[Mailman-Users] mailman/nntplib.py/inn problem

[Barry A. Warsaw]

>>>>> "JK" == J Kinsley <jkinsley at horus.bticc.net> writes:

    JK> Mailman is the perfect solution. Thanks to all you who made it
    JK> available.

You're welcome!

    JK> Now for the problem I have encountered.  I've concluded that
    JK> it has 99.9% probability of being an INN configuration
    JK> problem, but one which directly effects the operation of
    JK> Mailman.  I'm posting here on the gut feeling that others here
    JK> have encountered the same thing.  When Mailman connects to the
    JK> news server using the NNTP class in the Python dist, it is
    JK> connecting via innd directly and therefore only has a limited
    JK> subset of the commands.  I get this same limited subset of
    JK> commands by telneting to news.bticc.net 119 from the same host
    JK> it runs on.  However, if I telnet in from my other box, I get
    JK> the full set of commands and the newslog shows the connection
    JK> being handled by nnrpd.  If I configure Mailman to send the
    JK> messages to the INN running on the remote host, it works fine.

    JK> For the most part, my INN configuration is the default Redhat
    JK> configuration for INN-2.0 with only paths, hostname, and
    JK> newsfeeds changed.  I know the solution is probably quite
    JK> simple such as a tweak in one of the INN configuration files,
    JK> but I have not yet determined exactly what it is.  If anyone
    JK> knows what tweak, I would greatly appreciate a hint.

Hmm, from my quick scan of nntplib.py from the Python 1.5.2 distrib
indicates that it just makes a normal ol' socket connection to the
specified gateway host (it uses the default NNTP port tho').  So it
must be an INN configuration problem you're having.  I have no idea
what to do here though -- we have no local news server and I
definitely don't have the time to get one installed to investigate
this.  However if you (or anybody else) does come up with a solution,
please post it here.  I doubt that'll be a patch to Python or Mailman, 
but I can include some text in the Mailman documentation.

    JK> P.S.  Prior to finding Mailman, I had been contemplating a
    JK> hack to hypermail to implement SQL based archive indexing.
    JK> One of the lists I archive has over 36000 messages in it, and
    JK> I would like to be able to do global subject, author, thread,
    JK> date (and possibly keyword) lookups over the entire archive.
    JK> Right now each month has its own set of indexes.  Has anyone
    JK> proposed such an idea for Mailman?  I might tinker around with
    JK> it after I familiarize myself with the internal workings of
    JK> Mailman and after I get a more pressing project finished.

Greg Stein's been talking about improving the archiving subsystem.
You might check the Mailman archives for some of Greg's ideas.  I
agree that we could do something better, although we'll always need a
pure-Python solution that we can bundle with Mailman even if it's
limited.  However, it's very likely that no more development will ever
be done on Pipermail, so other options are also very important,
whether bundled with Mailman or not.

-Barry