I have updated the last iteration of my beginner's setup guide for slrn
and slrnpull just today:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/slrn

This little document started on my own personal web space, lived briefly
on the Ubuntu Forums and has now had its final polish on the Ubuntu
Community Wiki. That covers a time period of about 20 years I think;
perhaps it should be a little better by now :).

Although I am quite happy with it in its current state I open it to the
slrn community to have a look and make any suggestions for small
improvements. Given the current state of Usenet I will not really add
any major changes. I am happy that it all hangs together and has been
comprehensively tested on the latest release of Ubuntu.

Let me know...

Andrew
--
You think that's air you're breathing now?

On 14 May 2022 09:03:08 GMT,
andrew <andrew@skamandros.invalid> wrote:
> I have updated the last iteration of my beginner's setup guide for slrn
> and slrnpull just today:
>
> https://help.ubuntu.com/community/slrn
>
> This little document started on my own personal web space,
> lived briefly on the Ubuntu Forums and has now had its final
> polish on the Ubuntu Community Wiki. That covers a time period
> of about 20 years I think; perhaps it should be a little better
> by now :).
>
> Although I am quite happy with it in its current state I open
> it to the slrn community to have a look and make any
> suggestions for small improvements. Given the current state of
> Usenet I will not really add any major changes. I am happy that
> it all hangs together and has been comprehensively tested on
> the latest release of Ubuntu.
>
> Let me know...

I did not read in detail, but skimmed down through the main page.
Seems very solid. Thanks (yet again) for your contributions to
the community!

--
Ted Heise <theise@panix.com> West Lafayette, IN, USA

In message <20220514185319.269@skamandros.andrews-corner.org> andrew <andrew@skamandros.invalid> wrote:
> I have updated the last iteration of my beginner's setup guide for slrn
> and slrnpull just today:

> https://help.ubuntu.com/community/slrn

> This little document started on my own personal web space, lived briefly
> on the Ubuntu Forums and has now had its final polish on the Ubuntu
> Community Wiki. That covers a time period of about 20 years I think;
> perhaps it should be a little better by now :).

> Although I am quite happy with it in its current state I open it to the
> slrn community to have a look and make any suggestions for small
> improvements. Given the current state of Usenet I will not really add
> any major changes. I am happy that it all hangs together and has been
> comprehensively tested on the latest release of Ubuntu.

The only thing that stands out to me at all on a quick skim, and it is
minor, is that I would rewrite the first part under mstmp to make it more
clear that one can easily go for years (decades, in my case) without
needing mstmp at all (is it needed for anything other than moderated
groups?).

"It is usually not good Usenet etiquette to send an email reply rather
than post directly to the newsgroup. On rare occasions however this may
be required and for this to succeed a suitable sending agent should be
installed. The easiest and most flexible of these is msmtp and it can
easily be set to deliver via a Gmail account which I demonstrate below,"

to something more like, "While many user never need to send email
instead of posting directly to the newsgrouo (in fact it is usually
considered to be bad Usenet etiquette), you may find that you do
need to do this for some groups you subscribe to (for example, moderated
groups). If so, msmtp is the easiest...

I'd also make 'msmtp' a link to https://marlam.de/msmtp/

I would explain the flags in the editor_command, but that's probably my
tendency to over-explain.

--
It was not, it could not be real. But in the roaring air he knew that
it was, for all who needed to believe, and in a belief so strong
that truth was not the same as fact... he knew that for now, and
yesterday, and tomorrow, both the thing, and the whole of the
thing.

On 2022-05-14, andrew <andrew@skamandros.invalid> wrote:
> I have updated the last iteration of my beginner's setup guide for slrn
> and slrnpull just today:
>
> https://help.ubuntu.com/community/slrn
>
> This little document started on my own personal web space, lived briefly
> on the Ubuntu Forums and has now had its final polish on the Ubuntu
> Community Wiki. That covers a time period of about 20 years I think;
> perhaps it should be a little better by now :).
>
> Although I am quite happy with it in its current state I open it to the
> slrn community to have a look and make any suggestions for small
> improvements. Given the current state of Usenet I will not really add
> any major changes. I am happy that it all hangs together and has been
> comprehensively tested on the latest release of Ubuntu.
>
> Let me know...
>
> Andrew

