N BULLETIN has the capability to read and post messages  to  USENET  NEWS  in  aN client  mode.  News groups can also be stored on disk.  Selected groups or setN of groups which are commonly read can be selected to be  stored,  thus  makingN reading  of such groups much faster than having to access them over a network.N Note that since the number of groups is well over 2000 makes  it  unreasonable! at most sites to store them all.    N BULLETIN (actually BULLCP) can act as as a gateway between decnet and tcp  forN NEWS,  which allows decnet nodes without tcp access to be able to access a tcpN news server.  This method does not require spawning any processes,  since  theG detached process BULLCP is always present, so the access is very fast.    N Since BULLETIN uses a shared database to store info on  the  NEWS  groups  andN periodically  updates  it,  there  is  no need for that to be done when a userN accesses the NEWS groups.  Several other NEWS readers do  this  when  you  run6 them, which is why they take a long time to start up.   F It is also possible to feed NEWS groups into a "real" BULLETIN folder.   N Presently, BULLETIN can be used with  either  UCX,  MULTINET,  or  CMU  TCP/IPN packages  (and of course DECNET) for reading NEWS.  Support for other packagesN can be added if I can find sites willing to beta test the  interface  for  me.N The  source  for  the  TCP  interface  is in C rather than FORTRAN because the! MULTINET include files are in C.    N The instructions for installation are as follows.  Define BULL_NEWS_SERVER  toN be a system logical name pointing to either your internet or decnet NEWS node.; If it is decnet, simply specify the decnet node name, i.e.    (  	$ DEFINE/SYSTEM BULL_NEWS_SERVER NERUS  N BULLETIN decides to use DECNET rather than TCP access based on the node  name.L If it does not have any periods in it, then it assumes it is a DECNET node.   N If you have a cluster where one  node  is  an  internet  node,  and  the  restN non-internet  nodes,  you'll  have  to create a startup procedure that definesN BULL_NEWS_SERVER to be the internet news server address only on the  node  (orN nodes)  on  the  cluster  that have actually internet access.  The other nodesN will have BULL_NEWS_SERVER defined as the decnet  node  name  that  BULLCP  isN running  on  in  the cluster.  (Of course, BULLCP will have to be running on a node with internet access.)                            N NOTE: If you want to disable the DECNET gateway feature, then before  starting! BULLCP, define the logical name:    , 	$ DEFINE/SYSTEM BULL_NO_NEWS_GATEWAY "TRUE"  M Defining this will only shut off the gateway.  BULLETIN will still be allowed H to read NEWS from the local node as long as BULL_NEWS_SERVER is defined.  N If you want to enable the TCP gateway, you must  define  BULL_TCP_NEWS_GATEWAYN (NOTE:  This  presently  only  works  with  MULTINET,  and  you  must have UCXN emulation  enabled,  i.e.    enable  UCXQIO  from  the  SCU  and  do   a   SET# LOAD-UCX-DRIVER TRUE from the NCU.)   - 	$ DEFINE/SYSTEM BULL_TCP_NEWS_GATEWAY "TRUE"   N BULL_TCP_NEWS_GATEWAY can be defined to point to a file name which contains ipN names  that are allowed access.  The file should contain real ip names.  BlankN lines and comments (preceded by #) are allowed.  If you want a whole domain toD be allowed, specify the domain preceded by a ., i.e. .pfc.mit.edu .   J You can also specify that BULLCP is ONLY to act oas a NEWS gateway.   ThisN is to allow adding the news gateway to an site that you have DECNET access to,N but which does not want to make use of any of  the  other  BULLETIN  features.@ You would specify the following command before starting BULLCP:   . 	$ DEFINE/SYSTEM BULL_NEWS_GATEWAY_ONLY "TRUE"  J In order to post messages, BULLETIN needs to know the internet nodename ofL the local host.  This is done automatically for nodes running MULTINET.  ForO other nodes, BULLETIN attempts to translate the logical name ARPANET_HOST_NAME, N INTERNET_HOST_NAME, and MX_NODE_NAME.  If you are on a DECNET node that is notM on INTERNET (and is not part of a cluster which has an INTERNET address), but K you are accessing NEWS via DECNET, you can specify the hostname as follows:   E      $ DEFINE/SYSTEM INTERNET_HOST_NAME "%localhost@internet-address"   N Where "localhost" is your local decnet hostname, and "internet-address" is the% internet address of the gateway node.   J The local time zone is detected by looking at the following logical names:H LISP$TIME_ZONE, MULTINET_TIMEZONE, or PMDF_TIMEZONE.  (LISP$TIME_ZONE is$ defined if you have LISP installed.)  