1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388
389
390
391
392
393
394
395
396
397
398
399
400
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424
|
<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"><title>Leafnode FAQ</title><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.65.1"></head><body bgcolor="white" text="black" link="#0000FF" vlink="#840084" alink="#0000FF"><div class="article" lang="en"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h1 class="title"><a name="id2432847"></a>Leafnode FAQ</h1></div><div><div class="author"><h3 class="author"><span class="honorific">Dr</span>. <span class="firstname">Cornelius</span> <span class="surname">Krasel</span></h3></div></div><div><div class="author"><h3 class="author"><span class="firstname">Matthias</span> <span class="surname">Andree</span></h3></div></div><div><p class="copyright">Copyright 2002 Cornelius Krasel</p></div><div><p class="copyright">Copyright 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 Matthias Andree</p></div><div><p class="pubdate">$Date: 2005/03/04 02:13:44 $</p></div></div><div></div><hr></div><div class="toc"><p><b>Table of Contents</b></p><dl><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="#FAQ">Leafnode frequently asked questions, with answers.</a></span></dt><dd><dl><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#id2434661">Installation problems</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#id2480142">Configuration problems</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#id2435867">Problems at run time</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#id2492279">Problems with particular newsreaders</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#id2492408">License issues</a></span></dt></dl></dd><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="#backtrace">Obtaining a stack backtrace</a></span></dt><dd><dl><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#id2492562">From a core file.</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#id2492615">Running a program under gdb supervision.</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#id2492730">From a running/hanging leafnode
program.</a></span></dt></dl></dd><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="#redhat-xinetd">Red Hat and the inetd vs. xinetd issue.</a></span></dt></dl></div><div class="sect1" lang="en"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both"><a name="FAQ"></a>Leafnode frequently asked questions, with answers.</h2></div></div><div></div></div><div class="sect2" lang="en"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a name="id2434661"></a>Installation problems</h3></div></div><div></div></div><div class="qandaset"><dl><dt>Q: <a href="#id2434669">Leafnode does not compile on my Mac
OS X system.</a></dt><dt>Q: <a href="#id2480084">Compiling causes a message
'SA_RESETHAND undeclared'!</a></dt><dt>Q: <a href="#id2480101">I cannot compile leafnode on Linux!</a></dt></dl><table border="0" summary="Q and A Set"><col align="left" width="1%"><tbody><tr class="question"><td align="left" valign="top"><a name="id2434669"></a><a name="id2434671"></a><b>Q:</b></td><td align="left" valign="top"><p>Leafnode does not compile on my Mac
OS X system.</p></td></tr><tr class="answer"><td align="left" valign="top"><b>A:</b></td><td align="left" valign="top"><p>Apple introduced <a href="http://developer.apple.com/techpubs/macosx/ReleaseNotes/TwoLevelNamespaces.html" target="_top">Two-Level
Namespace Executables</a> with
MacOS X 10.1. This change affects how
the linker works, and the linker itself
is driven by the
<span class="application">libtool</span> parts that ship
with PCRE. <span class="application">libtool</span> as of that version
and up to version 1.4.2 does not yet
support the new linker semantics of
MacOS X 10.1, and the compile broke up
to and including leafnode 1.9.27.</p><p>Since leafnode 1.9.28, the embedded
<tt class="filename">pcre/</tt> directory
contains two changes to overcome these
problems:</p><div class="orderedlist"><ol type="1"><li><p>the
embedded
<span class="application">libtool</span>
parts in <tt class="filename">configure</tt>are patched to detect
