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Text File | 1994-05-04 | 25KB | 443 lines

Software/news reader packages:

Currently, Usenet readers interact with the news using a number of
software packages and programs.  This article mentions the important
ones and a little of their history, gives pointers where you can look
for more information and ends with some special notes about "foreign"
and "obsolete" software.  At the very end is a list of sites from which
current versions of the Usenet software may be obtained.

Note that the number of software packages available to run news,
especially on PCs, is increasing.  This article lists only a few of
the many news packages available, and the presence or absence of any
particular software package should not be construed as indicating
anything about its suitability usefulness.

The material contained in this post is probably not 100% up-to-date.
Many of the software packages described in this posting are undergoing
constant development, and it is not always possible to know when new
releases have been made.  Should you discover that information in this
post has been superseded by a new release, please send mail to the poster
of this article with the corrected information.

While the "official" ftp archive sites for packages are listed, note that
most large archive sites carry news software; please try the one nearest
to you before you use up expensive bandwidth on a trans-continental
network link.  You can check the official site for the current version
number, if you want to make sure you're getting the latest version.  In
general, a good place to get recent versions of the more popular news
transport and reading software by anonymous ftp is
ftp.uu.net:/pub/networking/news/ directory.


History
-------
Usenet came into being in late 1979, shortly after the release of V7
Unix with UUCP.  Two Duke University grad students in North Carolina,
Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis, thought of hooking computers together to
exchange information with the Unix community.  Steve Bellovin, a grad
student at the University of North Carolina, put together the first
version of the news software using shell scripts and installed it on
the first two sites: "unc" and "duke." At the beginning of 1980 the
network consisted of those two sites and "phs" (another machine at
Duke), and was described at the January Usenix conference.  Steve
Bellovin later rewrote the scripts into C programs, but they were never
released beyond "unc" and "duke." Shortly thereafter, Steve Daniel did
another implementation in C for public distribution.  Tom Truscott made
further modifications, and this became the "A" news release.

In 1981 at U. C. Berkeley, grad student Mark Horton and high school
student Matt Glickman rewrote the news software to add functionality
and to cope with the ever increasing volume of news -- "A" News was
intended for only a few articles per group per day.  This rewrite was
the "B" News version.  The first public release was version 2.1 in
1982; the 1.* versions were all beta test.  As the net grew, the news
software was expanded and modified.  The last version maintained and
released primarily by Mark was 2.10.1.

Rick Adams, at the Center for Seismic Studies, took over coordination
of the maintenance and enhancement of the B News software with the
2.10.2 release in 1984.  By this time, the increasing volume of news
was becoming a concern, and the mechanism for moderated groups was
added to the software at 2.10.2.  Moderated groups were inspired by
ARPA mailing lists and experience with other bulletin board systems.
In late 1986, version 2.11 of B News was released, including a number
of changes to support a new naming structure for newsgroups, enhanced
batching and compression, enhanced ihave/sendme control messages, and
other features.

The current release of B News is 2.11, patchlevel 19.  Article format
is specified in RFC 1036 (see below).  B News has been declared "dead"
by a number of people, including Rick Adams, and is unlikely to be
upgraded further; most new UUCP sites are using C News or INN (see
next paragraphs).

In March 1986 a package was released implementing news transmission,
posting, and reading using the Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP)
(as specified in RFC 977).  This protocol allows hosts to exchange
articles via TCP/IP connections rather than using the traditional
uucp.  It also permits users to read and post news (using a modified
news user agent) from machines which cannot or choose not to install
the USENET news software.  Reading and posting are done using TCP/IP
messages to a server host which does run the USENET software.  Sites
which have many workstations like the Sun and SGI, and HP products
find this a convenient way to allow workstation users to read news
without having to store articles on each system.  Many of the Usenet
hosts that are also on the Internet exchange news articles using NNTP
because the load impact of NNTP is much lower than uucp (and NNTP
ensures much faster propagation).

NNTP grew out of independent work in 1984-1985 by Brian Kantor at U.
C.  San Diego and Phil Lapsley at U. C. Berkeley.  NNTP includes
support for System V UNIX with Excelan Ethernet cards and DECNET under
Ultrix.  NNTP was developed at U. C. Berkeley by Phil Lapsley with
help from Erik Fair, Steven Grady, and Mike Meyer, among others.  The
NNTP package was distributed on the 4.3BSD release tape (although that
was version 1.2a and out-of-date) and is also available from the
various authors, many major hosts, and by anonymous FTP from
lib.tmc.edu, mthvax.cs.miami.edu and ftp.uu.net.

