Meeting Pearls 1/Meeting Pearls Vol 1 (1994).iso/installed_progs/text/faqs/inn-faq.part1

Internet Message Format | 1994-04-21 | 25.6 KB

Subject: INN FAQ Part 1/4: General Information
Newsgroups: news.software.nntp,news.software.b,news.answers
From: [e-mail] (Tom Limoncelli)
Date: 20 Apr 1994 04:00:11 -0000

Posted-By: auto-faq 2.4
Archive-name: inn-faq/part1

Last Changed: $Id: FAQ-inn.1,v 1.67 1994/04/15 21:12:30 tal Exp $

                  Part 1 of 4

INN FAQ Part 1/4: General Information:
                     Questions from people that don't (yet) run INN
                     Specific notes for specific operating systems
INN FAQ Part 2/4: Debugging Guide & Tutorial:
INN FAQ Part 3/4: Operational and Misc. Questions
INN FAQ Part 4/4: Appendix A: Norman's install guide


------------------------------

Subject:  Table Of Contents for Part 1/4

=====================================================================
        TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR PART 1/4:  General Information
=====================================================================

QUESTIONS FROM PEOPLE THAT DON'T (YET) RUN INN:
    Where can I get the INN software?
    Where can I get the latest copy of this FAQ?
    What is INN?
    What machines does it run on?
    INN must be really complicated since this FAQ is so long!
    Can I run C News with INN?
    Can I run NNTP with INN?
    Can I run the reference implementation (NNTP1.5) with INN?
    Can I run INN on my UUCP-only machine?
    Suppose I have a 286 machine?
    Does INN implement NOV, xthread (trn) or xuser/xmotd (tin) commands?
    Is an ident or authorization protocol supported?
    Does INN do UUCP batching like C News?
    Help!  How do I configure this beast?
    How do I thank the FAQ maintainer?

SPECIFIC NOTES FOR SPECIFIC OPERATING SYSTEMS:
    AIX tips
    SunOS 4.1.2 tips
    Ultrix tips
    HP-UX tips
    Pyramid and system's where only root can have "cron" jobs.
    System V based Unixes (SVR4, Solaris 2.x, SCO ODT 3.0, A/UX, ...)
    Solaris 2.x special needs
    Mac running A/UX 3.0
    NOV problems on a Pyramid
    Warnings to people that must set HAVE_UNIX_DOMAIN to DONT
    Alpha OSF tips


The FAQ was written by Rich $alz <[e-mail]> and is now
maintained by Tom Limoncelli <[e-mail]>.

These documents would not exist if it weren't for the people that have
submitted questions and (most importantly) answers.  THANK YOU ALL!


=====================================================================
           QUESTIONS FROM PEOPLE THAT DON'T (YET) RUN INN
=====================================================================


------------------------------

Subject:  Where can I get the INN software?

The official archive site is ftp.uu.net in the directory
networking/news/nntp/inn.  Archie current lists over 30 archive sites;
three other international sites are grasp.insa-lyon.fr in
pub/unix/news/inn, munnari.oz.au in pub/news/inn, and src.doc.ic.ac.uk
in computing/usenet/software/transport

The latest version of INN is 1.4sec.  This is rev. 1.4 with a slight
modification of certain shell scripts to fix a security hole.  Do
not run 1.4 without the patch (see part 3/4 of this FAQ).


------------------------------

Subject:  Where can I get the latest copy of this FAQ?

1.  This four-part FAQ is available via FTP at any FTP site that carries
INN itself.

2.  This FAQ is also posted to news.software.nntp, news.software.b and
    news.answers on the 5th and 20th of every month.

3.  You can also get this FAQ by sending email to
[e-mail] with "get file faq-inn-1" on the first
line of the message.  (the Subject: of the message will be ignored.)
(Substitute faq-inn-2, faq-inn-3 or faq-inn-4 to get those parts).

For example:

% echo get file faq-inn-1 | mail [e-mail]
% echo get file faq-inn-2 | mail [e-mail]
% echo get file faq-inn-3 | mail [e-mail]
% echo get file faq-inn-4 | mail [e-mail]

or

% mail [e-mail]
Subject: ignored
get file faq-inn-1
get file faq-inn-2
get file faq-inn-3
get file faq-inn-4
^D

or if you csh and are a total nerd, you can:
    echo 'get file new-inn.'{1,2,3,4}@ \
        | tr @ '\012' | mail [e-mail]

...or get a real hobby.