these new MacOS versions and
pass appropriate options to the
linker.</p></li><li><p>When leafnode uses the
embedded libtool, it passes the
<tt class="option">--disable-shared</tt>
option to PCRE's
<tt class="filename">configure</tt>,
which avoids this trouble with
shared libraries and speeds up
the build -- leafnode will links
statically anyhow to avoid the
PCRE installation. The file
<tt class="filename">configure.gnu</tt>
does that, and it will not get
applied if you explicitly
configure
<tt class="filename">pcre/</tt>.</p></li></ol></div><p>So, effectively, an update to leafnode
1.9.28 should fix this problem. If it
does not, contact the leafnode mailing
list.</p></td></tr><tr class="question"><td align="left" valign="top"><a name="id2480084"></a><a name="id2480086"></a><b>Q:</b></td><td align="left" valign="top"><p>Compiling causes a message
'SA_RESETHAND undeclared'!</p></td></tr><tr class="answer"><td align="left" valign="top"><b>A:</b></td><td align="left" valign="top"><p>This means that
your operating system is too old and
lacks this symbol which is required by
POSIX.</p></td></tr><tr class="question"><td align="left" valign="top"><a name="id2480101"></a><a name="id2480104"></a><b>Q:</b></td><td align="left" valign="top"><p>I cannot compile leafnode on Linux!</p></td></tr><tr class="answer"><td align="left" valign="top"><b>A:</b></td><td align="left" valign="top"><p>Another common reason for the build to
fail is that Leafnode depends on some
system-specific information which is usually
included in the sources of the kernel.</p><p>Unfortunately, some Linux distribution do
not install kernel sources by default; therefore,
compilation of Leafnode (and most other programs as
well) will fail. The obvious solution is to install
the kernel sources. On
Linux, if the kernel sources are installed in
<tt class="filename">/usr/src/linux-a.b.cc</tt> (with a.b.cc being the version
number of your kernel), create a symlink to
<tt class="filename">/usr/src/linux</tt>.</p></td></tr></tbody></table></div></div><div class="sect2" lang="en"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a name="id2480142"></a>Configuration problems</h3></div></div><div></div></div><div class="qandaset"><dl><dt>Q: <a href="#id2480151">Leafnode refuses to start and tells
things about my hostname!</a></dt><dt>Q: <a href="#id2480177">Does leafnode support local
newsgroups?</a></dt><dt>Q: <a href="#nntpds">How do I run leafnode as NNTP+SSL
server?</a></dt><dt>Q: <a href="#nntps">How do I use fetchnews with NNTP/SSL
servers, such as
nntp.sourceforge.net?</a></dt></dl><table border="0" summary="Q and A Set"><col align="left" width="1%"><tbody><tr class="question"><td align="left" valign="top"><a name="id2480151"></a><a name="id2480152"></a><b>Q:</b></td><td align="left" valign="top"><p>Leafnode refuses to start and tells
things about my hostname!</p></td></tr><tr class="answer"><td align="left" valign="top"><b>A:</b></td><td align="left" valign="top"><p>There is a separate documentation file dedicated
to this issue, how to obtain a hostname, and how to tell
leafnode about it. Please see
<tt class="filename">README-FQDN</tt> or
<tt class="filename">README-FQDN.html</tt> for details.</p></td></tr><tr class="question"><td align="left" valign="top"><a name="id2480177"></a><a name="id2480178"></a><b>Q:</b></td><td align="left" valign="top"><p>Does leafnode support local
newsgroups?</p></td></tr><tr class="answer"><td align="left" valign="top"><b>A:</b></td><td align="left" valign="top"><p>Leafnode 1.x does not support local newsgroups.
Leafnode 2.x will do that.</p></td></tr><tr class="question"><td align="left" valign="top"><a name="nntpds"></a><a name="id2435698"></a><b>Q:</b></td><td align="left" valign="top"><p>How do I run leafnode as NNTP+SSL
server?</p></td></tr><tr class="answer"><td align="left" valign="top"><b>A:</b></td><td align="left" valign="top"><p>Wrap leafnode with an SSL wrapper:</p><div class="orderedlist"><ol type="1"><li><p>
Obtain <a href="http://stunnel.mirt.net" target="_top">stunnel
version 3</a>
and install it.
</p></li><li><p>Create a certificate and
save it to
<tt class="filename">/etc/leafnode/stunnel.pem</tt>, see
the stunnel documentation.
