by Last modified: May 2, 1993
[... with this version, I'm trying something new. People with modern
newsreaders (ie...'nn') will see multiple articles that they can
auto-select or kill as they desire rather than having to fight through
what is becoming a rather large FAQ - please let me know how you
(hopefully) like it ...]
[... the major change in this version is an extensive discussion of how
to set up nntp - courtesy of Matt Welsh - and a how-to-set-up on
sendmail+IDA from me ...]
[... to go to the next topic quickly, you may be able to /^Subject/...]
Introduction
------------
It seems that the same questions regarding the design philosophy and the
care-and-feeding of uucp, mail, and news software keep coming up as people
join the list of Linux users who want to get their systems attached to
Internet or USENET.
The intent of this document is to answer some of the questions and comments
that appear to meet the definition of 'frequently asked questions' regarding
uucp, mail, and news software and Linux in general (and the versions in the
SLS distribution in particular).
Comments, corrections, and suggestions (via e-mail only) are welcomed...
From: vi...@victrola.sea.wa.us (Vince Skahan)
Subject: UUCP-NEWS-MAIL-FAQ: Caveats
------------------------------------
Please do not even bother to try to become a *nix USENET site unless you're
willing to try to learn a lot. It's not trivial if you're not willing to make
the effort. If you spend that time at the beginning, you can run a
full-fledged site with almost no sustaining labor required.
For what it's worth, I recommend that all USENET admins:
1. read the news.admin hierarchy and news.answers.
2. learn what's in the 'how to find sources' FAQ and how
to get sources, files, and FAQs via e-mail, uucp, and ftp
3. lean on your more experienced uucp neighbors to help you
4. participate in the news.* hierarchy and the comp.mail.*
hierarchy on USENET. Just reading them will eliminate
most of the frequently-asked-questions you'll come up with.
5. buy 'Zen and the Art of Internet' or the 'Whole Internet Guide'
from a local technical bookstore so you learn what you're
connecting to.
6. buy 'Managing UUCP and USENET', which is, in my opinion, the
best book out there for figuring out the programs and
protocols involved in being a USENET site.
7. buy 'Unix Communications' for a nice description of all the
pieces (and more) and how they fit together.
8. read 'How to Become a USENET Site' in news.answers before you
go to the trouble of becoming one.
9. realize that you'll be lost at the beginning and don't let it
bother you.
Please don't expect the care and feeding of USENET uucp, news, and mail to be
spoon-fed to you. It won't happen. You'll need to spend time learning.
You should probably spend money buying some of the fine books out there for
the reading. Please don't think that this is Prodigy or something where
somebody gives you preset software and a phone number and you're online.
From: vi...@victrola.sea.wa.us (Vince Skahan)
Subject: UUCP-NEWS-MAIL-FAQ: Software currently known to work with Linux
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
SLS v1.02 currently contains the following:
UUCP - Taylor UUCP 1.04
News transport - Cnews 12/22/91 patchdate (no 'optional' speedups)
News readers - tin-1.1r8, trn-2.5, nn-6.4.18
Mail transport - smail3.1.28 with uucp and smtp support built-in
Mail program - elm2.4.21 with domainized headers built-in
[... tin1.1p9 has been made available to Peter, but it has not yet
been updated in SLS as of this writing. Look in the newspak directory
on sunsite.unc.edu if you want the SLS kits for them immediately...]
Other software known to work under Linux, but not currently available in
the SLS distribution:
nntp - nntp 1.5.11 'reference' release, slurp v1.05
nntp readers - tin-1.1p9, rrn at least, trn/waffle/nn also
newsreaders - trn3.0_beta, tass
inn - INN v1.4 with some editing required
Cnews - current 'performance' release (with patching)
mail transport - sendmail5.65c+IDA, smail2.5
mail agents - pine
others - dynafeed
From: vi...@victrola.sea.wa.us (Vince Skahan)
Subject: UUCP-NEWS-MAIL-FAQ: Paths used in SLS Distribution
-----------------------------------------------------------
0. Where did those lame paths come from ?
The paths in the SLS distribution are the 'SLS standards', which means
that some people like them, some people don't.
