gnus with leafnode

gnus with leafnode

[Pieter Wenk]

I have installed leafnode om my machine, which is now working absolut
correctly.

Since now "4" days I am trying to get working gnus with leafnode.

I even posted the few lines of my .gnus in relation with the rea-
ding of the group.

Since I have never seen any answer, I am trying again:

How do I have to tell it to .gnus I should like first of all
to see the "group summary" allowing to subscribe the 
fetched NG ?

Launching M-x gnus works correctly...but gnus hangs on "read
active" file. Now leafnode does not store fetched NG in active.

Once again copies of the few lines of my .gnus:


;;* News-Holen-Methode setzen. Hier 'nntp'
;;=============================================================================
;;News************************************************************************
(setq gnus-verbose 10)
(setq user-mail-address "pwenk@urbanet.ch")
(setq gnus-select-method '(nntp "localhost"))
;(setq `nntp-send-authinfo t)
(setq gnus-check-bogus-newsgroups 'ask-server)


;;*****************************************************************************
;;Gnus list vom News-Server ***************************************************
;;*****************************************************************************
(setq gnus-subscribe-newsgroup-method 'gnus-subscribe-interactively)
;(setq gnus-asynchronous 'some)
(setq gnus-read-active-file t)


What is wrong ? Do I have ommitted something ?

I should appreciate getting gnus "finaly" back on work....

Thanks for your help

---         
                           / /  (_)____ __ ____  __
      Pieter Wenk         / /__/ / _ \/ // /\ \/ /  Vevey/Switzerland
                         /____/_/_//_/\_,_/ /_/\_\

Re: gnus with leafnode

[Kai Großjohann]

Pieter Wenk <pwenk@urbanet.ch> writes:

> How do I have to tell it to .gnus I should like first of all
> to see the "group summary" allowing to subscribe the 
> fetched NG ?
> 
> Launching M-x gnus works correctly...but gnus hangs on "read
> active" file. Now leafnode does not store fetched NG in active.

Hm.  Does it really hang or does it just take a long time?  Your setup
looks good.

What happens if you tweak the gnus-read-active-file variable?  Also,
there is a node in the Gnus info file which talks about slow
connections to the news server and slow machines.  Maybe some of the
tips mentioned there are useful for you, as well?

kai
-- 
because I couldn't think of a good beginning.

Re: gnus with leafnode

[Pieter Wenk]

On ven, 26 nov 1999, Kai Großjohann wrote:

Hello Kai,
 
>> Launching M-x gnus works correctly...but gnus hangs on "read
>> active" file. Now leafnode does not store fetched NG in active.
>
>Hm.  Does it really hang or does it just take a long time?  Your setup
>looks good.

Hm...good question. I did wait let's say something like two
minutes...and since nothing happened I closed the whole thing.

FYI: I have a cable (Netzanschluss), connection to my ISP, 
which is very fast. 

Is it normal having to wait so long ?

Regards

---         
                           / /  (_)____ __ ____  __
      Pieter Wenk         / /__/ / _ \/ // /\ \/ /  Vevey/Switzerland
                         /____/_/_//_/\_,_/ /_/\_\

Re: gnus with leafnode

[Kai Großjohann]

Pieter Wenk <pwenk@urbanet.ch> writes:

> Hm...good question. I did wait let's say something like two
> minutes...and since nothing happened I closed the whole thing.
> 
> FYI: I have a cable (Netzanschluss), connection to my ISP, 
> which is very fast. 

Hm?  Leafnode is running on the local host, so the connection to the
ISP is irrelevant, isn't it?

> Is it normal having to wait so long ?

The first time, you may need to wait quite a while.  Especially since
you told it to read the complete active file.

kai
-- 
because I couldn't think of a good beginning.

Re: gnus with leafnode

[Bud Rogers]

Pieter Wenk <pwenk@urbanet.ch> writes:

> I have installed leafnode om my machine, which is now working absolut
> correctly.
> 
> Since now "4" days I am trying to get working gnus with leafnode.

[...]

> What is wrong ? Do I have ommitted something ?

I am using gnus with leafnode.  I vaguely remember having the "read active"
problem early on, but I'm not sure what I did to fix it.  Here are a couple 
of thoughts that may or may not help you.

What version of leafnode are you using?  It is under active development and 
the bugs change a bit from version to version.


