' master "config" file in the "bin" subdirectory of one of the following directories:
/usr/local/lib/news
/usr/lib/news
/usr/local/news
/usr/news
in that order. If it is not found there, NewsConfig punts.

To build NewsConfig, either build the application in ProjectBuilder, or run "make" from the command line. ( Use "make TARGET_ARCHS='arch1 arch2...'" to build a multi-architecture binary from the command line.)

To install NewsConfig, either build the "install" target in ProjectBuilder, or run "make install from the command line. This will install NewsConfig in the directory "/LocalAdmin". If you want to install it somewhere else, either change the installation directory in ProjectBuilder's Attributes view, or run "make INSTALLDIR=/your/installation/directory install" from the command line.

If you install the application as "root", it will be installed setuid news. This means that every user can in principle run NewsConfig and change the news configuration, but only if they know the root or news password (or usenet if it exists.) If you don't install NewsConfig setuid news, every user can examine the news configuration, but only if NewsConfig is started by root or news (or usenet if it exists) they are allowed to change it.

LEGALIA

This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.

This software is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this software; if not, write to the Free Software
Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.

These are the contents of the former NiCE NeXT User Group NeXTSTEP/OpenStep software archive, currently hosted by Netfuture.ch.