ClariNews installation guide

Welcome to the ClariNet network. This document details what the admin or a new or 30 day evaluation period ClariNet subscriber needs to do in order to get a ClariNet feed running.

Step one is to fill out our application form. You'll also need to get a copy of the terms of service, since the application form asks you to agree to them.

You will need to have USENET software up and running. If you have it, you can skip this next section.

Getting USENET software

If you don't have that, there is plenty of free USENET software available on the net. A good repository can be found on the FTP site ftp.std.com in the directory src/news. We recommend the C news transport system for your server, and either the trn or nn newsreaders for Unix systems. If you plan to run a major server, with many incoming feeds, we also recommend the INN news transport system. INN has a number of very valuable features but it consumes a great deal of memory. The official C news repository in Toronto is another location for C news. Also try the UUNET FTP repository of USENET software, though access can be somewhat slow.

There are a number of TCP/IP packages for MS-Windows and the Mac which include client newsreading packages. There are even news transport systems for the PC, but we don't recommend this path for serious sites. Several popular BBS packages now support USENET format news.

To find USENET software, the article USENET Software, History and Sources is posted every 2 weeks to news.software.b and various other newsgroups. Some people archive it on the web, and we have provided a link here.

If you are on the internet, your news software needs to support NNTP. Don't worry, all major packages do these days.

If you're not able to install such a package on your own, we can recommend consultants who can help you, either in your area, or remotely over the net. Installation and support of USENET software is not part of our service, however. If ClariNet is your first USENET style newsfeed, you may have some learning to do, or you may need a consultant. Most of these documents are for people who have already set up a newsfeed.

You will also need newsreaders. Netscape works as a good newsreader, and there are a wide varient of newsreaders available for Unix, MS-DOS, the Mac and other systems.

Getting your feed

Once you have USENET software running, we will need to work out how you will get your newsfeed. All feeds must be arranged through ClariNet by mailing your request to network@clari.net.

Choices are

• Direct feed from ClariNet via NNTP or UUCP. We'll actually provide all NNTP feeds from at least two of our machines for redundancy.
• Feed from major hub site from whom you're already getting your IP or USENET news, if they are an authorized ClariNet hub.

Options

• If you are on the Internet, you can get a direct feed from ClariNet. Simply request this from us. You will need to tell us the full domain name of the site you wish us to feed, and you'll need to set things up on that machine to allow our various machines to connect, as described below and in the file nntpfeed.
• You can arrange a feed from a hub site which you already connect to or plan to connect to. Most of the major hubs that do newsfeeding can feed you ClariNet on our request. These include UUNET/Alternet, PSI, Colorado Supernet, Nearnet, Sprintnet, ANS, Suranet, EUnet and its many European members, Happysize and some others. Some of these sites may charge for feeding, but this is only for the communications service, not for ClariNet.

  If you are connected to such a hub site, they can start a feed as soon as we E-mail them a request to do so. We prefer you get your feed directly from us unless it is far more efficient to do so through the hub.

• You can get a USENET feed via UUCP from one of the above hubs.
• You can get a UUCP feed directly from us. This requires that you pay the long distance charges to call our modems in San Jose, California.

  You can also get a dynamic feed from us, that only sends you the groups people are actually subscribed to on your system. Check out dynafeed.tar.Z on ftp.clari.net in the sources directory.

• If you are on the Internet, and get a feed from a site other than ClariNet, you can get a free backup feed that is delayed 12 hours. This assures you that if other feeds go down or get slow, your news still all arrives same day. A backup feed will normally send no traffic, since all the news will have arrived by the other channels. If it starts actually providing you your feed, it needs to be looked into. If you elect this, you will need to configure for a feed from us. Instructions can be found in the file nntpfeed

Whichever method you choose, contact us to initiate the feed. Some other methods are possible for special situations, but they are not recommended unless no other route is possible. We are also investigating demand for feeds via satellite companies like Planet Connect and PageSat. If you are a customer of one of these firms and wish to get ClariNews, register your interest with us.

