Written by Jim Calvin, Jeremy Nelson and Peter N Lewis.
RumorMill 1.1 is a free update to Registered users of RumorMill 1.0.
Contents
Part I
• What RumorMill Does
• News and Usenet
• Setting Up RumorMill
• Where are you running RumorMill?
• Newsgroups
• Newsfeeds
• Save the Preferences
• Site Restrictions
• Security
• Settings
• Users
• Rebuilding the Database
• RumorMill Specfic Advic
• Propagating Articles Downstream
• Big Group Lists, Lots of News
• Phone Connections
• Local Newsgroups
• RumorMill Setup Preference Files
Part II
• Usenet Advice
• Usenet Etiquette
• Usenet Group names
• RFCs: Technical Source
• Advanced Functions
• Speaking Directly to RumorMill
• Group Creation and Deletion
• OVERVIEW.FMT
• Moderated Newsgroups
• Glossary
• Registering
• On-Line Registration
• Off-Line Registration
• Site Licensing
• Warranty
• Fine Print
• Acknowledgements
Usenet Advice
News servers have until recently been largely adminstered by very experienced computer users because the servers were awkward to configure and maintain, and there was whole body of etiquette which surrounded Usenet. RumorMill and servers like it combined with the growth and interest in the Internet have changed the first fact: the servers are easier to configure and maintain.
But the etiquette of Usenet still remains, and exists for very good reasons.
If you intend to participate in distribution of Usenet articles, you should probably familiarise yourself with Usenet terminology and etiquette. A short glossary is included near the end of this documentation, in case you are unfamiliar with the terms used the following sections.
Usenet Etiquette
et·i·quette:n. the conduct or procedure required by good breeding or prescribed by authority to be observed in social or official life
Usenet is a big place, which has been going for a long time, and it involves a lot of people. There are in the order of fifteen thousand newsgroups and more are added daily. Topics of discussion touch on... well, pretty much everything. At a conservative estimate over 10 million words are exchanged every day. Usenet is a place where people socialize, exchange opinions and argue.
Because Usenet is a mix of such diverse people and opinions, users and administrators must be exercise tolerance and restraint. It is also a text medium where it is easy to misunderstand or misinterpret people’s words and intentions.
So etiquette is important: good etiquette helps smooth out social interaction And as an administrator you will be called to enforce rules of etiquette and to judge when people have breached Usenet etiquette. If you do not, administrators who propogate news to you will be called on to enforce restrictions to your site.
No one is asking you to be superhuman, but there is a need to understand the social rules which surround the technology of Usenet.
There are many fines guides on the subject. The Usenet Frequently Asked Questions lists from the newsgroup news.answers are a good place to start. You can access these via FTP from MIT:
<ftp://rtfm.mit.edu//pub/usenet/news.answers/>
You should encourage users who haven’t used Usenet before to read the newsgroup news.announce.newusers and news.newusers.questions, which contains good introductory information including the famous Emily Postnews questions.
Usenet Group names
RumorMill requires you to use Usenet group names if you wish to receive news from, or send news to a Usenet newsgroup. Usenet group names must be all lower case, they can use the alphanumeric character (a-z, 0-9), plus the following special characters:
. - _ +
Newsgroup names are usually dot seperated, eg:
rec.humor.funny
Usenet group names usually belong to a fairly small number of basic hierachies. Even if you intend to run local newsgroups you would probably do well to put them inside a ‘local’ hierachy, so for instance you might have:
local.announce
local.talk
local.project.frisco
local.project.zeta
local.news
Finally, when you accept news from outside keep in mind the following, which is quoted from the news.answers Usenet FAQ:
Usenet newsgroups are named for mostly historical reasons, and
are not intended to be fully general discussion groups for
everything about the named topic. Please accept this and post
articles in their appropriate forums.
