From Newsgroup: news.software.nntp

reposting this to news.software.nntp which might be more apropriate:

lkh <lkh@sdf-eu.org> wrote:

Good Day,

I'm hoping to find help with this problem I'm having with gating
a mailman mailing list to our local newsgroup.

The symptom I'm seeing is a duplication of messages which aparently
is caused by the way the gateway is set up.

From scrutinising the message headers this is what happens:

mailman sends a message to the newsserver where it get's injected
properly receiving an Injection-Information: header field. Then however
this new message is sent back to mailman. Now there's a duplicate with identical message ID. Mailman then sends it back to inn2 which refuses
to take it and mailman's python nntp client throws an error, thus preventing an endless loop.

Why inn2 even sends the message back to mailman I can't tell.

These are the relevant snippets from my inn2 setup:

# this is from /etc/news/news2mail.cf
# no surprises, and it basically works. News from the grenzland.test
# group is forwarded to the proper list address
test-grenzland-club test@grenzland.club

# this is in /etc/news/newsfeeds news2mail!:!*:Ac,Tc,Wn*:/usr/lib/news/bin/news2mail test-grenzland-club/grenzland.club:!*,grenzland.test:Ap,Tm:news2mail!
# this last line should do two things: forward messages from the
# test@grenzland.club list to the grenzland.test newsgroup,
# AND don't send any messages back which have grenzland.club
# in their Path header. This last bit seems to fail however,
# and I fail to spot the error.

Any ideas? Or working examples you could point me too?

Thanks a lot,

Laurens

--
Laurens Kils-H|+tten * lkh@sdf-eu.org * @lkh@social.sdfeu.org
--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.software.nntp

Hi,

lkh a tapoto :

Any ideas? Or working examples you could point me too?

I nether have done this configuration but maybe
the two servers should not have the same DNS name to avoid confusion?

Is your nntp server has the good "pathhost" in inn.conf ?
--
Stophane
<http://pasdenom.info/news.html>
--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.software.nntp

Hi Laurens,

reposting this to news.software.nntp which might be more apropriate

Well, in theory news.software.misc was the right newsgroup for your
question :)

Why inn2 even sends the message back to mailman I can't tell.

This is all done by the following configuration:

# this is in /etc/news/newsfeeds
test-grenzland-club/grenzland.club:!*,grenzland.test:Ap,Tm:news2mail!

# this last line should do two things: forward messages from the
# test@grenzland.club list to the grenzland.test newsgroup,
# AND don't send any messages back which have grenzland.club
# in their Path header. This last bit seems to fail however,
# and I fail to spot the error.

"grenzland.club" is probably not the right exclusion path to put. Do
you have an example of the Path header field of articles injected from mailman?
--
Julien |eLIE

-2-aAnybody can sympathise with the sufferings of a friend, but it
requires a very fine nature to sympathise with a friend's success.-a-+
(Oscar Wilde)

--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.software.nntp

yamo' <news@pasdenom.info> wrote:

Hi,

lkh a tapot|- :

Any ideas? Or working examples you could point me too?

I nether have done this configuration but maybe
the two servers should not have the same DNS name to avoid confusion?

See my next post on this. Since mailman and inn2 talk over the localhost interface I'm not sure this is a problem.

Is your nntp server has the good "pathhost" in inn.conf ?

yes, it's set to grenzland.club

Thanks,

lkh
--
https://social.sdf-eu.org/web/@lkh
IRC: lkh on Libera.chat and others
Discord: lkh#2319
--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.software.nntp

Julien |eLIE <iulius@nom-de-mon-site.com.invalid> wrote:

Why inn2 even sends the message back to mailman I can't tell.

This is all done by the following configuration:

# this is in /etc/news/newsfeeds
test-grenzland-club/grenzland.club:!*,grenzland.test:Ap,Tm:news2mail!

# this last line should do two things: forward messages from the
# test@grenzland.club list to the grenzland.test newsgroup,
# AND don't send any messages back which have grenzland.club
# in their Path header. This last bit seems to fail however,
# and I fail to spot the error.

"grenzland.club" is probably not the right exclusion path to put. Do
you have an example of the Path header field of articles injected from mailman?

This is from a message send by mail read in the newsreader:

Path: grenzland.club!.POSTED.localhost!not-for-mail
Newsgroups: grenzland.test
Injection-Info: grenzland.club; posting-host="localhost:127.0.0.1";
logging-data="3048081"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@grenzland.club"
To: test@grenzland.club

So Path seems o.k. and should match the exclusion pattern. However I'm
not sure whether Path is set by mailman while posting or if it's set by
inn2.

