From rifkin@cco.caltech.edu Sun Feb 13 04:07:58 1994 To: adam@vlsi.cs.caltech.edu Subject: NN FAQ >Path: nntp-server.caltech.edu!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!swrinde!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!pad-thai.aktis.com!pad-thai.aktis.com!not-for-mail >From: Bill Wohler >Newsgroups: news.software.nn,news.answers >Subject: NN Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) with Answers >Supersedes: >Followup-To: poster >Date: 18 Jan 1994 00:00:24 -0500 >Organization: SAP AG, Walldorf, Germany >Lines: 1427 >Sender: faqserv@security.ov.com >Approved: news-answers-request@MIT.Edu >Expires: 3 Mar 1994 05:00:12 GMT >Message-ID: >Reply-To: Bill Wohler >NNTP-Posting-Host: pad-thai.aktis.com >Summary: This document answers Frequently Asked Questions about NN, a > menu-based, point and shoot, USENET news reader. It should > be read by anyone who wishes to post to news.software.nn. >Keywords: FAQ nn news question answer newsrc digest article nntp > newsgroup cancel mail signature header netnews usenet kill >X-Last-Updated: 1993/10/15 >Xref: nntp-server.caltech.edu news.software.nn:5968 news.answers:16981 Archive-name: nn-faq Last-modified: 1993/10/15 Version: Revision: 93.3 Supplemental A This is a living list of frequently asked questions on the Usenet news reader NN (No News is Good News). The point of this is to circulate existing information, and avoid rehashing old answers. Better to build on top than start again. Please read this document before ever posting to this newsgroup. This article is posted monthly. If it has already expired and you're not reading this, you can hope that you saved the last bit of question 3 so that you can get a copy yourself. Please do not post an answer when someone posts a frequently asked question, as I will always e-mail a reply. This ensures that everybody gets their question answered fully and eliminates unnecessary traffic in this newsgroup. Your comments, additions and fixes to this list are welcome: please send them to Bill Wohler . Note: I'm taking a year sabbatical, and will be out of e-mail touch during this time. I will collect all correspondence sent to the above address roughly in the spring of '94. Subject: Table of Contents From: Preface Legend: + new, - deleted, ! changed Introductory 1. Why should I use nn? !2. What is the current version/status of nn? !3. Where can I get nn? 4. What references exist for nn? !5. How should I report bugs? 6. How can I convert from rn to nn? 7. How can I make life simpler when starting nn for the first time? !8. Is there an X interface to nn? Building nn !10. What machines does nn run on? 11. Is it possible to restrict the groups that users have access to? 12. Unofficial patches for various bugs Using nn 20. How do I save files that I can read later with MH, elm, Mail, ...? !21. How come nn doesn't show the Lines count? 22. How can I find all articles having to do with a certain topic? 23. How can I set a different Organization name? !24. Can all non-selected subjects be automatically placed in my kill file? 25. Can I automatically kill articles based on the Newsgroups header? 26. How can I select one article in a thread with auto-select-subject set? 27. Is there a library of macros and other nn features? !28. Can one search for patterns in the entire article from the menu? 29. How can I remove old articles from folders? 30. What's the best way to save multi-part articles? 31. When saving in +a/b/c keeps you from saving in +a/b. 32. Can I use my mailer to send mail? 33. How can I see the original article with the current subject? !34. Can I choose newsgroups as I do articles, ie. with a menu? 35. How can I post prewritten articles with nn? 36. How can nn automatically append my signature? 37. How do I eliminate double signatures? 38. Can the signature come from a different file or program? 39. How can I make mail replies go to a different machine? 40. How come more articles get selected than I expect? !41. Any plans for trn-ish thread following? !42. Setting new-group-action to "ask before adding" doesn't work. 43. Why does nn crash when a letter one past the highest letter is selected? 44. Why do articles without a Lines header appear empty? 45. How do I save my posts and replies automatically? 46. How can I change how my real name appears? 47. How can I customize my mail headers for mail and posting? 48. Can the article viewer/pager be changed? 49. How do I search for an author in a menu? 50. Can nn use aliases when sending mail? !51. How can I see which newsgroups are available? 52. How can I read MIME articles? 53. How do I unsubscribe to all groups? nnmaster 60. Why does nnmaster stop collecting articles at the "junk" group? 61. How do I cope with "Incomplete MASTER file"? 62. Why isn't nnmaster working? 63. Why do I get ".../MASTER not found"? 64. Why do I get "cannot open 'x' file" 65. Why do I get "Lost connection to server foobar" Appendix Glossary, Acknowledgements, Warranty pack_date.c news.c nn-use-mh nn_elm nnalias Subject: Viewing This Article From: Preface To skip to a particular question numbered xx, use "/^F.*xx" with most pagers. In GNU Emacs type "M-C-s ^F.*xx", (or C-r to search backwards), followed by ESC to end the search. "-xx" is often sufficient. To skip to new or changed questions, use "/^S.*[!+]" with most pagers and "M-C-s ^S.*[!