Message-ID: Path: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!news-out.cwix.com!newsfeed.cwix.com!torn!qcarhaaa.nortelnetworks.com!bcarh189.ca.nortel.com!zcarh46f.ca.nortel.com!ferret.ocunix.on.ca!not-for-mail Date: 27 Oct 2002 05:00:01 GMT Supersedes: Expires: 27 Nov 2002 05:00:01 GMT Newsgroups: news.admin.misc,news.announce.newusers,news.answers From: clewis@ferret.ocunix.on.ca (Chris Lewis) Followup-To: poster Reply-To: nobody Organization: eh? Subject: How to become a Usenet site Summary: Periodic posting about the basic steps involved in configuring a machine to store USENET news. Approved: netannounce@deshaw.com, news-answers-request@MIT.Edu Lines: 706 Xref: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu news.admin.misc:78742 news.announce.newusers:4672 news.answers:239883 Archive-name: usenet/site-setup Last-modified: Sun Apr 13 00:41:20 EDT 1997 How to Become a Usenet Site Chris Lewis Previous Author Jonathan Kamens The most up-to-date copy of this FAQ can always be obtained from: ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/usenet/site-setup NOTE: I do not operate a "help service". Please do not mail me unless you have corrections, suggestions or additions for this FAQ. Please note that the Reply-To: is intentionally erroneous - each time this gets posted, a few dozen people send me copies of the FAQ for some unknown reason. The true address is sitefaq@ferret.ocunix.on.ca Changes: Removed site list. It obsoletes too quickly. Altered reference for MSDOS mail/Usenet FAQ. Updates to remain current. ------------------------------ Subject: Introduction This article attempts to summarize, in a general way, the steps involved in setting up a machine to be on Usenet. It assumes that you already have some sort of Usenet access (otherwise, how did you get this article?), or at the very least, that you have ftp or mail server access to get to some of the files mentioned in it, and that you are trying to configure your own site to be on Usenet after | using some other site for some time. If this assumption is incorrect, then ask whoever made this article available to you to help you get access to the resources mentioned below. Before reading this posting, you should be familiar with the contents of the introductory postings in the news.announce.newusers newsgroup, most importantly the posting titled "Usenet Software: History and Sources". Many of the terms used below are defined in those postings. The news.announce.newusers postings (and the other Usenet postings mentioned below) are accessible in the periodic posting archive on rtfm.mit.edu [18.70.0.24], in /pub/usenet via anonymous ftp, or via E-mail by sending a message to mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu (send a message with "help" in the body to get more information). One final comment... Many people get confused between what Usenet and the Internet is. The Internet is, simply, the network of computers in the world talking to each other via TCP/IP - a specific communications protocol which is used by many applications, such as mail, Usenet etc. In contrast, Usenet is essentially a multi-user BBS system that allows people to talk to each other on various subjects. The Internet is very much like the wires in a cable TV system, and Usenet is the TV programs themselves. It's important to note that you don't have to be on the Internet to be a part of Usenet, and vice-versa. ------------------------------ Introduction Table of Contents Steps to Getting Connected Make the decision -- do you *really* want to do this? Find a site to feed you news and/or mail. Finding feeds for a UUCP site. By Comp.mail.maps By News.admin.misc Commercial Services Go satellite... Finding feeds for an Internet site. Get the software. Do what it says. Register your site on the network. Obtaining RFCs Bibliography Please comment on this posting! ------------------------------ Subject: Steps to Getting Connected There are five basic steps involved in configuring a machine to be a Usenet site. ------------------------------ Subject: Make the decision -- do you *really* want to do this? If you just want to read Usenet yourself, then putting your machine onto Usenet is probably not what you want to do. The process of doing so can be time-consuming, and regular maintenance is also required. Furthermore, the resources consumed by a full Usenet setup on a machine are significant: - disk space for the programs (a few Mb for the binaries, another couple of Mb for any sources you keep online); | - disk space for the articles - currently (as of May, 1996) | around 1.2Gb a day, although it is possible to minimize the amount of disk space consumed by articles by carefully selecting which newsgroups and/or hierarchies you wish to receive; - Communications bandwidth: for practicality, you should have either a fractional T1 or T1 (1.544Mbps) or faster NNTP link. It is no longer possible to run a full feed over 28.8K modem or 56K TCP/IP NNTP links; and - fees if you're paying someone to provide you with a news feed. | A serious Usenet server system, carrying all of the standard 8 Usenet | hierarchies, a large hunk of alt.