roc.pl!not-for-mail
Subject: How to add pl.* hierarchy to a news server (FAQ)
Supersedes: <news-pl-new-site-faq-1-825729302@ict.pwr.wroc.pl>
Date: 2 Apr 1996 00:15:09 -0000
Summary: Information how to get Polish national news hierarchy (pl.*) at your
.news server, where to get it from, what it is and how to configure
.your news server to get the proper propagation of all the articles,
.newgroup messages and moderated postings.
X-Archive: ftp://ftp.ict.pwr.wroc.pl/pub/faq-pl/news-pl-new-site-faq.1
.and http://www.ict.pwr.wroc.pl/doc/news-pl-new-site-faq.html
Frequency: Posted monthly, on 2nd day of the month.
X-Copyright: (c) 1994-1996 Tomasz R. Surmacz.  The following text may
.be copied in verbatim form (in whole or partial) for *private* (ie.
.non-commecial) use, transported via news, e-mail, stored on a WWW
.or ftp server, etc.
Xref: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu soc.culture.polish:52044 news.admin.hierarchies:869 soc.answers:4927 news.answers:68388

Posted-By: auto-faq 3.1.1.2
Archive-name: usenet/pl-news-hierarchy

How to add pl.* hierarchy to a news server

This document contains the most important things related to adding the pl.*
news hierarchy to a news server or just configuring the server to carry it
properly if pl.* groups are already there. It is intended mainly for news
system administrators (and Polish users abroad trying to convince their news
administrators to get "pl.*" groups). This is a detailed step-by-step
instruction but if it seems too elementary for you - look at the end for a
quick checklist (Use your favourite key sequence to find '=====').

If you are a news administrator at some site and somebody has asked you to
participate in distribution of pl.* groups, then read on.

If you are a news user, who wants to read the pl.* groups on his default news
server - you should find the news administrator, kindly ask him if he could
arrange receiving the pl.* newsgroups and send him this article (or the pointer
to the HTML version at
http://www.ict.pwr.wroc.pl/doc/news-pl-new-site-faq.html), to make his job
easier.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There are few things to do, if you are going to receive the pl.* news
hierarchy, but the most important ones are:

   *  getting the pl.* groups sent to you,
   *  sending pl.* groups back (so that your users can POST),
   *  configuring the hierarchy for the automatic creation of new groups.
   *  appropriate handling of postings to moderated groups.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1. Getting the articles.

Contact the news administrator at the news server already carrying pl.* groups.
Try to find the nearest one. The best of course is when pl.* groups are carried
over your 'normal' feed - ie. together with other news hierarchies. But as the
pl.* news are quite young (first groups were created about June 1994), there
are not many news servers outside of Poland having them, so you may have to
create a special new feed for them. Below is the list of some servers outside
Poland (and some in Poland) carrying pl.*, that I know of. It is not very long
(nor complete) as you see. If the contact address is not explicitly listed, try
'usenet' at the news server's address, as 'usenet@news.ict.pwr.wroc.pl'.

USA/Cleveland   news.wariat.org       zbig@wariat.org (Zbigniew J. Tyrlik)
USA/Connecticut news.miracle.net      jacek@miracle.net (Jacek A. Ponarski)
USA             uunet.uu.net [new!] (X 1995)
USA             gail.ripco.com
USA             news.mcs.com
USA             ratty.wolfe.net
USA             news.sprintlink.net
USA             news.uoregon.edu      newsadmin@news.uoregon.edu
    and many more

Sweden          sunet.se              (existing feeds only!)
Germany         news.uni-stuttgart.de news@news.uni-stuttgart.de (Kurt Jaeger)
Germany         news.desy.de          Kars Ohrenberg [new!] (XII 1995)
Australia       news.ozemail.com.au
Australia       news.mel.aone.net.au [new!] (XI 1995)

Poland          news.ict.pwr.wroc.pl  tsurmacz@ict.pwr.wroc.pl (Tomasz Surmacz)
Poland          news.fuw.edu.pl       michalj@fuw.edu.pl (Michal Jankowski)
Poland          news.mimuw.edu.pl     usenet@news.mimuw.edu.pl

    and all existing news servers in Poland (check
    http://www.ict.pwr.wroc.pl/pzs/pzs_nntp.html for the complete list)

Send e-mail to any of the above news administrators, asking him to feed you
pl.* hierarchy. Include your news server addresses: the internet address of the
server and its 'news name' ie. the string which is put in the 'Path:' header.
Unfortunately, sunet.se seems to be overloaded with its newsfeeds, so its
administrators will not give you a 'new feed', but if you already have one -
just ask for the pl.* hierarchy to be added to your existing feed. Otherwise,
contact other people from this list.