One new version of news, known as C News, was developed at the
University of Toronto by Geoff Collyer and Henry Spencer.  This
version is a rewrite of the lowest levels of news to increase article
processing speed, decrease article expiration processing and improve
the reliability of the news system through better locking, etc.  The
package was released to the net in the autumn of 1987.  For more
information, see the paper "News Need Not Be Slow," published in The
Winter 1987 Usenix Technical Conference proceedings.  The most recent
version of C News is the 20 Feb 1993 "performance release."  C News can
be obtained from its official archive site, cs.toronto.edu, using FTP.

Another Usenet system, known as InterNetNews, or INN, was written by
Rich Salz <[e-mail]>.  INN is designed to run on Unix hosts
that have a socket interface.  It is optimized for larger hosts where
most traffic uses NNTP, but it does provide full UUCP support.  INN is
very fast, and since it integrates NNTP many people find it easier to
administer only one package.  The package was publicly released on
August 20, 1992.  For more information, see the paper "InterNetNews:
Usenet Transport for Internet Sites" published in the June 1992 Usenix
Technical Conference Proceedings.  INN can be obtained from many
places; its official archive site is ftp.uu.net in the directory
networking/news/nntp/inn.  The current version is 1.4sec, last release
22-dec-1993.

ANU-NEWS is news package written by Geoff Huston of Australia for VMS
systems.  ANU-NEWS is a complete news system that allows reading,
posting, direct replies, moderated newsgroups, etc. in a fashion
closely related to regular news.  The implementation includes the RFC
1036 news propagation algorithms and integrated use of the NNTP
protocols (see below) to support remote news servers, implemented as a
VAX/VMS Decnet object.  An RFC 977 server implemented as a Decnet
object is also included. ANU-NEWS currently includes support for the
following TCP/IP protocols: MultiNet, CMU/TEK, Wollongong WIN/TCP, UCX
(TCP/IP Services for OpenVMS), EXOS, and TCPware.  The ANU-NEWS
interface is similar to standard DEC screen oriented systems.  The
license for the software is free, and there are no restrictions on the
re-distribution.  For more info, contact [e-mail] (Geoff
Huston).  ANU-NEWS is available for FTP from kuhub.cc.ukans.edu.
Contact [e-mail] for more info.

A screen-oriented news client for VMS that works with CMU/tek, EXOS,
MultiNet, UCX, Wollongong and DECnet is also available via ftp from
iraun1.ira.uka.de, info.rz.uni-ulm.de, and ftp.spc.edu (contact Bernd
Onasch <[e-mail]> for details).

Reader NNTP clients for VMS are also available, including VMS/VNEWS
(current release 1.4) and an upcoming reader only version of ANU-NEWS.
VMS/VNEWS is available via anonymous ftp from arizona.edu (contact
[e-mail] for more information) or at any site which archives
vmsnet.source.  Although the current release of ANU-NEWS is usable as
a reader it can be difficult when used with a UNIX server.

A port of C News for the Commodore Amiga under AmigaDOS (NOT Unix), is
available.  The port was done by Frank J. Edwards <[e-mail]>,
and available from Larry Rosenman <[e-mail]>.  Also,
Matt Dillon <[e-mail]>, has greatly improved the
UUCP clone for AmigaDOS, currently V1.16D, available for ftp from
ftp.uu.net in /systems/amiga/dillon.  The package also includes a
newsreader very loosely like the real rn.  Dillon also has a "vn" port
provided by Eric Lee Green.  This software is also available on Bix,
and for ftp from wuarchive.wustl.edu (many other Amiga newsreaders are
also available on theis ftp site).

Several popular screen-oriented news reading interfaces have been
developed in the last few years to replace the traditional "readnews"
interface.  The first of these was "vnews" and it was written by
Kenneth Almquist.  "vnews" provides a "readnews"-like command
interface, but displays articles using direct screen positioning.  It
appears to have been inspired, to some extent, by the "notes" system
(described below).  "vnews" is currently distributed with the standard
2.11 news source.