You have 
(setq gnus-select-method '(nntp "localhost"))  
I seem to remember having a problem using localhost there.  I have
(setq gnus-select-method '(nntp "twocups.sirinet.net"))

You have 
(setq gnus-read-active-file t)  
I don't set gnus-read-active-file at all.  I think it defaults to `some'.

I don't know if any of this has anything to do with your problem.      



-- 

Bud Rogers <budr@sirinet.net>

Re: gnus with leafnode

[David Maslen]

I too am using xemacs21.1 and a recent pgnus with leafnode. The only
relevant entries in my .gnus.el seem to be;

;;;; David's Gnus file for use with xemacs
;;;; and leafnode
(setq gnus-select-method '(nntp "news"))
(setq gnus-check-new-newsgroups nil) ;Skips new group check
(setq gnus-nntpserver-file "/etc/news/server")

I find using leafnode better than agent, which I have also tried
because the retrieval process can be run as a more background task.

Re: gnus with leafnode

[Pieter Wenk]

On ven, 26 nov 1999, Bud Rogers wrote:

Hello Bud,



>What version of leafnode are you using?  It is under active development and 
>the bugs change a bit from version to version.
>
I am using the latest leafnode version, I downloaded a week
ago. I did not install the leafnode version from my 
SuSE 6.1 CD's since I got sufficient warnings not to do
so. 

>
>You have 
>(setq gnus-select-method '(nntp "localhost"))  
>I seem to remember having a problem using localhost there.  I have
>(setq gnus-select-method '(nntp "twocups.sirinet.net"))

Bud, in leafnode have naturally mentioned the server. In fact,
two (the last with supplement).

I will try to put instead of "localhost"..the server's 
address.

>You have 
>(setq gnus-read-active-file t)  

Shall comment-it out and see what's hapening.

Really not easy in getting gnus on work. Did the developers
this on purpose ??

Many thanks
Regards
--- 
        
                           / /  (_)____ __ ____  __
      Pieter Wenk         / /__/ / _ \/ // /\ \/ /  Vevey/Switzerland
                         /____/_/_//_/\_,_/ /_/\_\

Re: gnus with leafnode

[Kai Großjohann]

Pieter Wenk <pwenk@urbanet.ch> writes:

> I will try to put instead of "localhost"..the server's 
> address.

To clarify: the local host is known by the IP address 127.0.0.1 as
well as by its own IP address.  The two addresses go over different
interfaces, 127.0.0.1 goes through the loopback interface, whereas the
other IP address goes through the normal IP interface.  I vaguely
recall that connecting the one IP address was faster than the other,
but that's just very dim memory.

So don't use the address of `the server', just use the other address
of your own host (where leafnode is running).

kai
-- 
because I couldn't think of a good beginning.

Re: gnus with leafnode

[Pieter Wenk]

On sam, 27 nov 1999, Kai Großjohann wrote:

Thanks for the all the help. I was able to get the group
summary, I started (trial) to work with gnus.

On three groups, when hitting "c" I am just kicked out of
gnus and xeamcs gives me a fast good bye.

I launched gnus with debug on start/error and quit. 
No back-trace.

I am running a SuSE 6.1 box, and the installation was
made out of these CD's. 

I have the feeling, that my gnus is incomplet. In parti-
cular with regards to scoring.

This is what I have,"nothing more", ie. no entry concerning
score-file:

;;Das Scoring *****************************************************************
;;*****************************************************************************
(setq gnus-use-adaptive-scoring t)
(defvar gnus-default-adaptive-score-alist
  '((gnus-unread-mark)
    (gnus-ticked-mark (from 4))
    (gnus-dormant-mark (from 5))
    (gnus-del-mark (from -4) (subject -1))
    (gnus-read-mark (from 4) (subject 2))
    (gnus-killed-mark (from -1) (subject -3))
    (gnus-catchup-mark (from -1) (subject -1))
    )
  )
(add-hook 'message-sent-hook 'gnus-score-followup-article)
(add-hook 'message-sent-hook 'gnus-score-followup-thread)
(setq gnus-update-score-entry-dates nil)


Many thanks for your your help. 

Regards
--
        
                           / /  (_)____ __ ____  __
      Pieter Wenk         / /__/ / _ \/ // /\ \/ /  Vevey/Switzerland
                         /____/_/_//_/\_,_/ /_/\_\

Re: gnus with leafnode

[Bud Rogers]

Pieter Wenk <pwenk@urbanet.ch> writes:

> I am using the latest leafnode version, I downloaded a week
> ago. 

