Re: Is there a list of active NNTP servers somewhere?

[Marco Moock]

Am 01.12.2023 um 16:19:52 Uhr schrieb Anonymous:

> Hello everyone. I'm new to Usenet. Is anyone aware of any active NNTP
> servers? If so, could you please share the server's URL and port?
> Thanks.

Here is a list, but the real amount is much higher because not every
server participates in the top1000 statistics.
http://top1000.anthologeek.net/participants.txt

[Marco Moock]

Am 01.12.2023 um 16:19:52 Uhr schrieb Anonymous:

> Hello everyone. I'm new to Usenet. Is anyone aware of any active NNTP
> servers? If so, could you please share the server's URL and port?
> Thanks.

Please only post that to one group.

[Retro Guy]

On Fri, 1 Dec 2023 16:19:52 -0000 (UTC)
Anonymous <no_e...@invalid.invalid> wrote:

> Hello everyone. I'm new to Usenet. Is anyone aware of any active NNTP
> servers? If so, could you please share the server's URL and port? Thanks.

Well, you're posting on one :)

You might try starting here: https://sybershock.com/#usenet

There are more, but it's a start.

[Ray Banana]

This list just contains the path entries for feeder servers and, as such,
is useless for users searching for servers to connect to with a newsreader.

15 peer01.iad 11.480506
16 peer03.iad 11.176160
17 peer03.ams4 10.751795
18 peer01.ams4 10.676161
19 peer02.ams4 10.264118

These are intermediate transit servers run by Highwinds Media for various
resellers. Many of them are commercial and not what the original poster
had in mind. This question the MFAQ (Most Frequently Asked Question)
in alt.free.newsservers btw.

-
Пу́тін — хуйло́
http://www.eternal-september.org

[Gokul Das B]

Hi,

Anonymous <no_e...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> Is anyone aware of any active NNTP servers? If so, could you please
> share the server's URL and port? Thanks.

As I understand it, NNTP is just a protocol and anybody can simply host
an NNTP server. But Usenet itself is a NNTP-based service managed by
the Big-8 board. (I'm also a newbie. Anybody familiar please confirm).

The Big-8 site hosts a list of servers that offer Usenet access at:
https://www.big-8.org/wiki/News_service_providers

They also have information on how to connect.

Besides this, people use NNTP for all sorts of purpose. Here are some
examples:

Gmane.io: nntp://news.gmane.io . They are a mailing-list to NNTP
gateway that archives and mirrors mailing lists of several open source
projects. It's very old and not in good condition as it used to be. I
couldn't get TLS working on it. Read-only as far as I know.

Kernel lore: nntp://nntp.lore.kernel.org . Lore is a service that allow
you to follow Linux kernel development mailing lists without having to
subscribe to them. Besides NNTP, they also offer IMAP, POP3 and git
access to the mails. Again plain-text and read-only. (Posting is by
mails and some web endpoint).

Lore above is powered by a software called public-inbox:
https://public-inbox.org/ . And Lore isn't the only one who uses it.
Sourceware (gcc, gdb, valgrind etc) also uses it at
https://inbox.sourceware.org/ . There are probably a dozen others too.

Regards,
Gokul

[Marco Moock]

Am 03.12.2023 um 15:57:02 Uhr schrieb Gokul Das B:

> But Usenet itself is a NNTP-based service managed by
> the Big-8 board. (I'm also a newbie. Anybody familiar please confirm).

Usenet itself has much more hierarchies. Only the big-8 are managed by
this board, some are completely unmanaged or manages by different
boards.

[Gokul Das B]

On Sun, 3 Dec 2023 11:43:43 +0100
Marco Moock <mm+s...@dorfdsl.de> wrote:
> Usenet itself has much more hierarchies. Only the big-8 are managed by
> this board, some are completely unmanaged or manages by different
> boards.

Thank you for the clarification. I haven't encountered the other major
hierarchies yet. If you don't mind me asking, what defines Usenet? How
does it differ from non-usenet NNTP services? (I know I should be
searching it myself, and I did do some research. But I'm not yet
familiar enough to put heads and tails together.)

Thank you,
Gokul

[Marco Moock]

Am 03.12.2023 um 18:18:07 Uhr schrieb Gokul Das B:

> Thank you for the clarification. I haven't encountered the other major
> hierarchies yet. If you don't mind me asking, what defines Usenet?

I would say the public groups that are distributed are usenet. Some
other NNTP services like Mail2News gateways or local-only groups aren't.

> How does it differ from non-usenet NNTP services?

Technically, in no way. NNTP is NNTP, regardless from where the content
comes (mail2news, fidonet gateways, etc.) or if the group is shared
between many servers with a peering.

The normal usenet hierarchies are shared between many servers by
peering.

Some local hierarchies like solani.* aren't.
Some companies and universities also had private hierarchies that were
only available on their server.

grc.com also offers groups on this server without a peering.

[Adam H. Kerman]

Gokul Das B <gok...@home.is-not.invalid> wrote:
>Anonymous <no_e...@invalid.invalid> wrote:

>>Is anyone aware of any active NNTP servers? If so, could you please
>>share the server's URL and port? Thanks.

>As I understand it, NNTP is just a protocol and anybody can simply host
>an NNTP server. But Usenet itself is a NNTP-based service managed by
>the Big-8 board. (I'm also a newbie. Anybody familiar please confirm).

