From Newsgroup: news.software.nntp

When adding a new peer, it's possible they will have groups that none
of your other peers have. I've been trying to think how I can get the
old articles with minimal bother to the peer admin.

What about adding IWANT ?

Something like IWANT [GROUP [<from> <to>]|[last xx articles]]

The peer then can simply mark the server as IWANT friendly with maybe
an optional throttle so they're not sucking up all the bandwidth.


Good idea? bad idea? improvements?
--
End Of The Line BBS - Plano, TX
telnet endofthelinebbs.com 23


--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.software.nntp

On 3/7/25 4:37 AM, Nigel Reed wrote:

Good idea? bad idea? improvements?

That's antithetical to how news transits peer news servers.

News servers peer with each other and distribute articles in a push
manner to flood fill the network.

Clients connect to reader servers and pull lists of articles and
selectively pull full articles.

If you want to pull some articles, look into something like "suck" which
can be used to pull articles from servers and do something with them.

I think that INN also has something that's similar, though I've never
used it.

I think what you're suggesting is antithetical to how news servers push
new articles to each other.

I don't fault the desire, just the suggested method.
--
Grant. . . .
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.software.nntp

On Fri, 7 Mar 2025 22:06:14 -0600
Grant Taylor <gtaylor@tnetconsulting.net> wrote:

On 3/7/25 4:37 AM, Nigel Reed wrote:

Good idea? bad idea? improvements?

That's antithetical to how news transits peer news servers.

News servers peer with each other and distribute articles in a push
manner to flood fill the network.

Clients connect to reader servers and pull lists of articles and
selectively pull full articles.

If you want to pull some articles, look into something like "suck"
which can be used to pull articles from servers and do something with
them.

I think that INN also has something that's similar, though I've never
used it.

I think what you're suggesting is antithetical to how news servers
push new articles to each other.

I don't fault the desire, just the suggested method.

Probably, but sometimes you have to challenge the norm. Maybe suck will
do what I want, I'll look into it.
--
End Of The Line BBS - Plano, TX
telnet endofthelinebbs.com 23


--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.software.nntp

Hi Nigel,

I think that INN also has something that's similar, though I've never
used it.

Maybe suck will do what I want, I'll look into it.

INN comes with a program named pullnews to achieve what you want. See https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/software/inn/docs/pullnews.html

In the pullnews.marks config file:

news.server.com
news.software.nntp
news.admin.peering 0 -100

will download all the articles in news.software.nntp, and the last 100 articles in news.admin.peering from server news.server.com.
--
Julien |eLIE

-2-a21.1.1 How to convert mSQL tools for MySQL?
1. Run the shell script msql2mysql on the source. This requires the
replace program, which is distributed with MySQL.
2. Compile.
3. Fix all compiler errors.-a-+ (MySQL online manual)

--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.software.nntp

Nigel Reed <sysop@endofthelinebbs.com> writes:

When adding a new peer, it's possible they will have groups that none
of your other peers have. I've been trying to think how I can get the
old articles with minimal bother to the peer admin.

What about adding IWANT ?

Something like IWANT [GROUP [<from> <to>]|[last xx articles]]

The peer then can simply mark the server as IWANT friendly with maybe
an optional throttle so they're not sucking up all the bandwidth.

Good idea? bad idea? improvements?

I think thererCOs two related things here:

1) Peers should be able to advertize their desired group patterns via
NNTP, rather than operators having to communicate it out of
band. (This much isnrCOt about backfill, just about the receiving peer
advertizing what group patterns it can accept from the sender.)

This would be easy to address with a new capability.

Concretely the capability might have label ACCEPT-GROUPS, with the
subsequent tokens being RFC3977 s4 wildmat patterns defining which
groups are to be accepted.

Senders are free to ignore this (and existing ones will) but for
those that honor it, it would act as an additional restriction on
what appears the senderrCOs peering configuration.

The group pattern would be taken from news server configuration. ItrCOd
be appropriate for there to be per-server adverts and a global
default (but this is an implementation detail as far as protocol
design goes).

2) Backfill when a new peering is estalished (or re-established after a
gap). While this can be addressed manually with a pull feed, thererCOs
also no reason right now that a sending server canrCOt backfill as far
as it likes, without any prompting from the receiver.

That suggests another new capability, documenting the maximum age of
article theyrCOd like to see in backfill, if the sending server
supports backfilling.

Concretely the capability might be BACKFILL with a single token given
the oldest date that would be accepted, using the date syntax from
RFC3977 s7.1.1.

The expected usage pattern would be:

- for a completely new peering the receiver advertizes a backfill date
based on its own maximum article age.
- for a peering re-established after interruption the receiver
advertizes a backfill date a bit before the last successfull
communication with the receiver.
- a sender may choose to use a backfill date either to rCygo backrCO and
feed older articles that would normally have been skipped, or
alternatively to prune a queued feed (in the case of an
interruption).

This one would require a lot more implementation effort - feeders are
not really designed with backfill in mind.
--
https://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.software.nntp

On Sat, 8 Mar 2025 09:13:30 +0100
Julien |eLIE <iulius@nom-de-mon-site.com.invalid> wrote:

Hi Nigel,

I think that INN also has something that's similar, though I've
never used it.

Maybe suck will do what I want, I'll look into it.

INN comes with a program named pullnews to achieve what you want.
See https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/software/inn/docs/pullnews.html

In the pullnews.marks config file:

news.server.com
news.software.nntp
news.admin.peering 0 -100

will download all the articles in news.software.nntp, and the last
100 articles in news.admin.peering from server news.server.com.

The problem is, from what I can tell, both suck and pullnews require
the newsserver to have me setup to issue a "MODE READER" command. It's
not possible to do it via transit mode. Am I right?
That means I have to bother every news admin to make a config change
just for me to accomplish this.
Also, if I end up pulling articles for a couple that is already
populated and those articles are earlier then the ones that currently
exist, do I need to rebuild the history file? Would I need to for empty
groups?
--
End Of The Line BBS - Plano, TX
telnet endofthelinebbs.com 23
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.software.nntp

Hi Nigel,

The problem is, from what I can tell, both suck and pullnews require
the newsserver to have me setup to issue a "MODE READER" command. It's
not possible to do it via transit mode. Am I right?

Exactly.
As far as INN is concerned, you're speaking of two different programs:
innd for transit mode (receiving articles from external peers), and
nnrpd for reader mode (serving requested articles).

That means I have to bother every news admin to make a config change
just for me to accomplish this.

If you initially asked to set up a news peering (transit mode), yes you
need to ask them as this is a change of configuration and use case.

Also, if I end up pulling articles for a couple that is already
populated and those articles are earlier then the ones that currently
exist, do I need to rebuild the history file?

You'll end up having articles numbers in an order different than the
arrival time. The drawback is that a news reader will see "new
articles" whereas they are old ones.
You don't need rebuilding the history file but the *overview* database
to fix that. See the "makehistory -O -x -F" command.

Would I need to for empty groups?

No.
--
Julien |eLIE

-2-aA man who is not married is incomplete; a man who is married is
finished.-a-+

--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2