<section><title>Documentation, information and further reading</title>

<para>This section fills in gaps which were hard to classify under any
of the previous chapters.</para>

<section><title>The manpages</title>

<para>The following manpages are installed automatically when our
integrated software distribution is compiled and installed, listed here
in no particular order:</para>

<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para><literal>badexpiry:</literal>
utility to look for articles with bad explicit Expiry headers
</para></listitem>

<listitem><para><literal>checkactive:</literal>
utility to perform some sanity checks on the <literal>active</literal>
file
</para></listitem>

<listitem><para><literal>cnewsdo:</literal>
utility to perform some checks and then run C-News maintenance commands
</para></listitem>

<listitem><para><literal>controlperm:</literal>
configuration file for controlling responses to Usenet control messages
</para></listitem>

<listitem><para><literal>expire:</literal>
utility to expire old articles
</para></listitem>

<listitem><para><literal>explode:</literal>
internal utility to convert a master batch file to ordinary batch files
</para></listitem>

<listitem><para><literal>inews:</literal>
the program which forms the entry point for fresh postings to be
injected into the Usenet system
</para></listitem>

<listitem><para><literal>mergeactive:</literal>
utility to merge one site's newsgroups to another site's
<literal>active</literal> file
</para></listitem>

<listitem><para><literal>mkhistory:</literal>
utility to rebuild news <literal>history</literal> file
</para></listitem>

<listitem><para><literal>news(5):</literal>
description of Usenet news article file and batch file formats
</para></listitem>

<listitem><para><literal>newsaux:</literal>
a collection of C-News utilities used by its own scripts and by the
Usenet news administrator for various maintenance purposes
</para></listitem>

<listitem><para><literal>newsbatch:</literal>
covers all the utilities and programs which are part of the news
batching system of C-News
</para></listitem>

<listitem><para><literal>newsctl:</literal>
describes the file formats and uses of all the files in
<literal>$NEWSCTL</literal> other than the two key files,
<literal>sys</literal> and <literal>active</literal>
</para></listitem>

<listitem><para><literal>newsdb:</literal>
describes the key files and directories for news articles, including the
structure of <literal>$NEWSARTS</literal>, the <literal>active</literal>
file, the <literal>active.times</literal> file, and the
<literal>history</literal> file.
</para></listitem>

<listitem><para><literal>newsflag:</literal>
utility to change the flag or type column of a newsgroup in the
<literal>active</literal> file
</para></listitem>

<listitem><para><literal>newsmail:</literal>
utility scripts used to send and receive newsfeeds by email. This is
different from a mail-to-news gateway, since this is for communication
between two Usenet news servers.
</para></listitem>

<listitem><para><literal>newsmaint:</literal>
utility scripts used by Usenet administrator to manage and maintain
C-News system
</para></listitem>

<listitem><para><literal>newsoverview(5):</literal>
file formats for the NOV database
</para></listitem>

<listitem><para><literal>newsoverview(8):</literal>
library functions of the NOV library and the utilities which use them
</para></listitem>

<listitem><para><literal>newssys:</literal>
the important <literal>sys</literal> file of C-News
</para></listitem>

<listitem><para><literal>relaynews:</literal>
the <literal>relaynews</literal> program of C-News
</para></listitem>

<listitem><para><literal>report:</literal>
utility to generate and send email reports of errors and events from
C-News scripts
</para></listitem>

<listitem><para><literal>rnews:</literal>
receive news batches and queue them for processing
</para></listitem>

<listitem><para><literal>nntpd:</literal>
The NNTP daemon
</para></listitem>

<listitem><para><literal>nntpxmit:</literal>
The NNTP batch transmit program for outgoing push feeds
</para></listitem>

</itemizedlist>

</section>

<section><title>Papers, documents, articles</title>

<para>There are certain documents and published conference papers which
are a must-read for Usenet server administrators, both for their
historical value and for the insight they give into Usenet server
architecture in general. We list our chart-toppers here.
</para>

<section><title>The Usenix paper on C News</title>

<para>This very interesting paper has been mentioned in the section titled
<quote><xref linkend="softwarehistory"/></quote>. It is titled ``News
Need Not Be Slow'', and is available from
<literal>ftp://ftp.cs.toronto.edu/doc/programming/c-news.*</literal> or
from our Website
(<literal>http://www.starcomsoftware.com/proj/usenet/doc/c-news.{ps,pdf}</literal>).
</para>

<para>It focuses on B News, analyses it for performance, and
demonstrates how specific changes in design and implementation can speed
things up. It is well-written, and is educative in many areas
independent of Usenet news.</para>

</section>

<section><title>The Usenix paper on INN</title>

<para>This paper talks about the things that C News didn't address,
and takes Usenet news processing into the world of pure Internet
connectivity. Its author is Rich Salz, the author of INN, and the paper
is titled ``InterNetNews: Usenet Transport for Internet Sites.'' This
can be picked up from
<literal>ftp://ftp.uu.net/networking/news/nntp/inn/inn.usenix.ps.Z</literal>
or from our Website
(<literal>http://www.starcomsoftware.com/proj/usenet/doc/inn.usenix.{ps,pdf}</literal>),
uncompressed.
Be warned: this PostScript file is probably missing some mandatory
first-line tag like <literal>%!PS-Adobe-1.0</literal> and some
PostScript processors can have problems with it. For instance, on our
Linux boxes, <literal>ghostview</literal> can display it, but
<literal>kghostview</literal> can't, which is very strange.
</para>

