XPost: news.software.anu-news 
 From: sloane@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu 
  
 Archive-name: anu-faq 
  
 FAQ for NEWS.SOFTWARE.ANU-NEWS. Last update 24-Aug-1998. 
  
  
  
 This monthly posting is edited by Bob Sloane, University of Kansas. 
 Please send any suggestions for improvement to sloane@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu. 
  
 1.  What is ANU News? 
  
 ANU NEWS is a computer-based conferencing system for OpenVMS systems.  ANU 
 NEWS can be connected into the Global USENET news network and/or any other 
 news network.  ANU NEWS supports both DECnet and TCP/IP (Multinet, WIN/TCP, 
 Ultrix Connection, EXCELAN TCP, and CMU) as transports. 
  
 The current version of ANU NEWS is 6.2. 
  
 2.  Purpose of News.software.anu-news 
  
 The purpose of news.software.anu-news is to discuss any and all ANU NEWS 
 related issues.  It is the primary support channel for ANU NEWS users. 
 New versions, fixes, workarounds, etc are posted to the newsgroup.  Bug 
 reports/fixes and suggestions for improvement are always welcome.  Please 
 always RTFM (Read The Friendly Manual) before posting. 
  
 3.  How to subscribe 
  
 On USENET, news.software.anu-news is a regularly available newsgroup.  In 
 general, it is preferable to read the newsgroup instead of the mailing list. 
  
 Email users may send MAIL to LISTSERV@listserv.NoDak.EDU or 
 LISTSERV@NDSUVM1 with the first line of the TEXT or BODY of mail 
 being: 
  
       SUB ANU-NEWS firstname lastname   (e.g. SUB ANU-NEWS John Doe ). 
  
  
 4.  Frequently Asked Questions: 
  
 Q: How do I acquire a copy of ANU News?  A: ANU News is available for 
    anonymous FTP from kuhub.cc.ukans.edu (Kansas, USA).  Other sites may 
    also have it available.. 
  
    Archives of the mailing list/newsgroup are available via anonymous ftp 
    from listserv.nodak.edu. 
  
    Patches are available via anonymous ftp from perl.newman.upenn.edu. 
  
 Q: Does anybody have documentation for ANU News? 
 A: At the anonymous FTP sites, you will find another compressed backup 
    saveset called something like NEWS_V61-BETA10_DOC.ZIP.  It contains the 
    documentation for ANU News. 
  
 Q: What should I do about all these compilation errors in V6.1b10? 
  
 A: The u_int problem is fixed by an ECO from Cisci/TGV.  Ftp to 
    eco.tgv.cisco.com, username anonymous, password decc052h, grab 
    the header files, and put them in [multinet.include.sys]. 
  
    The getopt problems are cured by editing inpaths.c and changing all 
    strings "getopt" to "my_getopt". 
  
    You may also need to edit nntpinclude.h and delete the definition 
    of getpeername around line 127 
  
    You may also need to edit newsutility.c and delete the definition of 
 sleep. 
  
    You may still get a few warnings but you can probably ignore them. 
    (Thanks to James Kirkpatrick for this answer) 
  
 Q: Does ANU News support XOVER in the NNTP Server? 
 A: Well, sort of.  There is some simple minded XOVER code in the V6.1b10 
    server.  First, you needed to get patch 950817_NNTP_SERVER.PATCH 
    from the patch archives at perl.newman.upenn.edu and apply it.  Then put 
    "#define XOVER" near the beginning of NNTP_SERVER.C and rebuild NEWS. 
    A better version of XOVER support is available in V6.2, but the 
    "#define XOVER" is still needed. 
  
 Q: NEWS is sending everything I get back to my feed system. What do I do? 
 A: Make sure that the system name in NEWS.SYS matches what your feed 
    system puts in the Path: header. 
  
 Q: I am remote reading (diskless client) with ANU from a Cnews site and 
    my users regularly crash due to memory problems. 
 A: Verify that NNTP on the Cnews side is returning the correct message 
    numbers on the list command.  If not, then ask the remote system's news 
    administrator to run upact on a regular basis to update the number in 
    the active file. 
  
 Q: How do I connect to an NNTP server? 
 A: Try "news/netsever=newshost/netproto=tcp" where "newshost" is the name 
    of the NNTP server. Note this connects over a TCP/IP network and requires 
    that News was built to support to support that service. Also requires 
    that the server accept a connection from your system. 
  
 Q: News is awfully slow to start up. Especially for NNTP connections. 
 A: News> set profile/fastload 
    Will configure news to only load those newsgroup in which you are 
 registered. 
    This makes the start up considerably faster but you don't have access to 
    groups you're not registered in.  There have been reports of problems 
    such as access violations and hangs when using this feature. 
  
 Q: News is still slow to start up to an NNTP server. 
 A: News> set profile/display=(unseenstack,nolines,nopost) 
    Will configure news to only show you new articles and will not retrieve 
    the line count or posting date. This is especially useful if you're 
    running off of an NNTP server that doesn't support ANU extensions to 
 NNTP. 
    Retrieving line counts and posting dates is notoriously time consuming. 
  
 Q: How do I get a signature file appended to my articles? 
 A: News> set profile/signature=file.name 
    Note you should keep your signature file brief -- no more than three 
    lines. 
  
 Q: How do I get my full name into my return address? 
 A: News> set profile/personal_name="Your Name" 
  
 Q: I want to use emacs as my editor. 
 A: News> set profile/editor=emacs 
    Note this requires, of course, that you have emacs installed on your 
    system. 
  
 Q: Command recall doesn't work. 
 A: Of course it does -- use CTRL-B to go back a command. The arrow keys 
    have been bound to other commands.  If you would prefer to use the arrow 
    keys for command recall, then do: News> set profile/line_editing 
  
 Q: Do I need this big newsrc. file? 
 A: News> set profile/rcfilter 
    Will store only the registered groups in your newsrc. file, this makes 
    rewritting the file quicker. Note that this will prevent you from 
    accessing any groups not in your newsrc. file. 
  
 Q: I want to display groups in a different order. 
 A: News> set profile/rcorder 
    Will display newsgroups in the order they are listed in your newsrc. 
    file -- edit the file to order things accordingly. 
  
 Q: I have just installed the NEWS server software.  When I ran it the first 
    time, I got the message: 
         RMS-E-FNF, file not found 
         RMS-F-IFI, invalid internal file identifier 
 A: Either there is some problem with your NEWS logicals, the NEWS 
    executable is not properly installed, or the account that you started 
    NEWS from the first time doesn't have the NEWS manager id granted to it. 
  
 Q: I am having problems getting KILL filters to work. 
 A: In some versions of NEWS there is a bug in KILL/FROM.  Just do 
    MODIFY KILL n where n is the number of the kill filter that isn't 
    working and delete the from: from the beginning of the filter. 
 -- 
 USmail: Bob Sloane, University of Kansas Computer Center, Lawrence, KS, 
 66045 
 E-mail: sloane@ukans.edu http://www.ukans.edu/home/sloane Phone:(785)864- 
 0444 
 -- 
 -- 
 USmail: Bob Sloane, University of Kansas Computer Center, Lawrence, KS, 
 66045 
 E-mail: sloane@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu, Phone: (913) 864-0444, FAX: (913) 864- 
 0485 
  
 --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05 
  * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)