Usenet administration is distributed. It entirely lacks central
administration. News administrators run Usenet as a set of newsgroups
they wish to offer to their users. It's unlikely that any two News
administrators, if they aren't direct peers, will offer an identical
set of newsgroups. Note that there are also newsgroups offered on every
News server, called local newsgroups, that are not distributed and are
not Usenet.

The Big 8 board are administrators of 8 hierarchies, the eighth of which
ain't especially big. A hierarchy administrator maintains a list of
newsgroups with the canonical names of newsgroups they recognize within
the hierarchy. The list is maintained in the form of a control message
called checkgroups. To the extent communication is possible among Usenet
servers, everybody writing articles posted in a particular newsgroup must
use the canonically correct newsgroup name.

There are other Usenet hierarchies. The Big 8 board has nothing to do
with their administration.

The role of a hierarchy administrator is much less important than a News
administrator.

>. . .

[Grant Taylor]

On 12/3/23 04:27, Gokul Das B wrote:
> Hi,

Hi,

> But Usenet itself is a NNTP-based service managed by
> the Big-8 board.

Usenet predates NNTP and can / does exist in some places without NNTP.

Usenet is more than the Big-8 hierarchies / management board.

As others have said, the Bit-8 management board actually has effectively
no authority / power.

I think of Usenet as the collection of numerous newsgroups that are
distributed by many different servers and a handful of different
methods; NNTP, UUCP, FTN, X.400, etc.



--
Grant. . . .

[Gokul Das B]

Thank you for this info. It makes a lot more sense to me now. There is
now enough info to read up a bit more.

Regards,
Gokul

--
OpenPGP: https://keyoxide.org/3FA8C6143D305DCED55338BEA535BDC7D632FB0E

[Gokul Das B]

That's more jargon to search for (I like jargons. It makes searches
easy). Thanks for the clarification!

[Adam H. Kerman]

Gokul Das B <gok...@home.is-not.invalid> wrote:

>That's more jargon to search for (I like jargons. It makes searches
>easy). Thanks for the clarification!

I used the terms we use. I mean "News" and "newsgroups" and "articles"
are common English terms used as jargon with respect to Usenet, but as
far as I could tell, you already knew what they meant. "News
administrator" and "hierarchy administrator" are NOT jargon, just
descriptive terms for different administrative roles in Usenet.

What did I write that needed clarification?

[Lynn McGuire]

On 12/1/2023 10:19 AM, Anonymous wrote:
> Hello everyone. I'm new to Usenet. Is anyone aware of any active NNTP

> servers? If so, could you please share the server's URL and port? Thanks.

Ah, the spammer surfaces, having been banned all around the intertubes.

Lynn

[candycanearter07]

On 12/3/23 09:13, Marco Moock wrote:
> Am 03.12.2023 um 18:18:07 Uhr schrieb Gokul Das B:
>
>> Thank you for the clarification. I haven't encountered the other major
>> hierarchies yet. If you don't mind me asking, what defines Usenet?

<snip>

> The normal usenet hierarchies are shared between many servers by
> peering.
>
> Some local hierarchies like solani.* aren't.
> Some companies and universities also had private hierarchies that were
> only available on their server.

You're posting in one right now :)
--
user <candycane> is generated from /dev/urandom

[Marco Moock]

eternal-september.* is distributed to other servers and Google Groups
too.

https://groups.google.com/g/eternal-september.test

[Ray Banana]

Marco Moock :

> eternal-september.* is distributed to other servers and Google Groups
> too.
> https://groups.google.com/g/eternal-september.test

Indeed. I use Google Groups to fight/test Google Spam ;-)

[yeti]

Marco Moock <mm+s...@dorfdsl.de> writes:

> eternal-september.* is distributed to other servers and Google Groups
> too.

( Eeek!!! )
/
<o>
|
/ \

Sure I expect that my lines in comp.* and neighbours end up in GG too
and I already saw eternal-september.* on some friendly neighbours, but I
had not expected $THIS.

--
1. Hitchhiker 30: (6) "No," said the old man, "that's just perfectly
normal paranoia. Everyone in the Universe has that."

[Adam H. Kerman]

eternal-september.* is an institutional hierarchy, but articles posted
to its newsgroups are distributed.

If it's distributed, then the newsgroup is Usenet and not local.

If it's not distributed, then the newsgroup is local and not Usenet.

[candycanearter07]

Oh. Well, that's a bit surprising.

[Gokul Das B]

On Sun, 3 Dec 2023 17:44:07 -0000 (UTC)
"Adam H. Kerman" <a...@chinet.com> wrote:
> What did I write that needed clarification?

Sorry about the misunderstanding. You didn't write anything that needed
clarification. I meant that you made it clear for me. And as for
jargon, I meant that you gave me pointers on what to look up. No
offence was intended!

Regards

--
OpenPGP: https://keyoxide.org/3FA8C6143D305DCED55338BEA535BDC7D632FB0E

[kyonshi]

On 12/1/2023 5:19 PM, Anonymous wrote:
> Hello everyone. I'm new to Usenet. Is anyone aware of any active NNTP
> servers? If so, could you please share the server's URL and port? Thanks.

that sounds rather ominous.

it most likely is benign, but if one is already on a server, why a list
of all kind of other nntp servers?

[Chris Jacobs]

Op 1-12-2023 om 17:19 schreef Anonymous:

> Hello everyone. I'm new to Usenet. Is anyone aware of any active NNTP
> servers? If so, could you please share the server's URL and port? Thanks.

https://www.newsgroupreviews.com/server-address-ports.html