Leafnode
Bruce in Bangkok
Has anyone any experience with the mail server Leafnode?
I am considering using it together with Knode to make an off-line
mail reader. My question is whether Leafnode is configurable to
control what groups it actually downloads messages from.
In other words, does it down load messages only from groups that Knode
tries to read, or does it download messages from all groups in the
group list that knode has downloaded during initial startup?
In looking at various sites I see information about configuring and a
description that it is a small mail server, but no details of exactly
what it downloads.
I have the feeling that if it is a mail-server it may well download
everything, which is more then I want to do with a laptop.
Bruce-in-Bangkok
(correct Address is bpaige125atgmaildotcom)
houghi
> Has anyone any experience with the mail server Leafnode?
No, because it is not a mail server. It is a Usenet server.
> I am considering using it together with Knode to make an off-line
> mail reader. My question is whether Leafnode is configurable to
> control what groups it actually downloads messages from.
Yes.
> In other words, does it down load messages only from groups that Knode
> tries to read,
Yes.
> or does it download messages from all groups in the
> group list that knode has downloaded during initial startup?
No. It makes its own list.
> In looking at various sites I see information about configuring and a
> description that it is a small mail server, but no details of exactly
> what it downloads.
You look at the wrong sites. It is a news server
> I have the feeling that if it is a mail-server it may well download
> everything, which is more then I want to do with a laptop.
Well, it isn';t a news server.
The best thing to do would be to just try it out and see what happens.
In short what happens is the following. It will download only the groups
that are in /var/spool/news/interesting.groups
Your newsreader will connect to it (with e.g. localhost as newsserver
instead of news.example.com)
The first time you subscribe to a group, you will see that it will
download the next time.
The next time you do the download, it will download all from that new
group as well.
If somebody decides to subscribe to all groups, it will download all
groups. You can however decide to download only certain groups.
houghi
--
The whole principle [of censorship] is wrong. It's like demanding that
grown men live on skim milk because the baby can't have steak.
-- Robert A. Heinlein in "The Man Who Sold the Moon"
David Bolt
Leafnode is a news server, not a mail server, so I'm going to read this
as if you're typed news instead of mail.
>Has anyone any experience with the mail server Leafnode?
Yes.
>I am considering using it together with Knode to make an off-line
>mail reader. My question is whether Leafnode is configurable to
>control what groups it actually downloads messages from.
Yes.
>In other words, does it down load messages only from groups that Knode
>tries to read, or does it download messages from all groups in the
>group list that knode has downloaded during initial startup?
When Knode requests the articles from the groups you subscribe to,
Leafnode will initially supply the headers for a placeholder article. If
you request the body of that article, Leafnode will add that group to
the list of active groups that you want to receive.
>In looking at various sites I see information about configuring and a
>description that it is a small mail server, but no details of exactly
>what it downloads.
Only the messages in the groups from which you've requested the article
bodies. You can configure multiple news servers, and have it retrieve
certain groups only from specific servers.
One thing you need to remember is that Leafnode consists of four parts:
The first part is the server which supplies articles to your news
clients, and accepts articles you wish to post to Usenet. You'll want to
configure xinetd to accept connections on port 119 and start up Leafnode
when a connection is made.
The second part is fetchnews, which is the part that does all the news
fetching and posting. This doesn't run automatically, so you'll either
want to call it from roots crontab every so often, or call it manually
before and after each news reading session. In my case, I have it
started every 30 minutes which I find okay for when I'm not in a very
active conversation. I also sometimes start it manually when I want to
get a posting sent, or others received, without waiting for the next
scheduled sending.
The third part is texpire, which is used to expire articles from the
local news spool. This is best called using a daily root cronjob,
although can be called manually instead.
The fourth part is applyfilter, which can be used after a change is made
to the /etc/leafnode/filters and will apply the changed filters to the
specified newsgroup.
Regards,
David Bolt
--
www.davjam.org/lifetype/ www.distributed.net: OGR@100Mnodes, RC5-72@15Mkeys
SUSE 10.1 32b | | openSUSE 10.3 32b | openSUSE 11.0 32b
| openSUSE 10.2 64b | openSUSE 10.3 64b | openSUSE 11.0 64b
RISC OS 3.6 | TOS 4.02 | openSUSE 10.3 PPC | RISC OS 3.11
Bruce in Bangkok
Thanks for information. I actually did know what Leafnode is and don't
know, for the life of me, why I said "mail server".
The ability to work off-line is a necessity as I am away from home
about halt the time and can't always be sure that I have a good
connection to the Internet.
houghi
> The ability to work off-line is a necessity as I am away from home
> about halt the time and can't always be sure that I have a good
> connection to the Internet.
As I said, just try it out. Much easier to understand once you see what
it does when it s working. I have been using it for many years now and I
always had a good connetion.
If you want I can even show you some free news servers that you can use.
houghi
--
But I will accept the rules that you feel necessary to your freedom. I am
free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I
tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free
because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.
Bruce in Bangkok
wrote:
>Bruce in Bangkok wrote:
>> The ability to work off-line is a necessity as I am away from home
>> about halt the time and can't always be sure that I have a good
>> connection to the Internet.
>
>As I said, just try it out. Much easier to understand once you see what
>it does when it s working. I have been using it for many years now and I
>always had a good connetion.
>
>If you want I can even show you some free news servers that you can use.
>
>houghi
What are you using for a news client?
Re servers, I've been using aioe. It's free but seems to be pretty
heavily loaded. At least it seem to take me quite a while and usually
more then one try to get a dozen groups, so any more would be quite
welcome.
I access the alt, rec and sci groups.
houghi
> What are you using for a news client?
slrn and on occasion pan or anything I want. Doesn;t realy matter. I
just configure it to connect to news://news and look up e.g. AOLS and I
have the messages pretty fast.
In my /etc/hosts I have placed the following line:
127.0.0.1 news
192.168.0.22 pasta.houghi
The first is so that I can easily connect to it. The second is needed,
because otherwise liferea will complain that a FQN is needed.
> Re servers, I've been using aioe. It's free but seems to be pretty
> heavily loaded. At least it seem to take me quite a while and usually
> more then one try to get a dozen groups, so any more would be quite
> welcome.
> I access the alt, rec and sci groups.
Here first some servers I use and then some servers I don't use anymore.
Some free ones needs subscribing, but I never had any problem doing so.
Some are not automated, so it can take some time.
I use:
server = news.cnntp.org Pretty good for text
server = news.dommel.be My provider
server = news.motzarella.org Pretty good for text
server = newszilla.xs4all.nl My second provider for binaries (free
over IPv6)
server = news.xs4all.nl My second provider for binaries (free
over ipV6
I do not use anymore. Most just because I have already enough.
#server = forums.opensuse.org I read nothing there
#server = news.albasani.net
#server = news.sunsite.dk
#server = free.teranews.com Out of sync in time
#server = fb1.euro.net Only be.* and nl.*
#server = news.readfreenews.net
#server = nntp.aioe.org
#server = news.x-privat.org
#server = support-forums.novell.com I read nothing there
#server = biggulp.readfreenews.net Slow, but for binaries
#server = news.stben.net
#server = news.news4us.nl
You can add any or all. When I get too many errors from e.g.
news.cnntp.org, I just comment it out and un-comment another one.