RFCs: Technical Source
Request For Comment 977 and RFC 1036 are the basic RFCs for the NNTP protocol. These documents list the commands which are sent back and forth between the server and the client, and between servers. These should only be necessary for software authors, but as an administrator you may find it useful to have some idea how articles are formed and propogated.
RFCs are available on the web and at many quality FTP sites. Try:
RumorMill supports a number of features which are not fully supported in RumorMill Setup. It is possible to access these features using a telnet client.
For instance RumorMill Setup does not currently support much Administrative control over the automatic addition and removal of newsgroups. (This will be supported at a later time.)
Speaking Directly to RumorMill
It is possible to telnet directly RumorMill to configure commands not currently supported by RumorMill Setup. This section will not cover the commands: more information is available on our web site.
We recommend using Nifty Telnet (or the like) rather than NCSA Telnet because NCSA Telnet sends a series of characters when it opens a connection which will cause the first command to return an error.
To connect to the RumorMill server, telnet to port 119. (In Nifty Telnet simply enter my.host.name:119 as the hostname, substituting the appropriate DNS name.) If you are connecting remotely you will need to enter the ‘xpass mypass’ command, where mypass is the password you have previously configured by connecting to RumorMill locally (either using a telnet client or RumorMill Setup).
After that you can issue the ‘help’ command and explore. Most preferences are listed using ‘xpref list’ or ‘xpref get’, and are set using ‘xpref set’. See the RumorMill web site for more information.
Note: RumorMill can run on an arbitrary port, so it is possible that if someone else has already configured RumorMill it is no longer running on port 119.
Group Creation and Deletion
Articles can have headers like "Control: " and "Also-control: " in them. These header lines can contain directives to create (newgroup) and delete (rmgroup) newsgroups. The "Admin Ok's" check boxes determine whether these control directives are executed when the articles are received, or deferred for the administrator to review and control the selective execution of the directives found in those articles.
Currently, in the deferred mode (Admin OKs), there is no way to view the messages from RumorMill Setup; they can only be viewed and executed using the "Execute deferred msgs..." command in RumorMill.
OVERVIEW.FMT
OVERVIEW.FMT is user definable. Create a STR# resource in the RumorMill preferences file called "OVERVIEW.FMT". The format is one header per entry. The header should include the ":". If you want the "full" option, append an "*" to the header string.
Moderated Newsgroups
RumorMill supports moderated Newsgroups, but doesn’t currently E-Mail moderators when unapproved articles are posted to the newsgroups. Unapproved articles posted to moderated groups are currently dumped into the Rejected Article file. These articles will be forwarded via E-Mail to the moderator in a future version.
Glossary
article n. A posting to a newsgroup. Articles following a common subject are said to be in the same thread [of conversation].
cross-post [Usenet] vi. To post a single article simultaneously to several newsgroups. Distinguished from posting the article repeatedly, once to each newsgroup, which causes people to see it multiple times (which is very bad form). Gratuitous cross-posting without a Followup-To line directing responses to a single followup group is frowned upon, as it tends to cause followup articles to go to inappropriate newsgroups when people respond to only one part of the original posting.
DNS name n. Literally Domain Name Server name. A DNS name usually identifies a single computer or service- it is like a Post Office box in the real world. DNS names are mapped by Domain Name Servers to an IP address which is then used to route information to that computer.
downstream n. A news server which is downstream from your news server is fed articles from your news server, ie it is one of the places to which your news server sends articles. Two news server can be both upstream and downstream relative to each other.
host n. Another server on the network. For instance a ‘news host’ is computer on the network which provides news (NNTP) services.
IP number n. An Internet Protocol number uniquely identifies a computer somewhere in the world. IP numbers are used to route information to a computer and identify them the computer on the network.