* and various regionals, is typically | going to need a Sparc 20/HP 9000/7xx series or better, with 64Mb or | more RAM, and at least 8Gb of disk. Alternatively, an equivalent | Linux-based SCSI Pentium system has been used with success. One | particularly good high end configuration, is INN 1.4unoff4 on a | multiprocess Sparc 20 or Ultra, with 256 Mb of RAM and 12Gb of disk. | If you want to build inexpensive "building block" servers for wide | geographic areas, multiple HP 9000/712, with 96Mb of RAM and enough disk, | runs out of CPU, LAN and disk bandwidth simultaneously at about | 500 simultaneous users. A home system for a few people, can usually fit into a much smaller machine, such as a Sun 3 or 386-class PC compatible, plus 25-50Mb of disk for news. Until recently, my home machine was an AT&T 3b1 (about the performance of a IBM PC/AT) with 60Mb of disk - it was just fine for a small newsfeed and a fair amount of mail. You might choose, instead, to get an account on a public-access Usenet site on which you can read news by dialing up. See, for example, the "Nixpub posting" articles in comp.misc and the "PDIAL" article in alt.bbs.lists. There are Freenets springing up all over the place. Even if there are no public-access Usenet sites that are a local phone call away from you, you might still choose this approach, especially if you only read a few (low traffic) groups. Using a public-access site that is accessible via PC Pursuit or some other packet network might still be cheaper and/or easier than setting up the feed, transferring the news and configuring your machine to store news locally. | You should be sure that the benefits you are going to get by storing | news locally are going to outweigh the costs before deciding to | proceed. If you want news for a standalone machine, you can either | set up a genuine news feed with the appropriate software, or you can | run an offline newsreader under SLIP or PPP connection to an Internet | service provider. The case for reading and answering news offline | (avoiding long-distance charges) is a convincing one. To explain why, | let me include an alternative perspective, from joe@jshark.rn.com, on | working offline: When you get to long distance calls, reading the news on-line gets the cost rising fast. A few seconds to skip an article you've no interest in, maybe a minute to take in a good one plus more time to save it and download it later. But when the whole lot is batched together (as news), a) it only takes a few minutes and b) it's all conveniently automated. Sure, configuring the hardware and software may take a (small) time - but it's something you only do once. | For SLIP/PPP users, the new generation of offline newsreaders allow for | fast processing of updates to newsgroups, retrieval of new articles and | posting of replies and emails. See also alt.usenet.offline-reader for | discussion of such products. Perhaps I see "news administration" as a simple task because one of the ways I make my living is by operating news servers - I am presently responsible for one of the largest non-University, non-ISP news systems in the world - news administration is now second nature. But I believe that, aside from the very initial stages, and provided that you haven't cut too many corners in hardware, news administration is relatively easy. It should be almost zero maintainance on a properly selected "small" system. ----------------------------- Subject: Find a site to feed you news and/or mail. In order to make your machine a Usenet site, you need to find other sites on Usenet that are willing to feed you news and/or mail. You might want to locate more than one such site if you want higher reliability. ----------------------------- Subject: Finding feeds for a UUCP site. If you are going to be using a modem (and, presumably, UUCP) to transfer your news and mail, then then there are several resources you can use when trying to locate a feed site: ----------------------------- Subject: By Comp.mail.maps Find the postings in the comp.mail.maps newsgroup for your state, country, or whatever. Look in it for sites that sound like they are local to you. Contact their administrators and ask if they would be willing to give you a feed. Comp.mail.maps is archived at several anonymous ftp and mail server sites, including ftp.uu.net, so you can examine map entries even if the maps have expired at your news-reading site (or if you do not currently have Usenet access). See the article entitled "UUCP map for README" in the comp.mail.maps newsgroup or archives for more information about the maps. The comp.mail.maps postings are also archived in rtfm.mit.edu's periodic posting archive, which was mentioned in detail above. ------------------------------ Subject: By News.admin.misc Post a message to news.admin.misc. If at all possible, post it with a restricted distribution, so that only people who are likely to be able to give you a feed will have to get it (e.g. if you have posting access on a machine in Massachusetts, and the site you're setting up is going to be in Massachusetts, then post with a distribution of "ne"). Note that you can post to news.admin.misc even if you do not have direct Usenet access right now, as long as you have E-mail access, by sending your message to a mail-to-news gateway. However, if you use a gateway, you probably can't use a restricted distribution as described above, since the gateway probably isn't in the distribution you want to post to, and besides, it's not clear that they listen to the | "Distribution:" header in postings that are mailed