------------------------------

Subject:  What is INN?

For a complete answer, why not read the Usenix paper that introduced
INN to the world?  It's available as
ftp.uu.net:networking/news/nntp/inn/inn.usenix.ps.Z

InterNetNews is a complete Usenet system.  The cornerstone of the package
is innd, an NNTP server that multiplexes all I/O.  Think of it as an nntpd
merged with the B News inews, or as a C News relaynews that reads multiple
NNTP streams.  Newsreading is handled by a separate server, nnrpd, that is
spawned for each client.  Both innd and nnrpd have some slight variances
from the NNTP protocol (although in normal use you will never notice); see
the manpages.  INN separates hosts that feed you news from those that have
users reading news.  If you need to support a mixed environment you will have
to do some extra work; the installation manual gives some hints.


------------------------------

Subject:  What machines does it run on?

If you have socket() and select() then INN will probably run on your
machine.  In addition to the common platforms found around the Internet
(SunOS and Ultrix, for example), INN runs on IBM`s AIX, Apple's A/UX,
NeXT, Solaris 2.x, most SVR4 platforms, BSDI, most free BSD systems on
Intel (NetBSD, FreeBSD, ...) and a host of others.  It might require a
little bit of tweaking of some free BSD platforms that have really bad
shells.


------------------------------

Subject:  INN must be really complicated since this FAQ is so long!

No, it's just that the FAQ is very complete.  Part 2 is so long because
it includes a tutorial that tries to turn a beginner into an TCP/IP
protocol expert.  Part 3 is long because the FAQ maintainer is
constantly trying to add every question ever asked on
news.software.nntp.  Maybe someone should volunteer to maintain an
index.

A lot of the material could be integrated into the Install.ms doc.


------------------------------

Subject:  Can I run C News with INN?

No.  INN handles all article reception, filing, forwarding, and
expiration.  You will get a corrupted database if you try to
run INN with any other news system.  For testing, you can probably shut
down your old system, bring up INN, and then reverse the process.  (INN
uses the C News history file and DBZ database, so if you don't run C News
you will have to do some fiddling around with those files.)


------------------------------

Subject:  Can I run NNTP with INN?

There's a confusion here.  NNTP is a protocol, defined in RFC 977.  There
is also an implementation of the protocol, NNTP1.5, that many people call
NNTP.  When there was only one implementation of the protocol, that was
okay, but now that there are other implementations (for example, INN) it
is getting confusing.  It would be as if "sendmail" were named "smtp."
Please try to be clear -- do you mean the NNTP protocol, or the NNTP
reference implementation currently maintained by Stan Barber?


------------------------------

Subject:  Can I run the reference implementation (NNTP1.5) with INN?

The quick answer is no.  INN listens on the NNTP port and handles all
incoming traffic.  It receives articles, files them, and arranges for
them to be forwarded to your peers.  If a site connects that is not
listed as a peer (e.g., a local workstation that does newsreading) then
the INN server hands the connection off to another program that handles
just the NNTP commands that newsreaders use.  By default, this is nnrpd
(notice the "r"), which implements the NNTP protocol for newsreaders
(for example, it includes the POST command but not the IHAVE command).
You can run the reference implementation server instead of nnrpd if you
want.  Doing this can be useful if you have clients that want to do
both reading and article transfer.


------------------------------

Subject:  Can I run INN on my UUCP-only machine?

Sure.  While not designed for this, several people are running INN on
machines that do not have IP-connectivity (such as UUCP-only hosts) and
are quite happy with it.  You might want to give it a try, especially if
you think you will be joining the Internet some day.


------------------------------

Subject:  Suppose I have a 286 machine?

Won't work.  INN is designed to be a memory hog; a server that has been up
for a few days while will have a working set size of a few to several
megabytes, although not all of it will be resident.  For example, the
server keeps the active file and list of who gets what in memory, as well
as all articles that it is receiving.  Unless you can do things like
"malloc(64 * 1024)" without pain, INN won't work on your machine.