+]" in GNU Emacs. This article is in digest format. Nn may have already broken this message into separate articles; if not, then type "G %". In rn, use ^G to skip sections. This article is treated as an outline when edited by GNU Emacs. Run "M-x describe-mode" to see available outline-mode commands. Useful commands are "C-c C-s" (show-subtree) and "M-x show-all" Numbers in square brackets denote the month and year of the last update. Subject: Why should I use nn? From: Intro-1 nn is a menu based (point and shoot) netnews reader with a complete set of features to satisfy both the expert and the novice user. Since its first release in Denmark in 1984 (!), in Europe in 1988, and the global release in June 1989, it has replaced rn and other well-known news readers at many sites. Some of the key features of nn are: * Menu-based article selection prior to reading the articles with the articles sorted according to subject and posting time. This significantly reduces the time spent on news reading. No keystrokes are wasted on articles you don't want to read, and only the articles selected on the menu will be read. * Release 6.4 uses standard .newsrc, and can leave individual articles unread. * Digests are automatically split and presented as ordinary articles! You can transparently save and respond to individual subarticles. * Full folder support: read, save, and delete individual articles. * Online help and manual. * Built-in unshar and patch functions. * Built-in uudecode function which will automatically unpack, concatenate, and decode multi-part postings. * Easy remapping of keys with advanced macro definition features. * Automatic kill & selection of articles based on subject or author. * User specified presentation sequence of news groups based on the news group hierarchy. * Whole classes of news groups can easily be unsubscribed permanently, e.g. talk.all and all.politics * Related groups can be merged and presented as a single group, e.g. comp.emacs and all gnu.emacs groups. * Blindingly fast 'search for subject'. On my Texas S1500 system, nn uses less than 20 seconds to find all articles on a specific subject among 64000 articles in all groups! * News collection and presentation is extremely fast, because nn uses its own database on top of the standard news system. * In a distributed environment, the database can be shared among all hosts on the network. Only one daemon is needed on the news server for all hosts. This works in a heterogenous environment as well. * NNTP is also supported (using a local database for speed). Because of the database, nn starts almost equally fast (in a few seconds), no matter whether you have 100 or 10000 unread articles! The database takes up some disk space, but dramatically improves speed and functionality. The amount of disk space consumed is approx. 1Mb per 10000 articles. Subject: ! What is the current version/status of nn? From: Intro-2 The current version of nn is 6.4.18. Note: The development of nn has been taken over by Peter Wemm . Bug reports, fixes and suggestions should be sent to nn-bugs@dkuug.dk. Version 6.5.0 is in the final stages of beta testing. It will include many bug fixes, full NOV capability, a means of automatically killing threads of unread articles as well as automatically selecting subjects to articles that you've read, a mouse sensitive xterm interface, and the program nnsub to subscribe to newsgroups. The adventurous are invited to obtain the beta version. Please get the files README.FIRST and README.b2 in the beta directory, and report any bugs to Peter. See "Where can I get nn" below. [10.93] Subject: ! Where can I get nn? From: Intro-3 Note that tar files with the name of nn6.4.tar.Z (ie. not nn6.4.18.tar.Z) may *not* include the patches. Don't even think of compiling unless the PATCHLEVEL defined in patchlevel.h is 18. We are endeavouring to remedy the situation. The current master site for nn is uniwa.uwa.edu.au. See below. The following is a very old list. At the moment, only the archives noted with the last modification date are known to carry the latest sources. We will be soon trying to update this list. Until then, may I suggest that you use archie to find the nn sources. [10.93] via anonymous ftp: uniwa.uwa.edu.au [130.95.128.1] [10.93] pub/nn/nn-6.18.tar.Z 590k pub/nn/nn-6.18.tar.gz 405k pub/nn/beta/nn-6.5.0.b2.tar.gz 515k chalmers.se [129.16.1.1] [12.92] pub/nn/nn6.4.18.tar.Z pub/nn/patch??.Z cs.mun.ca [12.92] pub/news/nn6.4 ftp.msen.com [148.59.1.8] [1.93] pub/packages/nn/nn.patch17.Z 5k pub/packages/nn/nn.patch18.Z 6k pub/packages/nn/nn6.4.pl16.tar.Z 732k dkuug.dk [129.142.96.41] pub/nn6.4/nn64.tarZa[a-f] ~90k each pub/nn6.4/nn6.4.patch[1-16].Z ~25k each munnari.oz.au [128.250.1.21] pub/news/nn sirius.ucs.adelaide.edu.au [129.127.40.3] pub/news/nn6.4/nn6.4.tar.Z 485k pub/news/nn6.4/nn6.4.patch[1-10].Z ~25k each aupair.cs.athabascau.ca pub/usenet/nn/nn6.4.patch18 mtecv2.mty.itesm.mx [131.178.1.5] pub/nn/nn6.4.16.tar.Z pub/nn/nn6.4/nn6.4.patch[1-16].Z pub/nn/NN_FAQ_with_Answers ghost.dsi.unimi.it [131.175.10.64] pub/nn.6.4.16.tar.Z 766k pub/nntp.1.15.11.tar.Z 284k ftp.uu.net [137.39.1.9] news/readers/nn/nn6.4.tar.Z 485k news/readers/nn/nn6.4.patch[1-16].Z <30k each uk.ac.soton.ecs (NIFTP) login ID "guest", password of your mail ID (must include an "@"): /nn6.4.16.tar.Z 621637 /nn6.4.patch[1-16].Z ~25000 /nntp-1.5.11.tar.Z 210319 via anonymous uucp: Anyone in the U.S. can get nn source and patches by anonymous uucp from uunet by using their 900 number which costs 40 cents/minute (you don't have to be a uunet subscriber). The number is 1-900-468-7727, login: uucp, no password. See uunet!~/help (~5k) for more info or get uunet!~/index/README (~4k) for a current full directory listing. --Gary Morris uunet!~/news/nn/nn6.4.tar.Z (~485k) uunet!