1. With NNTP servers such as INN2, a peer must pull the entire feed then
reject the articles from groups one does not wish to carry. This seems
very slow and bandwidth inefficient. Does RSLite work the same way, or
do peers in some way signal which group message feeds to send? If
granular control is possible please explain a sample configuration.

2. What is the syntax for subscribing to a group or list of individual
groups that is carried by another peer and where is that configured,
without a blanket hierarchy namespace being invoked?

3. What is the syntax for rejecting a request from a peer to feed or
pull from a particular local group that is not to be shared with peers?

4. What is the syntax for pulling the entire rocksolid.* hierarchy from
another peer and where is that configured?

5. As in #4, what is the syntax for pulling or blocking an entire
hierarchy to or from a peer, for instance, rocksolid.* hierarchy.

6. What advice can you offer to conserve bandwidth used by the server?

7. Where and how is log rotation and maximum log size set?

8. Where and how is article retention time set? For instance if I want
articles to expire and be removed or archived after 1200 days, how would
I configure that?

9. Is there any way to automate retention settings and article deletion
based upon disk usage?

10. Is it possible to set up moderated groups in RSLite? If so, how?

Not Retro Guy, but trying to give some answers:

>1. With NNTP servers such as INN2, a peer must pull the entire feed then reject the articles from >groups one does not wish to carry. This seems very slow and bandwidth inefficient. Does RSLite work >the same way, or do peers in some way signal which group message feeds to send? If granular control >is possible please explain a sample configuration.

I think this used to be relevant, but with a modern connection to the internet not anymore (say: Dsl and upwards).
So unless you run your news server over mobile connection or satellite, this should not matter.

>9. Is there any way to automate retention settings and article deletion based upon disk usage?

To my knowledge, this is not part of rslite today. Could be done with a few lines of php, I guess. Since rslite switched from flatfile to sqlite, it would need to be done in the rslite code.

>10. Is it possible to set up moderated groups in RSLite? If so, how?

It is possible to restrict posting to registered users, and to have the users registration be confirmed manually. It used to be in the settings of rslight.

Hope this helps, and you did not request information on how to set up and customize inn2. Because that is a fully different chapter, and I'd recommend to stay out of it and use rslight.

--
Posted on Rocksolid Light

On 3/14/23 16:55, Anonymous wrote:
> Not Retro Guy, but trying to give some answers:
>
>> 1. With NNTP servers such as INN2, a peer must pull the entire feed
>> then reject the articles from >groups one does not wish to carry. This
>> seems very slow and bandwidth inefficient. Does RSLite work >the same
>> way, or do peers in some way signal which group message feeds to send?
>> If granular control >is possible please explain a sample configuration.
>
> I think this used to be relevant, but with a modern connection to the
> internet not anymore (say: Dsl and upwards).
> So unless you run your news server over mobile connection or satellite,
> this should not matter.

My physical backup will be pulled down a slow connection with limited
bandwidth. I would like it to only snarf down exactly what it needs
instead of snarfing it all and sorting. That way I can back it up more
often without reaching bandwidth caps.

Maybe I can use delta diff patches on the SQLite file that stores the
articles and download those. That would likely be bandwidth efficient.

>> 9. Is there any way to automate retention settings and article
>> deletion based upon disk usage?
>
> To my knowledge, this is not part of rslite today. Could be done with a
> few lines of php, I guess. Since rslite switched from flatfile to
> sqlite, it would need to be done in the rslite code.

Can you confirm if all articles are stored in a single SQLite file? If
that is true then I can script a SQLite command to prune older articles.
It would drop records based on their date fields when the file reaches a
certain size. It would also make easy delta diff patches for the backup.
>> 10. Is it possible to set up moderated groups in RSLite? If so, how?
>
> It is possible to restrict posting to registered users, and to have the
> users registration be confirmed manually. It used to be in the settings
> of rslight.

I want to hand off some private groups to moderators who will monitor
them. Old Usenet allows email moderation of groups. There are a few who
may want their own private groups and moderation over what gets posted
in them. But I don't want to give them administrative access to the NNTP
server.

> Hope this helps, and you did not request information on how to set up
> and customize inn2. Because that is a fully different chapter, and I'd
> recommend to stay out of it and use rslight.

At least you got me thinking. There's more than one way to skin a cat.

SugarBug3883 wrote:

> 1. With NNTP servers such as INN2, a peer must pull the entire feed then
> reject the articles from groups one does not wish to carry. This seems
> very slow and bandwidth inefficient. Does RSLite work the same way, or
> do peers in some way signal which group message feeds to send? If
> granular control is possible please explain a sample configuration.

With INN2, you would normally let your peer know which groups you want
and they would only feed those groups. INN2 would keep track of what it's
sent to you and only send new messages.

rslight requests new articles by group from a server, and keeps it's own
record of last article retrieved (by server). rslight will ask for each article
using 'STAT', so only one line per article would be transferred, which would
contain message-id.