------------------------------

Subject:  Does INN implement NOV, xthread (trn) or xuser/xmotd (tin) commands?

Newsreaders all need some way to quickly grab data from
a range of articles.  trn, tin, nn, and others each developed
their own database format, and their own extensions to the NNTP
protocol for clients to read the database.  Then, Geoff Collyer
invented NOV, the database to end all other databases.

Rather than support a different database format for each newsreader,
INN supports Geoff Collyer's news overview database, NOV.  INN includes
everything you need to create/maintain/expire NOV's .overview files.
You only need Geoff's distribution (available via FTP on world.std.com
src/news/nov.dist.tar.Z) if you want to see how he implements things,
or to get his client library (useful when building some newsreaders).

It is very easy to configure INN to use NOV.  Read Part 3/4 of
this faq: Subject: Cookbook example setting up NOV ("overchan")
NB: The NOV code in INN 1.3 is buggy.  Use 1.4 or higher.

The xover command is used for querying the NOV database.  The xover
command is very smart in that if the article has been canceled, the
data isn't given out.  If the article is so new that it's data isn't in
the NOV database, nnrpd opens the article and digs out the data.  xhrd
and xpat make every effort to use NOV data before they dig the data out
of the actual articles, thus making them considerably faster than other
implementations.  The "xoverview" command does not exist.  If your
server supports this command you need to upgrade.

What about TRN's xthread command?

The xthread command has code but it is not supported; look at
$inn/nnrpd/nnrpd.h.  This code will probably vanish after 1.4.

What about TIN's many commands?

Tin commands are not supported.  However, other people have
added TIN support.  See the next section.



------------------------------

Subject:  Is an ident or authorization protocol supported?

An unsupported patch for nnrpd to add ident support can be found via
FTP at ftp.csie.nctu.edu.tw:/pub/news/nnrpd-identd-patch.shar.gz.  It
includes patches to add tin's xuser and xmotd commands as well as a
list subscription system. ([e-mail])

Remember: ident information is only as valid as the server you connect
to.  Any fool with root access (or anyone with a PC or Mac) can create
a bogus ident server that will give out whatever information they want
you to see.  It's not an authorization or identification protocol, it's
just informational.

The authd protocol is added to nnrpd by <[e-mail]>.
This unsupported patch can be found in
ftp.geophys.hokudai.ac.jp:/pub/network/news/inn/patches/authd-patch-1.3.tar.gz
The documentation is in Japanese.  Good luck.

In a future release, you will be able to log all POST commands with
ident information if you so choose.  (Maybe INN 1.5)


------------------------------

Subject:  Does INN do UUCP batching like C News?

Not as part of the standard distribution.  The batching system right
now is better than B News, but Rich has said he will be working on
improving that part of INN in a future release.  Christophe Wolfhugel
<[e-mail]> has written a package that is
very much like the C News batching system, however.  You can find it on
grasp.insa-lyon.fr in the pub/unix/news/inn/contrib directory.

Version 3 of Christophe's package includes a shell version and a Perl
version.  Version 4, not yet planned will only be in Perl.  The
configuration file has evolved from older releases in order to support
new features like "minimum batching".


------------------------------

Subject:  Help!  How do I configure this beast?

READ AND FOLLOW THE "Install.ms" FILE.  This FAQ is meant to add to
what Install.ms says not replace it.

Many people that thought the Install.ms doc was incomplete later
re-read the "First Time Installation" portion and were amazed how much
they missed (or just plain skipped) the first time.

You should also purchase the O'Reilly And Associates book on Managing
Usenet to give yourself a good grounding on how to run a site.


------------------------------

Subject:  How do I thank the FAQ maintainer?

If you find this document useful, please consider making a donation to
the maintainer's favorite charity:

    The Personal Liberty Fund
    PO Box 11335
    New Brunswick, NJ 08906-1335
    USA

The PLF is a legal and educational organization which helps people in
New Jersey, USA.  They have many on-going projects which range from
combating youth suicide to legal advocacy.  Their Anti-Violence Project
runs a phone hotline for reporting gay-bashing which helps hundreds of
people a year.  The PLF is an all-volunteer organization and couldn't
survive without donations.  The PLF is recognized by the IRS as a
501(c)3 tax-exempt charity.  Donations are tax deductible to the
fullest extent of the law (U.S. citizens only).  Please write "INN" in
the memo field of the check.