For what it's worth, I'm not totally thrilled with the paths in SLS
either, but I'm providing the software to him with the paths he
requested (as a result of one of the c.o.l. flame-wars-from-hell
regarding everybody's religious views on "the one true directory
structure").
Consider living with the paths used in SLS until you get to the point
where you want to build everything from sources. It's a small price
to pay in order to get a 'plug-and-play' system.
1. I don't like the paths you used. What can I do about it ?
It's your system. You can do anything you want with it if you're
willing to spend the time to learn how to do so...
Get the sources and set them to whatever you'd like. Using a binary
editor to set the pathnames is *NOT* recommended since there are paths
in many binaries, config files, and shell scripts. It's unlikely that
you'll find them all.
The config files used for all of the news/mail/uucp programs in SLS
are available on sunsite.unc.edu as newspak14.taz
2. But now that I changed the paths in part-A, something else doesn't work...
As the saying goes..."you broke it, you bought it". If you change the
paths, change all the pieces to match (or add symbolic links).
From: vi...@victrola.sea.wa.us (Vince Skahan)
Subject: UUCP-FAQ: Care and Feeding of UUCP
-----------------------------------------------------
0. How does uucp work ?
Please run...do not walk...to your local technical bookstore and pick
up a copy of any or all of the books mentioned at the top of this
article.
HDB and V2 UUCP are incredibly well documented in about every book you
can find on *nix communications and you'll find that in general you
can follow the instructions in your favorite *nix vendor's manuals.
Taylor uucp is documented in the /usr/local/emacs/info/uucp* files
(that's where they are here at least) in 'info' format.
[...anybody care to clue me in regarding which pieces of the SLS
tex/info disks you *NEED* to read them without requiring
X-windows and under X if you want to mention that too...]
If you have questions regarding the care-and-feeding of uucp, please
take them to the comp.mail.uucp group that's designed for such
questions.
1. Why is SLS uucp configured in HoneyDanBer mode rather than 'Taylor' mode?
Because IMHO it's the de-facto standard UUCP implementation at
this time. There are thousands of sites with experienced admins
and there are many places you can get incredibly good information
concerning the HDB setup that include:
- many, many vendors' networking and uucp docs
- the normal *nix magazines and periodicals
- the fine (!) O'Reilly and Associates handbooks
2. But I want Taylor mode, dammit!
The uucp-1.04 that's in SLS v1.01 has all three modes of config files
built in. While I can't test it, I did 'rtfm' and Ian Taylor tells me
that what I did should work. Please let me know...
The search order for config files is Taylor...then V2 (L.sys)... then
HDB. Use the uuconv utility in /usr/lib/uucp to convert config files
from one mode to another.
If you can't wait, grab the sources for uucp and specify
HAVE_BNU_CONFIG, HAVE_V2_CONFIG *and* HAVE_TAYLOR_CONFIG in the
policy.h file and type 'make'.
3. Why do I get 'timeout' on connections when I upgraded to uucp-1.04 ?
[... from Ed Carp - e...@apple.com ...]
If you use a 'Direct' device in the Devices file, there's now a
10 second timeout compiled in. Make the name of the Device anything
other than 'Direct'.
4. Sample config files
Working HDB mode config files for kernels of 0.99-4 and before are in
the SLS distribution. For kernels above 0.99-4, it is suggested that
you use the cuaNNN devices in the /usr/lib/uucp/Devices file. No other
changes are necessary.
[...anybody want to kick me vanilla Taylor and V2 style config files
for a 'normal' modem calling a 'normal' system please feel
free to do so...]
5. Why doesn't anonymous ftp seem to work ?
The SLS anonymous uucp only works in Taylor mode because it's
compiled with HAVE_TAYLOR_CONFIG. If you want to do anon uucp in HDB
mode, you'll have to recompile the sources with just HDB defined.
Ian Taylor is considering which way to deal with this 'feature'...
From: vi...@victrola.sea.wa.us (Vince Skahan)
Subject: NEWS-FAQ: Newsreaders
----------------------------------------
0. What newsreader is best ?
No way I'll open that can of worms other than to say that you
definitely want something with "kill files" and probably want
something with 'threads'.