Software Specific Tasks

• ClariNet guide for INN systems
• ClariNet guide for C News/nntpd systems
• ClariNet guide for other news transport systems

Creating the Newsgroups

Once a method of feed is established, you need to create the newsgroups on your local server, and introduce your users to the new newsgroups that are coming. Our new admin kit includes a list of Newsgroups and an awk script that generates a shell script to create the groups for the main news systems.

Edit the create_clari.awk script to match your local needs, and run it on the Newsgroups list with the set of groups that's right for you. Sample files for the most common subscriptions are provided. You modify, and then run create_clari.awk with the group list on the standard input. This writes a shell script to the standard output, so you can put it in a file to examine, or pipe it right to /bin/sh. (If you run C news and keep its files in /usr/lib/news, you can actually run the script without modification.)

For example, you can use one of the following files:

newsgroups.1

One-Star Edition

newsgroups.2

Two-Star Edition

newsgroups.3

Three-Star Edition

newsgroups.3c

Three-Star Edition with Commerce Business Daily

newsgroups.edu

Educational Edition

newsgroups.4

Four-Star/Corporate/Edu+ Edition

The clari.web HTML version of the ClariNews

newsgroups.web.1

One-Star Edition

newsgroups.web.2

Two-Star Edition

newsgroups.web.3

Three-Star Edition

newsgroups.web.3c

Three-Star Edition with Commerce Business Daily

newsgroups.web.edu

Educational Edition

newsgroups.web.4

Four-Star/Corporate/Edu+ Edition

If you have a special package, it's easy enough to modify the list to match your newsgroup set. Modify create_clari.awk to enter your system parameters, and then, for example, to create the full ClariNet package on a C news system, run this command:

	awk -f create_clari.awk type=cnews <newsgroups.3 | sh

The appropriate lines clipped from the right newsgroups file can go into your newsgroups file.

If you wish to create the groups across a network of machines, you will need to send control messages. We'll leave that up to you, since every network is different, but before you do it, make SURE the control messages have a local Distribution: field on them and that this distribution does not leak from any site on your network.

Setting up to receive an NNTP feed from us

Please see the file "nntpfeed" in the admin kit or in the help/admin directory of ftp.clari.net for details on this. Check also for details on giving us read access to the ClariNet articles on your server, and backfeeding clari.net.talk to us.

Checking for Security

The admin manual also describes important security steps you must take here to ensure that your ClariNet feed does not leave the network for which you are getting a licence. You need to check the security of your NNTP and sys/newsfeeds files, and put a comment in to remind other admins (and your successors) of the rules.

Getting a UUCP feed

If you are getting a UUCP feed, you will need to create entries in the UUCP control files to call our systems and allow them to transfer news to you. This is the same as setting up any other UUCP connection and newsfeed. With Honey-Danber UUCP, that means an entry for "soprano" in the System file and perhaps in the Permissions file. Ask for our UUCP connection info.

After the feed begins

(If you wish, you can actually start the feed before you create the groups. Sometimes this makes sense if you don't want a period where the groups are created but empty. If you do this, the messages will all appear in the "junk" group until you create the ClariNet groups, but this is no grand problem.)

With the groups created and the feed turned on, you are almost done. At this point be sure to go through the ClariNet administrator's manual for tips and rules about handling ClariNet news. Once you're settled in, we'll want to be in contact about issues such as auditing, security, feeds to others, gateways and other technical and administrative matters.

One of the groups you created was called clari.net.newusers. We have a batch of articles that form an introduction to ClariNet for new users. We post this set of articles each month, but you can put them in right away, by taking the news batch in the file "newuser" and injecting it into your news system. (With C news, the command "newspool" does the trick.)

Pointing to ClariNet's Web page and User Manual

ClariNet does have a web page -- http://www.clari.net, which contains information about ClariNet and all sorts of help for readers. Once you have created the groups, you will want to post a note to internal announcement locations describing what ClariNet is and how to get more information on it, including the web page, our ftp site (ftp.clari.net) and the newuser files. You may also want to make up a list of recommendations for groups new users will want to read.