<para>This paper analyses the world of Usenet servers with C News and
NNTPd, in the presence of multiple parallel feeds, and proceeds to build
a case for a powerful NNTP-optimised software architecture which will
handle multiple parallel incoming NNTP feeds efficiently. What later INN
users appear to miss sometimes when comparing C-News+NNTPd with INN, is
that INN's strengths are <emphasis>only</emphasis> in situations which
its author had specifically targeted, <emphasis>i.e.</emphasis> multiple
parallel incoming NNTP feeds. There is no clear superiority of one
system over the other in any other situation.
</para>

</section>

<section><title>The C News guide</title>

<para>This document is part of the C-News source, and is available in
the <literal>c-news/doc</literal> directory of the source tree. The
<literal>makefile</literal> here uses <literal>troff</literal> and the
source files to generate <literal>guide.ps</literal>. This C News Guide
is a very well-written document and provides an introduction to the
functioning of C News.</para>

</section>
</section>

<section><title>O'Reilly's books on Usenet news</title>

<para>O'Reilly and Associates had an excellent book that can form the
foundations for understanding C-News and Usenet news in general, titled
``Managing UUCP and Usenet,'' dated 1992. This was considered a bit
dated because it did not cover INN or the Internet protocols.</para>

<para>They have subsequently published a more recent book, titled
``Managing Usenet,'' written by Henry Spencer, the co-author of C-News,
and David Lawrence, one of the most respected Usenet veterans and
administrators today. The book was published in 1998 and includes both
C-News and INN.</para>

<para>We have a distinct preference for books published by O'Reilly; we
usually find them the best books on their subjects. We make no attempts
to hide this bias. We recommend both books. In fact, we believe that
there is very little of value in this HOWTO for someone who studies one
of these books and then peruses information on the Internet.</para>

</section>

<section><title>Usenet-related RFCs</title>

<para>TO BE ADDED</para>

</section>

<section><title>The source code</title>

<para>TO BE ADDED</para>

</section>

<section><title>Usenet newsgroups</title>

<para>There are many discussion groups on the Usenet dedicated to the
technical and non-technical issues in managing a Usenet server and
service. These are:</para>

<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para><literal>news.admin.technical</literal>
Discusses technical issues about administering Usenet news
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para><literal>news.admin.policy</literal>
Discusses policy issues about Usenet news
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para><literal>news.software.b</literal>
Discusses C-News (no separate newsgroup was created after B-News gave
way to C-News) source, configuration and bugs (if any)
</para></listitem>
</itemizedlist>

<para>MORE WILL BE ADDED LATER</para>
</section>

<section><title>We</title>

<para>We, at Starcom Software, offer the services of our Usenet news
team to provide assistance to you by email, as a service to the Linux
and Usenet administrator community, on a best effort basis.</para>

<para>We also offer you an integrated source distribution
of C News, NNTPd, as discussed earlier in the section titled
<quote><xref linkend="settingup"/></quote>. This integrated
source distribution fixes some bugs in the component packages it
includes, and it comes pre-configured with ready made configuration
files which allow all components to be compiled and installed
on a Linux server in a manner by which they can work together
(<emphasis>e.g.</emphasis> key directory paths are specified consistently
across all components, <emphasis>etc.</emphasis>) This is available at
<literal>http://www.starcomsoftware.com/proj/usenet/src/</literal></para>

<para>The URL
<literal>http://www.starcomsoftware.com/proj/usenet/src/archives/</literal>
holds the original sources of some of the software components we base our
distribution on. These include C News (<literal>c-news.tar.Z</literal>),
NNTPd (<literal>nntp.1.5.12.1.tar.Z</literal>), and Nestor
(<literal>nestor.tar.Z</literal>). Other components, like
<literal>pgpverify</literal> are maintained by their current maintainers
and can be obtained from their respective sites. Therefore, they are not
included in our archives.</para>

<para>The URL
<literal>http://www.starcomsoftware.com/proj/usenet/doc/</literal>
carries copies of some of the important technical articles and Usenix
papers on the subject of the Usenet.</para>

<para>We will endeavour to answer all queries sent to
<literal>usenet@starcomsoftware.com</literal>, pertaining to the source
distribution we have put together and its configuration and maintenance,
and also pertaining to general technical issues related to running a
Usenet news service off a Unix or Linux server.</para>

<para>We may not be in a position to assist with software components we
are not familiar with, <emphasis>e.g.</emphasis> Leafnode, or platforms
we do not have access to, <emphasis>e.g.</emphasis> SGI IRIX. Intel
Linux will be supported as long as our group is alive; our entire office
runs on Linux servers and diskless Linux desktops.</para>

<para>You are not forced to be dependent on us, because neither do we
have proprietary knowledge nor proprietary closed-source software. All
the extensions we are currently involved in with C-News and NNTPd will
immediately be made available to the Internet in freely redistributable
source form.</para>

</section>
</section>