======================================================================
            SPECIFIC NOTES FOR SPECIFIC OPERATING SYSTEMS
======================================================================


------------------------------

Subject:  AIX tips

Q: When I run news.daily, there's always a few lines of error
messages at the end of the output:

    compress: bad file number

A:  AIX /usr/bin/compress has a bug when compressing files with zero
length. Then it spits out this error.  Solution: Ignore it or use a
different compress programm and change config.data accordingly.
(from Kurt Jaeger <[e-mail]>)

Q:  innwatch doesn't work well from /etc/inittab, does it?

Q:  Nope.  Instead, you can create a "subsystem" with this command:

mkssys -s innwatch -p /usr/local/news/bin/innwatch -u news -G news -S -n 15 -f 9

Note that your path to innwatch may differ, depending on where you
decided to install the inn components.  You also need to enter the
command as one long line.

This will create a subsystem named "innwatch" belonging to an SRC group
named "news".  The "-S" means that it uses signals for SRC to tell it
when to stop and the "-n" is the SIGTERM signal, for normal shutdown,
and the "-f" is the SIGKILL signal, which is sent if the process does
not stop within 20 seconds.  Then, modify rc.news to issue the command

    startsrc -s innwatch

to get innwatch going.  That's it!

Shane Castle <[e-mail], [e-mail]>


------------------------------

Subject:  SunOS 4.1.2 tips

SunOS 4.1.2 (but not 4.1.1 or 4.1.3) broke the write system call but a
patch is available.  Any write could fail "half way", it is just more
likely to happen when writing large files and in-core DBZ writes the
history file out in one chunk.  See the "Known Problems" section of the
installation manual.


------------------------------

Subject:  Ultrix tips

Tip #1:  Ultrix has a "mmap()" function, but it doesn't do the same
thing as the SunOS/BSD mmap() function.  Therefore, do not configure
INN to use mmap() on a Ultrix system.  INN wants to find a mmap()
function that is like the one on SunOS/BSD systems.

Tip #2:  The sendsys script breaks Ultrix 'nawk'.  You can make
a 1-line change or you can switch to 'awk' or "gawk".
Original line:
    ${AWK} "/^$1"'[/:\\]/,/[^\\]$/' ${NEWSFEEDS} >${TEMP}
Modified line:
    ${AWK} "/^$1"'[\/:\\]/,/[^\\]$/' ${NEWSFEEDS} >${TEMP}
The original line will work with awk, gawk, but not nawk.
The modified line will work with awk, gawk, or nawk.
If you have gawk running on your machine use it.  Otherwise, switch to
awk.

Tip #3: The syslog on Ultrix sucks rotten eggs and Digital refuses to
fix it.  (source: everyone that uses Ultrix and has ever used other
systems)  Luckily, you can replace it with the routine that comes with
INN.  However, some people have had better luck installing the syslog
that can be found on
"gatekeeper.dec.com:/pub/DEC/jtkohl-syslog-complete.tar.Z".  It still
works with old clients but does new-style syslogging, too.  Works great
for me so far.  (this information from:  [e-mail] (Nelson
Minar)).  The syslog that is shipped with INN works pretty well but
there have been some claims that some old clients don't like it.


------------------------------

Subject:  HP-UX tips

Q.  My logs keep telling me there is no space for articles
A.  Edit innwatch.ctl to use "bdf" instead of "df".

Q. I am running inn on an HP machine. INN won't start up automatically.
I can start it manually.  There is no problem with news or INN once
it is started.

A.  Try adding a "sleep 10" to the bottom of /etc/rc.news, or in
/etc/rc, right after /etc/rc.news is invoked.  On some machines,
including HP, the shell started by "#!/bin/sh" when /etc/rc is executed
will exit before innd has disassociated itself from that shell.  This
causes innd to exit, sometimes without printing an error message.
(source: [e-mail] (Paul Joslin ))

This problem goes away if you set HAVE_SETSID to "DO".  Something to do
with Posix Session Leader concepts.  Ick.  (source: Steve Howie
<[e-mail]>)

HP-UX 8.x and 9.x users might find a problem with getting innwatch to
start up.  People have found that having "at" start it seems to work
more reliably than other methods:

${DOINNWATCH} && {
    echo "${INNWATCH} &" | su ${NEWSUSER} -c 'at now + 2 min' > /dev/null
}

The '&' in the command line prevents innwatch from taking up an at-job
slot.  SysV-style crons have a per-category and overall limit on the
number of jobs executing simultaneously.


