
               Readme.linux file for INN1.4
               ============================

This is a consolidated 'how to configure INN' document that
is accumulated from the various postings of 

     Arjan de Vet <Arjan.de.Vet@adv.win.tue.nl> (home)
                  <devet@win.tue.nl> (work)

Configuring the software
=========================
If you want to grab Arjan's distribution, look for it on the usual linux
archive sites. You should probably ignore the installation instructions
(unless he's updated them since the date on this document) and just grab
the sample site directory.  If you grab it, copy it over the site directory
in the INN distribution...

1. *** DO ALL WORK AS USER news (except starting INN)!!! ***
2. *** BACKUP YOUR OLD NEWS SYSTEM FIRST ***
3. copy config.data to inn-1.4/config/config.data
4. make - This will fail in the site directory. To repair
	touch site/* and do a make again. This one should succeed :-)
5. You can now edit any of the site/* files you need. Read the docs & FAQ.
6. disable news system and NNTP connections
    - I added my local hostname to hosts.nntp (see INN FAQ part 3 why this
    is necessary). It should be the host where innd will be running.
    - be sure that you do NOT have a line for nntp in /etc/inetd.conf.
        innd controls the NNTP port and knows when to fork off the nnrpd daemon. 
7. make install
8. execute rc.news (as ROOT), edit crontabs etc., reenable NNTP connections
9. Test it by doing `telnet hostname nntp' you should see something like:
   200 adv.win.tue.nl InterNetNews NNRP server INN 1.4 20-Mar-93 ready (posting ok).

   Then it should work. Enjoy!

Other notes from Arjan
======================
1. Please read the INN manuals and INN FAQ (see news.answers).
2. I only use a UUCP link to a host named svin09. News is batched by using the
	command 'send-uucp svin09'
3. I use NOV for use with trn 3.0. It's in my newsfeeds file.
4. INN depends heavily on a good /bin/sh substitute. I use a beta version of
        bash 1.13.  bash 1.12 gives some small problems with newgroups not
        being handled correctly.

Discussions about this Linux port: comp.os.linux.admin or email to me.
Questions about configuration: news.software.{b,nntp} (after RTFM/FAQ!)

I do NOT have the time to answers configuration questions. Sorry!
	Arjan de Vet
	Department of Mathematics and Computing Science
	Eindhoven University of Technology
	The Netherlands


Miscellaneous other notes
=========================
1. If you're running uucp, make sure you have HAVE_UUSTAT = DO in config.data
	or outgoing batching will die.
2. I found that the makehistory command didn't create history.pag, which was
	generating all kinds of obscure errors and innd failures to start.
	The fix for me was to copy the history* files from my Cnews installation
	into the INN directory since the dbz files in both are compatible.
3. innd will fail on old Cnews sites because it assumes /usr/spool/news/out.going/sitename
	is a file, not a directory (like Cnews uses).  Move the dirs out of there and
	the files (like the togo files in Cnews) will be automatically created.
4. Make sure that your uucp Permissions files have the absolute path to rnews.
	It's not in the same place in INN as you might be used to in Cnews/Bnews.

Again, questions on the port itself to comp.os.linux.admin, questions on
INN in general should go to the news.* hierarchy...

						Vince Skahan
						victrola.wa.com
						August 13, 1993

