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Posted-By: auto-faq 3.1.1.2
Archive-name: news-pl-new-site-faq

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.  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 this article is just
for you.

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
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 all servers outside Poland (and some in
Poland) carrying pl.*, that I know of.  It is not very long as you see.
If the contact address is not explicitly listed, try 'usenet' at the
news server address, as 'use...@news.ict.pwr.wroc.pl'.

USA/Cleveland   news.wariat.org         zb...@wariat.org (Zbigniew J. Tyrlik)
USA             gail.ripco.com
USA             news.mcs.com
USA             ratty.wolfe.net (news.sprintlink.net)
USA             news.uoregon.edu        news...@news.uoregon.edu
    and many more

Sweden          sunet.se                (existing feeds only!)
Germany         news.uni-stuttgart.de   ne...@news.uni-stuttgart.de (Kurt Jaeger)

Poland          news.ict.pwr.wroc.pl    tsur...@ict.pwr.wroc.pl (T. Surmacz)
Poland          news.fuw.edu.pl         mic...@fuw.edu.pl (Michal Jankowski)
Poland          news.mimuw.edu.pl	use...@news.mimuw.edu.pl
    and all existing news servers in Poland

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 names, from the host you will
be receiving pl.* articles.  (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 will also get the current list of
all pl.* groups that you should manually create.  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 may get the
part pd 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

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

PATH=$PATH:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/local/news/bin

while read group first last 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 up-to-date
list of all pl.* groups (updated every night) 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-gr...@moderators.fuw.edu.pl (with dots in the group name
replaced by hyphens) - so to your 'moderators' file add the following:

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


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

Please note, there is *NO* dot between the first star and 'fuw'.

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:

       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
no 'Expires:' header, otherwise respect the header (but in the latter
case - not longer than 60 days even with 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:

When you asked for a pl.* feed, you also got permission to send all pl.*
groups back, so to your 'newsfeeds' (in innd; in cnews - 'sys') file add
appropriate entry for sending the pl.* groups back.  Use the 'pathhost'
name (in our example - "news.pl") 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 2 lines to the control.ctl file:
    newgroup:michalj@*fuw.edu.pl:pl.*:doit=newgroup
    rmgroup:michalj@*fuw.edu.pl:pl.*:doit=rmgroup
  And please note, that there is no dot before 'fuw'!

* Add this line to the 'moderators' file:
    pl.*    %s...@moderators.fuw.edu.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 expires.ctl file.

* 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 tsur...@cyber.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).

* 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 pl.answers and pl.news.admin at *your* server soon, but if not,
  you may always get one from:

  ftp://ftp.ict.pwr.wroc.pl/pub/faq-pl/news-pl-new-site-faq.1
  ftp://sprocket.ict.pwr.wroc.pl/pub/doc/news-pl-new-site-faq.txt
  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  (tsur...@ict.pwr.wroc.pl), 8.06.1995