------------------------------

Subject:  Pyramid and system's where only root can have "cron" jobs.

Your cron jobs may not work if you use:

    su news -c /usr/lib/news/bin/news.daily delayrm expireover

Instead, you must put the entire command in quotes.  Like this:

    su news -c "/usr/lib/news/bin/news.daily delayrm expireover"

Look for "Pyramid" in part ??? of this FAQ for details.

------------------------------

Subject:  System V based Unixes (SVR4, Solaris 2.x, SCO ODT 3.0, A/UX, ...)

If you are running any non-BSD (i.e. System V based) Unix you MUST have
the following option set:

##  How should close-on-exec be done?  Pick IOCTL or FCNTL.
#### =()<CLX_STYLE              @<CLX_STYLE>@>()=
CLX_STYLE               FCNTL

This includes SVR4, Solaris 2.x, A/UX and SCO ODT 3.0.  This is clearly
stated in the Install.ms file and repeated here since so many people
post to news.software.nntp after ignoring the warnings.

If it isn't FCNTL, you'll get tons of overchan processes hanging
around.  (source: Philip Gladstone <[e-mail]>)

In SCO ODT 3.0 and MOST systems, innd will link and run if you use
IOCTL but eventually will stop answering incoming calls.

Don't be fooled.  Just because it compiles doesn't mean it's going to
work.

If you start innd on an AT&T SysV Rel 4.0 machine and get syslog
messages like:
    localhost:15 cant setsockopt(SNDBUF) Protocol error
    localhost:15 cant setsockopt(RCVBUF) Protocol error
then you should FIRST try to change HAVE_UNIX_DOMAIN to "DONT" in
config.data.  If that doesn't fix the problem, you should comment out
the "setsockopt()" calls and things will work.

Many SVR4 for i486 binaries (sendmail, mh, vmail, innd, rnews are now
on ftp.germany.eu.net in pub/comp/i486/svr4/*.SVR4.tgz But remember
that some of the above need site specific changes, so their usefulness
may be limited.

If your SVR4 system still doesn't run correctly, check the
Solaris 2.x suggestions.


------------------------------

Subject:  Solaris 2.x special needs

Under Solaris 2.x (where x = 0, 1, 2 or 3) you need to change
the file "getfqdn.c".  Find the lines that read:

    if (strchr(hp->h_name, '.') == NULL) {
        /* Try to force DNS lookup if NIS/whatever gets in the way. */
        (void)strncpy(temp, buff, sizeof buff);
        (void)strcat(temp, ".");
        hp = gethostbyname(temp);
    }

and delete them.

Under Solaris 2.[012] (SunOS 5.0, 5.1, 5.2) you must add the following
at the beginning of each file using gethostbyname():

#define gethostbyname __switch_gethostbyname

Under Solaris 2.3 gethostbyname() might work without changes depending
on your configuration.  We haven't figured out when they work and when
they don't.  If you run into problems, try to change "gethostbyname()"
to "solaris_gethostbyname()" and then use the gethostbyname() listed in
the Solaris Porting FAQ.  This isn't a perfect solution, because you
now need a different binary for Solaris 2.[012] systems.

It would be great if someone were to submit a solaris_gethostbyname()
function who's binary works under all Solaris revs and gives all the
semantics of BSD gethostbyname().  In particular, one that doesn't have
the problems discussed in sun bugid #1126573 or #1135988.  It would be
amazing if this was submitted by one of the many Sun employees that
flame the INN FAQ maintainer in comp.sys.sun.admin everytime he bitches
about how much he hates Solaris 2.x. :-)

Under all Solaris 2.* versions there is a problem with innwatch.ctl.
It expects to use "df -i" to find out how many inodes are free on your
disk.  /usr/{sbin,5bin,bin}/df doesn't support the "-i" option.  You
have to use "/usr/ucb/df -i" instead, since this version of df includes
the "-i" option.


