forum + NNTP on alpine

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#1

I’m trying to get the opensuse forum through NNTP on alpine. I think I succeeded a few years ago, but can’t get it right again.

I got in my .pinerc:
nntp-server=forums.novell.com

I can read, and also send messages… as guest.

So how do I get my “from” address to be myuserid@no-mx.forums.opensuse.org?

Besides, if I want threaded view, whenever I get into a newsgroup it takes quite a while sorting. Is it best with alpine to keep, say less than 200 posts saved to avoid such sorting delays? Or perhaps there’s a setting I’m missing, or I’m asking too much from this venerable program.

Thanks.

#2

Sorry, I meant to post this in the subforum “How the use the forums”.

#3

On 2012-06-14 23:56, p barill wrote:

I posted to you a reply using Alpine and leafnode: it was rejected by the
opensuse news server, I don’t know the reason:


> <7.7> 2012-06-15 01:04:34 Telcontar fetchnews 18245 - -  <200 Welcome to forums.novell.com! (Typhoon v2.1.2.394)
> <7.6> 2012-06-15 01:04:34 Telcontar fetchnews 18245 - -  forums.opensuse.org: connected to 130.57.4.24:119, reply: 200
> <7.7> 2012-06-15 01:04:34 Telcontar fetchnews 18245 - -  >MODE READER
> <7.7> 2012-06-15 01:04:34 Telcontar fetchnews 18245 - -  <200 Welcome to forums.novell.com! (Typhoon v2.1.2.394)
> <7.7> 2012-06-15 01:04:34 Telcontar fetchnews 18245 - -  >GROUP opensuse.org.feedback.forums.comments-suggestions
> <7.7> 2012-06-15 01:04:34 Telcontar fetchnews 18245 - -  <211 4991 2 5059 opensuse.org.feedback.forums.comments-suggestions
> <7.7> 2012-06-15 01:04:34 Telcontar fetchnews 18245 - -  >STAT <alpine.LNX.2.00.1206150055380.5716@Telcontar.valinor>
> <7.7> 2012-06-15 01:04:34 Telcontar fetchnews 18245 - -  <430 No Such Article
> <7.6> 2012-06-15 01:04:34 Telcontar fetchnews 18245 - -  forums.opensuse.org: postarticles: trying to post file 18207-13397150 42-1 Message-ID <alpine.LNX.2.00.1206150055380.5716@Telcontar.valinor>
> <7.7> 2012-06-15 01:04:34 Telcontar fetchnews 18245 - -  >POST
> <7.7> 2012-06-15 01:04:35 Telcontar fetchnews 18245 - -  <340 Send Article to be Posted
> <7.7> 2012-06-15 01:04:35 Telcontar fetchnews 18245 - -  >.
> <7.7> 2012-06-15 01:04:35 Telcontar fetchnews 18245 - -  >STAT <alpine.LNX.2.00.1206150055380.5716@Telcontar.valinor>
> <7.7> 2012-06-15 01:04:35 Telcontar fetchnews 18245 - -  <430 No Such Article
> <7.3> 2012-06-15 01:04:35 Telcontar fetchnews 18245 - -  forums.opensuse.org: postarticles: Article file 18207-1339715042-1 Message-ID <alpine.LNX.2.00.1206150055380.5716@Telcontar.valinor> was rejected: "441 Posting Failed (Rejected by POST filter)"
> <7.3> 2012-06-15 01:04:35 Telcontar fetchnews 18245 - -  moving file 18207-1339715042-1 to failed.postings
> <7.6> 2012-06-15 01:04:35 Telcontar fetchnews 18245 - -  forums.opensuse.org: 0 articles posted.
> <7.7> 2012-06-15 01:04:35 Telcontar fetchnews 18245 - -  >DATE
> <7.7> 2012-06-15 01:04:36 Telcontar fetchnews 18245 - -  <111 20120614230435
> <7.7> 2012-06-15 01:04:36 Telcontar fetchnews 18245 - -  check_date: forums.opensuse.org: server time 1339715075, our time 1339715076

It is the first time since Jul 11 2010 that this happens to me. The other
two posts that failed were also sent from Alpine that year :-/

Maybe the server does not like MIME?

Ok, reposting from Thunderbird.