Implications such as whether to
use signed certificates are beyond the
scope of this document.</p></li><li><p>Add a configuration to your
inetd.conf, xinetd.conf or spawn a new
tcpserver process as described in the
<tt class="filename">INSTALL</tt> document; but instead of
<b class="userinput"><tt>/usr/local/sbin/leafnode</tt></b>,
you'll type</p><p>
<b class="userinput"><tt>/usr/local/sbin/stunnel -f -p
/etc/leafnode/stunnel.pem -l
/usr/local/sbin/leafnode.</tt></b></p></li></ol></div></td></tr><tr class="question"><td align="left" valign="top"><a name="nntps"></a><a name="id2435772"></a><b>Q:</b></td><td align="left" valign="top"><p>How do I use fetchnews with NNTP/SSL
servers, such as
<tt class="filename">nntp.sourceforge.net</tt>?</p></td></tr><tr class="answer"><td align="left" valign="top"><b>A:</b></td><td align="left" valign="top"><p>Warning: SourceForge does not
currently support the
<span><b class="command">HEAD</b></span>,
<span><b class="command">STAT</b></span> and
<span><b class="command">BODY</b></span> commands, so
leafnode-1 is totally out of the play for
now. leafnode-2 will work for lurking, but
will likely be unable to post. Sourceforge
are aware that we need these commands and
will add them at a later time.</p><div class="orderedlist"><ol type="1"><li><p>
Obtain <a href="http://stunnel.mirt.net" target="_top">stunnel
version 3</a>
and install it.
</p></li><li><p>Arrange for stunnel to be started at
system boot time, try:</p><p><b class="userinput"><tt>/usr/sbin/stunnel -c -d
127.0.0.1:563 -r
nntp.sourceforge.net:563</tt></b></p><p>Add</p><pre class="programlisting">server = localhost
port = 563
username = YOUR_SF_LOGIN
password = TOP_SECRET
</pre><p>to your
<tt class="filename">/etc/leafnode/config</tt>.
</p></li></ol></div></td></tr></tbody></table></div></div><div class="sect2" lang="en"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a name="id2435867"></a>Problems at run time</h3></div></div><div></div></div><div class="qandaset"><dl><dt>Q: <a href="#id2435876">I cannot post, leafnode tells me the
Message-ID is invalid.</a></dt><dt>Q: <a href="#id2435913">I cannot connect to my newsserver.</a></dt><dt>Q: <a href="#id2435966">Remote users cannot connect to leafnode.</a></dt><dt>Q: <a href="#id2434221">Fetchnews does not fetch any articles.</a></dt><dt>Q: <a href="#id2434275">Fetchnews has problems
retrieving new newsgroups.</a></dt><dt>Q: <a href="#id2434333">Since the update, fetchnews does not
post any of my old articles!</a></dt><dt>Q: <a href="#id2434345">Since the update, fetchnews does
not post my new articles!</a></dt><dt>Q: <a href="#id2434370">While fetchnews is running, my modem hangs up.</a></dt><dt>Q: <a href="#id2434398">How can I run fetchnews as regular user (not
root)?</a></dt><dt>Q: <a href="#id2492130">I have unsubscribed from a newsgroup, but
fetchnews still pulls articles for that group.</a></dt><dt>Q: <a href="#id2492176">Texpire does not expire
articles.</a></dt><dt>Q: <a href="#id2492203">How do I stop fetchnews from unsubscribing from
newsgroups?</a></dt><dt>Q: <a href="#id2492226">fetchnews is slow, how do I
speed it up?</a></dt><dt>Q: <a href="#id2492246">fetchnews keeps downloading the full newsgroup list
every time it runs</a></dt></dl><table border="0" summary="Q and A Set"><col align="left" width="1%"><tbody><tr class="question"><td align="left" valign="top"><a name="id2435876"></a><a name="id2435878"></a><b>Q:</b></td><td align="left" valign="top"><p>I cannot post, leafnode tells me the
