06/05/96 v0.62                 README

Configuration of Linux Slackware INN_PKG for use with DEMON INTERNET SERVICES

   Copyright (C) 1995,1996 Ivan A. Beveridge.       ivan@dreamtim.demon.co.uk

   This package is freely distributable.

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This was initially flung together on the request of two Linux/Demon users who
requested information on how to get INN_PKG working with Demon; hence I have
aimed it at the beginner.

For those who are a little baffled, INN stands for InterNetNews and is the
up-and-coming news agent. It is used instead of CNews and is designed to use
the NNTP (Net News Transfer Protocol), rather than being patched to use it
(as CNews is).

This setup is being carried out using INN v1.4 with Slackware v2.3.0 and 3.0,
although it should work fine with all later versions. This is included with 
John Phillips's slack2.3.0 package now, so that only one package must be 
found and downloaded for connection to Demon's services. As a result, I have 
only included the parts needed for News setup.

The reasons that I used INN instead of CNews are as follows:
* Once setup, INN is _very_ easy to administer.
* Using NOV (News OverView) threading, all NOV-compatible news readers can be
  used, without separate threading details.
* The INN_PKG in Slackware is _really_ well setup and described.

Once INN has been setup with your node-name and news server, etc, all that is
required is a shell script auto-run at Linux bootup and a cron job run every
night. Admin details are setup to be emailed to root, although this is easily
changed.

Please bear in mind that you may need quite a lot of space for downloading
news articles. As a guideline, I subscribe to 23 newsgroups (several of which
are pretty dormant), and I have approximately 8-10Mb used (including the NOV
database).

The threading allows you to read articles on the same subject, one
after another, rather than reading all articles in date order. The database
for threading uses up approximately 10% extra.

That's about it for an intro. Sorry if any of this seems a bit disjointed.
Please let me know of spelling errors, unclear points, etc ... and, most
importantly, any setup errors with this package.

INN.ins describes the steps to go through for configuring INN with Demon.

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Note - to those people who want the permissions and users correct (hopefully)
for all of the config files I have put in this package, detar the package
again, using:

tar xzpvf inn-???.tar.gz

(the "p" option tries to match all the permissions, so remember to detar
using root user!) The permissions should be correct if you are installing
this, as part of the Slack-help package, using the Slack-Demon script.
******************

All that remains is the usual disclaimer for *all* of this package:

THIS PACKAGE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND WITHOUT ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED
WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
MERCHANTIBILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

Reproduction and distribution of complete and unedited copies is allowed
without prior permission of the authors.