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NNTP as backend [message #5960] Sat, 28 September 2002 20:42 Go to next message
Anonymous   Switzerland
I saw that FUDForum has a Web to NNTP interface allowing news clients reading (posting?) to the FUDForum too.

What I need is a Forum as an interface to a newsgroup via NNTP.

This means:
- All messages are retrieved via NNTP and posted via NNTP to the newsgroup

In a first step I don't bother whether keeping data redundant on the newsgroups and the mysql db, syncing periodically or whatever.

What do you think. Are you allready developing something similar?
Would you be interested if I did something like that for FUDForum?

cheers - Andy
Re: NNTP as backend [message #5962 is a reply to message #5960] Sat, 28 September 2002 21:08 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Ilia is currently offline  Ilia   Canada
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There are no plans to implement NNTP interface to FUDforum at this point. Certainly if you wish to make one you are more then welcome to do so, I'd even consider to include it in the default distro.

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Re: NNTP as backend [message #5964 is a reply to message #5962] Sat, 28 September 2002 21:14 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Anonymous   Switzerland
ok, as I can't take a look at your code without zlib ;) I'm gonna have to wait a while.
But I'd like to start with coding next week after my yearly exams.

Cheers - Andy
Re: NNTP as backend [message #5966 is a reply to message #5960] Sat, 28 September 2002 21:46 Go to previous messageGo to next message
valiant is currently offline  valiant   Switzerland
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this anonymous was me....
Re: NNTP as backend [message #6051 is a reply to message #5962] Tue, 01 October 2002 16:21 Go to previous messageGo to next message
valiant is currently offline  valiant   Switzerland
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a newsgroup as a full backend doesn't make much sense, don't you think?
a newsgroup has less features and stores less data.

hence, I guess the best solution is storing the data fully redundant and synchronizing periodically. (I don't want to change anything on the newsgroup side, otherwize i would use the forums backend (mysql) as the newsgroups backend.)

I saw that you already implemented some Newsgroups feature and supply a nntp.php script which should run periodically as a cron job.

basically there's very few left to add/change:
- posting attachments to the newsgroup
- a solution for edited/deleted posts (how to sync with newsgroup)
- generally a better sync solution
- perhaps a better admin utility for all newsgroups...
Re: NNTP as backend [message #6053 is a reply to message #6051] Tue, 01 October 2002 16:30 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Ilia is currently offline  Ilia   Canada
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I believe when forum messages are synconized to the newsgroups any file attachments also get posted.
Newsgroups do not allow editing/deleting of messages, the only alternative is to make another post to the newsgroup. Or syncronize data only after a few hours so that likelyhood of message being deleted or edited is small. Since most edits (corrections) occur within a short time of the original posts.
The only thing I can imagine to improve the current sync solution is to make it buffered, which would make syncronizing forum messages to the NNTP faster and not make the user who wrote the message wait while it is being syncronized. I was considering syncronizing posted forum messages within the same cronjob that is used to import messages from the newsgroup.
As for admin utility, I simply have not opinion about as of yet Wink


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Re: NNTP as backend [message #6055 is a reply to message #6053] Tue, 01 October 2002 16:53 Go to previous messageGo to next message
valiant is currently offline  valiant   Switzerland
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"protoss"

I believe when forum messages are synconized to the newsgroups any file attachments also get posted.


both ways? what about attachment size? in the usenet they're splitting attachments to the size of a few kbs (150 i think). that's a limit but i guess it's conform to the netiquette.

"protoss"

Newsgroups do not allow editing/deleting of messages, [...]

...i know. it's a good idea to wait 5 minutes before posting a new message to the newsgroup. i can't wait really long, as we all use the same news server and therefor expect an immediate refresh of the list.
alternatively you could post an edited version as a reply to the original one. but IMO that's screwing up the newsgroup.

"protoss"

The only thing I can imagine to improve the current sync solution is to make it buffered [...]


that goes hand in hand with your other idea to wait a few minutes before syncing.
alternatively to the cron script we could set up a daemon, but that's a little bit overkill, perhaps Smile


and as for parsing while syncing:
the quotes tag could be parsed and made conform to the usenet with "Protoss wrote on 09/30/2002:" and the appropriate ">" Wink
other FUD code must be disabled or parsed before syncing...

cheers - andy

[Updated on: Tue, 01 October 2002 16:57]

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Re: NNTP as backend [message #6059 is a reply to message #6055] Tue, 01 October 2002 16:56 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Ilia is currently offline  Ilia   Canada
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The attachments are not split, it is too much of a pain to do so. If the admin wants they can always limit file attachment size of 150k.

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Re: NNTP as backend [message #6068 is a reply to message #6059] Tue, 01 October 2002 18:01 Go to previous messageGo to next message
valiant is currently offline  valiant   Switzerland
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if i removed the search, edit and delete function from the forum, there's no other reason why all data should be stored in the mysql db too, right?

nntp performance shouldn't be an issue at our site, as the webserver and newsserver are only seperated by a few routers.

i don't know. finally it was a pretty limited forum...
Re: NNTP as backend [message #6071 is a reply to message #6068] Tue, 01 October 2002 18:47 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Ilia is currently offline  Ilia   Canada
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Removing the search was is a good idea as it will speed things up not to mention save a heck of a lot of space. Disabling of delete and edit probably is to...