All the newsreaders in SLS have both in one form or another.
For what little it's worth, I use 'nn'.
In general, please take your newsreader questions to one of the
following groups:
news.software.readers - covers all newsreaders
news.software.nn - for the 'nn' reader specifically
Multiple newsreaders are provided in SLS because people have different
tastes. You only need one newsreader installed if that's all you
use...
1. trn - why do I get the message 'dbinit failed' ?
Because you didn't run mthreads from cron to keep the threads database
up-to-date. This may be less of an issue when trn3.0 comes out.
2. nn - why is my database getting continuously corrupted ?
If you built it from sources and you asked for the 'words' method of
building the database, it will definitely get corrupted if your
filesystem doesn't handle long filenames (ie...comp.os.linux.announce
is more than 14-characters). Build it with the 'by-number' way of
creating the database and you'll be fine.
3. I can't post to moderated groups, why ?
Probably because the newsreader is trying to call /bin/mail to send
the mail and it doesn't like it. Replace the /bin/mail in SLS with
the port of mailx-5.3a.tar.z from the pub/Linux/system/Mail dir on
sunsite.unc.edu and make it mode 2755 and group mail (like 'elm') and
you'll be all set.
Another possibility is that you have a moderated newsgroup set up on
your local system as not-moderated and somebody upstream is quietly
deleting the article (some system's software, not a person). Make
sure you run a 'checkgroups' every now and then when the checkgroups
article rolls by in news.admin every few weeks.
[...a workaround is to mail to news-group-n...@uu.net where the fake
username is the newsgroup name with all '.' characters
replaced by a '-'...]
From: vi...@victrola.sea.wa.us (Vince Skahan)
Subject: NEWS-FAQ: News Transport
-------------------------------------------
0. How do I run C-news software ?
Once again, drop a dime for the book(s) above. Questions regarding
C-news should go to the news.admin hierarchy of groups or to
news.software.b and not to comp.os.linux.
1. Why do I have problems that appear to be permission-related ?
Because at last checking, SLS doesn't have a 'news' username or group
in the default passwd/group files. This has been identified to Peter
as something that needs fixing.
All the stuff in /usr/local/lib/news should be news.news except
/usr/local/lib/news/setnewsids which should be setuid root.
You can use whatever UID and GID you want for 'news'.
2. Why can I post articles locally, but they don't get fed downstream ?
Probably because you didn't call newsrun from cron. Maybe because you
edited your sys file and messed it up. There are examples of each in
the SLS /usr/local/lib/news directory.
Do not create newsgroups or feeds by editing the active or sys files.
Use the utilities in /usr/local/lib/news/bin/maint to do it.
3. Why doesn't SLS have the 'Performance Release' of C-news?
Because it's optional. Because it has problems under Linux in some
places. Because the one in SLS is more stable and plenty fast enough
on any type of reasonable system (IMHO).
4. Why doesn't SLS have nntp ?
Because it's supposed to be plug-n-play under Linux and because I
didn't want to make SLS's news stuff doubly big by having to maintain
both nntp and non-nntp versions of the newsreaders and news transport
programs. Also because it compiles in localized information that is
not overridable at runtime via a config file.
5. Why doesn't SLS have INN ?
Because it's too new and hasn't settled down totally yet (IMHO).
It works with some patches required from what I hear. Also because
C-news seems to be the current 'standard'.
6. Why does doexpire (or relaynews or...) say "severe space shortage" when
there's lots of room ?
Because it can't read /etc/mtab. Make it mode 644. This happens
when you unmount a mounted filesystem by root with a umask that
doesn't permit world-read of files owned by root.
From: m...@tc.cornell.edu (Matt Welsh)
Subject: NEWS-FAQ: how to setup nntp newsreading
------------------------------------------------
0. Why can't we have a binary distribution of NNTP ?
Because significant local-only information is compiled-in and
cannot be determined auto-magically at runtime.
1. How do I set up NNTP to allow read/post across the network while *not*
storing any news articles or databases locally.
