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Ärende: FidoNews 21:38 [04/09]: Fidonet Software Reviews
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                    FIDONET SOFTWARE REVIEWS
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                  JamNNTPd - a case study

So you finally decided to take a look at that JamNNTPd package you've
heard so much about? And after you've unpacked it, you have absolutely
no clue about what to do with it? Well, then you've decided to read
the right textfile. I did very much the same, half a year ago. It
wasn't until I got a permanent connection to the internet that I
realized what I could do with this package. If you *don't* have a
permanent connection to the internet, you can stop reading here, and
just delete the entire package.

   Well, on second thought maybe not -- a local installation of
JamNNTPd and your favourite news reader will probably be a better
combination for reading and writing fidonet echoes than most others
you will find, so stay with us.

   What is it?
   ==========

   JamNNTPd is for 'news://...' what Apache, IIS & al are for
'http://...', i.e. it's a server program that lets any user from
internet reach your JAM message base with any news reader they happen
to have installed.

   So how do you go about making JamNNTPd work? Well, this is a case
study from my setup. I use WinXP as front-end against internet, and
have (of course!) the built-in firewall enabled. I have several
'mshome.net' workstations connected to the internet via ICS, and on
one of these I decided to setup and run JamNNTPd.

   What do I do first?
   ==================

   The first thing you should do, after you've unpacked the zip-file,
is to edit the four config files, jamnntpd.groups, *.users, *.allow
and *.xlat to suit your setup. The help-texts in those files should be
selfexplanatory.

   Then what?
   =========

   Then you have to open up a port in your firewall to allow outside,
as well as inside (usually yourself) callers to reach your JamNNTPd
newsserver. The default port for a newsserver is 119, so this is a
good choice  for incoming from internet, and 5000 is usually a good
one for outgoing to your local network. Settings for the WinXP
firewall can be reached from right-clicking on your internet
connection icon in 'Settings'->'Network and Dial-up Connections' and
then click your way to 'Properties'->'Advanced'->'Settings'. Add a new
porthole, lets call it JamNNTPd, with 119, 5000, TCP and the local
name of the workstation where you installed the JamNNTPd server
(localhost will do fine if you installed JamNNTPd on the  workstation
that your firewall is located on).

   Now all you have to do is 'Win-R cmd' and do a 'cd' to the proper
directory and give the command 'jamnntpd' and you're up and running!
Remember that even if your outside callers must use port 119, you
yourself, from inside the firewall, must use port 5000 to connect to
your own newsserver.

   So that's it, then?
   ==================

   Once you've made sure it's working, you can start finetuning your
setup. First of all, Ctrl-C stops the server. :) Then you may remember
that the server does not need to be restarted whenever you edit one of
the four config files. Thirdly, even if the defaults usually is a good
choice, if you want a conservative, fidonettish look&feel from your
JamNNTPd newsserver, you might be interested in knowing how I start
it:

jm.bat
------
@jamnntpd.exe -notearline -smartquote -noreplyaddr -m 10 \
-echomailjam r:\sem\fdxit6.60
------

   As some of you might guess from the above, I still rely on a
FrontDoor node to take care of most of the things, such as tossing and
scanning echomail. 'fdxit6.60' is a semaphore file that tells my
FrontDoor node 6 to exit with errorlevel 60. That is my major
toss&scan event. I use CrashMail II (from the JamNNTPd author) to
toss&scan my JAM areas, since my old squishmail can't handle JAM.

   Can I let anybody in?
   ====================

   In fidonet, we have a very strict policy about real-names and
proper authentication of users, before they are allowed to write
anything in any of our echoes. So, if you setup fidonet echoes, you
must make sure your users are authenticated before they are allowed to
write anything. Reading is, of course, perfectly OK even for anonymous
visitors.

   Proper authenticating is also handled by JamNNTPd, based on how you
setup your *.users and *.allow files. Normally you probably will have
a *.allow that only has one line:

   '* ABCDE A'

   ... meaning you let everybody read in your A, B, C, D and E groups
but only write in A (for anonymous).

   In *.users you can add more groups, that only authenticated users
may read or write:

# Syntax:
#
# <username> <password> <readgroups> <postgroups>
#
sysop     password      ABISTX    ABISTX
#
# I=international
# S=Swedish
# T=beta-test
# X=private
#
user1   password1    AIST       AIST
user2   password2    ABIST      ABIST
user3   password3    ABIST      ABIS
user4   password4    AIST       ABST
user5   password5    AIST       AI
guest   guest        AIST       A

   Well, sysop could just as well have used * for both groups. Poor
user 4 is not allowed to read B groups but can write (probably not a
very good idea), and user5 is not trusted with writing in Swedish-only
echoes. Furthermore, you can add a real-name for any user listed here
(more about that in the main doc).

   Then all you have to do, is inform your users to set up their news
reader to "always request authentication to this server" and to have
configured it with the proper nick, true-name and password. It may
interest them to know, that what they enter in the "Organisation:"
field ends up in the origin line, unless you use one of the options,
described in the main doc, to use a fixed origin line of your choice.

   -----

   Björn Felten, news://felten.dyndns.org
   or fidonet 2:203/208


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