Message-ID is invalid.</p></td></tr><tr class="answer"><td align="left" valign="top"><b>A:</b></td><td align="left" valign="top"><p>Netscape Communicator, Mozilla and derived
products (Beonex) will by default generate the Message-ID
from the domain part of your E-Mail address. However, if
your address is that of a big freemailer site (hotmail.com,
yahoo.com, gmx.de), this will lead to invalid Message-IDs.</p><p>To work around this, go to the <span><b class="command">Mail &
Newsgroups</b></span> settings and enclose your E-Mail
addresses into double quote marks, like
this:<b class="userinput"><tt>"matthias.andree@gmx.de"</tt></b>This
will prevent your Netscape-based newsreader from generating
the invalid Message-ID and leave the generation to leafnode.</p></td></tr><tr class="question"><td align="left" valign="top"><a name="id2435913"></a><a name="id2435915"></a><b>Q:</b></td><td align="left" valign="top"><p>I cannot connect to my newsserver.</p></td></tr><tr class="answer"><td align="left" valign="top"><b>A:</b></td><td align="left" valign="top"><p>You may not have configured <span class="application">inetd</span> or
<span class="application">xinetd</span> properly,
or the corresponding super server is not running. Please review
the installation instructions. <a href="#redhat-xinetd" title="Red Hat and the inetd vs. xinetd issue.">See below for
information specific to Red Hat.</a></p><p>
To test the setup, try: <b class="userinput"><tt>telnet localhost
119</tt></b>. Leafnode should then
reply with (on one line):
</p><pre class="screen">200 Leafnode NNTP Daemon, version 1.9.27.rel running at merlin.emma.line.org
(my fqdn: merlin.emma.line.org)</pre><p>
</p></td></tr><tr class="question"><td align="left" valign="top"><a name="id2435966"></a><a name="id2435969"></a><b>Q:</b></td><td align="left" valign="top"><p>Remote users cannot connect to leafnode.</p></td></tr><tr class="answer"><td align="left" valign="top"><b>A:</b></td><td align="left" valign="top"><p>You are connecting from outside the same
networks that your leafnode
server is in. Leafnode by default refuses connections from
outside your
LAN to prevent your leafnode server from abuse should you forget to
configure tcpd or make a mistake when writing your
<tt class="filename">hosts.allow</tt> or
<tt class="filename">hosts.deny</tt> files.
Please see <tt class="filename">/etc/leafnode/config.example</tt> for the
<i class="parameter"><tt>allowstrangers</tt></i> option and how to
configure this option, and its requirements.
YOU are responsible for the abuse of your
server if this option is enabled, so only
give access to people with static IP whom
you trust.</p><p>If the clients are on
dynamic IP, please use other methods of
access instead, for instance SSH tunnels
(which are also available on Windows, before
you ask).</p></td></tr><tr class="question"><td align="left" valign="top"><a name="id2434221"></a><a name="id2434223"></a><b>Q:</b></td><td align="left" valign="top"><p>Fetchnews does not fetch any articles.</p></td></tr><tr class="answer"><td align="left" valign="top"><b>A:</b></td><td align="left" valign="top"><p>There are several reasons why this may
be the case:</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul type="disc"><li><p>You did not read any pseudo articles with
your news reader. Subscribe to some groups,
enter them and read the leafnode placeholder
article.</p></li><li><p>Your groupinfo file may be corrupt.
Run <b class="userinput"><tt>fetchnews
-f</tt></b>.</p></li><li><p><tt class="filename">/var/spool/news</tt> may have
wrong permissions.