~/news/nn/nn6.4.patch1.Z (~15k) ... uunet!~/news/nn/nn6.4.patch16.Z (~24k) via mail: Send a note to ftpmail@decwrl.dec.com whose body contains "help" on a line by itself get information on getting ftp sources by mail. Send a note to mail-server@nluug.nl with a body containing one or both of the following as desired: send news/nn/nn6.4.16.tar.Z send news/nntp/nntp.1.5.11.tar.Z mini-inews: As well as bringing mini-inews up to date, modifications have been made to remove the need for MINI_INEWS_HEADERS when setting up nn. Mini-inews will now create whatever headers are required including if desired, a Lines header or an incremental Message-ID numbering capability. --Jim Jagielski jagubox.gsfc.nasa.gov [128.183.44.1] /pub/inews16.tar.Z 76K Subject: What references exist for nn? From: Intro-4 Book: The Whole Internet User's Guide & Catalog, Chapter 8. Ed Krol. ISBN 1-56592-025-2. $24.95. 376 pages. O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. Book Orders: US and Canada: 800-998-9938. Fax: 707-829-0104. To get a list of non-US distributors, send a note to nuts@ora.com or call +1-707-829-0515. Usenet: news.software.nn Mailing list: NN mailing list archives: Papers: "Intro to nn" ux1.cso.uiuc.edu [128.174.5.59]:doc/net/nn. where is one from doc, ps, tex, jpn, and hqx. "A Short Guide to nn" unlinfo.unl.edu:pub/crc.docs/NN.doc/nn.manual.ascii This document: via anonymous ftp: pit-manager.mit.edu [18.172.1.27] /pub/usenet/news.answers/nn-faq.Z ftp.uu.net [137.39.1.9] /archive/usenet/news.answers/nn-faq.Z ftp.cs.ruu.nl [131.211.80.17] /pub/NEWS.ANSWERS/nn-faq via uucp: uunet!/archive/usenet/news.answers/nn-faq.Z via mail: Each of the following addresses is following by commands which should be included as the body of the message. mail-server@pit-manager.mit.edu send usenet/news.answers/nn-faq mail-server@cs.ruu.nl send pub/NEWS.ANSWERS/nn-faq Subject: ! How should I report bugs? From: Intro-5 Send them to nn-bugs@dkuug.dk. [10.93] Subject: How can I convert from rn to nn? From: Intro-6 Why bother? On our system some people use nn and some people use rn. In fact, since they both use the same .newsrc format, it is perfectly possible to use both. --Ian Taylor Subject: How can I make life simpler when starting nn for the first time? From: Intro-7 Use nnsub and eep. See the enclosed documentation to see which you prefer. [note: only available in 6.5.0 beta] --Peter Wemm [10.93] I think a nice way is to use the catch-up facility. Start nn -a0 and let nn catch up automatically. After some hours restart nn and unsubscribe to uninteresting groups having news articles. Restart nn the following day and continue unsubscribing. After one week, you have a nice .newsrc. --Joerg Napp Another method is to run nn, exit immediately with 'Q', edit ~/.newsrc and replace all occurrences of ':' with '!' (ie. sed 's/:/!/' .newsrc > foo; mv foo .newsrc) and then replace the '!' with a ':' for those groups you're interested in. [3.93] Subject: ! Is there an X interface to nn? From: Intro-8 Almost. In the 6.5.0 beta version, there is a simple text panel, with highlighting and mouse sensitivity within an xterm. [10.93] Subject: ! What machines does nn run on? From: Building nn-10 Please send updates to nn-bugs@dkuug.edu. [10.93] Operating systems: 3b1 (UNIX-pc) with GCC SunOS 3 NeXT 1.0 SunOS 4.0 AIX 2.2.1 SunOS 4.1 SysV environment A/UX 1.1 System V 4.2 BSD and Ultrix systems Motorola System V/88 Release 3 4.3 BSD systems Texas Instruments System 1500 dnix 5.2 on DIAB DS90 NCR tower dnix 5.3 on DIAB DS90 ULTRIX systems (4.2 based) Dynix 3.0 on Symmetry Mips running riscos 4.0 or greater Fortune 32:16 Riscos 4.5 and later HPUX (series 300) Microport UNIX V.2 HPUX 2.1 (series 800) Amdahl UTS 2.0 HPUX 3.0 (series 800) SCO Xenix 2.2.1 (286) -- terminfo HPUX 6.5 or newer (series 300) SCO Xenix 286 -- termcap HPUX 7.0 Xenix386 [termcap version] Interactive UNIX on 386 Xenix386 2.3.2 w/development system Dynix/PTX on symmetry Tandy 68000/Xenix 3.2 Pyramid (and Targon 35) SCO UNIX V on 386 IRIX 3.1/3.2 Siemens SINIX Hardware platforms: 3b1 with GCC [no networking] MIPS processors Amdahl 5890 (big iron) Siemens MX300 AT&T 3b2 Pyramid (and Targon 35) Convex IBM 6150 DECstation 3100 Silicon Graphics 4D series Gould PN6000 SPARC processors HP9000 series 320 and 800 (at least) 80386 based SUNs [have network support] Intel 80286 [no networking] Sequent Symmetry Intel 80386 [no networking] VAX family Motorola 68000 family Motorola 88000 risc Subject: Is it possible to restrict the groups that users have access to? From: Building nn-11 Create a new group for the people who can read the special groups. Call it "privnews", for example. (In /etc/group put the userid of each person who's in that group on that group's line.) Then change the group of the spool directory which contains the restricted newsgroup to "privnews" (leaving the owner as news), and set the mode to 750. --Alexis Rosen Note that this only works if you are not using NNTP to read news. There is currently no mechanism that will allow this to work with NNTP. --Steve Simmons [1.93] Subject: Unofficial patches for various bugs From: Building nn-12 Several bugs have been reported and fixed and the patches are available here for those not patient enough to wait until the next release. Remember, these are *unofficial* patches so back them out before patching in the next release of nn. You do not have to strip the two leading spaces before these patches. In fact you can run "patch -s -N < this-entire-faq", within the newsreader even! The patch in appendix "pack_date.c" fixes NN dateline parsing. Also, NN mishandles