Group status

ClariNet groups are marked as "no posting" with most modern news software. On some sites, they are marked as moderated, but submissions are not accepted. If you mark them as moderated, you can point all attempted postings at modreply@clari.net in your moderators file.

Read the ClariNet terms

You should read over the ClariNet terms again, and you should take the sheet of "user terms" which we have provided that describe the usage terms of the service that are relevant to an ordinary user. You should have a place on your system where the terms of service for your system are kept. Put a copy of these terms in that place as well, and take whatever steps you take to inform users of your own terms of service that they need to be concerned about ours as well. If you have a web page with terms, make a link to our user terms sheet.

Be sure to add the newsgroup "clari.net.admin" to your reading list. This is not a busy group, but important announcements for admins are posted there, including policy changes, new newsgroups etc. In addition, if we change the terms of service, this is where we inform you. If you are concerned about how often you can get to this group, you can ask that somebody at your site be placed on our admin-notice mailing list. Send mail to audit@clari.net to request this.

New groups

Alas, since we have different group sets for our editions, you can't simply copy the "clari" groups from our active files or use an active file sync tool. We announce group creations and deletions in clari.net.admin.

New Group authentication

Please read the UUNET description of the key verification system to understand it and to get the scripts and patches you need. (This is an FTP web page, so it is sometimes a bit slow.)

Once you have installed that system, you will need to put ClariNet's public key in your PGP key ring. This key will be available on that web page above shortly, and you can also get it here: ClariNet Group PGP Public Key.

The userid for this key is "ClariNet.Group" -- use this string in your INN control.ctl file as the verification key. More details are in the INN guide.

Please note that if you are making business use of PGP, you need to get a copy of the commercial version, ViaCrypt PGP.

Registering your domains and IP Address Ranges

In order for this to happen, you need to make sure that certain information about the domains and/or IP address ranges of your users are available to us. Please read our guide to domain and IP address registration at ClariNet for details.

Web Interfaces

You can find such pages on our own web site, and can link to them or to the main site. Our pages require the user to pick their edition, you should probably do that for them and link to the right page.

However, you should very seriously consider putting up a pure web interface to the news as well. We offer two methods for you to do this.

One is ClariCGI a pure CGI and FastCGI based interface that lets web browsers read the news spools, and ClariNet articles in a nice HTML presentation. We recommend this as easier to install. It can use either the regular or clari.web hierarchies.

The alternate method, Web Extraction offers some scripts to help you transfer news stories into a tree of web pages that can be served up efficiently by your ordinary web server. This can be more efficient, but if you have a FastCGI the ClariCGI can be similar in efficiency. It requires the clari.web hierarchy.

Other Notes

Clari.net.talk

Default Subscription

Graphical Information

Our Records

Since you pay by the number of networkers on your system (whether they read ClariNet or not) we also will need updates, usually every 3 months, on the number of networkers covered by your site licence. Mail any changes to audit@clari.net.

Photograb

NNTP Server

You can provide your users with a link to our HTML menu of newsgroups so that they can easily read in their web browser. Don't link to the actual top page, instead pick the page that is right for the edition you subscribe to, and link to that. In addition, you can copy those trees directly onto your server, and we provide them on our ftp server in TAR archive form, however if you do this you should check to keep them up to date fairly often as we may change them.

Checklist of important steps

• Application form(s) sent in to ClariNet
• USENET software up and running, reading for incoming feeds
• Type of feed determined and communicated to ClariNet
• In the event of NNTP feed from ClariNet, access has been given to ClariNet systems, and other details specific to your software have been handled.
• Newsgroups created
• Users informed about ClariNet and new newsgroups
• clari.net.newusers fed fresh set of articles
• Read ClariNet administrator's guide
• Install ClariNet reader terms along with our system's own terms
• Point to ClariNet web page (http://www.clari.net) from your own web page, particularly to user documentation and terms sheet, Plus HTML menu of newsgroups.
• Subscribe to clari.net.admin or admin-notice mailing list
• Put comments in access control files reminding other or future admins about the Clari newsgroups
• Ensure that ClariNet "customer info" on your site is kept up to date
• Look into installing ClariCGI, a web interface to USENET/ClariNet news.