to it. Note that | there doesn't seem to be any public mail-to-news gateways around any | longer due to abuse. When posting your message, try to be as specific as possible. Mention where you are, how you intend to transfer news from your feed site to you (e.g. what kind of modem, how fast), approximately how many newsgroups you are going to want to get and from which hierarchies, and perhaps what kind of machine it's all for. A descriptive Subject line such as "news feed wanted -- Boston, MA" is also useful. If there is a regional hierarchy for the distribution in which you want a feed, then you might want to post a message in one of the regional newsgroups as well, or cross-post your message to one of the regional newsgroups. Look first for an "admin" group (e.g. "ne.admin"), then (if there is no admin group) a "config" group, then for a "general" or "wanted" group. ------------------------------ Subject: Commercial Services If all else fails, you may have to resort to paying someone to provide you with a feed. For more information about many network service providers, see the anonymous ftp file /dirofdirs/provider on ftp.internic.net. Also, the book "Connecting to the Internet" (see the "Bibliography" section below) contains a list of Internet service providers and instructions for getting an updated version of the list. Some regional network service providers, especially in large urban areas, offer both UUCP and TCP/IP service via modem or leased line. If you can find such a company, the cost of a dedicated (leased line) Internet connection will often be cheaper and more desirable than a UUCP connection, if you plan on using it for a full newsfeed or for frequent downloading. Some companies can offer combined voice and data connections using T1 links, for large-scale users seeking both Internet access and low-cost toll telephone service. For more information about the possibility of hooking up to the network, see the "How to Get Information about Networks" posting in news.announce.newusers. d. Special information for European users (This section discusses the various big European networks. There are also smaller service providers, such as ExNet Systems (see above), in Europe.) In Europe, you can get a feed from one of EUNet's national networks. EUNet has recently gone commercial, though particular national networks may still be not-for-profit. Most provide help on getting started, can provide source for the mail and news software and lists of sites who have indicated they will provide feeds. They also act as Internet forwarders (see below for more information on this). To contact them, try sending mail to postmaster@country.eu.net or newsmaster@country.eu.net. The "country" in this case should be whatever country you're in. See http://www.eunet.ch for more information on EUNet. Note that the national networks have a "no redistribution" policy and have the option to cut off sites which break this rule. There are other groups (such as sublink); see (a) and (b) above for suggestions on how to contact them. News can be had by satellite feed from Pagesat in Europe beginning 4Q 1995 or 1Q 1996. contact: Duane J. Dubay at the address given for Pagesat Inc. in the section on Satellite links. Subscribing to EUNet or to one of the NALnets (National Networks) currently requires to be member of EurOpen either directly or indirectly by being member of a NALUUG (National Unix User Group) affiliated to EurOpen. In the UK, smaller scale users and individuals can also get news access via Demon Internet Systems. They provide very cheap dialup Internet access, SLIP, PPP and name service entries. Contact them (contact information is given above) for more information. There are also several other network services providers, already operational (or to become soon available for some of them). Contrary to EUNet which generally accepts any organization as customer, those networks may have restrictions and accept only some kind of customers (generally academic and/or research) as they are sometimes government funded. Some of these networks are NORDunet (northern Europe), FUNET (Finland), SWITCH (Switzerland), EASInet (European Academic Supercomputing Initiative, mainly if not totally funded by IBM), DFN (Germany), PIPEX(UK) and RENATER (France). There are several anonymous ftp sites from which information about all of these networks and about networking in Europe in general might be obtained. They are ftp.switch.ch, ftp.easi.net, ftp.ripe.net, ftp.eu.net, corton.inria.fr and nic.nordu.net. Note that it is to your advantage to try to find a feed site that is directly on the Internet, if you are not going to be. Getting a feed from a site on the Internet will allow that site to act as your MX forwarder (see section 5 below), and the fact that you are only one hop off of the Internet will make both mail and news delivery fast (assuming that the feed you get from the Internet site is for both mail and news; of course, if you can only find someone willing to forward mail to you but not to traffic with you the heavier load of a news feed, then your mail delivery will still be fast). ------------------------------ Subject: Go satellite... You can obtain access to Usenet via a dedicated satellite dish and a subscription to the service. Pagesat Inc. provides the service, the equipment and software needed to operate