Any local news system ?

[ctc...@beta.wsl.sinica.edu.tw]

The system adminstrator spend lots of time on installing packages
and maintaining the system. There are lots of thing that he want
to let users know, and if users want to know anything about the
system he also like to answer it, and let others know about it.

Is there any software that functions like USENET news and "tin",
but it's on a host only ? The requirements are :

1. While users login the system, it can check is any new news
or not, and print message like "You have new news."
2. It can support several discussion groups.
3. Some of groups can be posted by adminstrator only.
4. Other groups can be posted by anyone.
5. In some of groups, articles are never expired. But other
group, articles will be expired and removed automatically.

The "news" command in UNIX is too simple and lack of a
full screen user interface. If using a BBS system, users have
to make their own account in BBS and login the BBS again, and
BBS also open to outsite the system. All of these don't meet
my requirements. If I use "tin" for this purpose, it will conflict
with the one used for reading USENET news.

I'd heard there is a software called "notes" for this purpose,
but I can't find it.

Thanks for any response.

------------------------------------------------------
Chin-Tang Chang
Workstation Lab, Computing Center, Academia Sinica
Email: ctc...@gate.sinica.edu.tw
------------------------------------------------------

[M. S. Shipkowski]

Most U*x's have the 'news' command, see man 1 news, this command
tracks entries in the dir /usr/news. This command will test the
/usr/news dir and should only tell a user of new entries

Thanks,

Mike Shipkowski
System Admin
Wyle Labs.
(804)-864-4682 (NASA)
(804)-865-0000 x277 (Wyle)
(804)-865-8116 FAX (Wyle)
m.s.shipkowski@.larc.nasa.gov

[Elya S. Kurktchi]

You can edit your active file and create a local newsgroup, say to.mall.sinica.
Then your users can post and send messages internally.

Elya.

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| Elya S. Kurktchi Scientific Computing Center |
| Network Systems Manager La Jolla Cancer Research Foundation |
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[Noel Hunter]

ctc...@beta.wsl.sinica.edu.tw wrote:
: Is there any software that functions like USENET news and "tin",

: but it's on a host only ? The requirements are :

: 1. While users login the system, it can check is any new news
: or not, and print message like "You have new news."
: 2. It can support several discussion groups.
: 3. Some of groups can be posted by adminstrator only.
: 4. Other groups can be posted by anyone.
: 5. In some of groups, articles are never expired. But other
: group, articles will be expired and removed automatically.

You can accomplish this with inn and tin, as follows:

1. use the -z option with tin to read news
-z only start tin if there is any new/unread news. If there
is news tin will position cursor at first group with
unread news. Useful for putting in login file.

2. inn can support many local and / or network groups
3. create moderated groups for admin-only posting
4. unmoderated groups for open postin
5. in the expire.ctl file for inn, you can specify that some groups never
expire.

--
* Noel Hunter, Academic Systems Administrator, Wake Forest University *
* no...@wfu.edu TEL:(910) 759-5812 MAIL:PO Box 7408 Winston-Salem, NC 27109 *

[Mark Newton]

In article <2fu5di$1...@mall.sinica.edu.tw> ctc...@beta.wsl.sinica.edu.tw () writes:
> Is there any software that functions like USENET news and "tin",
> but it's on a host only ? The requirements are :
>
> 1. While users login the system, it can check is any new news
> or not, and print message like "You have new news."
> 2. It can support several discussion groups.
> 3. Some of groups can be posted by adminstrator only.
> 4. Other groups can be posted by anyone.
> 5. In some of groups, articles are never expired. But other
> group, articles will be expired and removed automatically.

On a BSD system, you can try msgs (1). It at least supports 3 of the
five items on your wish list.

- mark
--
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I tried an internal modem, new...@cleese.apana.org.au
but it hurt when I walked. Mark Newton
----- Voice: +61-8-3735575 --------------- Data: +61-8-3736006 -----

[Partl]

ctc...@beta.wsl.sinica.edu.tw wrote:
> Is there any software that functions like USENET news and "tin",
> but it's on a host only ?

> If I use "tin" for this purpose, it will conflict
> with the one used for reading USENET news.

You can install tin in various versions:
- local
- nntp-able
- nntp-only
If you use nntp-able, then
tin (without the -r parameter) will only read local news, and
rtin (or tin -r) will read news from the News Server stated in
the NNTPSERVER variable or in the /etc/nntpserver file.

--
Dr. Hubert Partl Mail: pa...@mail.boku.ac.at
EDV-Zentrum, Universitaet fuer Bodenkultur
Nussdorfer Laende 11 Please correct me, if I am wrong!
A-1190 Wien, Austria (Europe) Make love, not flame wars. :-)