Also since the message is handed over via the localhost interface I
think it shouldn't be a problem that mailman and inn2 use the same DNS
name.

Thanks for having a look at this :)

lkh
--
Have this adventurer for your next game:
Jeckyl is a hunter
STR 12 INT 12 WIS 10 DEX 14 CON 13 CHA 6
HP 3 100 gp
--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.software.nntp

Hi Laurens,

# this is in /etc/news/newsfeeds
test-grenzland-club/grenzland.club:!*,grenzland.test:Ap,Tm:news2mail!

This is from a message send by mail read in the newsreader:

Path: grenzland.club!.POSTED.localhost!not-for-mail

So Path seems o.k. and should match the exclusion pattern. However I'm
not sure whether Path is set by mailman while posting or if it's set by
inn2.

I believe it is set by INN in your example (pathhost in inn.conf).
Isn't there a way to set a path in mailman? (you should use another
path name like grenzland.gatewaying)

I do not manage to find the information in the available documentation
of mailman. At least I see:

https://docs.mailman3.org/projects/mailman/en/latest/src/mailman/handlers/docs/nntp.html

but it does not mention the addition of a path...
--
Julien |eLIE

-2-aUne petite fille rentre de l'|-cole-a:
rCo-aVous connaissez la derni|?re-a?
rCo-aNon.
rCo-aC'est moi-a!-a-+ (Jean Nohain)

--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.software.nntp

Am 25.02.2026 um 23:49 schrieb lkh:

reposting this to news.software.nntp which might be more apropriate:

lkh <lkh@sdf-eu.org> wrote:

Good Day,

I'm hoping to find help with this problem I'm having with gating
a mailman mailing list to our local newsgroup.

The symptom I'm seeing is a duplication of messages which aparently
is caused by the way the gateway is set up.

From scrutinising the message headers this is what happens:

mailman sends a message to the newsserver where it get's injected
properly receiving an Injection-Information: header field. Then however
this new message is sent back to mailman. Now there's a duplicate with
identical message ID. Mailman then sends it back to inn2 which refuses
to take it and mailman's python nntp client throws an error, thus preventing >> an endless loop.

Why inn2 even sends the message back to mailman I can't tell.

These are the relevant snippets from my inn2 setup:

# this is from /etc/news/news2mail.cf
# no surprises, and it basically works. News from the grenzland.test
# group is forwarded to the proper list address
test-grenzland-club test@grenzland.club

# this is in /etc/news/newsfeeds
news2mail!:!*:Ac,Tc,Wn*:/usr/lib/news/bin/news2mail
test-grenzland-club/grenzland.club:!*,grenzland.test:Ap,Tm:news2mail!
# this last line should do two things: forward messages from the
# test@grenzland.club list to the grenzland.test newsgroup,
# AND don't send any messages back which have grenzland.club
# in their Path header. This last bit seems to fail however,
# and I fail to spot the error.

Any ideas? Or working examples you could point me too?

Are you sure you need news2mail at all in this case? If I remember
correctly (I didn't find it in the documnetation) mailman checks the
newsgroup for new artictles on its own.

Also are you using mailman2 or mailman3? They are quite different.

Cheers
Martin

--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.software.nntp

Martin Burmester <martin@burmester.org> wrote:

Why inn2 even sends the message back to mailman I can't tell.

These are the relevant snippets from my inn2 setup:

# this is from /etc/news/news2mail.cf
# no surprises, and it basically works. News from the grenzland.test
# group is forwarded to the proper list address
test-grenzland-club test@grenzland.club

# this is in /etc/news/newsfeeds
news2mail!:!*:Ac,Tc,Wn*:/usr/lib/news/bin/news2mail
test-grenzland-club/grenzland.club:!*,grenzland.test:Ap,Tm:news2mail!
# this last line should do two things: forward messages from the
# test@grenzland.club list to the grenzland.test newsgroup,
# AND don't send any messages back which have grenzland.club
# in their Path header. This last bit seems to fail however,
# and I fail to spot the error.

Any ideas? Or working examples you could point me too?

Are you sure you need news2mail at all in this case? If I remember
correctly (I didn't find it in the documnetation) mailman checks the newsgroup for new artictles on its own.