non-GMT time zones near short month boundaries due to NN's, er, somewhat unusual time stamp encoding. It is included in nn version 6.5.0. --Paul Eggert [10.93] Subject: Can I set up nn securely? From: Building nn-13 Diffs are unfortunately not included, but this is what you can do: o Set shell-restrictions in the setup file. o Set and lock *every* variable which is used to execute commands. o Modify the source to avoid display/save/print files above the home-directory if shell-restrictions is set (mainly in save.c). o Modify the source to avoid changing directories if shell-restrictions is set. o Modify the source to avoid showing the contents of locked variables. In particular, the following variables should be locked: backup-folder-path, backup-suffix, bug-report-address, decode-header-file, editor, folder, inews, mail, mail-record, mailer, news-record, newsrc, pager, patch-command, printer, record, spell-checker, unshar-header-file Subject: How do I save files that I can read later with MH, elm, Mail, ...? From: Using nn-20 MH: Save your files with +$F/$N. For example, if you save message 10 in news.software.nn in this way, you will create a file called ~/News/news/software/nn/10. If you have a symbolic link from ~/Mail/news to ~/News, then you can look at your saved nn messages with "scan +news/news/software/nn". Mail Add "set mail-format" to your init file. Subject: ! How come nn doesn't show the Lines count? From: Using nn-21 Karl Kleinpaste writes: C News sites can turn on Lines: header creation (we do here), but the default has it turned off. I wish more would turn it on, as several newsreaders put it to use, and it's the most easily available metric of article size when showing the user a menu of available articles. Henry Spencer replies: We're unenthusiastic about Lines:, which is why it's off by default and little-documented. *The* most easily available metric of article size is not line count -- which is often slightly wrong, by the way -- but byte count, which is available without even parsing the headers. You can tell C News to add Lines: headers to articles *posted* locally, but C News has no provision for adding headers to traffic coming in from other sites. [Specifically, search for the string "uncomment" in inews, and uncomment those lines. --bw] But Paul Eggert and Luc Rooijakkers provide a solution: Remember, these are *unofficial* patches so back them out before patching in the next release of nn. You do not have to strip the two leading spaces before these patches. In fact you can run "patch -s -N < this-entire-faq", within the newsreader even! A variation of this patch is included in nn version 6.5.0. See appendix "news.c" [10.93] Finally, Peter Wemm says that you'll always get the lines header if you run INN. Subject: How can I find all articles having to do with a certain topic? From: Using nn-22 nngrab invokes nn on all articles whose subject or keyword fields contain a desired keyword. This shows one how important it is to use descriptive subjects and keywords when posting articles. For more information, read the manual page. Subject: How can I set a different Organization name? From: Using nn-23 See "How can I update my mail headers?" [9.92] Subject: ! Can all non-selected subjects be automatically placed in my kill file? From: Using nn-24 The two variables, ignore-re and auto-select-rw, accomplish this task. They are available in version 6.5.0. In the meantime, patches may be obtained from dkuug.dk:/pub/nn6.4/nn6.4.killunread. --Keld J|rn Simonsen . [1.93] Subject: Can I automatically kill articles based on the Newsgroups header? From: Using nn-25 This is how one can automatically kill crossposted articles, etc. First, manually either add the following to your .newsrc to mark all articles read forever: alt.flame: 1-2147483647 or add the following to your .nn/kill file to kill all articles in the group: alt.flame:!s/:^ The former method may break down if you ever use nngoback to reset numbers in your .newsrc. The latter method could cause difficulty if you ever actually want to read articles in that group. Near the top of your sequence in your init file put !alt.flame. alt.flame This makes alt.flame, but not its subgroups, be included as the first thing in your sequence; so all articles in it are killed before they appear in any other groups. You might want to put NEW above this so you can see if new groups are getting off to a bad start with lots of alt.flame crossposting. Later in the sequence put % alt % This allows the rest of the alt hierarchy, including subgroups such as alt.flame.spelling (if you subscribe to it), to get included at that point in the sequence. Along with using the default settings of cross-filter-seq=true and cross-post=false, this works fine to nuke the crossposted articles. --Richard M. Mathews & Dave Shaver Subject: How can I select one article in a thread with auto-select-subject set? From: Using nn-26 Define the following macro to toggle auto-select-subject. --Steven Grady map menu A ( :local auto-select-subject :toggle auto-select-subject ?auto-select-subject=on echo "Auto-select on" ?auto-select-subject=off echo "Auto-select off" ) Use the '.' command. Subject: Is there a library of macros and other nn features? From: Using nn-27 When complete, it will be a companion posting to this one. If you have not mailed me your init file, or you have made substantial changes since the last time, please send it in. If anyone is handy in perl or awk and would like to write some scripts to reduce multiple init files to variable summaries (like the one I