------------------------------

Subject:  Mac running A/UX 3.0

Tip #1: Use the INN malloc.

Tip #2:  If you are running INN 1.4 on a Mac running A/UX 3.0.1, Every
so often, (generally when someone fires up a reader), INN goes beserk.
Syslog says:

    innd: ME cant select Bad file number

This message repeats about 20 times per second.  It freezes up my
computer and I need to reboot.

That's a kernel bug. You do have to reboot.

If you compiled inn with gcc, don't. My experience was that somehow, if
INN was compiled with GCC the kernel bug is triggered, but that doesn't
happen with cc.


------------------------------

Subject:  NOV problems on a Pyramid

Q:  I just turned on the overview stuff and I don't think news.daily is
properly expiring the .overview files.  I'm using a Pyramid.

A:  Do you need quotes in your crontab entry?  Look at your news.daily
report -- expire using "expireover delayrm" should take a few minutes.
If it takes longer than, say, 10-20 minutes, then the keywords aren't
being seen by news.daily so perhaps the commandline quoting is wrong.

i.e. you had:

    su news -c /usr/lib/news/bin/news.daily delayrm expireover

You should have:

    su news -c "/usr/lib/news/bin/news.daily delayrm expireover"


------------------------------

Subject:  Warnings to people that must set HAVE_UNIX_DOMAIN to DONT

Disclaimer:  First of all, if you have to set HAVE_UNIX_DOMAIN to DONT,
YOU HAVE TO SET IT to DONT.  It's not a choice you can make, it's a
description of the operating system that you purchased.  If you wrongly
set this variable to DO your system isn't going to work *at* *all*.

When you use the POST via NNTP, you are talking to nnrpd.  nnrpd cleans
up your headers, adds the missing headers that it is allowed to add,
checks whatever it checks, and then submits the finalized version to
innd.  How does it talk to innd?
If you have HAVE_UNIX_DOMAIN set to DO, nnrpd opens a Unix domain
socket and sends the text.  At this point it is talking to innd
somewhat like ctlinnd does.  innd can trust that the post isn't
forged since it is coming from a program trustworthy enough to
get to the socket (which isn't much).
If you have HAVE_UNIX_DOMAIN set to DONT, it has no choice but to open
a socket to port 119, issue the "IHAVE" command, and send the text that
way (just like a remote newsreader).  This means that innd (not another
nnrpd) has to be at the other end of the pipe.  If it opens the
connection and sees a "nnrpd" you're hosed and you get "441 480
Transfer permission denied".  (Better the "441 480" message than an
infinate loop of nnrpd's connecting to nnrpd's!)  To get innd to not
hand off the connection to a nnrpd process, you must have the host's
name in the hosts.nntp file.  (don't forget to do "ctlinnd reload
hosts.nntp")

If you have your host's name in the hosts.nntp file, then any
newsreader running on your nntphost must be "INN-aware" (i.e. that they
issue the "mode reader" command) or they must read news via the file
system instead of NNTP.

If you have NNTP-based newsreaders that can't send the "mode reader"
command, you can try including "server: localhost" in your inn.conf
file, but then you must have a different inn.conf file for the other
machines.  If you can't do that, you have no other options but to
recompile your newsreaders.

Remember, if you change your inn.conf file, you must shutdown and
restart innd.  There is no "ctlinnd reload inn.conf" command.


------------------------------

Subject:  Alpha OSF tips:

To compile INN for the DEC Alpha, follow the instructions in the INN
patch archive on ftp.pop.psu.edu:/pub/src/news/inn-patches

In rc.news you need to start $INNWATCH using the following:

${DOINNWATCH} && {
    echo "${INNWATCH} &" | su ${NEWSUSER} -c 'at now + 2 min' > /dev/null
}

The '&' in the command line prevents innwatch from taking up an at-job
slot.  SysV-style crons have a per-category and overall limit on the
number of jobs executing simultaneously.

--
Tom Limoncelli -- [e-mail] (work) -- [e-mail] (play)
"Psst!  Hey, Anthony!  Y'know what I        | Disclaimer:  I do not
like about existing?"  "Uh... uh... what?"  | speak for Mentor Graphics.
"Possessing a physical extension."  -TSA    |