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Re: NNTP as backend [message #6080 is a reply to message #6071] Tue, 01 October 2002 20:10 Go to previous messageGo to next message
valiant is currently offline  valiant   Switzerland
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hmm, performance shouldn't be an issue (search function).

i kinda dislike storing all the data only on the newsserver.
- what about the forum markup language? all that would be lost. and a forum with plaintext and some emoticon images isn't worth it, IMO.

and syncing shouldn't be that hard.

i guess i go for the redundant data solution...
Re: NNTP as backend [message #6081 is a reply to message #6080] Tue, 01 October 2002 20:17 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Ilia is currently offline  Ilia   Canada
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Well not quite, emoticons are converted back to text based emotics, images would ofcourse be stripped.

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Re: NNTP as backend [message #6083 is a reply to message #6081] Tue, 01 October 2002 20:28 Go to previous messageGo to next message
valiant is currently offline  valiant   Switzerland
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you get me wrong.

i mean:

if all message data is stored in the newsserver, then it must be in a format compatible to normal newsclients. the newsgroups user don't want forum markup language in the news client.

and if there are no forum tags in the message, the forum can't format the message (bold, underlined, lists,...).

ergo: if i store the data only on the newsserver, i can't use the forums markup language, but the emoticons images, as they are parsed later, and the colored quotes, as you can parse for quoted strings...
Re: NNTP as backend [message #6086 is a reply to message #6083] Tue, 01 October 2002 20:38 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Ilia is currently offline  Ilia   Canada
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Retrieving data realtime from NNTP is a very bad idea even if NNTP is local to you, its just too damn slow.
I think the best choice is to have 2 copies of the data, while it may take up more space it will result in a much more robust web interface.


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Re: NNTP as backend [message #6088 is a reply to message #6086] Tue, 01 October 2002 20:54 Go to previous messageGo to next message
valiant is currently offline  valiant   Switzerland
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ok, good to know that we agree on that Smile
Re: NNTP as backend [message #6168 is a reply to message #5960] Fri, 04 October 2002 15:11 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Anonymous   Netherlands
I use FUDForum becaurse of the NNTP option.
But what I thought it would do, and why i installed the forum in the first place, is just post the headers in a group, as a single user ( like: ForumPost )
I don't want to download the complete post.

This way I can make a quick overview what is posted on various binaries groups.

Cheers,
Seven
Re: NNTP as backend [message #6173 is a reply to message #6168] Fri, 04 October 2002 16:03 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Ilia is currently offline  Ilia   Canada
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Modify the source of nntp.inc inside include/ directory if you want to change the functionality.

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Re: NNTP as backend [message #6174 is a reply to message #6173] Fri, 04 October 2002 16:08 Go to previous messageGo to next message
valiant is currently offline  valiant   Switzerland
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disclaimer: this "anonymous" is not the same as me (who was the one, who started this topic Wink ).

I've still a big discussion with the main admin about redundant data and the like. We don't know if we want "yet another webinterface for newsgroups" (just a bit better looking than the others) or a hybrid forum/newsgroups solution as I want.

i keep you informed what I'll do (the nntp.inc will be my starting point anyway).

cheers - andy
Re: NNTP as backend [message #6310 is a reply to message #5960] Tue, 08 October 2002 00:34 Go to previous messageGo to next message
valiant is currently offline  valiant   Switzerland
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At last I could see that your nntp.php script works (at least in one direction). (I'm testing now on my local server as the argc_argv thing won't work on my university's webserver).

I've imported 246 messages in 7 minutes, no attachments. I used a really really slow connection (32kbyte/s down,8kbyte/s up) and a really poor system (64mb ram, pentium 133mhz).
A second call of the script after the import would take only a few seconds as there was nothing to import. Very good.

I've tried to reply from the FUDForum to the newsgroup but 1. the reply message was emptied and the message body in the FUDForum was reduced to "No Message Body" and 2. It was not submitted to the newsgroup (moderation was set off).

Is that an irregular behaviour or is FUDForum not meant to reply to newsgroups?

good night - andy
Re: NNTP as backend [message #6311 is a reply to message #6310] Tue, 08 October 2002 00:37 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Ilia is currently offline  Ilia   Canada
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Replying back to newsgroups should work fine, during initial implementation it was tested and as far as I could tell worked properly.

Could you show me the message body of the message that did not go through?


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Re: NNTP as backend [message #6312 is a reply to message #6311] Tue, 08 October 2002 00:41 Go to previous messageGo to next message
valiant is currently offline  valiant   Switzerland
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i've tried 2 bodies.

the simpler one was only "test", without apostrophs.
Re: NNTP as backend [message #6324 is a reply to message #5960] Tue, 08 October 2002 12:26 Go to previous message
valiant is currently offline  valiant   Switzerland
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K, now it runs on my university's server too and there without problems.
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