In reply you should get appropriate host name/news name for the host you will
be receiving pl.* articles from. (The first will be exactly as in the list
above (let it be "sample.site.pl", but the 'Path:' address is usually a bit
different - say "news.pl".) You should also get the current list of all pl.*
groups that you ought to create manually. This list is also posted regularly to
pl.answers and pl.news.admin groups (you may connect to news.ict.pwr.wroc.pl to
get access to these groups before you establish the proper feed for pl.* for
yourself). You can get the part of newsgroups and active file also via ftp, as
stated below.

Add the internet address (sample.site.pl) to your hosts.nntp file and restart
the server or do a "ctlinnd reload hosts.nntp '' ", if you are running INND.
This way you start recognizing the other host as the news server and not a
client. The 'PathHost' ("news.pl" in our example) will be needed for the second
step - sending news back.

Now - create all the groups. You should get the list in the format of the
active file, so this little script should do the job:

--------------------------- add_pl.sh ------------------------------
#!/bin/sh
# Usage: add_pl file_containing_pl_groups_in_active_format
# such as ftp://ftp.ict.pwr.wroc.pl/pub/faq-pl/pl.active

# change this to reflect your configuration
ACTIVE=/usr/lib/news/active
PATH=$PATH:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/lib/news/bin

# Pause the server  (assuming innd)
ctlinnd pause 'updating active'

cp ${ACTIVE} ${ACTIVE}.bak
awk '{ printf ("%s 0000000000 0000000001 %s\n", $1, $4); }' < $1 >> $(ACTIVE)

ctlinnd reload active 'updating active'
ctlinnd go 'updating active'
----------------------------------------------------------------------

or if there are not too many groups, then (for INND only):

--------------------------- add_pl_small.sh --------------------------
#!/bin/sh
# Usage: add_pl_small file_containing_pl_groups_in_active_format
# such as ftp://ftp.ict.pwr.wroc.pl/pub/faq-pl/pl.active

# change this to reflect your configuration
PATH=$PATH:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/local/news/bin

while read group last first type ; do
        ctlinnd newgroup ${group} ${type}
done < $1
----------------------------------------------------------------------

You should also get the descriptions of all the pl.* groups so just 'cat >>'
them to the end of your 'newsgroups' file. The current list of all pl.* groups
(updated daily) can be downloaded via ftp from the following address:

    ftp://ftp.ict.pwr.wroc.pl/pub/faq-pl/pl.newsgroups

The portion of current 'active' file containing only pl.* groups can be found
at:

    ftp://ftp.ict.pwr.wroc.pl/pub/faq-pl/pl.active

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

moderators file:

All the postings to the moderated groups under pl.* should be sent to
news-group-name@usenet.pl (with dots in the group name replaced by hyphens) -
so to your 'moderators' file add the following somewhere near the beginning:
so to your 'moderators' file add the following somewhere near the beginning:
                                                                         [new!]
    pl.*:%s@usenet.pl

Up until July 1995 the following address was the only official address for
moderated postings in the pl.* hierarchy:

    pl.*:%s@moderators.fuw.edu.pl

In August 1995 it has been obsoleted by the domain "usenet.pl" but it will
still be supported (although not recommended) until end of June 1996, so that
all the news administrators of servers carrying pl.* groups have enough time to
switch to the new address. If you have put this address to your moderators file
some time ago, change it now, please.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

control.ctl file:

To get all new pl.* groups created and removed automatically when needed, add
the following to the control.ctl file:

newgroup:michalj@*fuw.edu.pl:pl.*:doit=newgroup
rmgroup:michalj@*fuw.edu.pl:pl.*:doit=rmgroup
newgroup:newgroup@usenet.pl:pl.*:doit=newgroup
rmgroup:newgroup@usenet.pl:pl.*:doit=rmgroup

Please note, there is *NO* dot between the first star and 'fuw'. As far as now,
only the first of the above two addresses is used, but it may change in future.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

expire.ctl file:

This is completely your (or your users) policy, how long to keep the postings
in each group, but let me suggest you just one thing. There is a special group
pl.answers which is much like all *.answers groups - it is moderated and all
articles there are sent periodically with the appropriate 'Expires:' and
'Supersedes:' headers, so it would be best, if these were respected. If your
'standard' entry is like: '*:A:1:10:never' - ie. 'never' remove articles with
'Expires:' header before they expire - don't worry about pl.answers. But if you
force all articles to be expired after say 10 days - please make an exception
and add to the expire.ctl:

       pl.answers:A:1:10:never

or:

       pl.answers:A:1:10:60

which means keep articles there for at least 1 day, usually 10 days if there is
no 'Expires:' header, otherwise respect the header (but in the latter case -
not longer than 60 days even if Expires: header says it should be kept longer).
All the articles have maximum 30-40 days expiration period, so any of the above
will be ok. (It is a good idea to respect these headers in other groups too,
anyway).