<tt class="filename">/var/spool/news</tt> and all its
subdirectories should be owned by user and
group news and have permissions drwxrwsr-x
(02755).</p></li></ul></div></td></tr><tr class="question"><td align="left" valign="top"><a name="id2434275"></a><a name="id2434277"></a><b>Q:</b></td><td align="left" valign="top"><p>Fetchnews has problems
retrieving new newsgroups.</p></td></tr><tr class="answer"><td align="left" valign="top"><b>A:</b></td><td align="left" valign="top"><p>Maybe your upstream server supports neither the
<span><b class="command">XGTITLE news.group.name</b></span> nor the
<span><b class="command">LIST NEWSGROUPS news.group.name</b></span>
command.</p><p>In this case, add <b class="userinput"><tt>nodesc =
1</tt></b> to the
server entry in <tt class="filename">/etc/leafnode/config</tt>,
as described in the
<span class="citerefentry"><span class="refentrytitle">leafnode</span>(8)</span>
manual page and the
<tt class="filename">/etc/leafnode/config.example</tt> file.</p></td></tr><tr class="question"><td align="left" valign="top"><a name="id2434333"></a><a name="id2434334"></a><b>Q:</b></td><td align="left" valign="top"><p>Since the update, fetchnews does not
post any of my old articles!</p></td></tr><tr class="answer"><td align="left" valign="top"><b>A:</b></td><td align="left" valign="top"><p>Go read the "incompatible changes" and
"updating" sections in NEWS and README.</p></td></tr><tr class="question"><td align="left" valign="top"><a name="id2434345"></a><a name="id2434346"></a><b>Q:</b></td><td align="left" valign="top"><p>Since the update, fetchnews does
not post my new articles!</p></td></tr><tr class="answer"><td align="left" valign="top"><b>A:</b></td><td align="left" valign="top"><p>You have probably mixed old and new
binaries. Check your
<tt class="filename">inetd.conf</tt> or
<tt class="filename">xinetd.conf</tt> configuration
if they really point to the new binary.</p></td></tr><tr class="question"><td align="left" valign="top"><a name="id2434370"></a><a name="id2434373"></a><b>Q:</b></td><td align="left" valign="top"><p>While fetchnews is running, my modem hangs up.</p></td></tr><tr class="answer"><td align="left" valign="top"><b>A:</b></td><td align="left" valign="top"><p>
An article that causes the interruption may contain
three plus signs in a row (“<span class="quote">+++</span>”), which
many modems interpret as the beginning of a command.
You can change or disable this “<span class="quote">escape</span>”
sequence. Consult your modem's manual, register S2 is
a common place to configure this.
</p></td></tr><tr class="question"><td align="left" valign="top"><a name="id2434398"></a><a name="id2434399"></a><b>Q:</b></td><td align="left" valign="top"><p>How can I run fetchnews as regular user (not
root)?</p></td></tr><tr class="answer"><td align="left" valign="top"><b>A:</b></td><td align="left" valign="top"><p>For security reasons, this is not possible.</p><p>However, there is a tool named “<span class="quote">sudo</span>”
that allows a regular, unprivileged user to
impersonate another user, and this can be used to
enable a regular user to run fetchnews.</p><p>“<span class="quote">sudo</span>” is available from
<a href="http://www.courtesan.com/sudo/" target="_top">http://www.courtesan.com/sudo/</a>.</p><p>If “<span class="quote">sudo</span>” is installed on your
system, then run
<b class="userinput"><tt>visudo</tt></b> as root and
add this line:
</p><pre class="programlisting">username ALL = (news) NOPASSWD: /path/to/fetchnews</pre><p>
Remember to replace
“<span class="quote">username</span>” and “<span class="quote">/path/to/</span>” with the
user's login and the proper path to
fetchnews.</p><p>Now, the user who has been enabled access to fetchnews can
just type <b class="userinput"><tt>sudo -u news
/path/to/fetchnews</tt></b>
to run fetchnews.</p></td></tr><tr class="question"><td align="left" valign="top"><a name="id2492130"></a><a name="id2492132"></a><b>Q:</b></td><td align="left" valign="top"><p>I have unsubscribed from a newsgroup, but
fetchnews still pulls articles for that group.</p></td></tr><tr class="answer"><td align="left" valign="top"><b>A:</b></td><td align="left" valign="top"><p>Your news reader talks to leafnode via the NNTP
protocol. This protocol provides no means for Leafnode to
determine which newsgroups you are actually subscribe.