If rslight already has the article, it is not requested from the server,
so the article is never transferred if it already exists.

> 2. What is the syntax for subscribing to a group or list of individual
> groups that is carried by another peer and where is that configured,
> without a blanket hierarchy namespace being invoked?

If you look at the top of one of my rslight sites, you'll see the links
for 'rocksolid' 'arts' etc. Each of those is a 'section'. Each section
has it's own config, and you list the groups in (by default)
/etc/rslight/<section>/groups.txt.

The config files for pulling/posting to a peer will be auto-generated
on the next cron run based on your config.

> 3. What is the syntax for rejecting a request from a peer to feed or
> pull from a particular local group that is not to be shared with peers?

That I will need to test. I know what happens in the web interface, but
it's pretty open (all groups available) from the NNTP server. I'll take
a look at that, but I'm a bit behind right now on bug fixes and feature
additions. It'll take some time and I'll post the results.

> 4. What is the syntax for pulling the entire rocksolid.* hierarchy from
> another peer and where is that configured?

Create a section with all the rocksolid.* groups, and configure that section
with a remote server to peer with. When you're ready to create any new
section, let me know and if I haven't already listed the steps (it's not
hard), I'll walk you through it.

> 5. As in #4, what is the syntax for pulling or blocking an entire
> hierarchy to or from a peer, for instance, rocksolid.* hierarchy.

You only pull what you want to pull. Nothing to block as nothing is being
pushed to you. Note: You only have one peer per section.

> 6. What advice can you offer to conserve bandwidth used by the server?

rslight uses very little bandwidth, and contains some built in spider
throttling and simple dos protection. This seems to be the most effective
part of how bandwidth is conserved atm.

> 7. Where and how is log rotation and maximum log size set?

Currently, logs are kept in the spool dir: /var/spool/rslight/log

Log files are rotated daily, and deleted after 5 days.

> 8. Where and how is article retention time set? For instance if I want
> articles to expire and be removed or archived after 1200 days, how would
> I configure that?

The file /etc/rslight/expire.conf handles how many days to retain articles.
Currently, you will need to list every group one by one and enter days.

Groups not in this file do not have expiration.

> 9. Is there any way to automate retention settings and article deletion
> based upon disk usage?

Not at this time.

> 10. Is it possible to set up moderated groups in RSLite? If so, how?

That would be a new feature. It's a good idea, but I need to catch up first.

--
Retro Guy

My Thunderbird client crashed while trying to post this. I checked and
it does not appear in my feed so this is another attempt.

On 3/15/23 18:31, Retro Guy wrote:
> SugarBug3883 wrote:
>
>> 1. With NNTP servers such as INN2, a peer must pull the entire feed
>> then reject the articles from groups one does not wish to carry.
>> This seems very slow and bandwidth inefficient. Does RSLite work the
>> same way, or do peers in some way signal which group message feeds
>> to send? If granular control is possible please explain a sample
>> configuration.
>
> With INN2, you would normally let your peer know which groups you want
> and they would only feed those groups. INN2 would keep track of what
> it's sent to you and only send new messages.
>
> rslight requests new articles by group from a server, and keeps it's
> own record of last article retrieved (by server). rslight will ask
> for each article using 'STAT', so only one line per article would be
> transferred, which would contain message-id.

This seems simple and snappy.

> If rslight already has the article, it is not requested from the
> server, so the article is never transferred if it already exists.
>> 2. What is the syntax for subscribing to a group or list of
>> individual groups that is carried by another peer and where is that
>> configured, without a blanket hierarchy namespace being invoked?
>
> If you look at the top of one of my rslight sites, you'll see the
> links for 'rocksolid' 'arts' etc. Each of those is a 'section'. Each
> section has it's own config, and you list the groups in (by default)
> /etc/rslight/<section>/groups.txt.

I am looking at that file right now. The file makes it obvious,
thankfully!

> The config files for pulling/posting to a peer will be auto-generated
> on the next cron run based on your config.

So then if I update the static config files then on the next scheduled
run will the new config take effect? Or do I need to restart?

>> 3. What is the syntax for rejecting a request from a peer to feed or
>> pull from a particular local group that is not to be shared with
>> peers?
>
> That I will need to test. I know what happens in the web interface,
> but it's pretty open (all groups available) from the NNTP server.
> I'll take a look at that, but I'm a bit behind right now on bug fixes
> and feature additions. It'll take some time and I'll post the results.

Well this can wait. I should get up and running, too.

>> 4. What is the syntax for pulling the entire rocksolid.* hierarchy
>> from another peer and where is that configured?
>
> Create a section with all the rocksolid.* groups, and configure that
> section

I can see that already exists in the source code so it's pretty obvious
now.