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2. Sending news:

Unless you are receiving pl.* groups through your mainstream feed, you need to
reconfigure a bit your server to send pl.* groups back. And even if you are
receiving them through your normal feeds, please make sure they are included in
the list of groups sent out.

When you asked for a pl.* feed, you also got permission to send all pl.* groups
back, so to your 'newsfeeds' file (that's in innd; in cnews it is called 'sys')
add appropriate entry for sending the pl.* groups back. Use the 'pathhost' name
(in our example - "news.pl") that you have got, to build the entry. For
example, in innd (assuming getting news from sample.site.pl and sending them
back there) it might look like:

    plnews/news.pl\
        :!*,pl.*\
        :Tf,Wnm:

(replace "news.pl" with what appears in the Path: field put there by the site
feeding you) and then you also need to tell your cron job sending news, to send
them also to "sample.site.pl". If you are using nntpsend/innxmit, add to the
nntpsend.ctl file:

    plnews:sample.site.pl:::-T1720 -t300
    ^      ^                ^
    |      |                + Other useful parameters
    |      Internet addres of your pl.* provider
    +-- Name used in newsfeeds file.

That should be all... You may now post a test message to pl.test and expect a
reply in e-mail within a day or so, as there is an automatic pl.test responder
attached to one of the servers in Poland. If your test posting reaches it - get
yourself a beer, as you have done a good work. :-) If you do not want to get
the reply message - just include the word 'ignore' in the message subject or
body.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    =======================================================================

Once again, step by step, in short:

You probably know your news system better than me, so these detailed
descriptions may be unnecessary. If you know how to do most of things, use this
short 'checklist' instead:

   *  Contact the news administrator at the other end and get the feed for pl.*
     groups
   *  Add all existing groups to the 'active' file
   *  Add groups' descriptions to your 'newsgroups' file
   *  Add these 4 lines to the control.ctl file:

         newgroup:michalj@*fuw.edu.pl:pl.*:doit=newgroup
         rmgroup:michalj@*fuw.edu.pl:pl.*:doit=rmgroup
         newgroup:newgroup@usenet.pl:pl.*:doit=newgroup
         rmgroup:newgroup@usenet.pl:pl.*:doit=rmgroup

     And please note, that there is no dot before 'fuw'!

   *  Add this line to the 'moderators' file:                            [new!]

         pl.*:%s@usenet.pl

   *  Check the expiration policy for all 'normal' groups, and if possible try
     respecting the 'Expires:' headers in pl.answers group by putting 'never'
     or '60' in the last field of entry in expire.ctl file.
   *  Modify your 'newsfeeds' file to feed all the pl.* groups back, so the
     articles posted by your users will be transferred to other servers.
   *  Send a test posting to pl.test and check whether you receive a reply by
     e-mail.
   *  Send a short message to tsurmacz@news.ict.pwr.wroc.pl saying you have
     added pl.* to your news server, so I can keep the list of servers up to
     date (as long as it does not grow beyond a resonable size) and keep track
     of how far pl.* groups are propagated.
   *  If your usenet neighbours want to get pl.* groups, send them this
     'starter kit' or point them to the newest version. There should be a copy
     in news.answers, news.admin.hierarchies, pl.answers and pl.news.admin at
     *your* server, but if not, you may always get one from:

       ftp://ftp.ict.pwr.wroc.pl/pub/faq-pl/news-pl-new-site-faq.1
       http://www.ict.pwr.wroc.pl/doc/news-pl-new-site-faq.html

That's all.

If you have any comments on the above procedure or my description, please do
tell me, so I can improve it.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tomasz Surmacz (tsurmacz@ict.pwr.wroc.pl), 21.12.1995
-- 
 _________
(_   _' __) Tomasz R. Surmacz *----* Work:(071)202636 tsurmacz@ict.pwr.wroc.pl
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