A second, more versatile interface, "rn", was developed by Larry Wall
(the author of Perl) and released in 1984.  This interface also uses
full-screen display with direct positioning, but it includes many
other useful features and has been very popular with many regular net
readers.  The interface includes reading, discarding, and/or
processing of articles based on user-definable patterns, and the
ability of the user to develop customized macros for display and
keyboard interaction.  "rn" is currently at release 4.4.4.  It is
being maintained by Stan Barber of the Baylor College of Medicine.
"rn" is not provided with the standard news software release, but is
very widely available because of its popularity.  The software can be
obtained from its official archive site, lib.tmc.edu, using FTP, and
via mail from [e-mail]

Wayne Davison's "trn" is a superset of "rn".  Trn adds the ability to
follow "threads of discussions" in newsgroups; its latest version 3.4.1 is
based on rn 4.4.  It uses a Reference-line database to allow the user to
take advantage of the "discussion tree" formed by an article and its
replies.  This results in a true reply-ordered reading of the articles,
complete with a small ascii representation of the current article's
position in the discussion tree.  Trn is also capable of "menu-based"
selection of articles, allows one to do useful things to operate on a set
of selected newsgroups.  Trn can be obtained from ftp.uu.net in the
/networking/news/readers/trn directory, and from many other archive
servers world-wide.

xrn is an X11-based interface to NNTP that was written by Rick
Spickelmier and Ellen Sentovich (UC Berkeley).  The current version is
6.17.  xrn supports many features, including sorting by subject,
user-settable key bindings, graceful handling of NNTP server crashes,
and many of the features of rn (including KILL files and key bindings
similar to rn).  xrn is actively supported by the authors with bug
fixing and feature addition support from many of the users.  xrn can
be retrieved from most of the popular FTP sites (gatekeeper.dec.com,
ftp.uu.net, ftp.x.org).

Another X11-based newsreader is xvnews.  This is a news reader
designed primarily for Sun workstations running OpenWindows.  It runs
with NNTP and is compatible with rn style commands. It is available
from ftp.x.org in the contrib directory.

There are two popular macro packages named "GNUS" and "Gnews" that can
be used with the GNU Emacs text editor.  These allow reading,
replying, and posting interaction with the news from inside the Emacs
text editor.  Client code exists to get the articles using NNTP rather
than from a local disk.  Copies can be found on most archive sites
that carry the GNU archives eg. ftp.cs.titech.ac.jp, archie.au,
archive.eu.net, gatekeeper.dec.com, prep.ai.mit.edu.

"nn" is yet another reader interface, developed by Kim F. Storm of Texas
Instruments A/S, Denmark, and released in 1989.  nn differs from the
traditional readnews and vnews by presenting a menu of article subject
and sender-name lines, allowing you to preselect articles to read.  nn is
also a very fast newsreader, as it keeps a database of article headers
on-line.  (I.e. it trades space for time.  A good rule of thumb is that
the nn database size is 5%-10% of your news spool.  So up to 110% of your
news spool is the amount of space news and the nn database will take.)
nn is now maintained by Peter Wemm <[e-mail]>, and the "offical"
ftp location is the /pub/nn directory on uniwa.uwa.edu.au.  The current
version of nn is 6.4.18.  Non-Australian sites should request the sources
from their nearest backbone site.

Yet another newsreader is the "tin" reader.  It operates with threads, uses
NOV-style index files if available, has different article organization
methods, and is full-screen oriented.  tin works on a local news spool or
over an NNTP connection.  It has been posted to alt.sources; further
information is available from Iain Lea ([e-mail]). The
current release of tin is 1.22.  Tin is based more on the Notes and tass
systems than "rn".  There is an extensive list of features, including
interfaces to batch modes and auto unpacking mechanisms.  The official
ftp site for tin is ftp.germany.eu.net:/pub/news/tin.

An NNTP newsreader for Macintoshs is available called HyperNews.  It
is implemented as a HyperCard stack and depends on MacTCP.  It is
available from many Mac archives, including ftp.apple.com and
sumex-aim.stanford.edu.  A newsreader preferred by many Macintosh
users is NewsWatcher, currently maintained by a group headed (defacto)
by [e-mail] (John Norstad).  The current version is 2.0d17 and
is available in ftp.acns.nwu.edu:/pub/newswatcher.

