Developer Forum

Ok people,
I've installed leafnode and I'm using news.eternal-september.org as my
external server. I'm using knode as my local newsreader. I've set up a
leafnode account with localhost as the server and 119 as the port.
Everything seems pretty normal. Running telnet localhost 119 gives me this:

$ telnet localhost 119
Trying ::1...
Trying 127.0.0.1...
Connected to localhost.
Escape character is '^]'.
200 Leafnode NNTP Daemon, version 1.11.8 running at localhost (my fqdn:
AttilaII.homenet.telecomitalia.it)

This seems normal. Running fetchnews -vv gives me this:

$ sudo /usr/sbin/fetchnews -vv
leafnode 1.11.8: verbosity level is 2, debugmode is 0
try_lock(timeout=5), fqdn="AttilaII.homenet.telecomitalia.it"
news.eternal-september.org: connecting to port nntp...
news.eternal-september.org: connected to 188.40.43.230:119, reply: 200
news.eternal-september.org: connected.
news.eternal-september.org: using STAT <message-ID> command.
news.eternal-september.org: authenticated as attila
news.eternal-september.org: 0 articles posted.
news.eternal-september.org: getting new newsgroups
news.eternal-september.org: got 0 new newsgroups.
news.eternal-september.org: reading server info from
/var/spool/news/leaf.node/news.eternal-september.org
eternal-september.grouprequests: no new articles
eternal-september.test: no new articles
eternal-september.where.are.all.the.newsgroups: no new articles
news.eternal-september.org: conversation completed, disconnected.
wrote active file with 10 lines
Started process to update overview data in the background.

My question is where are the groups? The only ones I see are the strange
ones listed in the output: grouprequests, test,
where.are.all.the.news.groups etc.

So what have I done wrong? Where are all the newsgroups, indeed!
Sorry to be thick. ;)
Attila The Incompetent Freetard from Hell

Leafnode only downloads messages for groups you are 'interested' in.
In your newsreader search for the group you want. Subscribe to that
newsgroup and you should see a placeholder message for that
newsgroup. Read it. Next time fetchnews runs it will get the articles
in that newsgroup. If you don't visit a group for a certain amount of
time (configurable) fetchnews will stop downloading articles in the
newsgroup.

Thanks for the response. I am running knode as my news reader. I already
have an account on it for eternal-september which has a subscription to
(among other things) comp.os.linux.advocacy. That's where I am writing from
now. I set up a new account on knode called "leafnode" with the server as
localhost as I explained above. The eternal-september server has over 30,000
groups but the leafnode one (connected to eternal-september nntp server) has
only 10 listed. They eternal-september.configuration, eternal-
september.test, eternal-september.talk, etc. but nothing else. I am missing
something fundamental. Where can I tap into that list of 30.000+ groups and
select c.o.l.a to subscribe to?
Attila, The very confused Freetard from Hell

As I should have said, leafnode only gets articles for the groups you
are 'interested' in. I don't use knode but somewhere there must be a
list of all groups. Subscribe to the ones you want. You should then
see one article in those newsgroups. Read those articles. Next time
fetchnews will download the articles in thos groups.

This is what my problem is. I set up the leafnode account on knode as
described above and then click on "Subscribe to Newsgroups". This is where I
should be able to pick out the group(s) I'm interested in. But they aren't
there! Instead of a list of 30.000 groups that eternal-september.org has,
there are only 10 groups listed and c.o.l.a is not among them. I listed a
few of them in the previous posting and they all seem to be administrative
in nature. What I'm trying to say is that I don't get the full list of
groups from eternal-september; only 10 of 30.000. I hope this is clearer.
A, T.F-T.F.H

That usually happens because you haven't entered your Username and
Password for access to eternal-september...

Hi Gordon,
Thanks for the input. Yes, I entered both name and password. Here's some


eternal-september.talk: no new articles
eternal-september.newusers: no new articles
eternal-september.grouprequests: no new articles
comp.os.linux.advocacy: skipping articles 1-195508 inclusive (initial limit)
comp.os.linux.advocacy: considering articles 195509 - 195608
comp.os.linux.advocacy: 100 articles fetched, 0 killed
eternal-september.config: no new articles
eternal-september.test: no new articles
eternal-september.where.are.all.the.newsgroups: no new articles
eternal-september.comp.os.linux.advocacy not found in groupinfo file
news.eternal-september.org: conversation completed, disconnected.
wrote active file with 30276 lines
Started process to update overview data in the background.
Network activity has finished.

I don't think I would have got this far without a username + password.
Anyway I added a file /etc/news/leafnode/local.groups containing c.o.l.a in
it and now, as you see, I have fetched 100 articles from c.o.l.a.
I'm feeling a little less stupid and making progress. They still haven't
shown up in knode yet but I'll keep banging away at it. ;)
Thanks.
Attila, The (not too stupid) Freetard from Hell

<snip>
Whoops, I missed this:
eternal-september.comp.os.linux.advocacy not found in groupinfo file
news.eternal-september.org: conversation completed, disconnected.

Now where the fsck is the groupinfo file. I've read every fscking manual and
no indication of where I can find the sucker.
gggrrr
A,TF-TFH

On my system its in /var/spool/leafnode/leaf.node. This should be made
when fetchnews connects to the news server. Try deleting it if you
have it and rerunning fetchnews. Sorry I can't think of anything else
at the moment. I'm running leafnode-2 and not leafnode-1. Don't know
if there is a difference between the 2 for this sort of thing.

Try 'fetchnews -f'. This should get the groups info again from the
server.

You have added your user to the news entry in /etc/group?

Thanks gazillions for your patience. Yes, to all your questions but it
appears to be working. The 30.000 groups have no appeared and I could select
c.o.l.a. and some articles appear. I tried sending a message from that
account but it takes awhile to arrive. I don't recall how often I set
fetchnews to run.
A,F-TFH

On 2010-09-27, Attila < XXXX@XXXXX.COM > claimed:


In most cases it will be in the /var/spool/news/leaf.node directory,
called, appropriately, groupinfo. You could delete that and run
fetchnews again. Or try running it with the -f flag.

But just to be on the safe side I'd look in the leafnode config file
and make sure the password is really there before trying those things.
I found a "free" nntp server once that would give only a handful of
groups unless you joined and used your password. If yours does the same
thing and the password is missing, that might be why you get so few.

On my machine (and maybe yours, depending on what distro you're
running) the config file is in /etc/news/leafnode/config. There should
be a couple of lines (probably separated by a few other lines:

server = <server>
password = <password>

Make sure the spaces are there like shown. I failed to do that once and
it gave me trouble.

--
Useless Invention: Soap Dissolver.
Aspire One, Linux Mint 9 (Debian)
Friends don't let friends use Windows