K The name of the organization is included in the header of the NEWS message. J This can be anything, but usually is the company or university name.  ThisK can be hardcoded into the source by putting in BULLNEWS.INC, or by defining / the system logical name BULL_NEWS_ORGANIZATION.   L The name of the mail protocol to use for responding by mail to NEWS messagesK can also be either hardcoded by putting in BULLNEWS.INC, or by defining the % system logical name BULL_NEWS_MAILER.   M After installing the new BULLETIN, execute the command NEWS, which asks for a O list of all the news groups.  Because this is the first time it is executed, it F will cause a load of all the remote news groups into a local data baseN (BULL_DIR:BULLNEWS.DAT). This will take several minutes to do.  It is the onlyH time that this load will be done interactively.  Afterwards, BULLCP willN periodically update the data base. BULLCP will update NEWS every hour.  If youN want to change this frequency, define the logical name BULL_NEWS_UPDATE to theN number of minutes in between updates, i.e. DEFINE/SYSTEM BULL_NEWS_UPDATE "30"M for 30 minutes.  NOTE: BULLCP will create a subprocess BULLCP NEWS which does H the update.  You can watch how long it takes for this to run in order toN determine if you want to change the update period).  If you ever want to force* NEWS to be updated, simply restart BULLCP.  O It is suggested that you run OPTIMIZE_RMS.COM on BULLNEWS.DAT, as it will cause N the file to be compressed and will allow updates to run much faster (factor ofB 5 or more).                                                         O Never delete BULLNEWS.DAT.  There is no reason to ever do so, and it will cause ; subscribed users to be subscribed to the wrong news groups.   K WARNING: One user discovered that his server (using bnews?) had a bug which M caused the updates to cause bogus "new messages" notifications for subscribed G NEWS group when entering BULLETIN.  If you experience this problem, try K defining the system logical name BULL_SPECIAL_NEWS_UPDATE.  This will cause K the update to use a different algorithm which should eliminate the problem, / although it requires much more time to execute.   O News groups can be specified as being stored on disk via the SET NEWS command.  M See the online help for more info.  After converting such groups, when BULLCP N wakes up, it will start the storing process.  This can take a long time if youO have a lot of groups.  An index file pointing to the stored messages is created O and called BULL_DIR:BULLNEWSDIR.DAT.  After the storage process is complete you O should consider running OPTIMIZE_RMS.COM on it (and anytime after you convert a  sizable amount of groups)..                                               H It is possible to automatically have news messages to be fed into a realO folder. Place the name of the news group into the folder description surrounded N by <>, i.e. <misc.test>.  It must be in lower case.  (Other text is allowed in; the description, i.e. "THIS IS A TEST FOLDER <misc.test>".)   N BULLETIN is set up so that when a person replies to a message and extract  theN original  message into the reply message, it uses the idention string "->" forN the extracted text.  The reason for this rather than ">"  is  that  some  newsN servers  won't allow messages which have more extracted text than new text andN test for ">".  If you want to change that, then change the default strings forH all the INDENT qualifier line in the file BULLCOM.CLD before compiling.   : If you have any problems or questions, please let me know. 									MRL P.s.H 	If you do not know what USENET NEWS, it's basically news messages whichN are passed between nodes.  Originally it was limited to USENET, but that is noJ longer the case.  Unlike internet mailing lists which use MAIL to send theN messages to individuals, NEWS messages are not sent via MAIL.  They are passedK between nodes using a special protocol, NNTP.  Users must use a NEWS reader K package to read them.  However, it is possible to read NEWS remotely over a F network, and therefore avoiding having to actually store the messages.I BULLETIN is setup to be used mainly in this client mode, i.e. it can read M messages on another node via TCP or DECNET.  This is useful, since the number K of NEWS groups total over 1000, the disk space required for storage is very M high.  If you are interested in finding a server node that would allow you to M read NEWS, and do not know of one (i.e. a USENET node), I know of no official P way of doing so.  However, one suggestion was to try  connecting  to  FTP.UU.NETP via  ANONYMOUS FTP and look through the directory uumap or uunet-sites to find a! USENET node near you to contact.  