Ubuntu
postnews package

How do I actually post?

Asked by Luc1972

Hi there

How do I actually get postnews to send a message? Niether the manpage nor the help gives an example. I can compose but have not managed to send one yet! Any pointers would be great.

Thanks

Luke

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Jeruvy
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Jeruvy (jeruvy) said : 		#1

I found the manpage to be quite clear, even though I've never used this program (I still use tin). You provide two (2) parameters to execute the command:

1. -h headerfile

This is a prebuilt file, conformed with accurate header details that you have created PRIOR to submitting news. If you do not provide this it will prompt you for them during normal execution.

2. newsgroup

This is the NAME of the newsgroup or a comma delimited list of newsgroups to crosspost to.

You then create the news article in a visual editor (defined by your current settings) and when you save and exit, it then sends this to the appropriate newsgroup.

What else do you need to know? Perhaps you can clarify what doesn't make sense or is not working?

Good luck,

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Luc1972 (l-ingerson) said : 		#2

Hi

Thanks for the reply. The manpage/help I saw didn't mention a headerfile at all; here is an online copy of the manpage included with package from the Ubuntu repositories: http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/gutsy/man1/postnews.1.html

If you could give me an example of how to post I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks

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Luc1972 (l-ingerson) said : 		#3

Sorry some further info:

If I enter

postnews -p 119 my.newsserver.com

it then just allows me to enter text but with no clear way of posting and I can only return to a prompt by pressing ctrl&c. Whilst I'm typing this I realised my editor envrionment variable may not be set and it might be wanting to launch a text editor for the stdin. Trouble is I'm at work so can't check if that is the problem.

Any thoughts?

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Best Jeruvy (jeruvy) said : 		#4

If you run this from terminal it will use the terminal as your editor. So:

$ postnews alt.test

Then answer the header questions as applicable. Once this is done it should look like it's just doing nothing. Here you can type the body of the news article. When you are done, simply hit return/enter to get a newline and with NO TEXT on it, then type just a single period. That should inform postnews you are done creating the mail and my guess would be to send the post off, respond with any messages and return you to a prompt.

Again I may be mistaken, but hopefully I'm not :)

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Luc1972 (l-ingerson) said : 		#5

Many thanks!