Re: reading news over telnet

[Max Froumentin <masmef@maths.bath.ac.uk>]

...is possible, even though I've had to modify the gnus source (commented
out 1 line):

AFAIK Whatever controls the traffic between the subnet here and the
outside world filters out NNTP as well as RLOGIN connections, but not
TELNET. This is why using 
(setq nntp-open-connection-function nntp-open-rlogin) doesn't seem to work.

nntp-open-telnet didn't work either but for a different reason: just
after reading the user password, nntp-open-telnet erases the terminal
buffer and then waits for a prompt:

	(process-send-string
	 proc (concat
	       (or nntp-telnet-passwd
		   (setq nntp-telnet-passwd
			 (mail-source-read-passwd "Password: ")))
	       "\n"))
	(erase-buffer)
	(nntp-wait-for-string nntp-telnet-shell-prompt)

What happens in my case is that the prompt is always written in the
buffer *before* the latter is erased. Thus nntp-wait-for-string
hangs. Everything seems to work when I comment out (erase-buffer).

My group parameters are now:

(nntp "firewall"
      (nntp-address "mary.bath.ac.uk")
      (nntp-open-connection-function nntp-open-telnet)
      (nntp-end-of-line "\n")
      (nntp-telnet-parameters
       ("exec" "telnet" "-8" "${NNTPSERVER:=news.freshmeat.net}" "nntp")))

I suppose I could send a patch or something to have this corrected in
the next gnus release, but with my limited knowledge of
gnus/emacs/elisp I'd rather be cautious and avoid damaging the nntp
backend...

Maybe someone who knows more than me will verify this change and
approve it.

Max.