It might be worth talking about how you can configure slrn to omit
Message IDs if your newsserver adds IDs for you on article
injection. This removes the need for a user to have an
FQDN. Eternal-september and a paid Usenet provider I use has no need
for FQDNs.

meff wrote:

> Eternal-september and a paid Usenet provider I use has no need for
> FQDNs.

we all might have use for FQDNs

On 2022-05-25, issdr <p_u_n_k_i_n_d@yahoo.it> wrote:
> meff wrote:
>
>> Eternal-september and a paid Usenet provider I use has no need for
>> FQDNs.
>
> we all might have use for FQDNs
>

An IPv6 address is good enough for everyone! 🙃

meff wrote:

> On 2022-05-25, issdr <p_u_n_k_i_n_d@yahoo.it> wrote:
>> meff wrote:
>>
>>> Eternal-september and a paid Usenet provider I use has no need for
>>> FQDNs.
>>
>> we all might have use for FQDNs
>>
>
> An IPv6 address is good enough for everyone! 🙃

i mean... it's useful in m-id's, in order to be scored/killed

meff <email@example.com> wrote:
>
> It might be worth talking about how you can configure slrn to omit
> Message IDs if your newsserver adds IDs for you on article
> injection. This removes the need for a user to have an
> FQDN. Eternal-september and a paid Usenet provider I use has no need
> for FQDNs.

At least for e-s, it has no *need*, but it could have some uses.
For example, some of us filter replies to our messages, which requires
keeping our FQDN in the original Message-ID to then look for it in the
References. Thankfully, e-s doesn't overwrite the message-ID if your
client happens to generate one.

Phil
--
AH#61 Wolf#14 BS#89 bus#1 CCB#1 SENS KOTC#4
philb@philb.ca http://philb.ca

On 2022-05-27, Phil Boutros <philb@philb.ca> wrote:
> meff <email@example.com> wrote:
>>
>> It might be worth talking about how you can configure slrn to omit
>> Message IDs if your newsserver adds IDs for you on article
>> injection. This removes the need for a user to have an
>> FQDN. Eternal-september and a paid Usenet provider I use has no need
>> for FQDNs.
>
> At least for e-s, it has no *need*, but it could have some uses.
> For example, some of us filter replies to our messages, which requires
> keeping our FQDN in the original Message-ID to then look for it in the
> References. Thankfully, e-s doesn't overwrite the message-ID if your
> client happens to generate one.
>
>
> Phil

Right, there are uses, I just mean in an introductory wiki article it
might be nice to offer users an easy path to reading/writing articles
without having to own an FQDN. Usenet is a bit "odd" these days
anyway, and requiring an FQDN is an additional barrier, and a paid one
at that. I for one remember, many years ago now, being a kid and not
being able to spend money on the internet. FQDNs almost all require
some, albeit often trivial (in developed countries), amount of money.

meff wrote:

> FQDNs almost all require some, albeit often trivial (in developed
> countries), amount of money.

that's (almost) true. No-IP has a free plan, but you cannot unlink the
FQDN from your ip (unless you switch to plan$). i've got a couple of
free solutions for such limit, but i guess out of their TOS

On Tue, 31 May 2022 22:57:06 +0000, meff wrote:
> Right, there are uses, I just mean in an introductory wiki article it
> might be nice to offer users an easy path to reading/writing articles
> without having to own an FQDN. Usenet is a bit "odd" these days
> anyway, and requiring an FQDN is an additional barrier, and a paid one
> at that. I for one remember, many years ago now, being a kid and not
> being able to spend money on the internet. FQDNs almost all require
> some, albeit often trivial (in developed countries), amount of money.

I don't believe you have to 'own' anything to provide a FQDN to slrn
for messsage-id generation. I do not publish records for my internal
zones in the public views on my resolvers and I post just fine.