1) Grab the 'reference implementation' of nntp and a copy or rn
from your local archive site. If you connect to ftp.uu.net
you'd grab:
nntp.1.5.11.tar.Z from ftp.uu.net:/news/nntp
rn-4.4.pl3.tar.Z from ftp.uu.net:/news/rn
2) compile nntp as follows:
copy common/conf.h.dist to common/conf.h.
Edit common/conf.h to set certain options:
The only ones I set were:
DOMAIN: undefine it (i.e. change the line to #undef DOMAIN).
REALDOMAIN: Define this. It looks up the domain using
the libraries.
SERVER_FILE: Set this to the name of the file which will
contain the hostname of the news server (i.e. the
machine you'll read and post news through). I use
"/usr/local/lib/news/server".
PASSFILE: If your news server requires authorization (i.e.
some kind of username/password) to post, set this to
the name of the file which contains the username and
password (described below). I use
"/usr/local/lib/news/nntppass".
I decided to keep all of the other news stuff in /usr/local/lib/news.
So I set all of the rest of the pathnames in the file (i.e.
ACTIVE_FILE, NEWSGROUPS_FILE, etc.) to use /usr/local/lib/news. Many
of these files are only used by the NNTP server, not the client, but
to be safe I changed them all to point to the right directory. You can
of course use the default pathnames; just make sure you create the
directory accordingly.
3) Create the user "usenet" if you haven't already. The inews program
runs as this user. All you need is a userid; you don't need a home
directory or shell or anything for the user. Just plop the following
line into your /etc/passwd:
usenet:*:13:1::/:
Make sure you set the userid ("13", above) to something unique. The
group can be anything; I use "daemon" (gid 1).
4) Create the SERVER_FILE, above. For example, my news server is
"wonton.tc.cornell.edu", so I created the file
/usr/local/lib/news/server which contained one line:
wonton.tc.cornell.edu
5) Create the PASSFILE. This file contains lines of the form
<server name> <username> <password>
Let's say that your news server (the one in SERVER_FILE, above) is
"shoop.vpizza.com", and to post on that machine you need to be
authorized as the user "news" with a password of "floof". Thus, in the
PASSFILE (I use /usr/local/lib/news/nntppass), you need the line
shoop.vpizza.com news floof
6) Make this file secure! The inews program runs as the user "usenet",
so make this news directory owned by that user and the nntppass file
as well.
chown usenet /usr/local/lib/news
chmod 755 /usr/local/lib/news
chown usenet /usr/local/lib/news/nntppass
chmod 600 /usr/local/lib/news/nntppass
So nobody else can read this file. No, the passwords in it are not
encrypted.
7) Go back to the nntp.1.5.11 source directory; issue "make client".
At this point you'll build the NNTP version of inews, which is the
only software used by the NNTP client.
When I built inews, there was a bug in the library which caused the
function uname() in uname.c to call itself eternally. This should be
gone now; however, if inews seems to hang and your system starts
slowing down *a lot* you should rename the function "uname()" in
uname.c to something like "my_uname()", and change the calls to it (in
inews.c) to call my_uname() instead. Mail me if you run into this
problem.
[...VDS note - this means mail to Matt...not me :-) ...]
8) Issue "make install_client". This will install the inews stuff.
Also make the link /usr/local/lib/news/inews -> /usr/local/bin/inews
Now you should be able to happily post (by hand). Try something like
the following:
$ inews -h << EOF
Newsgroups: misc.test
From: m...@foo.bar.com
Subject: Testing
Reply-To: my-real-addr...@wherever.edu
This is a test.
EOF
If this works, inews should post the article. You'll know because
test-responders on misc.test will reply to the address on the Reply-To
line, above. Please don't do test postings on real groups, like c.o.l.
:)
2. How do I build 'rrn' as a nntp-based newsreader/poster ?
1. cd to the rn source directory and do "./Configure". For almost all
the questions, take the defaults (it's very smart). Make sure you
have a link to "cpp" (usually in /usr/lib/gcc-lib/i386-linux/2.3.3) in
/lib, so rn can find it.
- Don't panic if it says you're on a NeXT or a USG system. Just go
with the flow...
