Hi,

I've set up NNTP access on my BBS and used my newsgroup client (SeaMonkey)
to read messages.

However, everytime I read one message, it'd ask if I want to subscribe
to a messge#. How do I prevent this from happening? I'm guessing the NNTP server links messages using the message # based on the message base and not the actual newsgroup message id (or however that works).

I've looked at the message base settings but haven't come across something
that fixes this.

Any clarifications appreciated,

Edmund

... Hard work never killed anyone but why take a risk?

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/11/22 (Linux/32)
* Origin: Eagle's BBS (1:153/7083)

On 01 Dec 2021, Edmund Wong said the following...

Hi,

I've set up NNTP access on my BBS and used my newsgroup client
(SeaMonkey) to read messages.

However, everytime I read one message, it'd ask if I want to subscribe
to a messge#. How do I prevent this from happening? I'm guessing the NNTP server links messages using the message # based on the message base and not the actual newsgroup message id (or however that works).

I've looked at the message base settings but haven't come across
something that fixes this.

Any clarifications appreciated,

Hi,

This isn't really any help, but maybe it's your NNTP client? I use claws mail and thunderbird to access the echomail on my BBS via NNTP, and that doesn't happen on my system, so I would suggest maybe it's your NNTP client.

Have you tried either of the above clients I use? Perhaps give them a look as they might be better for your needs, unless the same happens with them too, and you'll be back to the start.

Sorry that this isn't really a "help" but maybe something to think about at least.

... I wish life had a scroll-back buffer.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/08/10 (Linux/64)
* Origin: thE qUAntUm wOrmhOlE, rAmsgAtE, uK. bbs.erb.pw (2:250/5)

Hi Christian,

This isn't really any help, but maybe it's your NNTP client? I use claws mail and thunderbird to access the echomail on my BBS via NNTP, and that doesn't happen on my system, so I would suggest maybe it's your NNTP client.

I'll take a look at claws. I use SeaMonkey (which is built with the same backend engine as Thunderbird); but will take a gander.

Thanks

Edmund

... If a pig loses its voice, is it disgruntled?

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/11/22 (Linux/32)
* Origin: Eagle's BBS (1:153/7083)

I've set up NNTP access on my BBS and used my newsgroup client
(SeaMonkey) to read messages.

I will have to get this installed and test with it.

It could very much be a bug or some incompatibility. Mystic's NNTP server I don't think gets a lot of use and could use some work as well specifically around the message IDs actually.

It could also be a client bug too, but I won't know until I get a chance to look at it.

... When cheese gets its picture taken, what does it say?

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/11/24 (Windows/64)
* Origin: Sector 7 * Mystic WHQ (1:129/215)

Hi g00r00,

It could very much be a bug or some incompatibility. Mystic's NNTP
server I don't think gets a lot of use and could use some work as well specifically around the message IDs actually.

I just did a test on a local message board.

Posting to the newsgroup (local) isn't a problem; but, when
I log on to mystic, and do a reply to the local message,
and then I go into the newsgroup, and read that reply message,
I see a different message.

i.e.

1) in Mystic: Post message to local message board. [ok]
2) in NNTP client: post message to local message board. [ok]
3) in Mystic: Reply to message as posted in #2 [ok]
4) in NNTP client: Read message as posted in #3 [not ok]

In #4, I get some message from some other group (in
this case, it's FidoNet Binkley. Message from Paul Quinn to
Alan Ianson.

I'm going to do a message pack to see if this fixes it.

Thanks

Edmund

... Just another prisoner of gravity!

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/01 (Linux/32)
* Origin: Eagle's BBS (1:153/7083)

Hi g00r00,

Just an addendum. Packing message base does nothing to the
weird post being viewed in the NNTP client.


Edmund

... There are two types of people; those who finish what they start and

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/01 (Linux/32)
* Origin: Eagle's BBS (1:153/7083)

Posting to the newsgroup (local) isn't a problem; but, when
I log on to mystic, and do a reply to the local message,
and then I go into the newsgroup, and read that reply message,
I see a different message.

Have you tried this with any other news clients? I will try to get a test done this weekend to see what I can figure out.

... If you can't make it good, make it LOOK good. -Bill Gates.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/11/24 (Windows/64)
* Origin: Sector 7 * Mystic WHQ (1:129/215)

On 02 Dec 2021, Edmund Wong said the following...

Posting to the newsgroup (local) isn't a problem; but, when
I log on to mystic, and do a reply to the local message,
and then I go into the newsgroup, and read that reply message,
I see a different message.

I ran into this with Thunderbird a while back and essentially what you're seeing is a result of the interaction between your client and the way the Mystic NNTP server reports message IDs. I know g00r00 has been aware of the thing with IDs but has had limited time to prioritize it so far.

Mystic at present uses the post number in the message area as the NNTP
message ID so for example every area with posts in it will each have a message with ID 1.

Seamonkey/Thunderbird on the other hand expects unique IDs per server so when reading it will check its cache for a given message ID and just show you that before trying to download anything. The client makes no distinction about which message area/newsgroup you're currently looking at if it has that ID cached already. Some other news clients happen to account for this possibility, although the RFC doesn't require them to.

