Rocksolid Light 0.6.5 is now available at:
news.novabbs.com/getrslight or
rslight.i2p/getrslight

There is a README there with instructions, which I will also paste below.

All testing on multiple sites is done only by myself, so if there are any bugs or trouble installing I wouldn't be shocked. I hope it installs ok, but without other testers, that's difficult.

Here are the installation instructions:

Installing rslight - a web based news client
(news.novabbs.com/getrslight)

This is for version 0.6.5

rslight is based on NewsPortal, which discontinued development in 2008, and was
developed by Florian Amrhein https://florian-amrhein.de/newsportal/

rslight contains some major code and feature changes, but would not exist
without NewsPortal as a basis for development.

Requirements:

You will need a web server: rslight has been tested with apache2, lighttpd and
synchronet web servers

php is required, and your web server must be configured to serve .php.

php-mbstring (to support other character sets) and sharutils (for uudecode) are
required. These are the names for Debian packages. Other distributions should
also provide these in some way.

If you get errors, check your log files to see what packages I've failed to mention.

For FreeBSD:
pkg install php72
pkg install php72-extensions
pkg install sharutils
pkg install php72-pcntl
pkg install php72-sockets
pkg install php72-mbstring

Installation:

1. Create directories and move files into place

Extract the .tgz file to a temporary location, then move into place:

index.php:
Move to the root directory you will be using for serving web pages for rslight.

usr/local/www/html/rocksolid and usr/local/www/html/common:
Move both directories to the web root for rslight. The same place you put index.php

etc/rslight:
Move to /etc/rslight
You must make the directories /etc/rslight/users and /etc/rslight/userdata writable by
the web server user

Create the directory: /var/spool/rslight and make it writable by the web server user

2. Edit configuration file

Edit the file /etc/rslight/rslight.inc.php

The file is commented and should be fairly simple.

3. Add a cron job for the root user. Change the directories in this line to match your setup, and set the minutes as you wish:

*/2 * * * * cd /usr/local/www/html/spoolnews ; bash -lc "php /etc/rslight/scripts/cron.php"

This will start the nntp server, then drop privileges to your web user and begin pulling articles from the remote server to create your spool. You won't see articles immediately in rslight, but if you get impatient, delete '*-groups' in /var/spool/rslight after 15-30 minutes to begin to see articles appear.

If you have trouble, post to rocksolid.shared.nodes and we'll try to help.

Retro Guy
retroguy@rocksolidbbs.com

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Posted on: Rocksolid Light
news.novabbs.com

Some notes on installing that might be of interest:

If you want to pull more than 100 articles in each group on first run (default), you can edit the line:

$maxfirstrequest = 100;

in /etc/rslight/scripts/spoolnews.php. This is the number of articles from newest, so newest articles are always pulled.

in $webroot/common, you can put customised files in 'mods':

common/mods/header.php
common/mods/style.css
common/mods/images/rocksolidlight.png

These will be used if they exist instead of the default copies.

Retro Guy

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Posted on: Rocksolid Light
news.novabbs.com

There is a slight update in rslight-0.6.5.tgz. I forgot to include $webroot/spoolnews. It's in there now.

If already downloaded by someone, just create a directory spoolnews along side your rocksolid and common directories, then just copy config.inc.php and newsportal.php from rocksolid to spoolnews. That's really all it is.

Retro Guy

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Posted on: Rocksolid Light
news.novabbs.com

oooh! I have a working install script.

I'll upload it after some more testing.
--
Posted on: Rocksolid Light
192.168.0.230

Retro Guy wrote:

> oooh! I have a working install script.

> I'll upload it after some more testing.

seems to be working fine. I just performed an install using it, and it's much easier than putting everything in place yourself. It's not a configuration script, just an install script.

1. It will ask where to install web accessible scripts/files, where you want the spool dir, where to place the config dir, and what user runs your web server.

2. It will create the directories and apply proper permissions as necessary.

3. It will copy all the necessary files into place.

4. It will place any directory selection changes you've made into a particular config file.

After this, you need to edit the main config file to list your upstream server, usernames, passwords, etc. It is a commented file and shouldn't be too complicated.