posted a long time ago), macro definitions and presentation sequence tricks, I would like to talk to you. Subject: ! Can one search for patterns in the entire article from the menu? From: Using nn-28 No. However, in 6.5.0, there will be an additional option under the 'G' command to create a submenu containing articles that contain the desired string. As it is not yet well tested, it will be a compile time feature. --Peter Wemm [10.93] Subject: How can I remove old articles from folders? From: Using nn-29 Just open the folder in the usual way and C(ancel) the articles you want to remove from the folder. When you leave the folder, nn will rewrite the folder with the "cancel"ed articles removed. --Kim Storm Subject: What's the best way to save multi-part articles? From: Using nn-30 All you have to do is to save the articles from the menu, e.g. W(rite) +file.* a b c d... where a b c d... are the articles on the menu you want to save. You can also save the selected articles on the menu with * (only on current page) or + (on all menu pages). --Kim Storm Subject: When saving in +a/b/c keeps you from saving in +a/b. From: Using nn-31 This happens when default-save-file is $F. Try changing default-save-file to $F/$N (my favorite) to get, for example, +news/software/nn/1022, or $G to put everything in +news.software.nn. Finally, if you really did want the behavior of +$F, a compromise would be to use +$F. (Andrew's favorite) instead (one can use anything other than '.'). --Bill Wohler & Andrew Swann Alternatively, use +$F/$L, to place articles for news.software.nn in the file +/news/software/nn/nn. This has two advantages: 1) You can later read through the folder "nn" and save some of the articles under new folder names having to do with the topic. For example, you might save auto-select topics under +$F/auto-sel, that is, +/news/software/nn/auto-sel. 2) If at a later date, a new newsgroup is added below nn, articles can still be saved under that subgroup since +/news/software/nn is already a directory, not a folder. --Harry Herman Subject: Can I use my mailer to send mail? From: Using nn-32 Yes. See the variables mail-script, mailer, and mailer-pipe-input. The following show how you can have nn use elm and MH to mail messages. [1.93] The original idea of using MH (namely, comp) to send mail from nn came from Jaap Vermeulen , but he wouldn't recognize what I did to it. I also used a suggestion from John Romine and Tom McCain . Add set mail-script nn-use-mh to your init file. See appendix "nn-use-mh" for the script. In addition, you can contact Ray Davis for some scripts that sort of turn nn into a MH front end by providing macros to save, delete and refile articles in MH folders. To use elm to send the messages, add the following to ~/.nn/init: set mailer nn_elm unset mailer-pipe-input and see appendix "nn_elm" for the script. [1.93] Subject: How can I see the original article with the current subject? From: Using nn-33 While reading an article, use "G RET RET RET". Subject: ! Can I choose newsgroups as I do articles, ie. with a menu? From: Using nn-34 No, not yet. Sorry. However, progress in this direction has been made--if you care to finish the work, please contact Peter Wemm . [12.92] See also "How can see which newsgroups are available?" [1.93] Outside of nn, you may wish to check out eep which is in the contributed area in 6.5.0. --Peter Wemm [10.93] Subject: How can I post prewritten articles with nn? From: Using nn-35 nnpost will construct the header for the posted article, so it requires several arguments to be specified before the article is posted, e.g. a newsgroup name and a subject. If some arguments are missing, nnpost will prompt for the missing arguments. If your pre-written article includes a full header, then you should not use nnpost; instead you should feed the article to "inews -h" directly (which is what nnpost does after building the header from the arguments). --Kim Storm Subject: How can nn automatically append my signature? From: Using nn-36 Put your signature in a file called .signature in your home directory, and use: set append-signature-post set append-signature-mail # if desired set query-signature # if you want confirmation. See also "How do I eliminate double signatures?" and "Can the signature come from a different file or program?" [3.93] Subject: How do I eliminate double signatures? From: Using nn-37 Double signatures occur when both nn and inews append $HOME/.signature. If you want just inews to append your signature, use: unset append-signature-post This is actually the default, but you can unset this variable if your nn administrator has mistakenly turned it on. If you want just nn to append your signature, move your signature to some other place than $HOME/.signature. Then see, "Can the signature come from a different file or program?" Subject: Can the signature come from a different file or program? From: Using nn-38 If you want nn to append your .signature file, you can copy nn's aux file (ie. /usr/local/lib/nn/aux) to your .nn directory and set the mail-script and news-script variables to ~/.nn/aux. In your copy of the aux script, you can either specify a different place for your .signature file (like $HOME/.nn/signature) or you can get fancy: you can use specific .signatures for certain groups (saved in variable "G"), or use the output of a program. --Bill Wohler Tired of the same old signature? Want different signatures for different newsgroups? Here's a program to help you out. The way it works is to have .signature be a named pipe, so if you don't have named points, just