A computer can have multiple IP numbers but it is relatively rare to from multiple computers to have the same IP number. (An exception is when there is a Redundant Array of Inexpensive Computers which can service heavy loads through a single entry point.) A DNS (Domain Name Server) maps DNS names to IP numbers.
newsfeed n. Another NNTP server which feeds articles to, or receives articles from other NNTP servers. Often refers to a source of Usenet news. Newsfeed, ‘news server’ and host can all be used interchangeably in the correct context.
newsgroup n. [Usenet] One of Usenet's huge collection of topic groups or forums. Usenet groups can be `unmoderated' (anyone can post) or `moderated' (submissions are automatically directed to a moderator, who edits or filters and then posts the results). Some newsgroups have parallel mailing lists for Internet people with no netnews access, with postings to the group automatically propagated to the list and vice versa. Some moderated groups (especially those which are actually gatewayed Internet mailing lists) are distributed as `digests', with groups of postings periodically collected into a single large posting with an index.
NNTP n. Network News Transfer Protocol. This is the protocol that servers (such as RumorMill) use to talk to each other, and clients (such as Newswatcher) use to retrieve and post articles. NNTP is plain-text and human readable, even if it is a little cryptic at times.
push feed n. Large newsfeeds are usually propagated by push feeding. When a new article arrives on a news server (either by someone posting to the news server or another news server feeding it an article) it can propagate the articles by looking up a list of other news servers it is meant to transfer articles to, connecting to them, and telling them the new article has arrived. RumorMill supports push feeding. See also pull.
pull v. RumorMill can act like a client, connect to another NNTP server and pull articles form the news server.
This is also known in the community as a "suck feed." It's weird, but apparently some folks think of "pull" as an inefficient implementation while a "suck" is efficient. This must date back to someone's implementation that did "pull" badly and another one that did "suck" well (or at least better). I must say that I prefer the word "pull" to "suck" ...
See also push feed.
server n. A server is a computer or piece of software which provides a service. Usually humans use servers through another piece of software generically called a ‘client’. For instance RumorMill is a news server, and to read news of a RumorMill you use a news client (like Newswatcher). Web Servers provide web services, which a human can use through a web client (like Netscape).
spam n. An article which is posted to a large number of news groups, usually with little relevance to the most of the newsgroups. Typical spam postings are adverts and Make Money Fast pyramid schemes. Spam is usually more of an annoyance than a problem, but it should definitely be discouraged.
subject n. A single line which should (but often doesn’t) summarise the topic of an article in a newsgroup.
thread n. As in a ‘thread of conversation’. A thread is usually a series of articles in a newsgroup with the same subject line or topic.
upstream n. A news server which is upstream from your news server feeds articles to your news server, ie it is one of the places from which your news server receives articles. Two news server can be both upstream and downstream relative to each other.
Usenet n. [from `Users' Network'; the original spelling was USENET, but the mixed-case form is now widely preferred] Usenet was originally created in the late 1970s as a "poor man's ARPAnet", to distribute news about the Unix Operating System. It has since grown to include over 10,000 separate newsgroups about many different topics. Some newsgroups are "moderated" so that messages have to be approved before anyone can read them, but most newsgroups are unmoderated. In an unmoderated newsgroup, anyone can place messages, and anyone can read them. Most messages are replies to other messages, and thus an endless discussion is formed. Posting to a newsgroup is not unlike writing email.
The Internet is the main medium for the distribution of Usenet News, but it wasn't always so. UUCP used to be the most common way to transfer Usenet, and it is still in use today. All that is required to run a news server is some computer hardware and a "Usenet Feed". Getting a Usenet feed is as simple as asking an existing Usenet site. Any site can feed or be fed by any other site, and thus it is practically impossible to control.
Registering
This program is Shareware, which means if you use it, you must pay for it. A single user license costs US$35. After you have confirmed your registration in RumorMill the Startup splash screen will disappear.
You can pay in one of two ways: on-line registration using a web browser, or off-line registration using the Register program.
