X-Summary-1: Part 1: Common questions about INN itself, and some advice when compiling it and installing it.
X-Summary-2: Part 2: This assumes that you've successfully compiled the software. This is a tutorial that takes you through configuration and setting up feeds. It ends with common questions about INN configuration.
X-Summary-3: Part 3: Norman's quick guide to getting started (assumes SunOS and other things), and misc. other things.)
Now you only have to update /usr/local/bin/inews, rather than
chasing may copies.
"nn" and "nnpost" create a file called "~/.nn/params" right before you
post with tons of useful information. While posting you can shell out
of the editor and view the file. The file is deleted after the message
is posted. I had to view this file while shelled out of my editor to
find which "inews" was being used by "nnpost".
It's also a good idea to check your mail now and then while you are
doing this. Some newsreaders (like "nn" notify you of a posting
problem via mail.
On non-INN systems, "inews" returns pretty quickly. Actually they fork
a process to do the actual posting in the background. When those
"inews" return, you don't know if the post was successful or not.
These "inews"'s have a "-W" option which turns off this forking feature
(i.e. Wait for the post to complete).
INN's "inews" never forks because the wait is never that long. When
"inews" returns you know if the post was successful or not. INN's
"inews" accepts the "-W" option for compatibility.
This may seem obvious, but when posting a test message, consider
including the machine you are posting from and the program you are
using. Even though you may check to see if the message got posted
after every test, this will help you later when you go back to see what
you have done.
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Subject: Debugging the "newsfeeds" file.
Outgoing news is controlled by the "newsfeeds" file. The INN 1.2 man
page for this file is a bit complex. The man page in 1.3 (and beyond)
gives better examples. Here's a "cookbook" of examples that should
cover most of your needs. Debugging tips are also included.
Always remember that newsfeeds uses "wildmat" matches, not the
semi-regular expressions that C news uses. This means that if you want to get comp.foo and the subgroups under it (comp.foo.bar, comp.foo.baz, etc.) you
have to use a statement like:
comp.foo,comp.foo.*
OR
comp.foo*
BUT NOT
comp.foo.*
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Subject: The ME line in the newsfeeds file.
The "ME" entry is a bit confusing. Be careful when you
read the man page.
Here is the "ME" line that I use in my "newsfeeds" file. I find
it works quite well, but you might want to remove the distributions
that you don't need (i.e. New Jersey). Since my site has clients
reading from all over the world I try to have every distribution I
can find. However, I hear of a new distribution almost daily so this