I'll package this script in a 0.6.5a tarball and upload to the site tomorrow.

Retro Guy

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Posted on: Rocksolid Light
news.novabbs.com

A couple more changes to make installation easier:

Local users (anonymous and main server connection) are now created automatically from your config file. No need to create these accounts. If you change the config file, the accounts will be updated. I've tried to remove as many steps as possible from installation.

Here is a view of running the install script:

# ./install.sh

This is the main installation script for Rocksolid Light
and must be run as root from the root directory of the extracted files

Select installation directories

Choose a path for your web root for rslight
Use default web root /var/www/html (y/n)? n

Enter web root for rslight: /tmp/rslight/html

Choose a path for your spool files for rslight
Use default spool path /var/spool/rslight (y/n)? n

Enter spool path for rslight: /tmp/rslight/spool

Choose a path for rslight configuration files
Use default config path /etc/rslight (y/n)? n

Enter config path for rslight: /tmp/rslight/rslight

Choose username used by your web server
Use default username www-data (y/n)? n

Enter username used by your web server: www

You have selected the following options:

Web root: /tmp/rslight/html
Spool dir: /tmp/rslight/spool
Config dir: /tmp/rslight/rslight
Web user: www

Are you sure you wish to install to these directories now
and change permissions as necessary to www?

Type 'YES' to create the directories and move files into place: YES

Creating directories
/tmp/rslight/html...done
/tmp/rslight/spool...done
/tmp/rslight/rslight...done

Moving files into place...done

Setting permissions...done

Applying configuration...done

Next step is to edit TWO configuration files in /tmp/rslight/rslight:
/tmp/rslight/rslight/rslight.inc.php and
/tmp/rslight/rslight/rocksolid.inc.php

Once your web server is configured to point to /tmp/rslight/html and serve .php files
give it a try. If you have trouble, feel free to ask for help in rocksolid.nodes.help

Installation complete
-------------

Once you run the script, and edit at least rslight.inc.php and configure your web server, the site should operate. The config in rocksolid.inc.php is for specific settings (name of site, etc) for your section.

I'll hopefully have a 0.6.5a ready soon to upload.

Retro Guy

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Posted on: Rocksolid Light
192.168.0.230

The test site at:
nyccgjh5cjapsf7frrhxqw73gb5hxj2ucau72ztn2oenxwetxr5q.b32.i2p

is running a fresh install of rslight 0.6.5a. I am posting from this site now.

I followed the installation instructions exactly, using the provided install script, and all seems to be working fine. This is really the same code as 0.6.5, just with a much easier installation method.

rslight-0.6.5a.tgz is now available at:
rslight.i2p/getrslight or
news.novabbs.com/getrslight

Retro Guy

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Posted on: Unconfigured rslight site
192.168.0.230

i already go it, can't wait to get def2 back in business.
just for my understanding: do you recommend to limit the number of groups with the current version, or can I put everything (keeping in mind your post about the right way to prepare the partitions for this, of course) ?

cheers

trw

Posted on def4

anon wrote:

> i already go it, can't wait to get def2 back in business.
> just for my understanding: do you recommend to limit the number of groups with the current version, or can I put everything (keeping in mind your post about the right way to prepare the partitions for this, of course) ?

First, if it's not too time consuming to download, I'd suggest downloading and using rslight-0.6.5a. It will make installation very simple and will create the necessary accounts for anonymous.

The best way for a lot of groups is how I've done it on rslight.i2p. In the header of rslight are what I call 'sections'. So, rocksolid, arts, interests etc are sections. Each is a symlinked instance of rslight. This gives a good way to separate subjects, and keeps each section responsive (not slow due to too many groups).

Each 'section' is in your web path (maybe /var/www/html/...) under it's own name. So on rslight.i2p in /var/www/html there is a directory for rocksolid, arts, interests etc. Each is simply symlinked to the rocksolid directory.