your own satellite downlink. For more information and a complete literature package containing specification sheets, a system overview, and color pictures, please email your postal address to info@pagesat.net or call Pagesat at (415) 424-0384. In the US Pagesat Inc. 992 San Antonio Rd. Palo Alto, CA 94303 In Canada Westside Wholesale 2035 Louie Dr. Westbank BC Canada V4T1Y2 604-768-0955 ------------------------------ Subject: Finding feeds for an Internet site. It is beyond the scope of this document to discuss how you can get onto the Internet yourself. However, many of the service providers listed above provide Internet connections as well as newsfeeds and will help you through the process of getting onto the Internet. Furthermore, the book "Connecting to the Internet" (see the "Bibliography" section below) is a step-by-step to the process of getting connected, and contains a more extensive list of Internet service providers. If you are already on the Internet and would like your news feed to be over the Internet rather than over a modem link, then you might want to look in the UUCP maps in comp.mail.maps, as mentioned above, since many Usenet sites that are on the Internet are mentioned there. News.admin.misc and the commercial services listed above are also viable options. You can get a list of Dedicated Line Internet Access Providers from dlist@ora.com (just send an empty message). For a list of dialup Internet service providers, send email to info-deli-server@netcom.com with the single line query Send PDIAL ------------------------------ Subject: Get the software. The "Usenet Software" posting referenced above goes into quite a bit of detail about the software that is available. There are three components in the software at a Usenet site: (a) the software that transports the news (usually using either UUCP or NNTP), (b) the software that stores the news on the local disks, expires old articles, etc., and (c) the news-readers for looking at the news. For example, if you're a UNIX site on the Internet and you're going to be getting your news feed over the Internet, then you are probably going to want to get one of the news transport packages mentioned in the "Usenet Software" posting (e.g., INN or C News + NNTP), as well as one or more of the UNIX news readers mentioned there. Since you are probably going to be exchanging mail as well as news, and the mail software that is shipped with the OS you are using might not be powerful enough to handle mail exchanging with the rest of the Usenet, you might want to obtain new mail software as well. There are several packages you might choose you use. Discussion of them is beyond the scope of this document; the books referenced below will probably provide some useful information in this area. Furthermore, if you are a UNIX site, the posting by Chris Lewis "UNIX Email Software Survey FAQ [3 parts]", in news.admin.misc, comp.mail.misc and news.answers (ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/mail/setup/unix) provides a good introduction to the UNIX mail software that's out there. Finally, Eric S. Johansson 's "FAQ - UUCP Mail, News | and Gateway Software for PCs and MACs" posting will help you to find out more about the UUCP software that is available to you if you wish to run it on a PC or Macintosh computer. | [I understand that this FAQ is no longer separately posted, but see | the comp.os.msdos.mail-news FAQ] The basic idea is to go read the "Usenet Software" posting, and then to work from there. Europeans can ask their national backbone site, which will usually either be a software archive or be closely associated with one. UKNET, for example, provides an information pack explaining what is needed and where (and how) to get it. ------------------------------ Subject: Do what it says. Most of the software available for news transport or storage comes with installation instructions. Follow them. This part should be self-explanatory (although the instructions might not be :-). ------------------------------ Subject: Register your site on the network. The "traditional" method of advertising your site to the rest of the Usenet after setting it up is to get an entry for it added to the UUCP maps. Doing this involves choosing a name for your site and submitting a map entry indicating the name, other vital statistics, and a list of your feed sites, preferentially weighted. Since many Usenet sites still rely exclusively on the UUCP maps for routing mail, you will almost certainly want to register in the maps. To find out more about how to do this, read the "UUCP map for README" posting in comp.mail.maps, referenced above. However, the past several years have witnessed a dramatic increase in the number of sites choosing to register host names in the Internet Domain Name Service (DNS) hierarchy, in addition to getting a host entry added to the UUCP maps. The DNS hierarchy is becomingly increasingly standardized, and DNS name service is more reliable than the UUCP maps. Therefore, if you register a DNS name for your site, put that DNS name in your UUCP map entry as an alias for your site, and use the DNS address rather than the UUCP host name in your mail and Usenet postings, both UUCP hosts and hosts that do DNS will be able to get mail to you more efficiently and reliably. There are two types of DNS host records that are relevant here. If