say 'n'. The sigrand program then feeds stuff down the pipe everytime someone wants to read it. That way it works for more than just news, but for anything that wants to read your .signature, like a mailer. You have your choice of three kinds of signatures: 1) random (short) fortune from "fortune -s"; you get these if you don't have a global sig file. 2) random fortune from ~/News/SIGNATURES [global sig file] 3) random fortune form ~/News/(newsgroup)/SIGNATURES [local sig files] Ask Tom Christiansen for more details. Subject: How can I make mail replies go to a different machine? From: Using nn-39 See "How can I update my mail headers?" [9.92] Subject: How come more articles get selected than I expect? From: Using nn-40 Check the setting of subject-match-parts. If this is on, then your subjects are considered matched if they match up to the first digit. For example if subject-match-parts is on, the subjects: someprogram Part 1/5 someprogram Part 2/5 are considered matches. So are v12345: someprogram Part 1/5 v12346: anotherprogram Part 1/23 as the "v" is identical up to the first digit. If you want to use subject-match-parts in a "comp.sources" type group, set subject-match-offset (the character position that matches are started from) to be beyond any digits that might appear in the first part of the subject. --Dave Hayes Subject: ! Any plans for trn-ish thread following? From: Using nn-41 "Yes, it's planned." --Peter Wemm [10.93] Subject: ! Setting new-group-action to "ask before adding" doesn't work. From: Using nn-42 Take NEW out of your sequence--it's redundant. There was also a small bug (fixed in 6.5.0) which caused it to not to work in certain situations. --Peter Wemm [10.93] Subject: Why does nn crash when a letter one past the highest letter is selected? From: Using nn-43 This is fixed in patch 17. [9.92] Your terminal modes will be screwed up after such an event, so you'll have to type ^J (or LINE-FEED) repeatedly until a prompt is seen, and then run stty -sane^J or reset Subject: Why do articles without a Lines header appear empty? From: Using nn-44 This problem only shows up if you have header-lines set to a string that includes "L". It is suspected that having the line count patch sets something that makes nn think there is a Lines header and then the header-string is telling it to display the Lines header but there isn't one and things get messed up. --Gary Morris Subject: How do I save my posts, followups and replies automatically? From: Using nn-45 In your nn init file, use the following lines: set news-record file set mail-record file to place posts and followups in one file and replies in another, or to put everything in a single file, use: set record file Replace "file" with the absolute path (~ == home directory ok) of your desired file. All files are saved in mailbox format. --Don Mullins [9.92] Subject: How can I change how my real name appears? From: Using nn-46 On BSD UNIX systems, you can run the command chfn(1) to change your real name. If you don't want to do this, or can't, please see "How can I update my mail headers?" [9.92] Subject: How can I customize my mail headers for mail and posting? From: Using nn-47 Headers can be modified or appended to by creating the variables mail-header (for replies) and news-header (for posts and followups) in the init file. You can include any headers that you want; separate multiple headers with semi-colons. For example: set mail-header From: Joe Smith ;Reply-To: js@cc.edu; Organization: CC University set news-header From: Joe Smith ;Reply-To: js@cc.edu; Organization: CC University Note that these lines are split for readability--the value of these variables must appear on a single line. In addition, do not insert a space between semi-colons and the next header. A Reply-To header is useful when your system generates either an unwanted or blatantly wrong return address for you. If this header is present, then mailers use it instead of the system generated From header. A From header is useful when you want to change how your real name appears to nn readers, but you don't want to change it (or can't) on your system. Warning: only do this if you're sure you can create a RFC 822 compliant From header. [9.92] Subject: Can the article viewer/pager be changed? From: Using nn-48 No. And for good reason. There are too many commands in nn's pager that less, for example, doesn't know anything about. Subject: How do I search for an author in a menu? From: Using nn-49 Add the following macro to your init file (~/.nn/init) and invoke via '_' (underscore). # _ does search on sender (as = does a search on subject) map menu _ ( :set select-on-sender find input :unset select-on-sender message ) [1.93] Subject: Can nn use aliases when sending mail? From: Using nn-50 Yes. See the variable mail-alias-expander, and use the script in appendix "nnalias." [1.93] Subject: ! How can I see which newsgroups are available? From: Using nn-51 To see a list of all news groups with a short description, use the command ":post" and type '?'. To list groups that match a regular expression (ie. pattern), use "/pattern" instead of '?'