I'm running 1.9.5b2.  That is probably the one you have.

> I will try to put instead of "localhost"..the server's 
> address.

I may have been unclear.  I'm sure you understand that as far as gnus is
concerned the news server is your local machine.  I meant that I use the
actual hostname of my Linux box rather than `localhost.'

> Really not easy in getting gnus on work. Did the developers
> this on purpose ??

I don't think Lars makes it intentionally difficult.  I think he tries very
hard to make it useful and powerful.  The typical news/mail reader these
days is like a black box with a pretty face.  Gnus is more like a master
craftman's toolbox that has a gazillion tools packed away neatly inside.
There is a learning curve.  It takes some time to learn how to use the
tools.  I am only a novice myself but trust me on this: once you learn what
you can do with gnus, you will never again be satisfied with an `ordinary'
news/mail reader.

-- 

Bud Rogers <budr@sirinet.net>

Re: gnus with leafnode

[Pieter Wenk]

>I don't think Lars makes it intentionally difficult.  I think he tries very
>hard to make it useful and powerful.  The typical news/mail reader these
>days is like a black box with a pretty face.  Gnus is more like a master
>craftman's toolbox that has a gazillion tools packed away neatly inside.
>There is a learning curve.  It takes some time to learn how to use the
>tools.  I am only a novice myself but trust me on this: once you learn what
>you can do with gnus, you will never again be satisfied with an `ordinary'
>news/mail reader.

Yes. I was indeed used using gnus as NR...Now after the installation
of leafnode I just would like to use this excellent NR again. 
As you said, once you get used to it...it's unlikely to become satis-
fied with an ordinary NR...

I made a fes tests with Netscape....this is now working without
problems. With "localhost". Ther servers (I have two), are in my
/etc/news/leafnode/config.

Now is it possible, that gnus will need several minutes lets
say up to a 1/2 hour in order to read ther active file...in which
is empty ? /var/spool/news/active.read has nothing inside. 

Is this normal ? 

Regards
--- 
        
                           / /  (_)____ __ ____  __
      Pieter Wenk         / /__/ / _ \/ // /\ \/ /  Vevey/Switzerland
                         /____/_/_//_/\_,_/ /_/\_\

Re: gnus with leafnode

[Bud Rogers]

Pieter Wenk <pwenk@urbanet.ch> writes:

> I made a fes tests with Netscape....this is now working without
> problems. With "localhost". Ther servers (I have two), are in my
> /etc/news/leafnode/config.

Are you actually able to read newsgroups from your leafnode installation
using Netscape or mutt?  If so your leafnode setup is probably fine.

> 
> Now is it possible, that gnus will need several minutes lets
> say up to a 1/2 hour in order to read ther active file...in which
> is empty ? /var/spool/news/active.read has nothing inside. 
> 
> Is this normal ? 

Hmm.  My /var/spool/news/active.read is also empty, so that is probably OK.

I have seen gnus appear to hang up for indefinite periods if I try to read
a newsgroup that is not yet present.  That is, if I subscribe to a new
group leafnode puts a dummy message on the server saying that new messages
will be downloaded the next time fetchnews runs.  If I catchup that group
and then try to read it again before running fetchnews, or if there are no
new articles in the group after I run fetchnews, gnus hangs up trying to
get the non-existent new articles.  Once fetchnews brings down some new
articles for the group, gnus works fine.  Could this be what is happening
in your case?

Lars, I had not thought of that as a bug.  And I don't know if it would be
considered a bug in gnus or in leafnode.  Reading from a real news server
gnus would likely never encounter a newsgroup that was totally empty.  But
it is kind of uncool -- perhaps there should be a graceful timeout or
something?  If this is worth looking into I will try to help.

-- 

Bud Rogers <budr@sirinet.net>

Re: gnus with leafnode

[Pieter Wenk]

Hallo Bud,

>Are you actually able to read newsgroups from your leafnode installation
>using Netscape or mutt?  If so your leafnode setup is probably fine.

Yes. Under Netscape I have subscribed a certain number of
NG..After having fired fetchnews...I can now read, mail etc.,
Under Netscape it works...and with the nifty mutt I have
also no problems.