you have opted to contract with a company for a direct connection to the Internet, then you are probably going to want to register an address record advertising what your address will be on the Internet. Hosts which understand DNS can then use that record to connect directly to your machine and deliver mail to it. If, on the other hand, you are going to be getting your mail via UUCP from some other site, then the host record you will be registering is a Mail eXchange (MX) record. This record announces to the world that mail destined to your host can be directed instead to another host that IS directly on the Internet. That host is your "MX forwarder," and it must be one of your feed sites that knows how to deliver mail to you. In fact, you can have multiple MX records if you have multiple feeds on the Internet and want it to be possible for mail to be routed through all of them (for increased reliability), if they are willing. Note that if you use a commercial service provider for your mail feed, it will probably also be your MX forwarder. Even if none of your feeds are on the Internet, you may be able to get an MX record, by finding an Internet site that is willing to receive your mail and put it on its way through the correct UUCP route. There are currently at least a couple of sites willing to perform this service for no charge, in order to encourage the increased use of DNS records. You can therefore probably locate an MX forwarder by posting to news.admin.misc and asking if anyone is willing to forward for you. The procedure for registering a DNS record is quite simple. For some Network Information Centers (the people who handle domain registration, a.k.a. NICs), e.g., the InterNIC (see Internet RFC 1400 for more information about the InterNIC) which handles domain registration for the original Arpanet domains (COM, EDU, etc., as opposed to the geographic domains such as US for the United States, FR for France, etc.), it takes a month or less; others, unfortunately, might take a lot longer. Note that many commercial service providers, such as UUNET, will take care of this for you when you ask for a network connection or news/mail feed from them. Whether you decide to register an address record or an MX record, you need to decide what your DNS host name is going to be. Since the DNS is arranged in a hierarchy, you need to decide what hierarchy your name will appear in. For example, you might choose to be in the ".us" domain if you are in the United States and want to be in the United States geographical hierarchy. Alternatively, you might choose ".edu" for a University, ".org" for a non-profit organization, ".com" for a commercial company, etc. For more information about the various hierarchies and about choosing a host name, see the "How to Get Information about Networks" posting already referenced. If you are not in the US, you're theoretically supposed to have no choice about the top-level domain -- it should always be the two-letter ISO code for your country (".fr", ".de", etc.). However, depending on how and how well you are connected to the network, you might be able to get away with being in one of the older domains mentioned above (".edu", ".org", etc.). If you want to find out how to get a host name in a particular European domain, you can probably start by sending mail to hostmaster@mcsun.eu.net and asking for more information. Once you have determined your host name, you need to determine one or more hosts (preferably two or three, so that even if one is having trouble, the others will fill in for it) that will act as your "name servers," advertising your host name to anyone who asks for it. Note that many hierarchies have their own name servers, which means that when you go through the process of figuring out which domain your host name will be in, you may find some name servers available to you already. Furthermore, if you opt to go with a commercial service provider as described above, your service provider will probably be willing to act as a name server. Different domain-administration organizations may require fewer or more name servers (e.g. the NIC (mentioned below) requires at least two). Once you've got your host name picked out, you need to submit an application to the authorities for the domain you've chosen. Many of the domains, for example, are managed by the InterNIC -- to submit an application to one of those domains, you would get the file DOMAIN-TEMPLATE.TXT via anonymous ftp from rs.internic.net (ftp://rs.internic.net/templates/domain-template.txt) fill it out, and mail it to hostmaster@internic.net. You will probably determine the correct method for applying for a host name in your domain during the course of investigating which domain to put your host name in. If you submit an application and don't get any acknowlegement or response in a couple of weeks, it's a good idea to send another note to the same address as you sent your original application to, asking if it was received. Even if you aren't going to be connecting directly to Internet at the start, if your site is using any TCP/IP-based equipment, you should request a block of IP addresses, to save future transition headaches. Request one Class C address per subnet, or a Class B if your site has a large number of systems on multiple subnets (for the precise guidelines, see Internet RFCs 1366 and 