In /etc/rslight, there is a config file for each, (rocksolid.inc.php, art.inc.php etc) and a subdir for each (always the same name. The subdir simply contains 'groups.txt', which is the groups you want in each section.

Then, check the file /etc/rslight/menu.txt, and add each section as necessary (the file is commented).

So, to add a 'section', 1. symlink the directory, create the config file, create the subdir in /etc/rslight and add 'groups.txt', then finally add it to menu.txt. Once that is done, it should start populating and work just as 'rocksolid'.

It might sound complicated but it's easy after you do it the first time :)

Hopefully installation goes well. As the only person testing this stuff, I kind of get caught in my bubble and may think things are working or are easy. I look forward to actual feedback :)

Also, if you are interested in any integration of bbs, you should be able to read the rslight spool in /var/spool/rslight/articles, which should duplicate an inn spool, and drop outgoing posts as files in /var/spool/rslight/<section>/outgoing and they will be posted. (./outgoing is created on demand, so if it doesn't exist, feel free to create it).

I'll be back tomorrow :)

Retro Guy

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Posted on: Rocksolid Light
news.novabbs.com

> if you are interested in any integration of bbs

one step at a time. first i want to have this working again.
also i believe in keeping things separate as much as possible for production usage.
putting bbs on top could be interesting for others though, like that fella that crossposted some time ago in search for it.
anyway, thanks for your work and your advise. i will be back when i hit a wall, or you see def2 operating again,

cheers

trw

Posted on def4

anon wrote:

>> if you are interested in any integration of bbs

> one step at a time. first i want to have this working again.
> also i believe in keeping things separate as much as possible for production usage.
> putting bbs on top could be interesting for others though, like that fella that crossposted some time ago in search for it.
> anyway, thanks for your work and your advise. i will be back when i hit a wall, or you see def2 operating again,

sounds good! and if you can, I still suggest 0.6.5a for ease of installation and auto generation of anonymous and internal account.

I'm not making any more changes to this release, I'll just be waiting for feedback. I'm currently working on features for future releases, not this one.

Retro Guy

--
Posted on: Rocksolid Light
news.novabbs.com

Something to mention just in case you install then set up a port you can't bind to for some reason. No sense spending a bunch of time after that trying to figure out how to change ports and bind, so...

Once the nntp server starts, the only way to kill it currently is to kill the process(es). Then run cron.php again to restart it.

ps aux | grep nntp
should show you the processes. Just kill them and try again. In the next release I'll have it exit on such an error, but it won't right now. Since it checks for it's running PID before starting, it will never start again until you kill it. Just want to save you some time in case that happens.

Also, if you want to connect to rslight with a newsreader, I'm sure you already know this, but consider what IP address you want to bind the server, so you can access it from wherever your newsreader is.

It should really be a fairly simple install. If the config files are confusing, let me know and I'll try to improve the comments in them.

Retro Guy

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Posted on: Rocksolid Light
news.novabbs.com

The included file 'menu.txt' in /etc/rslight should work just fine, but the commented wording is misleading. No real reason to change the file, but the instructions could cause someone to disable something they shouldn't.

Here's a cleaned up copy that explains the settings better:

---------------------------
# List of sections in Rocksolid Light
# Each name must correspond to a directory in
# your web path that is an rslight install
# # There are three items in each line
# 0=no, 1=yes:
# # First = section name
# Second = display link in header?
# Third = enable local spool for this section?
# # spoolnews is an internal spool handler for all sections:
# and should almost always be 'spoolnews:0:1'
spoolnews:0:1
# # Add your sections below:
rocksolid:1:1
----------------------------
--
Posted on: Rocksolid Light
news.novabbs.com

Fixed several more bugs.

One bug where the local article numbers are stored to make it faster to pull articles led me to a very simple solution to apply posts before propagation. I didn't intend to add the feature now, but it was too simple not to.

BTW, the bug wasn't critical, it just forced the script to check the spool everytime to find the last article number, now it doesn't need to.

Fixed a problem where a post could show up in the wrong group if there are other group names that are a partial match (rocksolid.nodes, rocksolid.nodes.announce). This has hopefully been fixed now.