>> Now is it possible, that gnus will need several minutes lets
>> say up to a 1/2 hour in order to read ther active file...in which
>> is empty ? /var/spool/news/active.read has nothing inside. 
>> 
>> Is this normal ? 
>
>Hmm.  My /var/spool/news/active.read is also empty, so that is probably OK.

Bud I tried to put read-active file to 'some. But this was
not a good idea. I was gratified with a crash of gnus and xemcas.

But I do not think this is a bug...I guess it's just not possible
setting 'some with the setup I have.


>I have seen gnus appear to hang up for indefinite periods if I try to read
>a newsgroup that is not yet present.  That is, if I subscribe to a new
>group leafnode puts a dummy message on the server saying that new messages
>will be downloaded the next time fetchnews runs.

I did run fetchnews again during this after-noon. I have something
like 30 subscribed NG...some have quite trafic. But, the correspon-
ding messages "were fetched".



  If I catchup that group
>and then try to read it again before running fetchnews, or if there are no
>new articles in the group after I run fetchnews, gnus hangs up trying to
>get the non-existent new articles.  Once fetchnews brings down some new
>articles for the group, gnus works fine.  Could this be what is happening
>in your case?

Hmm. I just fetched this after-noon. I have in fact no buggy NG's
subscribed, some of them I know since years. I just can understand
that it's taking "ages" in getting these subscribed NG under
gnus in form of the usual Group-Summary.

When I am talking "hanging", it seems that gnus is reading
the active file from nntp server, which is localhost. 
During this period, it's not possible to give "any" commands.
It's just sucking...

Under Netscape these groups were read within minutes...

I run a 586 Machine with 64 RAM.

Do you have an idea, why this is taking so long ?

And I still have not as yet the "Group Summary".

Many thanks

Regards
--- 
        
                           / /  (_)____ __ ____  __
      Pieter Wenk         / /__/ / _ \/ // /\ \/ /  Vevey/Switzerland
                         /____/_/_//_/\_,_/ /_/\_\

Re: gnus with leafnode

[Bud Rogers]

Pieter Wenk <pwenk@urbanet.ch> writes:

> Yes. Under Netscape I have subscribed a certain number of
> NG..After having fired fetchnews...I can now read, mail etc.,
> Under Netscape it works...and with the nifty mutt I have
> also no problems.

[...]

> When I am talking "hanging", it seems that gnus is reading
> the active file from nntp server, which is localhost. 
> During this period, it's not possible to give "any" commands.
> It's just sucking...

Pieter,

I'm sorry you're having such a time with this, and I'm sorry I can't be of
more help.  It sounds very much like gnus-read-active-file is the heart of
the problem.  

One other thing I have seen recently with pgnus.  I made some changes to my
.gnus but they did not take effect until I manually deleted .gnus.elc and
byte-compiled the new .gnus.  I don't know if that has anything to do with
your situation.


-- 

Bud Rogers <budr@sirinet.net>

Re: gnus with leafnode

[John Markus Bjorndalen]

[-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8851-1, Size: 914 bytes --]

Bud Rogers <budr@sirinet.net> writes:

[..]

This isn't leafnode-specific, it seems. 

I tried using noffle[1] with pgnus on my notebook (a cvs version from
a few days ago and a cvs version from today), and pgnus got stuck
trying to read the active file. Changing the NNTPSERVER variable to
point to my "proper" hostname (after testing with telnet that I could
connect to the news server with both localhost and my hostname) didn't
change anything.

I managed to get past this point by pressing C-g, which meant that the
news groups wouldn't show up with information about new articles etc.
I could access the news groups by just entering them though, which
would update that group in the group buffer.

It works very nice with Netscape (4.7) and Lynx. Netscape only needed
a few seconds to scan for new articles. 

1. http://home.t-online.de/home/markus.enzenberger/noffle.html



-- 
	// John Markus Bjørndalen

Re: gnus with leafnode

[Kevin Ryde]

Pieter Wenk <pwenk@urbanet.ch> writes:
>
> When I am talking "hanging", it seems that gnus is reading
> the active file from nntp server, which is localhost. 
> During this period, it's not possible to give "any" commands.
> It's just sucking...

There's a "debugmode" in the leafnode config that puts trace stuff to
the syslog, it might show what's going on.  It might go to
/var/log/syslog, or maybe somewhere else, or maybe you'll need to set
some syslog options.  There's nntp-record-commands inside gnus too
which shows just the commands going out.