🚀 go-pugleaf

In article  <20080203.0848.80101050snz$@i-m-t.demon.co.uk>
           v$af$ppint@i-m-t.demon.co.uk "ppint. at pplay" writes:

> - hi; in dipspc article, <1201953774snz@nospam.demon.co.uk>,
>         pete@nospam.demon.co.uk reminisced fondly:
> >
> >As I'm sure I recall the late Kenneth Williams once saying:
> >
> >   "Quiet in here, innit?"
> >
> >but that just reveals my age...
> 
>         - or a degree of infamy, perhaps...

Indeed -- it seems that most people seem to have it infamy...

> >No matter; the reason for this post is to find out if (a) anyone
> >else is still here
> 
>         - possibly...

Excellent!  With Ian's (ex-fairmyle) post that makes three!

> >and (b) if so, they have any experience of using GremNOS with news
> >servers other than the struggling one at Demon Towers.
> 
>         - yup, i believe so;
> >
> >I've been thinking for ages of subscribing to news.individual.net 
> >and the recent (and it would seem ongoing) problems with news.dcu 
> >have accelerated that thought.  As this is a subscribed service, 
> >I'm assuming there will be some sort of login/authentication 
> >required -- is this easily configurable in GremNOS?
> >
> >Any hints/tips/experiences gratefully accepted.
> >
>         - you do need to request newnews when you register on their
>         wwwbsite (after is perhaps possible),

Hmmm -- no mention of that when I looked before (and indeed after) 
registering, but I've subsequently emailed them to check that they 
support NEWNEWS and for any config changes I might need to make 
here.

>                                               and need to pay ten
>         euros by plastic;

That sum will not break the bank :-)

>                           you need to create a new bloc in nntp.dat
>         of froups you wish to collect thence under a line detailing
>         the news server and the date and time you last completed a
>         download of news from them: see and save your current nntp.
>         dat elsewhere, for the format.

No problem there; I used to have an entry there for dfn-cis or 
whatever it was called way back then...

>         - you can then switch to this server at the net prompt by
>         typing nntp add <$foo> <interval><enter> where <$foo> is
>         the fqdn of the server, <interval> the number of seconds
>         between attempts to download - and to then start download-
>         ing by nntp kick<enter> - nntp & kick may be abbreviated
>         to n & k respectiwiggly; switch back to demon's server with
>         nntp add news.demon.co.uk <interval><enter> or to a thrid
>         newsserver by specifying its fqdn instead (having previously
>         fettled an nntp.dat bloc peculiar to it).
>           an interval of 500 worked well enough for me, but might
>         prove a trifle enthusiastic, were you interested solely in
>         the doings of denetzens of dipspc...

I have no probs with the standard syntax -- I was wondering more 
about authentication.  Looking through the GremNOS source (which 
I suppose I should have done before) it seems like the addserver 
command ought to be something like:

    nntp addserver <$foo> <interval> user <username> <password>

(or abbreviated as required). 

[..]
>         - you can, of course, set news.individual.net (if this be
>         the fqdn) as your default newsserver and cease to call on
>         news.demon.co.uk's services completely; pcelm/oak's .rc and
>         individual username.rc in ~\spool\news\ and the nntp add-
>         server line in your ~\autoexec.net will need modification;

That is indeed Plan A; I once made the mistake of running DIS to 
"Maintain newsgroups" and it made a real hash of my then nntp.dat 
with more than one newsserver entry.  It's the only time I ever 
run DIS, as when running addgroup/rmgroup etc. manually I always 
forget to edit at least one of the important files :-(

>         - n.b. other newsservers may well *not* provide a news2mail
>         gateway, so either retain the demon gateway in your news.rc
>         (etc.), or switch to "direct posting" in snews (john wash.)
>         (and others?).

Others.  GremNOS has supported direct posting for quite a while, 
and I've knocked together a little prog that reformats and 
relocates outgoing Snews articles ready for posting.

>         - hth, hand - tdwsc!

It does, and I will, and ???

Pete
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