> with a remote server to peer with. When you're ready to create any
> new section, let me know and if I haven't already listed the steps
> (it's not hard), I'll walk you through it.

I assume from 'groups.txt' that I should prefix the section name with a
colon ':' and then list the groups one per line with
[groupname][space][description].

>> 5. As in #4, what is the syntax for pulling or blocking an entire
>> hierarchy to or from a peer, for instance, rocksolid.* hierarchy.
>
> You only pull what you want to pull. Nothing to block as nothing is
> being pushed to you. Note: You only have one peer per section.

Is it possible to list duplicate groups in multiple sections and assign
different peers to those sections? For instance if I wanted
alt.anonymous and alt.cypherpunks to be listed in three sections, each
with a different peer, would this gum up the works in any way?

I would like to sync a couple peers run by others (such as novabbs) and
then have a couple of backup peers that pull articles just so I have
them backed up. One would be on a VPS and one would be in my office
over a low-speed connection. VPS is so cheap nowadays I am thinking of
getting three more just for tinkering with NNTP.

>> 6. What advice can you offer to conserve bandwidth used by the
>> server?
>
> rslight uses very little bandwidth, and contains some built in spider
> throttling and simple dos protection. This seems to be the most
> effective part of how bandwidth is conserved atm.
>
>> 7. Where and how is log rotation and maximum log size set?
>
> Currently, logs are kept in the spool dir: /var/spool/rslight/log
>
> Log files are rotated daily, and deleted after 5 days.

That ought to do just fine.

>> 8. Where and how is article retention time set? For instance if I
>> want articles to expire and be removed or archived after 1200 days,
>> how would I configure that?
>
> The file /etc/rslight/expire.conf handles how many days to retain
> articles. Currently, you will need to list every group one by one and
> enter days.

That's as granular as it needs to be.

> Groups not in this file do not have expiration.
>
>> 9. Is there any way to automate retention settings and article
>> deletion based upon disk usage?
>
> Not at this time.

Someone posted that the articles are saved in a SQLite file. If that is
the case I can just run a chron script to drop records based on date
headers. If I did that, would the server re-download those articles or
would it work as I expect?

>> 10. Is it possible to set up moderated groups in RSLite? If so, how?
>
> That would be a new feature. It's a good idea, but I need to catch up
> first.

This gives me enough information to get started. When I think I have it
all set up right I may want to peer with a server to test and check
everything out. Do you have a test or playground server, or do you mind
if I pull from your public server while poking around with the configs?

Thank you for your help. Many blessings and peace upon you.

sugarbug wrote:

> My Thunderbird client crashed while trying to post this. I checked and
> it does not appear in my feed so this is another attempt.

> On 3/15/23 18:31, Retro Guy wrote:
>> SugarBug3883 wrote:

>> The config files for pulling/posting to a peer will be auto-generated
>> on the next cron run based on your config.

> So then if I update the static config files then on the next scheduled
> run will the new config take effect? Or do I need to restart?

The next scheduled run will take care of it.

> Is it possible to list duplicate groups in multiple sections and assign
> different peers to those sections? For instance if I wanted
> alt.anonymous and alt.cypherpunks to be listed in three sections, each
> with a different peer, would this gum up the works in any way?

I have not tried that, but I would see a problem in the maintaining of
message number pointers for the remote server as there would be more than
one server per group. This is probably ok, but would cause a lot of
requesting the same message from another server just to not accept them.

Also, each section uses locking to make sure that certain overview files
are only being written by one process at a time. If two sections are writing
the same file, it would not show as locked.

>>> 8. Where and how is article retention time set? For instance if I
>>> want articles to expire and be removed or archived after 1200 days,
>>> how would I configure that?
>>
>> The file /etc/rslight/expire.conf handles how many days to retain
>> articles. Currently, you will need to list every group one by one and
>> enter days.

> That's as granular as it needs to be.

I explained the above incorrectly. There is one expire value in the config
file for each section in days. This covers all groups for the section. Then
you can use /etc/rslight/expire.conf to override the config for any groups
you wish.

> Someone posted that the articles are saved in a SQLite file. If that is
> the case I can just run a chron script to drop records based on date
> headers. If I did that, would the server re-download those articles or
> would it work as I expect?

To delete an article, it must be deleted from article databases, overview,
and overboard, then specifically deleted from the web interface. See
/etc/rslight/scripts/nocem.php for an example on how this can be done
in php.

> This gives me enough information to get started. When I think I have it
> all set up right I may want to peer with a server to test and check
> everything out. Do you have a test or playground server, or do you mind
> if I pull from your public server while poking around with the configs?

You are welcome to use the public server. If something breaks on my end,
that helps me find new bugs.

Good luck!

--
Retro Guy