[뉴스] A guide on setting up News Server

From sysuh@kigam.re.kr Wed Apr 16 09:01:07 1997
Newsgroups: han.answers,han.news.admin
Subject: A guide on setting up News Server
From: sysuh@kigam.re.kr (Sang-yong Suh)
Date: Wed, 16 Apr 1997 00:01:07 GMT+0900

The following is a guide on setting up news servers.
The article is based on following references as well as my personal
experience:

John Milburn, 1995, Usenet News Server Concepts and Configuration,
Presented at KRNIC Symposium, 9 Feb 1995, Muju, Korea.
Chris Lewis, 1995, How to become a Usenet Site, a Usenet article
frequently posted on news.announce.newusers.

A guide on setting up News Server

1. Read Usenet articles at least six(6) weeks on following newsgroups:
han.news.admin, han.news.stats, and news.software.nntp. Of these,
I think, han.news.stats is the most important, because you can see
Usenet reports of various news servers there. You must be able to
find which server is fast and serving better than others. Also
you must realize how difficult to manage a good news server.

2. Have a dedicated machine for news. The machine should have at least
64MB memory and 8GB news spool. This is for a samll sized organization.
Universities will have to prepare a machine much bigger than this, i.e.,
128MB memory and 12GB SCSI-2 fast-wide disk array. Note that the
order of importance in news: DISK, Memory, Network, and CPU in sequence.

Your disk can not be a single 8GB disk, instead it must be an array
or arrays of multiple disks such as RAID.

The news software is a giant memory pig. You need many many memories.

The conventional 56K network can not carry today's huge Usenet
traffic. Even 256K can't. You must have at least 512K or hopefully
T1. If your network is less than 512K, don't try to get full feed.
Instead select a subset of newsgroups until your connection is
upgraded.

CPU speed is least important in news. Because of this, you can make
a good news server based on a Pentium CPU. My personal news machine,
news.kigam.re.kr, is a P100, but is one of the fastest servers in Korea.
The reason is I am using very good disk arrays. I have four 2GB fast
wide SCSI disks, of which three disks are software striped to make
one 6GB RAID-0 partition using Linux/md0.35. The machine has 128MB
RAMs now.

I have two-T1 to Kreonet. These make my machine fast and reliable.
My machine exchanges news with twenty(20) other news servers without
any problem.

3. Get news softwares. The latest server software is inn1.5.1.
News client softwares for news reading are trn3.6 and tin1.22.

The best place to get is xpat.postech.ac.kr via anonymous ftp.
John, a voluntary news admin of news.kreonet.re.kr put many
preconfigured examples for well known systems such as SunOS 4.1.3
and HPUX. Also you can find some configuration guide for Korean
Usenet environments. I have put my config.data for Linux there too.

One more place to check is ftp.kigam.re.kr for directories pub/inn
and pub/news/ktg95. The first directory mirrors Dave Barr's collection
of inn1.4unoff[1-4] releases from ftp.math.psu.edu:/pub/INN. The second
directory holds jem_usenet.pcl, the John Milburn's Guide on News Server
Setup.

4. Read installation manual, follow the instructions, and make sure
that your server is running and operating by test postings on your
local newsgroup. I advise you to print inn "install.ms" and read
at least three full days.

5. Ask newsfeed to a feed site. The primary feed site must be closer
one. If you have followed my advice item 1, you will know where
to ask. It must be closest (in network terminology) one from you.
If you still have question, ask Kreonet. They are open to everybody
until the machine can handle.

6. Once running, watch for the news flow between your machine and
the feeding site EVERY DAY.

7. Also the news admin has a responsibility to educate his(her) own
users. Guide your users with proper nettiquettes by introducing
news.announce.newusers.

8. Don't forget to join Korea Usenet Site. The member sites post
their Daily Usenet Report to han.news.stats. These reports are
the most valuable tool to understand the current news server
statistics for all of us. If you want to join, please update
your MAIL varialbe in news.daily script so that the mail be sent
to han-news-stats@xpat.postech.ac.kr or han-news-stats@news.kigam.re.kr.
The following is my MAIL variable:

MAIL="${MAILCMD} -s 'Kigam Daily Usenet report' \
${NEWSMASTER},han-news-stats@news.kigam.re.kr"

If you are running your own mail->news gateway, make sure that
the posting include "Distribution: rok" line in its header
so that your big report will not leak to the world.

9. If you have a direct foreign Usenet link, make sure that "rok"
limited articles and han.news.stats are not sent to that foreign site.
An example newsfeeds entry from a Korean site to EU.net would be:

EUNet/EU.net:*,!han.news.stats/!rok,!korea:Tf,Wnm:

If your site leaks those articles to the world, all Korean news admins
will deny to feed you with han.news.stats and "rok" limited articles.

Thank you,
--
Sang-yong Suh