---
imladris@19:22:00 ~ >dig +short imladris.colo.ub3rgeek.net @4.2.2.2
imladris@19:22:06 ~ >dig +short imladris.colo.ub3rgeek.net @4.2.2.1
imladris@19:22:11 ~ >
---

--
"The avalanche has started, it is too late for the pebbles to vote."
--Kosh

andrew wrote:
>
> [...]
> https://help.ubuntu.com/community/slrn

In the "Set a FQDN" section an additional "your" should be removed:
|
| [...]
| It is well worthwhile to set your your system correctly [...]
^^^^^^^^^

On 2022-06-02, Matthew Ernisse <matt@going-flying.com> wrote:
> I don't believe you have to 'own' anything to provide a FQDN to slrn
> for messsage-id generation. I do not publish records for my internal
> zones in the public views on my resolvers and I post just fine.
>
> ---
> imladris@19:22:00 ~ >dig +short imladris.colo.ub3rgeek.net @4.2.2.2
> imladris@19:22:06 ~ >dig +short imladris.colo.ub3rgeek.net @4.2.2.1
> imladris@19:22:11 ~ >
> ---

This is true, then maybe a discussion on just providing a unique FQDN,
not necessarily one you own, would belong in the FAQ?

On 2022-06-04, Michael Bäuerle <michael.baeuerle@gmx.net> wrote:

> In the "Set a FQDN" section an additional "your" should be removed:

Fixed, thanks for that...

Andrew

--
You think that's air you're breathing now?

On Tue, 07 Jun 2022 06:51:02 GMT, meff wrote:
> On 2022-06-02, Matthew Ernisse <matt@going-flying.com> wrote:
>> I don't believe you have to 'own' anything to provide a FQDN to slrn
>> for messsage-id generation. I do not publish records for my internal
>> zones in the public views on my resolvers and I post just fine.
>>
>> ---
>> imladris@19:22:00 ~ >dig +short imladris.colo.ub3rgeek.net @4.2.2.2
>> imladris@19:22:06 ~ >dig +short imladris.colo.ub3rgeek.net @4.2.2.1
>> imladris@19:22:11 ~ >
>> ---

> This is true, then maybe a discussion on just providing a unique FQDN,
> not necessarily one you own, would belong in the FAQ?

I am starting to feel that the section in the wiki article is unnecessary.

I don't have much experience with Ubuntu anymore (I went back to Debian
many years ago) but the manual in /usr/share/doc/slrn/manual.txt.gz
of the Debian package has a few pieces that seem pertinent.

In section 4 and 6.50 the HOSTNAME environment variable and hostname
configuration variables are described. It seems slrn will try to
obtain the hostname using standard C library calls. Unless Ubuntu's
installer produces a broken install by default I would expect those calls
to succeed though they may not provide the information that one would
wish to use. Section 5.3.13 further clarifies the position that if one
does not have faith in one's system hostname they should turn off
``generate_message_id'' instead. I believe most NNTP servers will
generate a Message-ID for the poster if one is not included in the
message.

I think it makes more sense to not trouble the reader with the details of
FQDNs or to direct them to muck about in /etc/hosts. Changing a system-wide
configuration file to alter the behavior of a single program, especially
without understanding the full implications of the former is dangerous at
best. The ~/.slrnrc section in the wiki along with the comments in
/usr/share/doc/slrn/examples/slrn.rc.gz seem sufficient. There is already
even a note about ``generate_message_id'' so screwing with the system
name information is irrelevant if the reader follows the advise of the
article..

--
"The avalanche has started, it is too late for the pebbles to vote."
--Kosh

Matthew Ernisse <matt@going-flying.com> wrote:

> On Tue, 07 Jun 2022 06:51:02 GMT, meff wrote:
> > On 2022-06-02, Matthew Ernisse <matt@going-flying.com> wrote:
> >> I don't believe you have to 'own' anything to provide a FQDN to slrn
> >> for messsage-id generation. I do not publish records for my internal
> >> zones in the public views on my resolvers and I post just fine.
> >>
> >> ---
> >> imladris@19:22:00 ~ >dig +short imladris.colo.ub3rgeek.net @4.2.2.2
> >> imladris@19:22:06 ~ >dig +short imladris.colo.ub3rgeek.net @4.2.2.1
> >> imladris@19:22:11 ~ >
> >> ---
>
> > This is true, then maybe a discussion on just providing a unique FQDN,
> > not necessarily one you own, would belong in the FAQ?
>
> I am starting to feel that the section in the wiki article is unnecessary.
[...]

PMFJI

I note that you post on Eternal-September: are you aware that E-S
offers free genuine registered FQDNs? This also has the advantage
that your Injection-Info, which shows that FQDN, is then unforgeable;
see my headers.

<https://www.eternal-september.org/make_user_fqdn.php>

You may need to login to see that page.

[relurk]

--
^Ï^ Slava Ukraini

My pet rock Gordon just is.