. -- guckes@math.fu-berlin.de Also try using '?' when going to a group with the 'G' command. Note that successive '?'s will display more groups when there is not enough room to display all choices at once. Group completion is achieved with ' ' (space). Finally, the programs "nnsub" or "eep" can be used to easily view newsgroup names and descriptions and also to subscribe to groups. These programs are in the "contrib" area of the sources in 6.5.0. [10.93] Subject: How can I read MIME articles? From: Using nn-52 Using metamail, you can do one of the following: "Print" the message. Use the "P" command and: set printer metamail "save" the message. Use "s" and specify "|metamail" as a filename. metamail can be found at: thumper.bellcore.com [128.96.41.1] /pub/nsb/mm.tar.Z [3.93] Subject: How do I unsubscribe to all groups? From: Using nn-53 The file .newsrc in your home directory contains the information about the newsgroups, their subscription status and the numbers of the read articles. A colon (':') indicates a subscribed group, and an exclamation mark ('!') indicates an unsubscribed group. All you need to do for unsubscribing to all newsgroups is to edit .newsrc. You can do this with your favourite editor, or sed -e 's/:/!/' $HOME/.newsrc > foo mv foo .newsrc If you use csh, you have to escape the '!' with a '\'. --Sven Guckes [3.93] Subject: Why does nnmaster stop collecting articles at the "junk" group? From: nnmaster-60 This can occur when you access news via NNTP. Older nntp servers have a limitation of 4000 articles in a group, and junk may easily exceed this which makes the nntp server crash. To overcome the problem, edit the GROUPS file to add the X flag on the junk group, run nnmaster -G, and then nnmaster will ignore the junk group. --Kim Storm In nntp_dir/common/conf.h, you can either increase MAX_GROUPS (normally 4096) or you can set #define DYNAMIC_ART_ARRAY (normally #undefed). In either case, you obviously have to recompile nntp. Normally, new groups are added as they come in, but the news administrator should monitor the junk newsgroup and either make new newsgroups for the orphan messages, or ensure that the feed stops sending bogus messages. --Mark Rawling [3.93] Subject: How do I cope with "Incomplete MASTER file"? From: nnmaster-61 See "Why isn't nnmaster working?" Subject: Why isn't nnmaster working? From: nnmaster-62 After the make, did you remember to: Run ./inst to install the files? Run ./inst INIT to initialize the database? Nnmaster mails error messages to the user who owns him (typically "news"). Check this mailbox for clues. If nnmaster -r or -D did not work, then neither did nnmaster -I (or ./inst INIT from the install directory). Once you fix the permissions (see Paul's answer below), you need to rerun the initialization step. --Stew Ellis If nnmaster dies and updates the Log file with "Incomplete MASTER file", it could be you're not running the latest version. --David R. Hieb If, when you start your nnmaster, it just exits quietly, it could be that your permissions are incorrect. Ensure that all directories in the nn library are owned by news (or the owner that you configured nn with). --Paul Bickerstaff Make sure that there is a 'news' entry in passwd and group since nnmaster is run setuid/setgid to news and the files and directories that nnmaster needs to access are owned and writable by news. --Jim Jagielski [9.92] Another problem could be in the way it is started. Two related solutions are presented. /etc/rc exits before the child has had the chance to setpgrp(). Putting "sleep 5" at the end of /etc/rc fixed it. --David B. Thomas Another similar solution involved inserting a "sleep 10" at the beginning of /etc/daemons/nnmaster.init file. --Jeffery Small It could be you're not running the latest version. --David R. Hieb Subject: Why do I get ".../MASTER not found"? From: nnmaster-63 The problem of the NN port to the Atari ST is, that you have to build an "active" file (NN format, not HERMES-like!!) in /usr/lib/news before running nnadmin -I. You can build this file by using the included "buildact.tos." Buildact.tos creates a UNIX-like /usr/lib/news/active from /usr/lib/hermes/active. [9.92] Subject: Why do I get "cannot open 'x' file" From: nnmaster-64 If you get a message like, Fatal system error: alt.activism (6): cannot open 'x' file (mode=82, errno=2) you haven't initialized your database. As root, run the following command "./inst INIT" in the nn source directory. See the file INSTALLATION for more information. --Sami Tikka [1.93] Subject: Why do I get "Lost connection to server foobar" From: nnmaster-65 It's possible that the two database files for a newsgroup (nnn.x and nnn.d) don't exist. Go into nnadmin and force a recollect of the newsgroup. Most of the newsgroups (which are missing nnn.x and nnn.d files) after the first problem newsgroup might be automatically collected without a problem. If there are a large number of these problem groups, it might be easier just to rebuild the whole database: kill nnmaster, run "./inst INIT" as root in the source directory and restart nnmaster. --Jeff Beckley If the group in question has too many articles (>4000), it will cause older NNTP implementations to choke. See "Why does nnmaster stop collecting articles at the "junk" group?" for a fix. [3.93] Subject: Glossary From: Appendix MIME Multi-purpose Internet Mail Extensions NNTP Network News Transport Protocol (see RFC 977) INN Inter-Network News Subject: Acknowledgements From: Appendix I'd like to thank the following people for providing ideas on the layout of this article: Joe Wells Richard M. Stallman David Elliott Tom Christiansen Eugene N. Miya We are also grateful to the individuals mentioned below and in the text of this document who have provided answers or other information to make this a better document. I regret that it is possible that some names have been accidently omitted. I would also like to thank all the readers of news.software.nn. Kim Storm Sven Guckes Subject: Warranty From: Appendix [The following