Topic: Using SMEServer to also manage Usenet News Feeds locally

[ddstretch]

I'm investigating using SMEServer on my network.

I read Usenet News.

I want to know whether SMEServer has some existing means of acting as a local network store of news bodies which I can access by using offline news readers from my local machines. I would only want to access relatively few newsgroups (no more than 50 at the most), which I would get from my ISP's newsserver.

Can anyone let me know?

Thanks

David D Stretch

[azche24]

Hi, David,

I'm investigating using SMEServer on my network.
 I would only want to access relatively few newsgroups (no more than 50 at the most), which I would get from my ISP's newsserver.

One can install lefnode on the server and open the proper ports for it. It is quite a hand-job and the howto no longer is available.

I had this installation for years on 2 servers, in the end it worked with 6.0x also. But:

It causes lots of traffic and is mostly slow, if you are a very active newsreader and poster. This will only make sense, if more persons read on the same NG - otherwise you should better open the ports for newsreading and let the users do their own stuff.

[ddstretch]

Hello Alexander,

One can install lefnode on the server and open the proper ports for it. It is quite a hand-job and the howto no longer is available.

Thanks for suggesting this. Later on you write:

It causes lots of traffic and is mostly slow, if you are a very active newsreader and poster. This will only make sense, if more persons read on the same NG - otherwise you should better open the ports for newsreading and let the users do their own stuff.

Ah! From what you say, and my own situation, I think it's better to implement your suggestion about letting users do it themselves.

Once again, many thanks for the response.

[azche24]

Hello Alexander,

Ah! From what you say, and my own situation, I think it's better to implement your suggestion about letting users do it themselves.

Sorry, i forgot: Be careful. There is tons of junk floating round in the NGs. If you let your users do it theirselves, you get a potential security risk, virii and perhaps lots of traffic also.

It depends on your users. With leafnode you can control,  which NGs are allowed. You can perhaps block all alt.binary.* or such.

[stefan24]

I'm investigating using SMEServer on my network.

I read Usenet News.

me, too.

So I compiled leafnode 2.x alpha on my SME, edited the /etc/leafnode/config file and have an excellent news server now.

advantages: I have several external news servers, but only one internal for my news client. The new news postings can be fetched in a cron job and can be read very quickly by the client, when going (locally) online.

disadvantages: leafnode scales very badly and is not suited for lots of users fetching lots of different newsgroups.

I have not done any SME panel integration, but edit the config file, when necessary.