+++·························

I’m trying to get the opensuse forum through NNTP on alpine. I think I
succeeded a few years ago, but can’t get it right again.

I just setup Alpine to prove I could do it with this answer - it took about
5 minutes :slight_smile:

I got in my .pinerc:
nntp-server=forums.novell.com

I can read, and also send messages… as guest.

So how do I get my “from” address to be
myuserid@no-mx.forums.opensuse.org?

To change the from address in Pine you have to use roles.


Nickname          = forum opensuse
Current Folder Type =
(*)  News


Set From        = "Carlos E. R." <robin_listas@no-mx.forums.opensuse.org>
Set Fcc         = /home/cer/Mail/lists/sent-news
Set Signature   = /home/cer/.sign.lists
Use NNTP Server = localhost

>
> Besides, if I want threaded view, whenever I get into a newsgroup it
> takes quite a while sorting. Is it best with alpine to keep, say less
> than 200 posts saved to avoid such sorting delays? Or perhaps there’s a
> setting I’m missing, or I’m asking too much from this venerable program.

No, Alpine is very fast, threading is intantaneous in my system - the trick
is that I also use leafnode so network lookup is local.

The problem with Alpine and the reason I don’t use it for news is that it
doesn’t track read news posts. I asked about this in the support mail
list and they told me that as Alpine doesn’t generate a local index (same
as it doesn’t for email) it can not store flags in the server, there
are no accounts in the email sense. The only thing you can do is delete a
post, and it disappears.

There are other text mode news clients, though. In the end I turned to
Thunderbird.

·························+±

But then the opensuse server rejected the message, and I don’t understand why.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)

#4

Hi
That use to happen on claws-mail with the ‘References’ header including
a <CR>+<LF> I actually tweak my copy of claws-mail to remove this. I
only had the problem when bellsouth ran a usenet server but my patch is
still in my OBS project…

I figured it out by using wireshark and a trace when trying to post.

Also the OP should probably set the encoding to UTF-8 as well…

–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° (Linux Counter #276890)
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11 (x86_64) Kernel 3.0.31-0.9-default
up 1 day 19:34, 2 users, load average: 0.16, 0.26, 0.22
CPU Intel i5 CPU M520@2.40GHz | Intel Arrandale GPU

#5

Hi
Hmmm the original message was in the general chat forum nntp test
thread… you tried to reply to it here?

–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° (Linux Counter #276890)
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11 (x86_64) Kernel 3.0.31-0.9-default
up 1 day 19:45, 2 users, load average: 0.39, 0.30, 0.25
CPU Intel i5 CPU M520@2.40GHz | Intel Arrandale GPU

#6

On 2012-06-15 01:39, malcolmlewis wrote:
>

> Hi
> Hmmm the original message was in the general chat forum nntp test
> thread… you tried to reply to it here?

No… I replied here only, in
“opensuse.org.feedback.forums.comments-suggestions”. I didn’t see notice
anything in the chit chat. Ah, a test post? I saw two, yes, now that you
say so, but I didn’t pay attention.

Looking…

Yes, I see a post from Philippe there, using Alpine.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)

#7

On 2012-06-15 01:34, malcolmlewis wrote:

> Hi
> That use to happen on claws-mail with the ‘References’ header including
> a <CR>+<LF> I actually tweak my copy of claws-mail to remove this. I
> only had the problem when bellsouth ran a usenet server but my patch is
> still in my OBS project…

Ah, no, not interested in patching Alpine, I don’t like it as a news client :slight_smile:

> I figured it out by using wireshark and a trace when trying to post.

Wow :slight_smile:

> Also the OP should probably set the encoding to UTF-8 as well…

That would be - _s_etup - _c_onfig:


Display Character Set             = <No Value Set: using "UTF-8">

Keyboard Character Set            = <No Value Set>

Posting Character Set             = UTF-8

Unknown Character Set             = <No Value Set>

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)

#8

Thank you for your replies.

I think I got it working. I sent another attempt to the “NNTP Test
Thread - Take II”. I can see that post in Thunderbird too. For some
reason, it takes a lot of time to show up online (site is slow right
now, so it might be another story).

Yes, Roles is what I was looking for, to send from a different address.
However with NNTP server forums.novell.com instead of localhost in my
case.