- Answer "y" to "Do you expect to run these scripts and binaries on
multiple machines?"
- For your domain name: if your system is, say, "foo.bar.com", answer
with just "bar.com" (the domain, not the entire hostname).
- Answer "usenet" for the name of the user which is the news admin.
- For "Where is your news library?" use the directory where the above
NNTP files are kept: I use /usr/local/lib/news.
- Man page source is in /usr/man/man1.
- Answer "y" to "Does your /etc/passwd file keep full names in
Berkeley/V7 format?"
- Answer "gcc" to the name of the compiler which forces resolution.
- Answer "y" to "Do you want to build the NNTP version of rn (rrn)?"
- For the name of the news server file: use the same name you used
when building inews, above (for me, /usr/local/lib/news/server).
Don't run makedepend yet! Go to the next step:
2) Edit config.h. Change the "#define ROOTID ..." line to
#define ROOTID 0
if it isn't already.
3) In rrn-4.4.pl3, there is a small bug with SIGEMT: it doesn't exist
on Linux. rn used SIGEMT to check if a process is still running;
however, under POSIX.1 we can instead just send the process a
signal 0.
Edit init.c. On line 243, note the following:
if (kill(processnum, SIGEMT)) {
Change this to
if (kill(processnum, 0)) {
You may wish to #ifdef it out instead; it's up to you. Don't just define
SIGEMT to be zero; this will break the sigignore() call in final.c.
4) Issue "makedepend > makedepend.out".
5) Issue "make". Rn should compile happily.
6) Issue "make install".
You're all set. Keep in mind that rn does in fact eat a lot of memory
(as does any newsreader), handling the newsgroups file. So when you
first run rn, it might be a little slow building your .newsrc and
checking for new groups. If you're impatient, copy a .newsrc from
somewhere else and use that.
From: vi...@victrola.sea.wa.us (Vince Skahan)
Subject: MAIL-FAQ: Mail and Mail Transport
-----------------------------------------------------
0. How do I get my system a mail feed ?
Sigh...please see the "how to become a USENET site" periodic posting
in news.answers
Questions regarding 'elm' should go to comp.mail.elm with smail
questions going to either comp.mail.uucp (I guess) or the smail
mailing list [...anybody have the address to get on that thing?....]
1. Why is my hostname.domainname not in my headers and something funky's there ?
Because you didn't edit one or more of the following files like the
README.linux files in the lib directories told you to:
/usr/local/lib/smail/paths
/usr/local/lib/smail/config
/usr/local/lib/elm/elm.rc
2. How can I run smail as a smtp daemon ?
[...from Martin White - mar...@pandora.demon.co.uk...]
On my system, I've included the following line in the file
'/etc/inet/inetd.conf' so that when a remote host trys to deliver mail
to me, inetd starts up smtpd, which delivers the mail and shuts itself
down afterwards.
smtp stream tcp nowait root /usr/bin/smtpd smtpd
Outgoing mail gets sent automatically, when using elm. If my internet
link is down when I send mail (it's a dialup link), then the mail sits
in '/usr/spool/smail/input'. When the link next comes up, 'runq' is
run which causes the mail to be sent.
3. Why don't some of my aliases seem to work in certain cases ?
Because the /bin/mail in SLS isn't from smail and it uses a different
aliases file. There is a port of mailx on sunsite.unc.edu in the
pub/Linux/system/Mail directory that is a wonderful drop-in
replacement for the /bin/mail in SLS. I highly recommend it.
SLS's smail uses /usr/lib/aliases for the aliases file.
Remember that elm aliases (/usr/local/lib/elm/aliases.text) are only
good for 'elm' and that smail (or sendmail) aliases are *always* in
effect.
5. Why don't the smail 'utilities' work ?
Because you have the old 'broke' smail from SLS that got in there
before the following answer appeared. The current SLS smail should be
ok.
[... from Ralf Sauther - r...@ppcnet.ppc.sub.org ...]
If you're building smail from sources, you need to have
CASE_NO_NEWLINES=true in your os/linux file.
6. Why can't elm write to my mailbox ?
You need elm and filter to be mode 2755 and group mail
and also have /usr/spool/mail mode 775 and group mail.
