Subject: Linux News HOWTO
From: [email-masked] (Vince Skahan)
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.announce,comp.os.linux.admin,comp.answers,news.answers

Archive-name: linux/howto/news
Last-modified:  26 January 1994 

The Linux News HOWTO
by Vince Skahan, <[email-masked]>
v1.6, Last Modified 26 January 1994
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

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 provide
USENET news as a feature of your system.

0.  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
SLS 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.

0.1 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.

0.2 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.

	Feedback concerning the actual format of the document should go to
	the HOWTO coordinator - Matt Welsh ([email-masked]).

0.3 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 like to be notified of any such distributions.

    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, and would like to be notified of any plans to
    redistribute the HOWTOs.

    We further want that ALL information provided in the HOWTOS is
    disseminated. If you have questions, please contact Matt Welsh, the
    Linux HOWTO coordinator, at [email-masked], or +1 607 256 7372.

0.4 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.

0.5 Other sources of information

	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.

	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
    "one-stop-shopping" source for information on news, mail, and various
    other Internet resources.

0.6 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.

1.0 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.

2.0 Getting USENET News software 

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

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

	The newspak-2.0.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 
	on sunsite.unc.edu in the directory /pub/Linux/system/Mail.

3.0 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.

3.1 Cnews Performance 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.

	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.  

	In addition, it requires external threading packages for the
	various newsreaders, although the NOV package can now be hooked in
	to help somewhat and it's rumored to have native NOV support in the
	upcoming 'cleanup' release.

	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 newspak-2.0.tar.z distribution on sunsite contains working
	config files for Cnews under Linux as well as a couple line patch
	you'll need to make to 'doexplode' to get around some problems with
	bash1.12.  bash1.13 is now available on the various Linux archive
	sites that should help.

3.1.1 Installing Cnews

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

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

	When you start the actual compilation, it'll blow up a couple of
	times.  In all cases, you'll need to simply comment out a couple of
	atoi() and atol() macros that gcc doesn't like when your doit.bin
	compilation blows up.  

	Also, you need the following tiny change to doexplode to get around
	some bash1.12 bugs or else you won't feed anything downstream...

	[...from Steve Robbins -  [email-masked] ...]

	if [ ! -f $f ] ; then continue; fi	        # add this line
	#	case "$f" in                            # comment me out
	#	"out.master/[0-9]*")	break ;;	# comment me out
	#	esac                                    # comment me out

	Henry Spencer of Cnews fame says that the code in doexplode that is
	currently causing problems with bash is on the list to be revised in
	a future release.

	It is uncertain at this time if the need for this patch goes away
	if you switch to the beta bash1.13 now available for Linux.

3.1.2 Configuring Cnews

	At the very least, you need to edit 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

3.1.3 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 (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
	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 

3.2 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.

	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.

3.2.1 Installing INN

	[... from Arjan de Vet - [email-masked] ...]

	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).

3.2.2 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 for it.  You'll be glad you did.

3.2.3 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 ]

3.3 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

4.0 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 the SLS distribution of
	Linux.

	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 :-)

4.1 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

4.2 Trn/Mthreads

	trn is a threaded derivative of the 'rn' newsreader.  trn3.3 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-2.0.tar.z 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' :-)

	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:
		- add all the settings in a file called ~/.trnrc
		- export TRNINIT="~/.trnrc"

	A future newspak will have 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.

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

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

4.3 NN

	The newspak-2.0.tar.z distribution on sunsite contains working
	config files for nn6.4.18 that you can drop into place and type
	'make' under Linux.  

	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 probably want to run nnmaster as a cron
	entry rather than as a daemon.  If you run it as a daemon under
	linux, it doesn't 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
	25 * * * * /usenet/sw/nn/lib/nnmaster

	# expire the nn database
	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 

4.4 Other newsreaders

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

		tass, xrn, gnus

5.0 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...

#=============================================================================

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

6.1 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 SLS with
	the port of mailx-5.3b.tar.z from the pub/Linux/system/Mail dir on
	sunsite.unc.edu and make it mode 2755 and group mail (like 'elm')
	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.

