LinuxSA Mailing list archives

  From: Branko Bratkovic <branko@senet.com.au>
  To  : mark dickeson <markd@sa.apana.org.au>
  Date: Sat, 18 Sep 1999 22:39:46 +0930 (CST)

Re: leafnode and slrn

>From: mark dickeson

>OK this may sound like as daft question, but I have just setup up leafnode
>successfully and I'm getting the headers and articles ok, but I'm
>wondering what config people use to identify received articles from
>requested ones. If I use slrn and request the article, then it marks it as
>due for download, then also marks it as deleted. So how do I know when the
>article arrives? If I forget what I've requested and I look at the header
>then it will either show me the article or request another download. And
>because the header is deleted when requested, then I have to select all
>groups as unread for them to show. I'm probably missing somthing basic
>here, but I thinks there's got to be an easier way.
>Thanks for any help.

Hi Mark,

I use leafnode and tin.  Your post does seem at odds with the way
that I receive news.  As far as I can tell, once leafnode starts
collecting a news group, it collects everything that is posted to
it.  I have no need to request articles, they will be up to
date as of the last time your machine was connected to the ISP.
When I read news, my tin newsreader connects to leafnode news server
on my machine and presents news to me.

I've just had a look at the description of slrn on my distribution
CD and it says that slrn is targeted at slow news feeds.  Perhaps
it has a system for fetching just headers then follow up with the
body when the users selects the item.  If my guess is correct, 
your configuration problems are only with slrn.  Its certainly
worth eliminating one or the other - you may care to try the
following:  Pick an article, take note of its header.  Switch to
another terminal and take a look in /var/spool/news/<your/group>.
Grep for a string from the header of your chosen article in one
of the numbered files.  If you find it, it would indicate that
leafnode has already fetched it and that any reading problems are 
downstream from that point.

Next, experiment number two:
	telnet your_host nntp
	group your.group
	listgroup
	head NN
	body NN
where "your_host" and "your.group" you need to provide and NN
is a number returned from the listgroup command.  Look
in the leafnode man page for the details and other commands.

This would show if leafnode (or whatever news transport you
are using) serves news correctly to the newsreader.  

Next step concerns your newsreader (and I'm not familiar with
slrn) but you need to determine why you are seeing headers
and having to wait for the body, this is not normal practice
with leafnode as far as I can tell.

BTW these examples of how one can drill down into the internals of
programs for debugging and development are some of the reasons
that I find Linux so cool.

Hope this helps, good luck!
-- 
Branko Bratkovic
branko@senet.com.au

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