statement epitomizes the ridiculous state of affairs in our country (I'm an American) and can be ignored outside the US...] No Warranty: Because this article is provided free of charge as a service to news.software.nn readers, we provide absolutely no warranty, to the extent permitted by applicable state law. This article is provided "as is" without warranty of any kind, either expressed or implied, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose. Should the information prove defective, you assume the cost of all necessary servicing, repair or correction. Subject: pack_date.c From: Appendix *** old/pack_date.c Wed Apr 17 01:32:40 1991 --- new/pack_date.c Thu Jun 4 20:03:02 1992 *************** *** 4,9 **** --- 4,11 ---- * Calculate an approximate "time_stamp" value for a date * string. The actual value is not at all critical, * as long as the "ordering" is ok. + * The current algorithm mishandles non-GMT time zones near + * short month boundaries, but this is rare in real news. * * The result is NOT a time_t value, i.e. ctime() will * not produce the original Date string. *************** *** 256,262 **** res *= 24 * 60; res += (hour * 60) + min; ! return res + tzone(date); } --- 258,264 ---- res *= 24 * 60; res += (hour * 60) + min; ! return res - tzone(date); } Subject: news.c From: Appendix RCS file: news.c,v retrieving revision 1.1 diff -c2 -r1.1 news.c *** news.c 1990/10/23 21:37:38 1.1 --- news.c 1992/06/19 23:17:05 *************** *** 231,235 **** char *parse_header(); struct stat statb; ! int retry; FILE *f; #ifdef NNTP --- 231,235 ---- char *parse_header(); struct stat statb; ! int c, retry; FILE *f; #ifdef NNTP *************** *** 300,309 **** body = parse_header(f, art_hdr_field, modes, buffer1); - news.ng_lines = news.ng_xlines ? atoi(news.ng_xlines) : -1; if (news.ng_from == NULL) news.ng_from = news.ng_sender; ! if (modes & FILL_OFFSETS) { art->fpos = news.ng_fpos = ftell(f); fseek(f, (off_t)0, 2); news.ng_lpos = ftell(f); --- 300,328 ---- body = parse_header(f, art_hdr_field, modes, buffer1); if (news.ng_from == NULL) news.ng_from = news.ng_sender; ! if (modes & FILL_OFFSETS) art->fpos = news.ng_fpos = ftell(f); + if (news.ng_xlines) + news.ng_lines = atoi(news.ng_xlines); + else { + #ifdef NNTP + if (use_nntp && lazy) { + off_t fpos = ftell(f); + fclose(f); + f = nntp_get_article(art->a_number, 2); + if (f == NULL) return NULL; + lazy = 0; + fseek(f, fpos, 0); + } + #endif + news.ng_lines = 0; + while ((c = getc(f)) != EOF) + if (c == '\n') + news.ng_lines++; + } + + if (modes & FILL_OFFSETS) { fseek(f, (off_t)0, 2); news.ng_lpos = ftell(f); Subject: nn-use-mh From: Appendix #!/bin/sh # Obtain value of $WORK and $RECORD . ${HOME}/.nn/.param # Append Fcc: +folder to headers. The folder is specified in # mail-record. if [ "$RECORD" != "" ]; then awk ' { if ($0 == "" && !done) { print "Fcc: +'$RECORD'"; done = 1; } print; }' $WORK > /tmp/aux.$$ && mv /tmp/aux.$$ $WORK fi # Compose and send the mail comp -form $WORK Subject: nn_elm From: Appendix #!/bin/sh # # nn_elm # # 07 Aug 91 V1.0 # # Massage a mail message from nn into a form that elm can use # (c) 1991 Phil Kernick Wizard Software # eval `awk ' BEGIN { FS = ":"; dq = sprintf("%c", 34); headers = 0; to = ""; subject = ""; } /^.*: / { headers++; if($1 == "To") to = dq substr($0, 5) dq; if($1 == "Subject") subject = dq substr($0, 10) dq; } /^$/ { printf("tail +%d %s | elm -s %s %s > /dev/null\n", headers+2, mail, subject, to); exit; }' mail=$1 $1` exit $? Subject: nnalias From: Appendix #!/bin/sh # # nnalias -- expands aliases from ~/.mailrc file for nn. # # To use, put the following in your ~/.nn/init file: # # set mail-alias-expander nnalias # and put this file somewhere in your path, making it executable. I use # set mail-alias-expander /usr/local/lib/nnalias # but the choice is up to you. # # Written by Scott Hannahs, Bitter National Magnet Lab, MIT, August 1991 # Complaints, comments, ideas to sth@slipknot.mit.edu # Tested on Silicon Graphics, IRIX 3.3.1 # # Minor banging by to handle alias value fields # which contain doublequote characters, e.g. # # alias Foo "Foobar the Great " # # (the doublequotes are stripped in the expansion), and to handle multiple # spaces after the token "alias". # # Also added some error detection and signal traps; tested on SunOS 4.1.1. # # Exit codes: 0 -- normal termination # 1 -- parm error # 2 -- file does not exist # 3 -- trap # # Thanks to bug reports from # Andy Jacobs and others # if [ z$1 = z ]; then myname=`basename $0` echo "$myname: usage is $myname workfile" exit 1 fi if [ ! -f $1 ]; then myname=`basename $0` echo "$myname: $1 does not exist or is a directory" exit 2 fi TMP_DIR=/usr/tmp trap "rm -f ${TMP_DIR}/nn.alias.$$ ; exit 3" 0 1 2 3 15 ALIAS_LIST="" ADDRESS_LIST="`head -1 $1 | sed -e s/To://`" until [ "$ALIAS_LIST" = "$ADDRESS_LIST" ] ; do ALIAS_LIST="`echo "$ADDRESS_LIST"| sed -e 's/,/ /g' `" ADDRESS_LIST="" for ALIAS in $ALIAS_LIST ; do ADDRESS=`grep '^[ ]*alias[ ][ ]*'"$ALIAS"'[ ]' ${HOME}/.mailrc |\ sed -e s/'^[ ]*alias[ ][ ]*'"$ALIAS"'[ ][ ]*'// |\ sed -e s/'"'//g` if [ "$ADDRESS" ] ; then ADDRESS_LIST="$ADDRESS_LIST $ADDRESS" else ADDRESS_LIST="$ADDRESS_LIST $ALIAS" # for elm alias expansion use the following line instead of the previous. # ADDRESS_LIST="$ADDRESS_LIST "`elm -c "$ALIAS" | cut -f3 -d\ ` fi done done echo "To:${ADDRESS_LIST}" > ${TMP_DIR}/nn.alias.$$ tail +2 $1 >> ${TMP_DIR}/nn.alias.$$ mv -f ${TMP_DIR}/nn.alias.$$ $1 exit 0 Local Variables: mode: outline outline-regexp: "^Subject:" fill-prefix: " " eval: (progn (setq buffer-read-only nil) (hide-body)) End: