NetNews HowDoI
netnews.howdoi
-----------------------------------------------------------
jim cerny, jim.cerny@unh.edu
computing and information services
applies to our central Unix systems
rev. 21-FEB-1995
............................................................
How do I use a USENET news reader?
1. What Is USENET News?
....................
USENET news is an enormous bulletin board system for
exchanging articles grouped by categories called newsgroups.
It is variously refered to simply as 'Net News' or 'News' or
'USENET' for ease of reference. We receive more than 3000
newsgroups and there are probably 6000 or more that exist
for general distribution. Some are commercial (Clarinet
UPI news), but most are not. We use the Internet to carry
our USENET traffic, but there are other ways to carry USENET
traffic and USENET existed before there was something called
the Internet.
USENET is based on the Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP),
which is a client-server protocol. Operationally we designate
one host as our NNTP server (newshost.unh.edu) and it holds our
USENET newsfeed. Then any system in our unh.edu domain that
runs an NNTP client program can read (or post) news from the
server. (It does not require an account on the server.) To run
an NNTP client a local system must have: (1) an Ethernet
connection, and (2) TCP/IP software installed. In practice most
people will read news from one of our central systems, but for
those people with suitably networked workstations or desktop
systems, it is possible to install the necessary software to
access our news server directly from the workstation or desktop.
It is useful to compare USENET newsgroups with individual
subscriptions to mailing lists run off some kind of a list
server (such as BITNET-based LISTSERV). Both approaches
accomplish the same basic ends: (1) subscribers receive all
the information sent to the group or list; and (2)
subscribers can post to the list. For an organization such
as UNH, which can support a central NNTP news server, the
newsreader approach offers some attractive trade-offs: (1)
only one copy of each posting is needed instead of many
individual copies; (2) it is much easier to subscribe and
unsubscribe from the local server than it is from lists; (3)
the postings are kept separate from your regular e-mail; and
(4) it is much faster to browse postings with a threaded
newsreader than as individual pieces of e-mail.
2. News Readers Available.
.......................
There are newsreaders available for all the popular
computing environments. All newsreaders do the same basic
thing -- display news articles and let you create postings
-- but they differ in their range of features and details of
use. Some of the newsreaders that apply here at UNH are:
o rn, Unix. (assumes VT100 terminal or higher)
o trn, Unix. (builds on 'rn', adding thread support)
o nn, Unix. (assumes VT100 terminal or higher)
o VNEWS, VAX/VMS. (assumes VT100 terminal or higher)
o NewsWatcher, Macintosh (assumes Ethernet connection).
o WinVN, PC Windows (assumes Ethernet connection).
This document focuses specifically on 'trn', the newsreader
that we recommend for use on our central Unix systems. Most
of the concepts apply to other newsreaders, especially to
other Unix newsreaders, but the details will vary.
3. Organization of News.
.....................
The commands and help available in newsreaders are
contentext-sensitive, so it is important to understand the
way news is organized:
o newsgroups: Collections of articles with similar
subjects. Some examples of newsgroups are:
unh.cis.announce
comp.infosystems.www.users
alt.aquaria
o threads: Articles in a groups with the same subject.
o articles: The actual information. Each article has a
header similar to headers seen in e-mail, listing
author, subject and date.
o pages: An article is displayed one page at a time on
your screen.
There is a set of commands for each level of organization.
When you are prompted to enter a command, common responses
for the current level are displayed in square brackets. If
you just press RETURN you will get the first alternative.
For example at the newsgroup level the prompt is:
-- read now? [+ynq]
If you press RETURN you get the '+' command to display the
threads, as described later. If you press 'y' or 'n' or 'q'
it takes the appropriate action: but at another level those
letters will have a different meaning and action. And to
see the other choices available at that prompt, type 'h'.
IMPORTANT NOTE: most of these single-character commands are
used without pressing RETURN, since RETURN is normally
reserved to mean the first or default command.
4. Using USENET the First Time.
............................
USENET uses a special file in your home directory to keep
track of your newsgroup subscriptions. On Unix systems this
is a dot-file called '.newsrc'. To get you off to a good
start (quickly and with a few selected groups) there is a
special procedure you should run to create the '.newsrc'
file:
% initnews
To display all dot-files in a directory listing:
% ls -al
And to look at the contents:
% more .newsrc
This is where the newsreader records your subscriptions.
Any list name that ends with an '!' means you are not
subscribed, while a ':' means you are subscribed. Typically
there is a range of numbers after the colon to record the
numbers of the postings that you have seen so they won't be
displayed again. Normally you never need to edit your
'.newsrc' file since all the changes to it are made by the
newsreader.
Then to invoke the newsreader:
% trn
The first thing it displays is a special notice:
USENET newsgroups are based on open and free expression
of all ideas and interests. That means you may find some
material to be offensive. The University of New Hampshire
and the Department of Computing and InformationServices
assume that anyone using any news reader to access USENET
understands this and takes responsibility for what they
select to read, just as they would at a bookstore or
newsstand or other medium.
Press SPACE to continue. Then the newsreader displays the first
newsgroups with unread articles (postings) in them and prompts
you about the first one. The default order is the order in
which you subscribed to the groups.
Unread news in unh.cis.announce 1 article
Unread news in comp.unix.osf.osf1 95 articles
Unread news in news.announce.newusers 3 articles
etc.
To remove newsgroups you aren't interested in, use the
unsubscribe 'u' command. Type 'h' for help at any time
within 'trn'.
6. Finding New Newsgroups.
.......................
New newsgroups are created all the time. If the server is
receiving new newsgroups, the first prompt you get in the
newsreader is whether you want to subscribe:
Finding new newsgroups:
Newsgroup comp.lang.eiffel not in .newsrc
-- subscribe? [ynYN]
To subscribe, follow the procedure shown in the next section
on 'Selecting a Newsgroup.'
Another way to find out about newsgroups available, 99% of which
are bypassed by that initial '.initnews' procedure and which you
won't be subsequently prompted for, is to use the
list-unsubscribed-newsgroups command (at the newsgroups context
level):
l pattern
where 'pattern' is a search string, such as 'k12'. You can
also use the 'newsgroups' command at the system prompt
(outside the newsreader) to do searching:
% newsgroups pattern
To get a list of all newsgroups known to the local newshost, and
to save the list in a file called 'news.all':
% newsgroups > news.all
Let it run for a while and type CTRL-C to terminate the command.
Whenever you are at the newsgroup level in 'trn' you can
either subscribe to a new group (once you know its name)
with the 'g' command or unsubscribe with the 'u' command.
7. Selecting a Newsgroup.
......................
To go to a particular newsgroup, use the command 'g' at the
newsgroup selection level. For example to go to the
newsgroup k12.ed.tech, type:
g k12.ed.tech (press Return)
If you are not subscribed to this group, you are asked if
you wish to do so.
Newsgroup k12.ed.tech not in .newsrc -- subscribe? [ynYN]
Press RETURN to take the default answer of 'y' and you are
then prompted for the placement of the newsgroup in your
list of subscribed groups:
Put newsgroup where? [$ ^.L]
$ Puts newsgroup at end of list of your newsgroups
^ Puts newsgroup at beginning of your list of
newsgroups
. Puts newsgroup before the newsgroup
L Displays a list of your newsgroups
Press RETURN to take the default of placement at the end.
Then the newsreader will go out and retrieve all available
articles. Don't panic if it reports a large number:
====== 4387 unread articles in k12.ed.tech -- read now?[+ynq]
In practice you will only see those currently available on
our news server, which is limited by the retention time set
for groups (five days for most groups, thirty days for our
local unh.* groups).
8. Reading Articles.
.................
Many newsgroups are threaded so articles with the same
subject are grouped together. If the newsgroup is not
threaded then each thread will consist of just one article.
With 'trn' it always offers to show you the threads if you
select the '+' option:
-- read now? [+ynq]
And you might see something like this:
a David L. Brooks 1 >need suggestions on moving a server
b Frank Chen 2 >NCSA Mosaic for X 2.1 available [third try]
Tom Horsley
d John Franks 1 >search on local gopher
e Partl 1 >Bookmarks
If there are more threads than will fit on a screen, step
through them by pressing SPACE. Type the letter of any
threads you want displayed. When you have made all your
selections, press RETURN to start viewing them. If you
choose the 'y' option instead of '+' it will start to show
you all the unread articles in that group, in sequence.
When viewing an article, the position of the article within
the thread is displayed by a small graph in the upper right
corner of the screen, which may look like this in a
relatively simple case:
-( )+-[1]
\-[1]
-[1]
-[1]
-[1]
-[1]
The newsreader displays articles using a pager, i.e., you
step through the article a page at a time by pressing SPACE.
Use 'b' to backup a page. Use 'p' to go back an article.
Use 'n' to go forward an article. And so forth. Type 'h'
for still more movement options.
When you have read all the threads you selected, the
newsreader returns you to a display of any remaining
threads. Otherwise it presents you with the option to read
the next group. If you don't want to read any of the
remaining articles at the threads display, just type 'c' to
catchup or mark them all as read. Also, don't panic if you
subscribe to a new newsgroup and it says there are thousands
of unread articles. Our news server only keeps most groups
for a week (a few special groups that have extremely high
volume are kept for less time and the local unh.* groups are
kept for a month) so most of those articles really won't be
available. This also means that if you are out of town for
a week or more, some material will not be available to you
when you return.
9. Saving Articles to a File.
..........................
To keep an article, you can save it to a disk file in your
area. You would do that when you are reading the particular
article. You can either wait until you are at the end or
type the command prior to the end. Type 's' for save and
specify the file name ('foobar' in this example) in which to
save it:
End of article 1861 (of 1870) -- what next? [npq] s foobar
By default it expects to save the file in your News
subdirectory and asks you if you want to save it in mailbox
format:
File /mnt/auser/News/foobar doesn't exist--
use mailbox format? [ynq]
If you specify 'n' it saves it as an ordinary file. To
specify your home directory instead of this default
subdirectory, prefix the file name with a tilde and slash:
~/foobar
Files saved in mailbox format can be managed with the Unix
mail program 'pine', though to do so you first must move the
saved file into your mail subdirectory.
10. Mailing Articles.
.................
You may occasionally want to mail an article to someone or
even to yourself. Use a command of the form:
-- what next? [npq] s | Mail auser@hopper.unh.edu
This saves 's' the article and then pipes it '|' to the
Mail utility. At a minimum you need to specify the full
address of the recipient (in this case the fictional
'auser'). By default no subject is used; to add one:
-- what next? [npq] s | Mail -s "readme" auser@hopper.unh.edu
11. Printing Articles.
..................
You can print an article when you are at the article level
in the newsreader and the article of interest is currently
selected:
-- what next? [npq] s | lpr -P kodak -C kdp
This saves 's' the file and then pipes it '|' to the printer
command 'lpr' specifying the 'kodak' printer and the
duplex-portrait form 'kdp'.
See the file'/usr/local/notes/printing' for other options.
12. Posting Articles.
.................
To post a follow-up article, use the 'F' command within
'trn'. To post a new article, use the 'f' command (i.e.,
not part of an existing thread). You will be asked several
times if you really-truly want to do this (remember, you
could be reaching tens of thousands of people!) and you will
be prompted for key information:
o newsgroup(s)
o distribution (e.g., local or world)
o title/subject
You are able to use the Pico editor to create your posting
and you can include and existing file. You get one last
chance to quit after you exit the editor.
If you want to try this procedure but don't have an actual
newsgroup to which you want to post, you can post to the
group 'misc.test' which is designed for testing. However,
be aware that a number of sites have automated procedures
for acknowledging that they received the posting, using
e-mail to do so. You could get dozens of such
acknowledgements.
The 'Pnews' command can be used to initiate a posting when you
are not using a newsreader. The prompts are the same as for
postings initiated within a newsreader.
13. Assorted Other Comments and Hints.
..................................
o Exploring.
You only need a small number of commands to use a newsreader
effectively, but from time to time, as your experience with
USENET increases, you should invoke help at several levels
in the newsgroups and remind yourself of the commands that
are available.
o Exit with status unchanged.
If you start a newsreading session and then decide that you
want to quit and leave the status of your '.newsrc' file
unchanged, use the 'x' command.
o Suspending the newsreader.
You can suspend your newsreader process and go do something
else (check on some documentation, read regular e-mail,
etc.) if you just type CTRL-Z in the newsreader. Then, to
resume the newsreader process:
% fg
That puts the suspended process back in the foreground (this
assumes you only have one suspended process).
o Kill files.
You can customize what the newsreader shows you by use of a
kill file. The kill file lets you skip over items you don't
want to see, i.e., the newsreader will not even show you
items that fit the profile specified in the kill file.
There are both global kill files (that apply to all
newsgroups to which you subscribe) and local kill files that
apply just to a specific newsgroup. Kill files can be used
to avoid articles on the basis of subject, site, sender,
etc. Read the 'rn' and 'trn' man pages for more
information.
o Sources of archives, FAQs.
There are archives of a number of USENET Frequently Asked
Questions (FAQ) files and other useful USENET materials that
are available via anonymous FTP. A good source is:
% ftp rtfm.mit.edu
login as 'anonymous',
give your Internet address as the password, then
> cd pub/usenet-by-group
14. Finding More Information.
.........................
The basic source of additional information is the
interactive help within the newsreader itself. Remember,
that is context-sensitive and varies with the function
level.
Then there are the standard Unix man pages. For example,
'trn' is derived from the older 'rn' newsreader, so you need
both sets of man pages for complete information:
% man rn
% man trn
For other newsreaders, see the specific documentation. For
example, for the VNEWS newsreader on our VAX/VMS systems:
$ help vnews
$ type/page doc:vnews.doc
The many books about the Internet are another good source of
information. Most include a chapter on USENET, with the
detail in keeping with the overall content and style of the
particular book. Typically they describe the general
philosophy and features of USENET. For example:
o Ed Krol, THE WHOLE INTERNET USER'S GUIDE & CATALOG,
2nd ed., Chapter 8, "Network News". Very good discussion,
with 'nn' as the specific reader he demonstrates.
o John Levine and Carol Baroudi, THE INTERNET FOR DUMMIES,
Chapter 11, "Using Network News".
............................................................
This file is loosely based on the file news.text (v.1.1,
June 1993) obtained from julian.uwo.ca in the directory
/pub/unix/doc/how-do-i and is edited and adapted to reflect
our UNH Unix environment. That original author was Colleen
Bretzlaff (colleen@julian.uwo.ca).