<TD>

<P>

<BR>news/software/b/faq

<BR></P>

<TD>

<P>

<BR>The news.software.b FAQ. Read this before you post to that newsgroup. Read it even if you don't plan to post.

<BR></P>

<TR>

<TD>

<P>

<BR>INN FAQs

<BR></P>

<TD>

<P>

<BR>There is a four-part FAQ for INN. You can get it from any host that has the INN software, including ftp.uu.net in the directory ~ftp/networking/news/nntp/inn.</P></TABLE>

<H4 ALIGN="CENTER">

<CENTER><A ID="I7" NAME="I7">

<FONT SIZE=3><B>News Transport Software Documentation</B>

<BR></FONT></A></CENTER></H4>

<P>The only currently recommended news-transport software systems are C-news and InterNetworkNews (INN). Both come with extensive documentation to help you install and maintain them and a good set of UNIX manual pages. Whichever you choose, read the 
documentation and then read it again. This chapter is no substitute for the software author's documentation, which is updated to match each release of the software and which contains details that a chapter of this size can't cover.

<BR></P>

<H4 ALIGN="CENTER">

<CENTER><A ID="I8" NAME="I8">

<FONT SIZE=3><B>Request for Comments (RFC) Documents</B>

<BR></FONT></A></CENTER></H4>

<P>RFCs are issued by working groups of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). They were known initially as requests for comments, but as they become adopted as Internet standards you should think of them as requirements for compliance&#151;if you 
want to exchange news with another Internet NNTP site, you must both comply with the provisions of RFCs 977 and 1036. RFCs are available for anonymous ftp on the host ftp.internic.net and others. The RFCs mentioned here are also included on the UNIX 
Unleashed CD-ROM.

<BR></P>

<UL>

<LI>RFC 977 (Network News Transfer Protocol) defines the commands by which Internet news servers exchange news articles with other news servers, newsreaders, and news-posting programs. The protocol is fairly simple, and this RFC will give you a better idea 

of what your newsreaders, news-posting programs, and news-transport software are doing behind your back.

<BR>

<BR></LI>

<LI>RFC 1036 (Standard for Interchange of USENET Messages) explains the format of USENET news articles, which is based on the format of Internet e-mail messages. You don't need to memorize it, but a quick read will help you understand the functions and 
formats of the various news articles.

<BR>

<BR></LI></UL>

<H4 ALIGN="CENTER">

<CENTER><A ID="I9" NAME="I9">

<FONT SIZE=3><B>USENET Newsgroups</B>

<BR></FONT></A></CENTER></H4>

<P>Once you get your news system running, there are several technical and policy newsgroups you'll want to read. These newsgroups will keep you abreast of new releases of your news-transport software, bug fixes, and security problems. You'll also see 
postings of common problems experienced at other sites, so if you encounter the same problems you'll have the solutions. Many knowledgeable people contribute to these newsgroups, including the authors of C-news and INN.

<BR></P>

<P>However, remember that the people answering your questions are volunteers doing so in their spare time, so be polite. The first step toward politeness is to read the newsgroup's FAQ (if there is one) and so avoid being the 1,001st lucky person to ask 
how to make a round wheel. You should also read the &quot;Emily Postnews&quot; guide to USENET etiquette and other introductory articles in the newsgroup news.announce.newusers. Listed below are a few of the newsgroups you may want to read. You may want to 

subscribe to all of the news.* groups for a few weeks and then cancel the subscriptions for the ones you don't need.

<BR></P>

<TABLE BORDER>

<TR>

<TD>

<P>

<BR>news.announce.newusers

<BR></P>

<TD>

<P>

<BR>Information for new users. You should subscribe all of your users to this group.

<BR></P>

<TR>

<TD>

<P>

<BR>news.announce.newgroups

<BR></P>

<TD>

<P>

<BR>Announcements of newsgroup vote results and which newsgroups are about to be created.