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

	Because until very recently, SLS didn't have a 'news' username or
	group in the default passwd/group files.

	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'.

6.3 Why can I post articles locally, but they don't get fed downstream ?

	Probably because you didn't call newsrun from cron.  Maybe because
	you edited your sys file and messed it up.  There are examples of
	each in the SLS /usr/local/lib/news directory.  Maybe because you
	don't have a /usr/spool/news/out.going tree or something.

	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.

6.4 Why doesn't SLS have the 'Performance Release' of C-news?

	Because it's optional.  Because it has problems under Linux in some
	places.  Because the one in SLS is more stable and plenty fast
	enough on any type of reasonable system (IMHO). If you need any
	more convincing, here's a few excerpts from the C-news README.new
	file:

		"This is the 20 Feb 1993 Performance Release of C News, a
		minor update to the 2 May 1992 P.R. that just fixes some
		installation problems and a couple of annoying bugs"...

		"This release is more or less a halfway step to what we've
		been calling the "cleanup release"...

		"People who are happy with the older C News might want to
		wait for the cleanup release, which is still coming
		although behind schedule"...

	Mainly because at the time SLS1.01 came out, the compilers and libs
	didn't like the Performance Release too much.

6.5 Why doesn't SLS 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.

6.6 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.

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

	Older versions of Linux had a 'broken' sed that C-news 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.

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

	Yes.  trn3.3 supports it now.  The next version of tin will.
	
	You can hook it into the Performance Release 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 for a copy of it.

6.9  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.

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

	[... [email-masked] (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:/news/nntp
		rn-4.4.pl3.tar.Z from ftp.uu.net:/news/rn

	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
	authorized 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 make the link /usr/local/lib/news/inews -> /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-masked]
		Subject: Testing
		Reply-To: [email-masked]

		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.
	:)

6.11 How do I build 'rrn' as a nntp-based newsreader/poster ?

	[... [email-masked] (Matt Welsh) ...]

	1. cd to the rn source directory and do "./Configure". For almost all
	the questions, take the defaults (it's very smart).  Make sure you
	have a link to "cpp" (usually in /usr/lib/gcc-lib/i386-linux/2.3.3) in
	/lib, so rn can find it.

	- Don't panic if it says you're on a NeXT or a USG system. Just go
	with the flow...

	- Answer "y" to "Do you expect to run these scripts and binaries on
	multiple machines?"

	- For your domain name: if your system is, say, "foo.bar.com", answer
	with just "bar.com" (the domain, not the entire hostname).

	- Answer "usenet" for the name of the user which is the news admin.

	- For "Where is your news library?" use the directory where the above
	NNTP files are kept: I use /usr/local/lib/news.

	- Man page source is in /usr/man/man1.

	- Answer "y" to "Does your /etc/passwd file keep full names in
	Berkeley/V7 format?"

	- Answer "gcc" to the name of the compiler which forces resolution.

	- Answer "y" to "Do you want to build the NNTP version of rn (rrn)?"

	- For the name of the news server file: use the same name you used
	when building inews, above (for me, /usr/local/lib/news/server).

	Don't run makedepend yet! Go to the next step:

	2) Edit config.h. Change the "#define ROOTID ..." line to
		#define ROOTID 0
	if it isn't already. 

	3) In rrn-4.4.pl3, there is a small bug with SIGEMT: it doesn't exist
	on Linux. rn used SIGEMT to check if a process is still running;
	however, under POSIX.1 we can instead just send the process a 
	signal 0.

	Edit init.c. On line 243, note the following:
		if (kill(processnum, SIGEMT)) {
	Change this to
		if (kill(processnum, 0)) {

	You may wish to #ifdef it out instead; it's up to you. Don't just define
	SIGEMT to be zero; this will break the sigignore() call in final.c.

	4) Issue "makedepend > makedepend.out". 

	5) Issue "make". Rn should compile happily.

	6) Issue "make install". 

	You're all set. Keep in mind that rn does in fact eat a lot of memory
	(as does any newsreader), handling the newsgroups file. So when you 
	first run rn, it might be a little slow building your .newsrc and
	checking for new groups. If you're impatient, copy a .newsrc from
	somewhere else and use that.