One of the most challenging setups you will ever do is to configure innd. This FAQ/TUTORIAL is intended to assist those having difficulties so that you might bring it up quicker. It has been divided into two sections. The first is devoted to the setup of a internal news server on which it is assumed you have compiled and installed the necessary programs and files. The second section is dedicated to the proper configuration to setup a Internet ready news server with as much detail as possible. There should be enough information to get you started. To achieve mastery of the innd server is a fine art that takes time to learn but you are already well on your way if you are reading this page. It is suggested that you use the Netscape Communicator package to test as it is freely available for Linux and windows and is easily referred to when educating end users on the howto ...why... fors. Note as well this is not a Netscape Communicator tutorial so if you do not know how to setup for news on the client you should download Netscape Communicator and get familiar with it's operation in regards to news retrieval.
To begin with look inside /etc/news. You will find that living inside that directory lies all your configuration
including one called 'inn.conf' this file is responsible for determining newserver and domain specific information
and must exist.Inside this file you will find a listing of directives that must exist. They are as
follows fromhost, organization, server, domain, pathhost. There is another described called moderatormailer
this particular directive needs only exist if you are using the moderators file. Since we are describing the
initial setup of a internal only newsserver this is not needed at least for our example. Immediately
below is a simulation of how one might setup this file if your domainname was 'domain.com' and your
newsserver was named 'news' so fill in the information appropiately for your particular scenario.
========================= /etc/news/inn.conf =============================
fromhost: domain.com #default FQDN this sets from: header to domain.com
organization: My organization #default blank this sets organization: header to description
server: news.domain.com #FQ name of news server articles are posted to
domain: domain.com #your domain name goes here eg.domain.com
pathhost: news.domain.com #FQDN of your news server eg. news.domain.com
Next on the agenda is the file called /etc/news/hosts.nntp it contains the names of hosts that feeds the local site news for internal use it is filled in so that any request not coming from the ip or hosts is immediately sent to nnrpd. By filling
this in as below example you can control to a limited degree who can feed you news period. This will assist you in preventing any other hosts from feeding you news unless explicitely stated in this file. If you are using passwords here ensure that
they are not world readable. In coordination with hosts.nntp a file
by the name of hosts.nntp.nolimit whose purpose is to cross reference those hosts that have unrestricted incoming connection limits. An example will be shown for completeness immediately after /etc/news/hosts.nntp sample.
========================= /etc/news/hosts.nntp =============================
localhost: #default host name for 127.0.0.1 as per /etc/hosts
192.168.100.100 #ip address of host that is allowed to feed you news in case DNS fails
hostname.domain.com: #Here is the hostname of the above ip address translates to
news.domain.com: #Here is FQ name of news server
The file /etc/news/hosts.nntp.nolimit contains only one field that specifies the hosts that are allowed
to establish unlimited incoming connections. The default of 'localhost' allows for the localhost to create
as many incoming connections as is desired. Be careful what you place here.
======================= /etc/news/hosts.nntp.nolimit ===========================
localhost #default host name for 127.0.0.1 as per /etc/hosts
Now we can move onto the good part namely the setup required to control the reading and posting of articles to your news server. Here is a example of how you might setup your
/etc/news/nnrp.access file to manage the reading and posting of articles. Special attention must be made to
the colon delimiters used in this file as they are all important.
========================= /etc/news/nnrp.access =============================
*:: -no- : -no- :!* #defaults to no access
localhost:Read Post:::* #localhost is allowed access to Read and Post Articles
*.domain.com:Read Post:uid:passwd:* #Any host from domain.com is allowed to Read and
#Post if they have valid Username and Password
*:Read Post:::*,!to*,!control*,!junk* #Everyone is allowed to Read and Post with
#exceptions being to,control,or junk trees.
Well that is it you need only stop and restart your news server to have the changes take effect.
The experience you have gained here can be directly applied to the next
section which is directly related to setting up a Internet based news server. The below is
slightly more complicated. The result is worth the extra effort if one wishes to connect a news
server to Usenet.
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