On-Line Registration
Our online registration can be found at:
<http://order.kagi.com/cgi-bin/register1.cgi?PL>
Off-Line Registration
Or, using the Register program, you need to:
1. Get hold of a copy of the Register program: Register comes with the RumorMill distribution. You can also get Register from the following sites:
<ftp://ftp.stairways.com/>
<ftp://mirrors.aol.com/pub/peterlewis/>
<ftp://ftp.amug.org/pub/peterlewis/>
..or there are download links on the following Web page:
<http://www.stairways.com/register/topay.html>
2. Run the Register program and fill out the form: You need to enter your name, email, postal address, and the shareware you wish to pay for. The form accepts many different payment methods such as: US Check, Money Order, Cash (in many different currencies), Visa, Mastercard, American Express, First Virtual, and Invoice (to be given to your accounts payable department).
3. Send it to Kagi Shareware: Then either email the data generated by the registration program or print it and send it via postal mail or fax. Credit card information is encoded by the Register program.
The address to send the completed form is output by Register when you Print or Copy the completed form. The addresses are:
Email: shareware@kagi.com
FAX: +1 510 652 6589
Snail-mail:
Kagi Shareware
1442-A Walnut Street #392-PL
Berkeley, California, 94709-1405
USA
You may distribute this program any way you wish as long as you don’t charge for it (reasonable download costs such as Compu$erve are ok (although who would call Compu$erve’s download costs reasonable?)). You must distribute the package in its entirety. We don’t guarantee any support, but we always answer our Email. If we don’t answer Email it is because your message didn’t get to us, or our reply bounced, so please try again and include a valid Internet address if you can.
You MAY NOT DISTRIBUTE this program on any disk or CD without our explicit permission.
Australians may pay in Australian dollars direct to us if they prefer.
Site Licensing
World-wide license: US$2000
Universities or companies site license: US$500
Curtin University and the University of Western Australia are exempt.
A site license covers usage of RumorMill on an unlimited number of machines within 100 miles of some arbitrary central point which are owned by the licensed organization. (A site license will not be useful unless you intend to run more than 14 copies of RumorMill.)
World Wide licenses remove the 100 mile radius restriction.
Warranty
This program should do what is described in this document. If it doesn’t, you can simply stop using it. If you paid for the product, and within a year find that it doesn’t do what has been described here, then you can notify Stairways Shareware and your money will be refunded and your license cancelled.
Fine Print
Peter Lewis hereby disclaims all warranties relating to this software, whether express or implied, including without limitation any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. Peter Lewis will not be liable for any special, incidental, consequential, indirect or similar damages due to loss of data or any other reason, even if Peter Lewis or an agent of his has been advised of the possibility of such damages. In no event shall Peter Lewis be liable for any damages, regardless of the form of the claim. The person using the software bears all risk as to the quality and performance of the software.
US Government
Government End Users: If you are acquiring the Software and fonts on behalf of any unit or agency of the United States Government, the following provisions apply. The Government agrees:
(i) if the Software and fonts are supplied to the Department of Defence (DoD), the Software and fonts are classified as "Commercial Computer Software" and the Government is acquiring only "restricted rights" in the Software, its documentation and fonts as that term is defined in Clause 252.227-7013(c)(1) of the DFARS; and
(ii) if the Software and fonts are supplied to any unit or agency of the United States Government other than DoD, the Government's rights in the Software, its documentation and fonts will be as defined in Clause 52.227-19(c)(2) of the FAR or, in the case of NASA, in Clause 18-52.227-86(d) of the NASA Supplement to the FAR.
Acknowledgements
Jim’s Acknowledgements
Thanks to Ellen for her patience and support while I worked on RumorMill. Thanks to Peter for the opportunity and to Jeremy for chasing too many bugs.
Jim Calvin, author of RumorMill.
Jem’s Acknowledgements
Thanks to Peter for his patience and support. Thanks to Jim for putting up with my amateur efforts: I hope people won’t be put off by RumorMill Setup!