I checked by commenting out the relevant parts in the configuration.
news2mail is needed to send messages from news to mail. For the other
way round mailman connects to INN's nntp interface.

Mailman has two flags: "News to Mail" and "Mail to News". Both are set
to yes in my case, but whether "News to Mail" is set to yes or no seems
to make no difference.

Also are you using mailman2 or mailman3? They are quite different.

mailman3

Thanks!

lkh
--
https://grenzland.club/~lkh
email/xmpp: lkh@grenzland.club
--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.software.nntp

Julien |eLIE <iulius@nom-de-mon-site.com.invalid> wrote:

Hi Laurens,

# this is in /etc/news/newsfeeds
test-grenzland-club/grenzland.club:!*,grenzland.test:Ap,Tm:news2mail!

This is from a message send by mail read in the newsreader:

Path: grenzland.club!.POSTED.localhost!not-for-mail

So Path seems o.k. and should match the exclusion pattern. However I'm
not sure whether Path is set by mailman while posting or if it's set by
inn2.

I believe it is set by INN in your example (pathhost in inn.conf).
Isn't there a way to set a path in mailman? (you should use another
path name like grenzland.gatewaying)

yes, as per man 5 readers.conf it is set by nnrpd to whatever pathhost
says.

I do not manage to find the information in the available documentation
of mailman. At least I see:

https://docs.mailman3.org/projects/mailman/en/latest/src/mailman/handlers/docs/nntp.html

but it does not mention the addition of a path...

No, I think mailman is concerned with setting Path headers at all.
Looking at the logs I notice that I get messages about inn accepting or rejecting messages, but not about inn sending anything. Any idea where
sending messages might be logged?

That might give a clue or at least confirm what I think is happening.

Cheers,

lkh
--
https://grenzland.club/~lkh
email/xmpp: lkh@grenzland.club
--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.software.nntp

Hi Laurens,

Looking at the logs I notice that I get messages about inn accepting or rejecting messages, but not about inn sending anything. Any idea where sending messages might be logged?

Articles sent are logged in a file named <pathlog>/news
FYI, the description of log files:
https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/software/inn/docs/newslog.html

That might give a clue or at least confirm what I think is happening.

I hope you'll sort it soon!
In case there's something to do to improve the documentation of
news2mail or other programs, the comments in the default configuration
files, etc. do not hesitate to tell what should be added.
https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/software/inn/docs/news2mail.html
--
Julien |eLIE

-2-aUne petite fille rentre de l'|-cole-a:
rCo-aVous connaissez la derni|?re-a?
rCo-aNon.
rCo-aC'est moi-a!-a-+ (Jean Nohain)

--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.software.nntp

Hi Laurens,

Am 27.02.2026 um 07:41 schrieb Laurens Kils-H|+tten:

Martin Burmester <martin@burmester.org> wrote:

Why inn2 even sends the message back to mailman I can't tell.

These are the relevant snippets from my inn2 setup:

# this is from /etc/news/news2mail.cf
# no surprises, and it basically works. News from the grenzland.test
# group is forwarded to the proper list address
test-grenzland-club test@grenzland.club

# this is in /etc/news/newsfeeds
news2mail!:!*:Ac,Tc,Wn*:/usr/lib/news/bin/news2mail
test-grenzland-club/grenzland.club:!*,grenzland.test:Ap,Tm:news2mail!
# this last line should do two things: forward messages from the
# test@grenzland.club list to the grenzland.test newsgroup,
# AND don't send any messages back which have grenzland.club
# in their Path header. This last bit seems to fail however,
# and I fail to spot the error.

Any ideas? Or working examples you could point me too?

Are you sure you need news2mail at all in this case? If I remember
correctly (I didn't find it in the documnetation) mailman checks the
newsgroup for new artictles on its own.

I checked by commenting out the relevant parts in the configuration. news2mail is needed to send messages from news to mail. For the other
way round mailman connects to INN's nntp interface.

Mailman has two flags: "News to Mail" and "Mail to News". Both are set
to yes in my case, but whether "News to Mail" is set to yes or no seems
to make no difference.

Also are you using mailman2 or mailman3? They are quite different.

mailman3

Yea, pretty sure mailman3 has its own functionality to poll the nntp
server for new messages[1].

You do not need news2mail or a newsfeeds entry.