1367). If you don't understand any of this and don't intend on getting on the Internet, don't worry about it. If/when you do decide to get onto the Internet, your service provider should be prepared to help you understand what needs to be done. Once your application has been approved and your name entered into your name servers' databases, update the mail software on your system and on your MX forwarder's system to recognize and use the new domain. [A final note: Much of the information in this section about the DNS system is sketchy. It is intentionally so, since all of this information is available from a number of different sources, and they cover it much better than I can here. If you are interested in finding out more about how the DNS works, you are strongly urged yet again to read the "How to Get Information About Networks" posting and to follow up on the sources of documentation that it references. You might also want to read the book "Connecting to the Internet"; see the entry for it in the "Bibliography" section below.] ------------------------------ Subject: Obtaining RFCs RFCs can be obtained via FTP from VENERA.ISI.EDU, with the pathname in-notes/rfcnnnn.txt (where "nnnn" refers to the number of the RFC). Login with FTP username "anonymous" and password "guest". RFCs can also be obtained via electronic mail from VENERA.ISI.EDU by using the RFC-INFO service. Address the request to "rfc-info@isi.edu" with a message body of: Retrieve: RFC Doc-ID: RFCnnnn (Where "nnnn" refers to the number of the RFC (always use 4 digits - the DOC-ID of RFC-822 is "RFC0822")). The RFC-INFO@ISI.EDU server provides other ways of selecting RFCs based on keywords and such; for more information send a message to "rfc-info@isi.edu" with the message body "help: help". ------------------------------ Subject: Bibliography In addition to the resources already mentioned, there are several books which discuss getting on the Internet and Usenet and/or UUCP maintenance. Here's a bibliography of a few of them (some of these entries are culled from a book-list posting by Mitch Wright in comp.unix.questions): TITLE: Connecting to the Internet AUTHOR: Estrada, Susan PUBLISHER: O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. DATE: 1993 PAGES: 188 ISBN: 1-56592-061-9 APPROX_COST: 15.95 KEYWORDS: Internet SUGGESTED_BY: Jonathan Kamens SUPPLIERS E-mail: nuts@ora.com Phone#: 1-800-338-NUTS AUTHOR: Albitz, Paul AUTHOR: Liu, Cricket: TITLE: DNS and BIND, PUBLISHER: O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. Date: October 1992. ISBN: 0-56592-010-4 SUGGESTED_BY: Chris Lewis SUPPLIERS E-mail: nuts@ora.com Phone#: 1-800-338-NUTS TITLE: Managing UUCP and Usenet AUTHOR: O'Reilly, Tim AUTHOR: Todino, Grace SUBJECT: Introduction PUBLISHER: O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. DATE: 1990 PAGES: 289 ISBN: 0-937175-48-X APPROX_COST: 24.95 KEYWORDS: Nutshell Handbook SUGGESTED_BY: Mitch Wright SUPPLIERS E-mail: nuts@ora.com Phone#: 1-800-338-NUTS The above book is the classic reference, but is now obsolete. It doesn't mention INN (or Taylor UUCP), and barely even discusses C news. I understand a new version is in the works by some of the most respected people in the field. TITLE: Unix Communications AUTHOR: Anderson, Bart AUTHOR: Costales, Barry AUTHOR: Henderson, Harry SUBJECT: Communication Reference PUBLISHER: The Waite Group DATE: 1991 PAGES: 736 ISBN: 0-672-22773-8 APPROX_COST: 29.95 KEYWORDS: UUCP, Usenet COMMENTS Covers everything the end user needs to know about email, Usenet and UUCP. TITLE: Using UUCP and Usenet AUTHOR: Todino, Grace AUTHOR: Dougherty, Dale SUBJECT: Introduction PUBLISHER: O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. DATE: 1990 PAGES: 210 ISBN: 0-937175-10-2 APPROX_COST: 21.95 KEYWORDS: Nutshell Handbook SUGGESTED_BY: Mitch Wright SUPPLIERS E-mail: nuts@ora.com Phone#: 1-800-338-NUTS If you are going to be setting up a UUCP/modem Usenet site, you will probably find these books quite useful, especially if the UUCP documentation that comes with the OS you're running is sparse. The documentation that comes with Taylor UUCP is excellent, and well worth reading even if you're not using Taylor UUCP. ------------------------------ Subject: Please comment on this posting! Comments about, suggestions about or corrections to this posting are welcomed. If you would like to ask me to change this posting in some way, the method I appreciate most is for you to actually make the desired modifications to a copy of the posting, and then to send me the modified posting, or a context diff between my posted version and your modified version (if you do the latter, make sure to include in your mail the "Version:" line from my posted version). Submitting changes in this way makes dealing with them easier for me and helps to avoid misunderstandings about what you are suggesting. Rich Braun provided most of the information above about registering DNS records, and provided other useful comments and suggestions. joe@jshark.rn.com provided some very useful rewriting as well as some different perspectives that helped to make the article more general, as well as providing some specific information about working in Europe, as well as providing other useful comments. The following people provided useful comments and suggestions about this article: [Elided to prevent UCE address collection.]