LPI Linux Certification/Serving News

Detailed Objective

Weight: 1

Description: Candidates should be able to install and configure news servers. This objective includes customising and monitoring served newsgroups.

• Key knowledge area(s):
  • INN configuration files, terms and utilities
  • Leafnode configuration files, terms and utilities

• The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities:
  • innd
  • fetnchnews

Serving news

The INND daemon is one of the most used news server program It provides Network News Transport Protocol (NNTP) service. Major newsgroups include: alt,comp,gnu,misc,news,rec,sci,soc, and talk. Newsgroups are configured in a hierarchical fashion. INND by default uses the NNTP port TCP 119

Configuration :

Location of configuration files is /etc/news/. A minimal leafnode setup requires that you modify the following files:

inn.conf :

Set the following options. The defaults for the remaining options should be fine.

organization:   MyOrganization
domain:         mydomain.com
server:         news.mydomain.com
incoming.conf :

Place your ISP's news server information in here.

# Peer definition
# MyISP.com  (800) 555-1212 news@MyISP.com
peer myisp.com {
   hostname:  news.myisp.com
}

Newsfeeds

If you want to post articles, you need to modify newsfeeds. news.myisp.com:comp.*,!comp.sources.*,comp.sources.unix/!foo:Tf,Wnm:news.myisp.com The colon is the field delimiter used above. The format of that above line is: sitename[/exclude,exclude,...]:pattern,pattern,...[/distrib,distrib,..]:flag,flag,...:param

Options:

sitename

Names the site to which this feed relates. It can be called anything you want and does not have to be the domain name of the site.

pattern

Indicates which news groups are to be sent to this site. The default is to send all groups (leave it blank if that's what you want). The above example will cause all "comp" groups to be received, but not any group under "comp.sources" except for "comp.sources.unix".

distribution

If specified, and an article has a "Distribution" header, it is check against this value. If the distribution specified matches the distribution header in the article, it is sent. However, if the distribution specified starts with an exclamation point, and the distribution header in the article matches, it is not sent. In the above example, any article with a distribution header containing "foo" will not be sent.

flag

Specify various options about the newsfeed. The above options specify that this is a file feed type (Tf), and that only articles "message-id" and "token" (Wmn) should be written.

param - Meaning varies depending on the feed type. When the feed type is "file" as in the example above, it specifies the file to write an entry to when an article is received. If not an absolute path, it is relative to the "pathoutgoing" option in inn.conf.

readers.conf : Edit this file if you want to allow readers on other computers. motd.news : if you allow readers, it is a good idea to put a banner in this file that relays your usage policies to your readers.

Run inncheck to correct any permissions problems and catch any configuration file errors. Run makehistory to initialize the INN history database. Run makedbz to rebuild the dbz database files. Run innd and test with a news client

Troubleshooting

innd won't start Use inncheck. Check logs under /var/log/news. Readers can't read : Verify that the reader is allowed access by checking nnrp.access. Make sure innd is running. Check logs under /var/log/news. telnet to port 119 and see if a banner comes up. Posters can't post : Confirm poster is allowed to post by checking nnrp.access. Check logs under /var/log/news. telnet to port 119 and see if a banner comes up with (posting allowed).

Key terms, files and utilities : Innd