There is also an NNTP-based netnews reader for Symbolics Lisp Machines
(under Genera 7) available for anonymous FTP from ucbvax.berkeley.edu
[128.32.133.1] in pub/nntp-clients/lispm written by Ian Connolly
<[e-mail]> and maintained by Richard Welty
<[e-mail]>.  In addition, another NNTP-based news
browser is available running under Genera 7 and Genera 8.  It provides
mouse driven hierarchic browsing of newsgroups and articles, with
support for X11 servers on remote machines.  It is available for
anonymous FTP on flash.bellcore.com [128.96.32.20] in the directory
pub/lispm/news-reader/.  It is written and maintained by Peter
Clitherow <[e-mail]>

A TOPS-20 reader was developed by Dave Edwards of SRI
<[e-mail]>, but current availability is unknown.  An NNTP reader
suite for PC's running MS-DOS and having Excelan boards is available
for ftp from ames.arc.nasa.gov; get the pcrrn files.  There are two
MS-DOS news readers that can be obtained from bcm.tmc.edu in the "nfs"
directory.  They both require PC-NFS (from Sun) to work.  They will
both work under PC/TCP from FTP Software early this year.  Source will
be provided at that time.

"trumpet" is a NNTP based news reader for DOS which will also run under
Windows (although only as a DOS application). There is Lan Workplace
version which is also available.  It runs over packet drivers, which can
work side-by-side with a Novell Network.  For information on the Crynwr
Packet Driver Collection, send mail to <[e-mail]> or send a FAX to
[phone].  Trumpet offers a very intuitive interface with most of
the basic facilities required in a newsreader (but without some of the
'bells and whistles found in something like rn).  It has facilities for
using SMTP to forward/reply etc.  The latest version is 1.07 and is
shareware available at most main ftp sites.

trumpet       ftp.utas.edu.au:/pc/trumpet/
wintrumpet    ftp.utas.edu.au:/pc/trumpet/wintrump/*.*

Details on several newsreaders for systems running "Waffle" may be
found in the FAQ posted to the comp.bbs.waffle newsgroup on a regular
basis.  At least 8 different readers are available, and all can be
obtained via ftp and mailserver from ftp.halcyon.com (look in
/pub/waffle/news).

Details on many other mail and news readers for MSDOS, Windows and OS/2
systems can be found in the FAQ posted to the comp.os.msdos.mail-news.

At least one IBM VM/SP (CMS) version of the Usenet software is
available.  It is known as PSU NetNews, and it is maintained by Linda
Littleton ([e-mail]/psuvm.psu.edu).  Version 2.4 of the
software is available from LISTSERV@PSUVM.  PSU NetNews supports only
3270 terminals, and uses XEDIT as its screen driver.  Most major VM
sites appear to use this package.  NetNews supports locally-stored
news, not NNTP reading.

Since january 1993 a complete NNTP server is available for VM systems.
It provides news reading, posting and feed processing compatible to the
Unix NNTP implementations.  The code is written in IBM's VM Rexx.
It assumes that you already have installed PSU VM NETNEWS.  The VM NNTP
package, written by Kris Van Hees ([e-mail]) who also
takes care of the maintenance.  The current version is 1.0.1 and requires
IBM's FAL TCP/IP and Arty Ecock's RXSOCKET which is available from the
IBMTCP FIELLIST on listserv@pucc.  The VM NNTP package can be obtained
from the NNTP PACKAGE on listserv@blekul11.

There is NNTP support for PSU NetNews for bulk news receipt: NNTPXFER
will poll another site for news, and NNTPRCVR will receive news sent
from a Unix NNTPXMIT process.  Either program sends the news articles
to NetNews for processing.  Contact Andy Hooper ([e-mail]
or qucdn.queensu.ca) for more information, or obtain them from
listserv@qucdn in PUBLIC FILELIST.  These programs are provided with
source, and require IBM's FAL TCP/IP and Pascal.  An NNTPXMIT sender
that works in cooperation with PSU NETNEWS is available from Herman
Van Uytven ([e-mail]).

There is at least one NNTP news-reader for VM using XEDIT as its
screen manager: NNR.  Contact Paul Campbell ([e-mail]) for
information.  The program requires IBM's FAL TCP/IP.  The software is
available for anonymous ftp from ftp.uni-stuttgart.de
in the directory pub/comm/news/beginner/software/nnr/*.