NNTP Message-IDs don't have to be numeric or have any correlation to the message's slot in the messagebase so there's a lot of possible approaches to generating them based on message contents or metadata.

... "No comment" is a comment.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/11/06 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Subcarrier BBS (1:249/400)

Mystic at present uses the post number in the message area as the NNTP message ID so for example every area with posts in it will each have a message with ID 1.

I'll get you caught up with the latest happenings :)

Mystic has unique article IDs across all message bases and messages and the server is capable of properly responding to them but its disabled. For example here is a HEAD command sent to the NTTP server on my test system with this system enabled:

head <2.7cb38be1.193799f9@mystictestdomain.com>

And here is the response:

221 1 <2.7cb38be1.193799f9@mystictestdomain.com> article retrieved - head follows
From: g00r00
Newsgroups: local.test
Subject: msg #0
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 2020 18:21:00 GMT
Message-ID: <2.7cb38be1.193799f9@mystictestdomain.com>

The problem I face before I can enable it is this: JAM message bases do not have any sort of message serialization other than the message number which can change (making it not useful). Because of this, every message must have a MSGID (even local messages) for this system to work.

If there is no MSGID, then Mystic NNTP cannot generate a unique Article-ID and by RFC standard it must respond with a <0> for the ID. This would probably be even worse than the current system.

The holdup for me to enable this is that I need to ensure every message has a MSGID. The first step was to build the pack message base function in MUTIL to automatically generate a MSGID for any message that doesn't have one when packing. I did finish this part.

The next would be to make sure any message posted in Mystic has a MSGID even if its a QWK network or local post and this part isn't done. After that I would need to make sure any posts from NNTP, QWK packets, MUTIL Posts etc also generate a MSGID even if local or non-FTN. The final step would be that the tossers importing into Mystic (MUTIL and QWKPOLL) must also generate a MSGID on the fly for any message sourced outside of your BBS that is missing one.

Then there is also the problem then with those who may use third party tossers or utilities to post messages since they might not be able to guarantee that every message will have a MSGID.

Long story longer, that is the challenge: Making sure MSGID exists on every message on your BBS. The limitation isn't on the NNTP side of things at this point. I can make sure Mystic does it but for those who use third party utilities that could be problematic.

I am not sure how various newsreaders treat messages without an article ID (ie an article ID of <0>).

... Old computers make great boat anchors

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/11/24 (Windows/64)
* Origin: Sector 7 * Mystic WHQ (1:129/215)

On 06 Dec 2021, g00r00 said the following...

Mystic has unique article IDs across all message bases and messages and the server is capable of properly responding to them but its disabled.

That's cool to hear at least. I hadn't guessed it was developed that far.

The problem I face before I can enable it is this: JAM message bases do not have any sort of message serialization other than the message number which can change (making it not useful). Because of this, every message must have a MSGID (even local messages) for this system to work.
...
Long story longer, that is the challenge: Making sure MSGID exists on every message on your BBS. The limitation isn't on the NNTP side of things at this point. I can make sure Mystic does it but for those who use third party utilities that could be problematic.
I am not sure how various newsreaders treat messages without an article
ID (ie an article ID of <0>).

Yeah third party tossers would certainly throw a monkey wrench regardless of what Mystic does. Without a stored MSGID you could possibly use other fields to generate a consistent NNTP message ID on the fly but then the question would be what fields are sufficiently static and up to the task? Some combination of datewritten + sendername + the message base name?

AFAIK at least for the Mozilla-based readers, they would treat everything with message ID 0 as the same message, making the first article downloaded with ID 0 "it" for all of them. So yeah that'd probably be worse.

... DOS=HIGH? I knew it was on something...
--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/11/06 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Subcarrier BBS (1:249/400)

Yeah third party tossers would certainly throw a monkey wrench
regardless of what Mystic does. Without a stored MSGID you could
possibly use other fields to generate a consistent NNTP message ID on
the fly but then the question would be what fields are sufficiently
static and up to the task? Some combination of datewritten + sendername
+ the message base name?

In the case of the article ID it has to be more than that, since the article ID needs to be able to consistantly resolve to a message. A date written and name would be too vague. Sometimes when messages are processed in batch it'll be possible for two messages to have the same datestamp from the same person.

Mystic uses a unique identifier and some hash values along with the primary key of the message base to generate the article ID. This way it can figure out the base and then more quickly perform a lookup using the hash first to limit the result set (before loading the full message to check the MSGID for a match).

The NNTP server can create MSGID on the fly if they are missing so it will always generate an article ID (which I have enabled now). My concern with doing that was there will be added risk of message base corruption if the NNTP server needs to do massive updates to generate unique IDs at the same time something like message tossing is happening.

In order to reduce the amount of times the NNTP server needs to generate MSGIDs I went back and changed things (in the next build) so that Mystic will always generate MSGID even if its a local, newsgroup, or QWK networked base...

The only remaining thing would be to add MSGID on the fly when tossing messages from QWK and Fido networks. I've added it into QWK tossing now too but for Fido I am a little hesistant to do so. Technically adding a missing MSGID would be changing message content and anytime Mystic's tosser has the option to do that there is a subset of Fido people who have huge meltdowns over it.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/06 (Windows/64)
* Origin: Sector 7 * Mystic WHQ (1:129/215)