Eileen
I went through the same concerns you are now experiencing last
December when I provided a gateway between my electronic discussion
list (AUTOCAT@UBVM) and Usenet. (Cross-posting, by the way, refers
to the practice of sending the same message to multiple lists; it
is different from the automatic forwarding of all messages posted
to a single list to a Usenet newsreader).
Anyway, here is a file called LSVOWNER GATEWAY that was provided
to me when I asked for guidance. It sets out the steps to be followed.
They worked for me and I knew just about as little as you claim to about
Usenet and newsreaders. Good luck, and let me know if I can be of
further help.
Judith Hopkins
Technical Services Research and Analysis Officer
Central Technical Services
Lockwood Library Building
State University of New York at Buffalo
Buffalo, NY 14260-2200
Phone: (716) 645-2796
FAX: (716) 645-5955
BITNET: [log in to unmask]
INTERNET: [log in to unmask]
Listowner: AUTOCAT@UBVM / [log in to unmask]
*************************************************************************
From: [log in to unmask] (Jim McIntosh)
Newsgroups: bit.admin
Subject: Gateway Policy
Date: 2 Jan 92 22:54:36 GMT
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| This document, and the other documents I post here regularly are |
| eligible for automatic distribution (AFD) from LISTSERV@AUVM and |
| are also available for anonymous ftp from auvm.american.edu. |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
********************************************************
*** General Information on Listserv/Netnews gateways ***
********************************************************
This document gives general information on bi-directional (or optionally
uni-directional) gateways between Listserv and Netnews as implemented in
Netnews version 2.4 by Linda Littleton at Penn State University. It
includes guidelines on how to establish a new Listserv/Netnews gateway.
*** What is Listserv?
Listserv, which stands for List Server, is a mail list server that runs
on VM/CMS. It provides "mail-exploding" capabilities so that people with
a common interest can communicate with each other by sending mail to a
particular address (one address per Listserv list), which then
redistributes the mail to each person "subscribed" to the list. Each
person subscribed to a particular list gets a copy of each piece of mail
in their mailbox.
*** What is Netnews?
Netnews is a bulletin board system in which articles on a variety of
topics are arranged in "newsgroups" and stored in a shared location from
which individual users can read them. These newsgroups can be local
newsgroups, available only at a user's site, or may be shared with other
sites to form a world-wide bulletin board system called Usenet.
*** What does the gateway do?
The gateway software (which is a built-in part of the VM/CMS Netnews
server from Penn State) puts each piece of Listserv mail for a particular
list into a corresponding Netnews newsgroup and also sends each
Netnews-originating posting to the newsgroup back to the Listserv list.
On a per-group basis, the gateway can be either bi-directional or can be
uni-directional in either direction. Generally Listserv groups on Netnews
are given the name bit.listserv.<listname>. When appropriate, the items
in a Listserv list might also be cross-posted to a "mainstream" Usenet
group.
*** Why have a gateway?
The major reason sites decide to carry gatewayed Listserv lists is so
their users can read these lists via shared disks, rather than requiring
each user to receive each item to their mailbox. In addition, the gateway
gives greater exposure and wider readership to the list since the list
can be now be read by users at hundreds of Usenet sites.
*** The gateway can be LOCAL or GLOBAL
On a per-group basis, the gateway can be either LOCAL (only users on the
machine where Netnews is running will see the Listserv items) or GLOBAL
(the Listserv items will propagate to other Usenet sites).
To avoid problems that can be caused by multiple sites gatewaying the
same group, we request that only a handful of sites set up global
gateways and that other sites receive these groups through their normal
news feeds. If you feel it would be appropriate for your site to be an
additional global gateway site, then write to [log in to unmask] or
[log in to unmask] to explain the situation.
*******************************
*** AN IMPORTANT PRECAUTION ***
*******************************
It is important that no more than one site per list set up a GLOBAL
gateway. If more than one site does a GLOBAL gateway for a particular
list, the list will get duplicates of some articles. It is the list
owner's responsibility to make sure there are not multiple global
gateways for the list and to "signoff" any suspect gateway site should
duplicates start to occur.
In the event that two sites did set up a global gateway for the same
list, here is what might happen. If a user anywhere on the net posted an
article to the group via Netnews and the article found its way to both of
the global gateway sites, both of these sites would forward the article
back to the Listserv list. The Listserv list would therefore receive two
copies and since Listserv does not check message-id's for duplicates, it
would redistribute both copies to everyone on the list. Netnews would not
have a problem handling this (since it checks message-id's for
duplicates), but it is the people who get the items to their mailboxes
who would see two copies of the article.
*** Gateway registration
In order to avoid problems caused by multiple gateways, a "gateway
registration service" is maintained by [log in to unmask],
which keeps track of which site is doing global gateways for which which
groups. A list of these global gateways, their corresponding Listserv
lists and Usenet newsgroups, and the sites which are acting as global
gateways is available from [log in to unmask] Send the command
GET NETGATE GATELIST to get a copy of all registered gateways. This file
is also available via anonymous ftp from auvm.american.edu.
*** Setting up the gateway.
The gateway is set up by having the Netnews service machine subscribe to
the Listserv list in the same way that a subscriber would, but with the
addition of setting Listserv options FULLHDR (so that message-ids are put
on messages) and NOFILES (so that non-mail files are not sent).
*** Guidelines for establishing a Listserv/Netnews gateway.
It is the responsibility of the person requesting the gateway to do the
following:
1. Get the approval of the Listserv list owner(s) and the Listserv
administrator at the host node. Send them each a copy of this
document. If the list owner or Listserv host administrator
objects, the gateway is not done.
2. Get the approval of the Listserv list readers. This could be done
somewhat informally by posting to the list and asking if there
are objections. If the issue was controversial, a formal vote
should be held according to the same guidelines as for creating a
new Usenet group. If there was no major dissenting opinion a vote
will not be needed.
3. If there is a Usenet group where crossposting would be logical,
get the approval of the people who read that group (in the same
way as approval of the Listserv readers was gotten).
4. Post to bit.admin to see if there are any objections. The subject
of the posting should be "Gateway for <listname> under
discussion". Explain briefly what the list is for. If you are
proposing that the list be gated to something besides
"bit.listserv.<listname>", this should be stated. Again, if there
was no major dissenting opinion within seven days, a vote would
not be needed; otherwise a vote would be held.
Steps 2, 3, and 4 can all be done at the same time.
5. Write to [log in to unmask] or [log in to unmask] to
say that all of the criteria have been met. Indicate the gateway
site (if you wish some site besides auvm.american.edu to be the
gateway), Listserv list name, Listserv host node, list owner(s),
and a short (45 character maximum) description of the list.
News-admin will establish and/or register the gateway, and then
post to bit.admin to say that the gateway is operational. The
subject of the posting will be "Gateway for <listname>
operational".
If for some reason you cannot follow the steps outlined here (for
example, if you do not get the bit groups, so cannot post to bit.admin),
write to [log in to unmask] to explain the situation.
*** Where to address questions
Questions about Listserv/Netnews gateways can be posted to bit.admin or
sent to [log in to unmask] or [log in to unmask]
|