7. What should my config files look like?
That's a big subject :-)
For a uucp-only system that has a MX-record and that wants a
domainized header (who goes through a smart-host for everything),
these are the entire config files you'll need:
replace 'subdomain.domain' with your domain name
replace 'myhostname' with you un-domainized hostname
replace 'my_uucp_neighbor' with the uucp name of your upstream site
#-------- /usr/local/lib/smail/config -----------------
#
# domains we belong to
visible_domain=subdomain.domain:uucp
#
# who we're known as (fully-qualified-site-name)
visible_name=myhostname.subdomain.domain
#
# who we go through
smart_path=my_uucp_neighbor
#
#---------- /usr/local/lib/smail/paths --------------
#
# we're a domainized site, make sure we accept mail to both names
myhostname %s
myhostname.subdomain.domain %s
#
#---------- /usr/local/lib/elm/elm.rc ------------------
#
# this is the unqualified hostname
hostname = myhostname
#
# this is the local domain
hostdomain = .subdomain.domain
#
# this is the fully qualified hostname
hostfullname = myhostname.subdomain.domain
#
#--------------------------------------------------------
8. Why did my incoming mail and news appear to fall into a black hole ?
[... from Roy M. Silvernail - r...@sendai.cybrspc.mn.org ...]
When you add /bin/rnews (or whatever) to Permissions, separate the
commands with colons, not commas. uucheck will give a perfectly
sensible response for the allowed programs list with a comma, but
uuxqt thinks the only allowable command is "/bin/rmail,/bin/rnews".
When configured right, the list presented by uucheck has spaces
between allowed commands.
9. Is sendmail+IDA available for Linux instead of smail ?
Yes !!! I've recently switched from smail to sendmail+IDA from the binary
distribution on sunsite.unc.edu and it works great...and I'm a uucp-only
site. Look in pub/Linux/system/Mail for it...
To install it...
- you'll probably want to remove (or rename) all the files from
smail (see the /install/installed directory if you are SLS)
to be safe.
- cd to / then 'gunzip -c sendmail5.65c+IDA.tpz | tar xvf -'
- cd to /usr/local/src/sendmail5.65c+IDA/ida/cf and copy the example
local.m4 file to 'yourhostname.m4'. Edit out the distributed
hostname, aliases, and smarthost and put in the correct one
for your site. The default file is for a uucp-only site
who has domainized headers. Then 'make yourhostname.cf'
and move the resulting file to /etc/sendmail.cf
- if you are uucp-only, you do *NOT* need to create any of the
tables mentioned in the README.linux file. Just edit
the .m4 file, make sendmail.cf, and start testing it.
- if you're uucp-only and you talk to sites in addition to your
'smart-host', you'll need to add uucpxtable entries for
each (or mail to them will also go through the smart host)
and run dbm against the revised uucpxtable.
Another nice thing is that if you have mail.debug set and you
run syslogd, your incoming and outgoing mail messages will get
logged. See the /etc/syslog.conf file for details.
From: vi...@victrola.sea.wa.us (Vince Skahan)
Subject: UUCP-NEWS-MAIL-FAQ: So where are the sources ?
-------------------------------------------------------
0. why don't you provide ALL the sources ?
Because it's a waste of time and money for all involved to duplicate sources
on the linux archive sites that can be found elsewhere.
Since stuff compiles so cleanly, in general you just need to get the config
files and apply them to the vanilla sources. Look in the newspak directory on
sunsite.unc.edu for the README.linux guides and the config files you'll need.
There are very (!) few patches needed these days to get uucp/news/mail up and
running.
The current filename is sunsite.unc.edu:/pub/Linux/system/Mail/newspak-1.4.tar
Once you get the binaries working, it's well worth your time to actually build
them from the sources. There is considerable documentation in the sources
that doesn't get "installed" that helps fill in the blanks between what you
need to know, and what you can figure out.
Also, being able to build them from the sources allows you to be able to do
things like upgrade to more recent patchlevels and/or change the paths used to
fit your schedule and needs if (and only if) it's worth it to you.