<BR></P>

<TR>

<TD>

<P>

<BR>news.software.readers

<BR></P>

<TD>

<P>

<BR>Information and discussion of news-reading software (also known as &quot;newsreaders&quot;).

<BR></P>

<TR>

<TD>

<P>

<BR>news.admin.policy

<BR></P>

<TD>

<P>

<BR>Discussions pertaining to site's news policies.

<BR></P>

<TR>

<TD>

<P>

<BR>news.software.b

<BR></P>

<TD>

<P>

<BR>Discussions of software systems compatible with B-news (for example, C-news and INN).

<BR></P>

<TR>

<TD>

<P>

<BR>news.software.nntp

<BR></P>

<TD>

<P>

<BR>Discussions of implementations of NNTP (for example, the so-called &quot;reference implementation&quot; and INN).</P></TABLE>

<H3 ALIGN="CENTER">

<CENTER><A ID="I10" NAME="I10">

<FONT SIZE=4><B>A Functional Overview of News Systems and Their Software</B>

<BR></FONT></A></CENTER></H3>

<P>The following sections give a general idea of what a news system must do. Different news systems accomplish these tasks in different ways, but they all do basically the same thing.

<BR></P>

<H4 ALIGN="CENTER">

<CENTER><A ID="I11" NAME="I11">

<FONT SIZE=3><B>Format of News Articles</B>

<BR></FONT></A></CENTER></H4>

<P>Netnews articles are very similar to e-mail messages. An article consists of a header, which contains information such as the person who posted the article and the date, followed by a blank line and the body of the article. The body is mostly irrelevant 

as far as news-transport software is concerned&#151;the content of the article's header tells it all it must know.

<BR></P>

<H4 ALIGN="CENTER">

<CENTER><A ID="I12" NAME="I12">

<FONT SIZE=3><B>Newsgroup Hierarchies</B>

<BR></FONT></A></CENTER></H4>

<P>Articles are posted to one or more newsgroups, whose names are separated by periods to categorize them into hierarchies. For instance, the newsgroups comp.unix.solaris and comp.risks are both in the comp hierarchy, which contains articles having to do 
with computers. The comp.unix.solaris newsgroup is further categorized by inclusion in the unix subhierarchy, which has to do with various vendors' versions of UNIX.

<BR></P>

<P>Some of the current USENET newsgroup hierarchies are shown below. There are others&#151;this is by no means a definitive list. Some Internet mailing lists are fed into newsgroups in their own hierarchies. For instance, the GNU (GNU is a self-referential 

acronym for &quot;GNU is not UNIX&quot;) project's mailing lists are fed to the gnu newsgroup hierarchy.

<BR></P>

<TABLE BORDER>

<TR>

<TD>

<P>

<BR>alt

<BR></P>

<TD>

<P>

<BR>The alternative newsgroup hierarchy. There is even less control here than in most of USENET, with new newsgroups created at the whim of anyone who knows how to send a newgroup control message. It is mostly a swamp, but you can often find something 
useful. Examples: alt.activism, alt.spam.

<BR></P>

<TR>

<TD>

<P>

<BR>comp

<BR></P>

<TD>

<P>

<BR>Computer-related newsgroups. Example: comp.risks.

<BR></P>

<TR>

<TD>

<P>

<BR>misc

<BR></P>

<TD>

<P>

<BR>Things that don't seem to fit anywhere else. Examples: misc.invest.stocks, misc.kids.vacation.

<BR></P>

<TR>

<TD>

<P>

<BR>rec

<BR></P>

<TD>

<P>

<BR>Recreational newsgroups. Example: rec.woodworking.

<BR></P>

<TR>

<TD>

<P>

<BR>soc

<BR></P>

<TD>

<P>

<BR>Social newsgroups. Examples: soc.college.grad, soc.culture.africa.

<BR></P>

<TR>

<TD>

<P>

<BR>talk

<BR></P>