Cheers
Martin

[1] https://docs.mailman3.org/projects/mailman/en/latest/src/mailman/commands/docs/gatenews.html

--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.software.nntp

Laurens Kils-H|+tten <lkh@grenzland.club> wrote:

Martin Burmester <martin@burmester.org> wrote:

Yea, pretty sure mailman3 has its own functionality to poll the nntp
server for new messages[1].

You do not need news2mail or a newsfeeds entry.

Cheers
Martin

Yes, I just confirmed this by disableing the relevant newsfeeds entries.

pulling news takes a little longer, though. But that shouldn't be a
problem. So apparently I get duplicates because I have two mechanisms
for news -> mail in place?

There's another issue however: news2mail rewrites the Newsgroups header
to X-Newsgroups (good), mailman does not (not so good), leading to e.g. Thunderbird to offer answering to the newsgroup instead of the list.

I'll try switching off "News to Mail" in mailman now, and switch on the news2mail funnel. Hope this settles it ...

It doen't -.-

but now I'm convinced it's an inn2 issue.

Now I wonder how to have mailman rewrite that Newsgroups header to
X-Newsgroups

Cheers,

lkh

Thank you!

lkh

[1]
https://docs.mailman3.org/projects/mailman/en/latest/src/mailman/commands/docs/gatenews.html

.

--
Have this adventurer for your next game:
Jeckyl knows a secret place of magic
STR 12 INT 11 WIS 10 DEX 9 CON 10 CHA 11
HP 1 110 gp
--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.software.nntp

Martin Burmester <martin@burmester.org> wrote:

Yea, pretty sure mailman3 has its own functionality to poll the nntp
server for new messages[1].

You do not need news2mail or a newsfeeds entry.

Cheers
Martin

Yes, I just confirmed this by disableing the relevant newsfeeds entries.

pulling news takes a little longer, though. But that shouldn't be a
problem. So apparently I get duplicates because I have two mechanisms
for news -> mail in place?

There's another issue however: news2mail rewrites the Newsgroups header
to X-Newsgroups (good), mailman does not (not so good), leading to e.g. Thunderbird to offer answering to the newsgroup instead of the list.

I'll try switching off "News to Mail" in mailman now, and switch on the news2mail funnel. Hope this settles it ...

Thank you!

lkh

[1] https://docs.mailman3.org/projects/mailman/en/latest/src/mailman/commands/docs/gatenews.html

.

--
Campingplatzgedanke: "Gewitter oder schlecht ge||lte VW-Bus-T|+r?"
--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.software.nntp

Hi Laurens,

Am 27.02.2026 um 13:05 schrieb Laurens Kils-H|+tten:

Martin Burmester <martin@burmester.org> wrote:

Yea, pretty sure mailman3 has its own functionality to poll the nntp
server for new messages[1].

You do not need news2mail or a newsfeeds entry.

Cheers
Martin

Yes, I just confirmed this by disableing the relevant newsfeeds entries.

pulling news takes a little longer, though. But that shouldn't be a
problem. So apparently I get duplicates because I have two mechanisms
for news -> mail in place?

You should have a crontab entry in place for gatenews, mailman doc
suggests to run it every 5 minuten [2].

There's another issue however: news2mail rewrites the Newsgroups header
to X-Newsgroups (good), mailman does not (not so good), leading to e.g. Thunderbird to offer answering to the newsgroup instead of the list.

Patch mailman or submit a bugreport. I think its an rfc violation for
E-Mail to have a Newsgroups header.

I'll try switching off "News to Mail" in mailman now, and switch on the news2mail funnel. Hope this settles it ...

I dont think it will. When you use news2mail the article goes to mailman
as mail and mailman will post it to the newsgroup again.

I'd strongly advise to either do it the mailman way (disable news2mail)
or get rid of mailman and use another mailing list manager (as I have done).

Cheers
Martin

[2]
https://docs.mailman3.org/en/latest/config-core.html#configuring-cron-jobs

--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.software.nntp

Martin Burmester wrote:

I think its an rfc violation for E-Mail to have a Newsgroups header.

Every post to a moderated group will result in a mail with a Newsgroups
header ...
--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.software.nntp

Hi Thomas,

Am 27.02.2026 um 22:55 schrieb Thomas Hochstein:

Martin Burmester wrote:

I think its an rfc violation for E-Mail to have a Newsgroups header.

Every post to a moderated group will result in a mail with a Newsgroups header ...

Looking at the rfc, it seems you are right, RFC5322 3.6.8. allows
optional fields and does not specify they have to start with "X-".

Cheers
Martin

--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2