I still don't plan to add features at this time, just continue tracking down bugs and trying to fix them. It's working pretty well.

I'm going to upload 0.6.5b soon, so if anyone plans to install, always pick the latest tarball.

Retro Guy

--
Posted on: Rocksolid Light
news.novabbs.com

Fixed a bug where blank lines at the end of the groups file caused a small (not noticable) issue. I'll be checking more to make sure this does not also affect the menu.txt file reading.

Another minor bug where the nntp server had an extra quote(") in replying to the LIST command. This was just cosmetic and causes no issues, just looked odd.

Also fixed the color coding on the main page not working recently. I broke this a few days ago while cleaning up variable names, but it's fixed now. It's applied on rslight.i2p, but not yet on retrobbs.i2p.

Cleaned up the auto-generation of the internal groups file for the nntp server. If you have the same group in more than one section, it's now only polled once from any upstream server.

I have an issue with an error from 'sed' in the install script when installing on Debian Jessie. It installs just fine, but I get a 'file not found' error, even though it modifies the file. This doesn't happen on Stretch or FreeBSD 12.1 If I can't work it out, I'll post the problem and ask for help. I'm not really a genius when it comes to 'sed' (or much else :)

I'll continue on bug find and fix mode for a time, while resisting the urge to add any new features or changes. So far it's working well on rslight.i2p, which runs the latest code.

I've written an upgrade script along side the install script for the next tarball. It will just overwrite the .php files, but not touch config.

Retro Guy

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Posted on: Rocksolid Light
news.novabbs.com

Fixed the issue where a new install would show "50 Years ago" for every group until you finally clicked on it. After that it would update. Now it is handled internally and should show accurate information from the start (install).

To make testing for myself easier, I added the ability for the nntp server to read a semaphore file and exit if the file exists (and not restart), then restart once you delete the file. I did this to save myself time killing and restarting it every time I made a change, but it's a nice feature to just leave in, just in case a user needs to do so. Much better than finding the pid(s) and killing them all, and editing crontab to make sure it doesn't restart.

I'm now reinstalling clean on Debian Jessie and Stretch, and FreeBSD 12, then performing an upgrade to make sure all works well.

I find I can do a new install in about 60 seconds, but of course I already know what's in the config file.

So, just download tarball, extract it somewhere, run install script, edit one file, add one line in crontab and it's running.

I'll spend a bit more time digging for bugs I'm not aware of before uploading 0.6.5b.

Retro Guy

--
Posted on: Rocksolid Light
news.novabbs.com

rslight-0.6.5b is now available at
rslight.i2p/getrslight
news.novabbs.com/getrslight

Previously mentioned bug fixes are applied.

spamassassin and nocem support are disabled by default.

site key and internal accounts required by rslight are auto-generated during install.

I just installed on freebsd and debian (Jessie) and both worked with no issues. Just remember that once you install, configure and start the cron job, you need to wait about 15 minutes before groups and articles will start appearing on the site.

To run the nntp server at port 119, you need to run the cron job as root.

If you have difficulty, as in one of the rocksolid. groups.

Retro Guy

--
Posted on: Rocksolid Light
news.novabbs.com

I gave it a quick try now with version c (assuming this was the latest, and best :-) ), and it worked partly (you can see the result of def2.i2p).
in the debian install script the sed commands fail with "file not found", not sure why, the files are there. also not sure why you added '' after sed.
as a result (i guess), posts are downloaded, but put into /etc/spoolnews/.
i changed the standard installation paths, as offered in the script.
will post more later.

cheers

trw

Posted on def4

anon wrote:

>
> I gave it a quick try now with version c (assuming this was the latest,
> and best :-) ), and it worked partly (you can see the result of def2.i2p).
> in the debian install script the sed commands fail with "file not found",
> not sure why, the files are there. also not sure why you added '' after
> sed. as a result (i guess), posts are downloaded, but put into
> /etc/spoolnews/. i changed the standard installation paths, as offered in
> the script. will post more later.