An NNTP news reader is available for TSO/ISPF, called NNMVS. NNMVS is
written by Steve Bacher <[e-mail]> at Draper Laboratory.  It
requires C/370 V1R2 or SAS/C; ISPF V2; and TCP/IP for MVS (either
IBM's "FAL" or SNS).  It is now available via anonymous ftp at
ftp.uni-stuttgart.de under the directory
/pub/comm/news/beginner/software/nnmvs and from ftp.mic.ucla.edu,
directory /pub/mvs/netnews.  The current version is Version 3
Release 2.  There's also an object-code-only distribution for folks
without C compilers, but that's an at-your-own-risk distribution,
and requires the IBM C/370 run-time library.  The source code
distribution can be compiled with either C/370 or SAS/C.


Special note on "notes" and old versions of news
------------------------------------------------
Many years ago, there was another distributed "news" system called
"notes".  The "notes" software package used a different internal
organization of articles, and a different interchange format than that
of the standard Usenet software.  It was inspired by the notesfiles
available in the PLATO system and was developed independently from the
Usenet news.  Eventually, the "notes" network and Usenet were joined
via gateways doing (sometimes imperfect) protocol translation.
"notes" was written in 1980-1981 by Ray Essick and Rob Kolstad, (then)
grad students at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.  The
first public release of "notes" was at the January 1982 Usenix
conference.  The last release of notes was version 1.7; it is no
longer being actively maintained.

"B" news software is currently considered obsolete.  Unix sites
joining the Usenet should install C news or INN to ensure proper
behavior and good performance.  Most old B news software had
compiled-in limits on the number of newsgroups and the number of
articles per newsgroup; the increasing volume of news means that B
news software cannot reliably cope with a moderately-full newsfeed.


Software versions & availability
--------------------------------
You can obtain the version number of your news software by issuing
some form of "v" command to show the current version -- consult the
man page for details.  Current software is obtainable from almost any
major Usenet site as well as the sites noted in the body of the
article, above.

The following sites probably have sources to the current news software
available for anyone needing a copy:

        Site        Contact
        ----        -------
        munnari        [e-mail]
        osu-cis        [e-mail]
        philabs        [e-mail]
        pyramid        [e-mail]
        rutgers        [e-mail]
        tektronix    [e-mail]
        watmath        [e-mail]
        uunet        [e-mail]

Sources for most of the news readers and software, including news
2.11, C News, "rn", and "trn" are also available in the
comp.sources.unix archives.  European sites should request the sources
from their nearest backbone site.

The "archie" service can be used to locate ftp archives containing
various news software packages.  There are regular postings in the
comp.answers newsgroup about how to use the "archie" service.

For a relatively low price, you can buy one of many CD-ROM distributions
of freely-redistributable software.  This may be cheaper than a
long-distance phone call.

Standards
---------
News programs communicate with each other according to standard protocols,
some of which are described by RFCs.  An RFC is a Request For Comment, a
de facto standard in the Internet Community.  It is a form of published
software standard, done through the Network Information Center (NIC) at SRI.
Copies of RFCs are often posted to the net and obtainable from archive sites.
Current news-related RFCs include the following:

    RFC 822 specifies the format of messages; RFC 1036 uses this.
    RFC 977 specifies NNTP, the Network News Transfer Protocol.
    RFC 1036 specifies the format of Usenet articles.
    RFC 1123 amends RFC 822.
    RFC 1153 specifies the digest format some moderated groups use.

Newsgroups
----------

The following newsgroups cover issues discussed in this article, and can
be consulted for recent developments.

bit.listserv.netnws-l    Discussion about NetNews on VM systems.
gnu.emacs.gnews        News reading under GNU Emacs using Weemba's Gnews.
gnu.emacs.gnus        News reading under GNU Emacs using GNUS (in English).
news.software.anu-news    VMS B-news software from Australian National Univ.
news.software.b        Discussion about B-news-compatible software.
news.software.nn    Discussion about the "nn" news reader package.
news.software.notes    Notesfile software from the Univ. of Illinois.
news.software.readers    General discussion about news reading software.
news.software.nntp    The Network News Transfer Protocol.
comp.os.msdos.mail-news    Administering mail & network news systems under MS-DOS.
comp.protocols.tcp-ip   TCP and IP network protocols.
comp.protocols.tcp-ip.ibmpc     TCP/IP for IBM(-like) personal computers.


Acknowledgements
----------------
The preparation of this article (and Usenet itself!) was greatly
enhanced by the contributions and assistance of the following persons:
Steve Bellovin, Ray Essick, Mark Horton, Brian Kantor, Phil Lapsley,
Bob Page, Rich Salz, Tom Truscott, and Larry Wall.  Thanks, folks.