Concerning the sort speed, I found this in the “Alpine Technical Notes”:

"Sorting large mail folders can be very slow since it requires fetching
all the headers of the mail messages. With UNIX Alpine, only the first
sort is slow since Alpine keeps a copy of all the headers. One exception
is sorting in reverse arrival order. This is fast because no headers
have to be examined. Alpine will show progress as it is sorting. "

So it is slow, in processing 140K messages, and yes it is indeed fast
for reverse arrival, but I prefer news to be threaded. As for the claim
“only the first sort is slow”, I think that only applies to mail, not news
(while sorting is no issue in Thunderbird!). The only sensible thing to do
is to keep news folders lean. While Alpine/leafnode seems to accelerate
things, you lose the “unread” markers. They suggest to kill what you’ve
read, but that defeats the purpose of Alpine/leafnode.

This leafnode integration is quite intriguing. I did not find anything
out there on using Alpine with leafnode (I must say I am quite ignorant
about leafnode). Do you have some suggestions for further reading?

–
P.B. Lecavalier

#9

On Fri, 15 Jun 2012 04:03:18 +0000, p_barill wrote:

> For some reason, it takes a lot of time to show up online (site is slow
> right now, so it might be another story).

If you mean for your NNTP post to show up on the web interface, that’s
because the gateway that moves the posts between the two systems runs
every 10 minutes.

Jim

–
Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator
Forum Use Terms & Conditions at http://tinyurl.com/openSUSE-T-C

#10

On 06/14/2012 11:56 PM, p barill wrote:
> I got in my .pinerc:
> nntp-server=forums.novell.com

as far as i know the ‘correct’ address for the openSUSE forums is via
forums.opensuse.org [port 119], see
http://forums.opensuse.org/faq.php?faq=novfor#faq_nntp

if OTOH you are running a SUSE Linux Enterprise product you should be
somewhere else, i think at forums.suse.com [port 119, but i don’t have a
FAQ cite for that handy…]

–
dd

#11

On 2012-06-15 06:03, p_barill wrote:
> Thank you for your replies.
>
> I think I got it working. I sent another attempt to the “NNTP Test
> Thread - Take II”. I can see that post in Thunderbird too. For some
> reason, it takes a lot of time to show up online (site is slow right
> now, so it might be another story).

The gateway runs on the minutes that end on “6”.

> Yes, Roles is what I was looking for, to send from a different address.
> However with NNTP server forums.novell.com instead of localhost in my case.

Right.

> The only sensible thing to do
> is to keep news folders lean.

But there are no “news folders”. What Pine downloads from the news server
is not stored permanently.

> While Alpine/leafnode seems to accelerate
> things, you lose the “unread” markers. They suggest to kill what you’ve
> read, but that defeats the purpose of Alpine/leafnode.

There are no read/unread markers, such a thing does not exist for news -
unless there has been improvement on this on some alpine version.

> This leafnode integration is quite intriguing. I did not find anything
> out there on using Alpine with leafnode (I must say I am quite ignorant
> about leafnode). Do you have some suggestions for further reading?

Leafnode is a simple nntp (almost)server, designed for former times when
Internet meant a modem. You download the news to local storage, then
disconnect the modem. As far as the reader (any reader) is concerned it is
using a normal nntp server. You posts answers, which are sent upstream when
you tell it to do so, ie, when you connect the modem.

The package detects when you attempt to read a group, and marks it for
downloading the next time. If you stop reading it for several days, it will
not be fetched again, and in time, the local cache will also be deleted.

Years ago I had it automated: I connected the modem and several things
happened simultaneously: news send/fetch, mail send/fetch… When it
finished I disconnected.

The advantage nowdays is that news reading is very fast, there is no delay
from going from any post to another. But the package is not included in the
repos, I made it myself. It is little or no maintained.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)

#12

On 2012-06-15 14:39, dd@home.dk wrote:
> On 06/14/2012 11:56 PM, p barill wrote:
>> I got in my .pinerc:
>> nntp-server=forums.novell.com
>
> as far as i know the ‘correct’ address for the openSUSE forums is via
> forums.opensuse.org [port 119], see
> http://forums.opensuse.org/faq.php?faq=novfor#faq_nntp

One trick available with leafnode is that I use both.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)