Great, hopefully it will work ok. Once installed, and cron job started, it
can take 15-30 minutes before the groups list will appear on the main page.
Without the cron job running, the group list will never appear.

Yes, version 0.6.5c is the latest. I haven't changed anything since then,
and that is what rslight.i2p and retrobbs.i2p are running.

Any problems, errors or whatever installing are helpful to me to find out
about. The "file not found" error I'm a bit confused about, but I really
don't know much about 'sed'. The fact that I was able to modify the config
files with it might just be luck, lol. Any changes or suggestions are
appreciated.

Retro Guy

anon wrote:

>
> I gave it a quick try now with version c (assuming this was the latest,
> and best :-) ), and it worked partly (you can see the result of def2.i2p).
> in the debian install script the sed commands fail with "file not found",
> not sure why, the files are there. also not sure why you added '' after
> sed. as a result (i guess), posts are downloaded, but put into
> /etc/spoolnews/. i changed the standard installation paths, as offered in
> the script. will post more later.

Your spool would be $spooldir/articles/rocksolid/*
The same structure as an inn spool.
You will see other folders and files start appearing in $spooldir for
rslight use, but articles/ is the actual spool.

$spooldir needs to be writable by webserver user, and also $config_dir/users
and $config_dir/userdata. Nothing else needs to be writable by the web user.

The cron job starts the nntp server. If using a low port number, you need to
run as root and it will drop privileges after binding to the port.

If files are starting to appear in $spooldir, that is good! If not, make
sure cron job is installed and check $remote_server $remote_port and auth
settings in $config_dir/rslight.inc.php

You can at any time delete $spooldir/rocksolid-groups.dat to force a refresh
in rslight of the groups list. Otherwise, it is refreshed every 15 minutes.

Retro Guy

rslight-0.6.5c.tgz is available, containing just some minor bug fixes.

Fixed debian-install script to replace 'md5' with 'md5sum' in all three
locations.

Fixed monitoring rslight.inc.php for changes so localuser and anonymous
passwords are updated.

Once def get their install running, I'll be glad to hear what could be
improved in installation, and I'll make those changes for the next version.

I'm not working on bug fixes now, until I hear about them. Right now I'm
testing the internal nntp server with different news readers to see how it
responds. This will help me adjust responses to make it work as expected.
It's really just written for rslight, and intercommunication between rslight
nodes, but it's nice to be able to use a reader (which I do, and am posting
with right now).

Retro Guy

Retro Guy wrote:

> rslight-0.6.5c.tgz is available, containing just some minor bug fixes.
>
> Fixed debian-install script to replace 'md5' with 'md5sum' in all three
> locations.
>
> Fixed monitoring rslight.inc.php for changes so localuser and anonymous
> passwords are updated.
>
> Once def get their install running, I'll be glad to hear what could be
> improved in installation, and I'll make those changes for the next
> version.
>
> I'm not working on bug fixes now, until I hear about them. Right now I'm
> testing the internal nntp server with different news readers to see how it
> responds. This will help me adjust responses to make it work as expected.
> It's really just written for rslight, and intercommunication between
> rslight nodes, but it's nice to be able to use a reader (which I do, and
> am posting with right now).

Here's what I've completed today, both related to the nntp server:

Added the ability to auto-create accounts when someone posts or
authenticates (like def's bbs software does). This feature is per 'section'
so it can be on in one section and off in another.

Provided a toggle to bind nntp server on one interface, or all interfaces.

Retro Guy

Just made some minor css changes to hopefully make the post window easier to work with.

Retro Guy
--
Posted on: Rocksolid Light
news.novabbs.com

Retro Guy wrote:

> Just made some minor css changes to hopefully make the post window easier
> to work with.
>
> Retro Guy

Meaning, work with on a small device. It shouldn't be different on a full
size screen.

I now have expire working for each section. Eventually a spool will just keep growing and taking up disk space, so this allows pruning based on date of each message.

You can set each section to a different expiration (in days), or disable expiration per section, or entirely. By default (if you don't set it at all) articles will not be expired.

Retro Guy

--
Posted on: Rocksolid Light
news.novabbs.com