On 28 Dec 14  17:59:39, Paul Hayton said the following to Nick Andre:

PH> Nick, I'm trying to get Usenet gating working correctly.
PH> Have managed to poll a NNTP and can see it's sucked in some groups.
PH> 
PH> Does the copy of DB I am running behave in the same fashion as the Usenet
PH> Gateway you offer others?

Yes, however it is missing proper documentation, one tiny utility, and an
example of how to get it going. I'm going to be publishing a minor service
pack to fix all these things for "public usage".

Back up your current setup and lets start over again. Pretend that you are 
operating the busy Usenet gateway on my system, 1:229/426.

The first thing you need to do is define a gateway address. I made up 1:229/2
and thats where the Usenet groups "come from". This MUST NOT be an AKA
address. This should be a private nodelist entry; unreachable by anyone else. 
Make sure that routing is correct in the Un-event (ie. 1:229/2 FOR 1:229/2). 
In the Config - EMAIL/USENET screen, answer Yes to Email/Usenet gating and 
enter in your desired gate address in the question below. Specify your proper 
NNTP info in the related questions.

The second thing is download and unzip this in the DB directory:
http://www.net229.org/newsrc.zip

This is the tiny program thats missing to piece this all together. That little
program is the key to getting your own Usenet hubbing operation off the 
ground. You'll see why shortly.

The third thing is confirm that a NEWSRC file exists in your DB directory. 
This is a text file created when the system downloads groups for the first 
time. Before pulling in groups, you must first download the list of available
groups from your NNTP server or ISP by executing NEWSRC -a [your ISP/NNTP
info].

Take a look at the contents of the NEWSRC file. You should see the list of 
Usenet groups followed by a colon and numbers if the group is active (you are 
subscribed to it), or an explanation-point if not.

For example:

alt.bbs.renegade: 1-302349
alt.bbs.searchlight: 1-40094
alt.bbs.tbbs: 1-20393
alt.sex.robots!

In the example, the NEWSRC program will bring in alt.bbs.renegade, 
alt.bbs.searchlight and alt.bbs.tbbs, but will NOT download alt.sex.robots.

Now what you need to do is decide which "group" and
"security" you want to 
assign for imported Usenet groups. On my system, Fidonet is group A and Usenet
is group B. Run the NEWSRC program you downloaded from my site. This program 
takes the NEWSRC text file and generates all kinds of fun fancy stuff DB will 
use for the hubbing operation. Lets pretend you are using group B and security
level 50.

C:\DB>NEWSRC 1:229/2 1:229/426 B,50

The NEWSRC computation can take anywhere from a few seconds up to several
minutes...  depends on how fast your computer is.

Now fire up DB's setup and go to Config - Packet/Mail. Add the gateway to 
"Only allow from" along with group,security (ie. 1:229/2 B,50) Scroll down 
to Forced Priorities. Answer "1:229/2 HOLD". This means all mail destined 
for the gateway is placed on Hold status. Scroll down to Areafix 
Information. You always treat your uplinks and in this case, the usenet
gateway, as the LAST entry in your Areafix information. Downlinks always 
come first. Lets say I feed 1:229/300, 308 and 310 their Usenet stuff:

1:229/300 300PWD B,50 Normal Yes Yes
1:229/308 308PWD B,50 Normal Yes Yes
1:229/310 310PWD B,50 Normal Yes Yes
1:229/2 MYGATE B,50 Normal Yes Yes USENET.BBS

USENET.BBS is the file generated by NEWSRC that tells D'Bridge Areafix which 
is the list of available groups from your ISP or NNTP server. You must specify
that file when you specify the gate entry in AREAFIX INFO.

Now finally, you need an example batch file. Schedule this in Windows to run 
once a night. Future versions of DB will write this file automatically.

[Begin USENET.BAT]

mode 80,25
cd\db
dbutil move 1:229/2 data
:GateStart
sleep 5
if exist dbuafixi.ext goto GateStart
if not exist newsrc copy newsrc.old newsrc
if exist newsrc.tmp del newsrc.tmp
if exist newsrc.old del newsrc.old
copy newsrc newsrc.old
echo > dbuafixi.ext
if exist news*.msg del news*.msg
if exist mail*.msg del mail*.msg
if exist stsmail.msg del stsmail.msg
if exist replies del replies
cd data
if exist *.su* pkunzip -do *.su*
if exist *.su* del *.su*
if exist *.mo* pkunzip -do *.mo*
if exist *.mo* del *.mo*
if exist *.tu* pkunzip -do *.tu*
if exist *.tu* del *.tu*
if exist *.we* pkunzip -do *.we*
if exist *.we* del *.we*
if exist *.th* pkunzip -do *.th*
if exist *.th* del *.th*
if exist *.fr* pkunzip -do *.fr*
if exist *.fr* del *.fr*
if exist *.sa* pkunzip -do *.sa*
if exist *.sa* del *.sa*
cd ..
if exist data\*.pkt soupgate export /pkt=data
if not exist replies goto Fetch
vsoupwin -s [INSERT YOUR ISP/NNTP SERVER INFO HERE]
if exist data\*.pkt del data\*.pkt
:Fetch
vsoupwin -c300 [INSERT YOUR ISP/NNTP SERVER INFO HERE]
cls
soupgatw import
vsoupwin -C 300 [INSERT YOUR ISP/NNTP SERVER INFO HERE]
cls
soupgatw import
echo > dbridge.ufm
:GateDone
del dbuafixi.ext
exit

[End of USENET.BAT]

Replace the obvious things in that batch file. I use 300 as the count for 
newly-subscribed groups but you can adjust that as you see fit.

Before you run USENET.BAT, you need to subscribe to groups. You do this by 
pressing ALT+R in D'Bridge. Enter in the gate address, then the groups to add 
or remove (with the minus sign)... just as you would any other Areafix 
request. Do this now and request alt.bbs.mystic as an example.

What happens is D'Bridge is smart enough to see that your request (or a 
request from your downlink) is destined for the Usenet gate, and it will 
directly change the NEWSRC file and update USENET.BBS. Now run USENET.BAT and 
see that your requested groups are being downloaded.

Let me know if you need further help, or if you want to remotely access my
system to view for yourself in real-time how its running here.

Nick

--- Renegade vY2Ka2