Therefore, Leafnode assumes that a newsgroup that is not
read for a certain time (which can be configured with the
<i class="parameter"><tt>timeout_long</tt></i> parameter) is unsubscribed
and will only stop retrieving articles in it after this
time.</p><p>If you are impatient and want to stop retrieving
articles from that group immediately, delete the
corresponding file in the
<tt class="filename">/var/spool/news/interesting.groups/</tt>
directory. The articles that are already in your spool are
still subject to the regular <span><b class="command">texpire</b></span>
schedule, however.</p></td></tr><tr class="question"><td align="left" valign="top"><a name="id2492176"></a><a name="id2492177"></a><b>Q:</b></td><td align="left" valign="top"><p>Texpire does not expire
articles.</p></td></tr><tr class="answer"><td align="left" valign="top"><b>A:</b></td><td align="left" valign="top"><p>The backup software
that you are using may not reset the atime after reading a
file. Check if you can reconfigure it to reset the
“<span class="quote">atime</span>”.</p><p>As a workaround, run
<b class="userinput"><tt>texpire -f</tt></b>. This will expire articles
somewhat earlier because expiry is then determined from the
time the file was last modified, rather than when it was last
accessed.</p></td></tr><tr class="question"><td align="left" valign="top"><a name="id2492203"></a><a name="id2492204"></a><b>Q:</b></td><td align="left" valign="top"><p>How do I stop fetchnews from unsubscribing from
newsgroups?</p></td></tr><tr class="answer"><td align="left" valign="top"><b>A:</b></td><td align="left" valign="top"><p>Run
<b class="userinput"><tt>fetchnews
-n</tt></b> rather than just
<b class="userinput"><tt>fetchnews</tt></b>.</p></td></tr><tr class="question"><td align="left" valign="top"><a name="id2492226"></a><a name="id2492227"></a><b>Q:</b></td><td align="left" valign="top"><p>fetchnews is slow, how do I
speed it up?</p></td></tr><tr class="answer"><td align="left" valign="top"><b>A:</b></td><td align="left" valign="top"><p>If you are using filters, try the
article_despite_filter option (introduced in
leafnode v1.9.33).</p><p>If your upstream server does not support
XOVER, try using as few of the
maxage, maxlines, maxbytes, minlines,
maxcrosspost options as possible.</p></td></tr><tr class="question"><td align="left" valign="top"><a name="id2492246"></a><a name="id2492247"></a><b>Q:</b></td><td align="left" valign="top"><p>fetchnews keeps downloading the full newsgroup list
every time it runs</p></td></tr><tr class="answer"><td align="left" valign="top"><b>A:</b></td><td align="left" valign="top"><p>Watch the fetchnews output for error messages, if you see a
message such as <tt class="computeroutput">Reading newsgroups descriptions
failed: 501 bad command usage.</tt> then try adding
<b class="userinput"><tt>nodesc = 1</tt></b> blow the
server=news.example.org line of the server that showed this error.</p></td></tr></tbody></table></div></div><div class="sect2" lang="en"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a name="id2492279"></a>Problems with particular newsreaders</h3></div></div><div></div></div><div class="qandaset"><dl><dt>Q: <a href="#id2492288">When searching news with Netscape, I only get back
unknown command.</a></dt><dt>Q: <a href="#id2492326">Outlook Express locks up.</a></dt><dt>Q: <a href="#id2492362">Tin complains about a missing file
/var/lib/news/active.</a></dt></dl><table border="0" summary="Q and A Set"><col align="left" width="1%"><tbody><tr class="question"><td align="left" valign="top"><a name="id2492288"></a><a name="id2492290"></a><b>Q:</b></td><td align="left" valign="top"><p>When searching news with Netscape, I only get back
“<span class="quote">unknown command</span>”.</p></td></tr><tr class="answer"><td align="left" valign="top"><b>A:</b></td><td align="left" valign="top"><p>
To search news, older versions of Netscape needed a
news server which supports the XPAT command.
Leafnode-1 does not. If you want to use Netscape, you
have to upgrade to version 4.5 and press the
“<span class="quote">options</span>” button which appears in the
“<span class="quote">search
messages</span>” window. In the box which appears you have
to select “<span class="quote">on your local system</span>”.
</p></td></tr><tr class="question"><td align="left" valign="top"><a name="id2492326"></a><a name="id2492328"></a><b>Q:</b></td><td align="left" valign="top"><p>Outlook Express locks up.</p></td></tr><tr class="answer"><td align="left" valign="top"><b>A:</b></td><td align="left" valign="top"><p>
This can be caused by a corrupted <tt class="filename">inbox</tt>
file in Outlook Express. It is said to happen during the
initial install of Internet Explorer. To fix this problem,
go to “<span class="quote">Add/Remove Programs</span>”, choose
“<span class="quote">Internet Explorer</span>”, then “<span class="quote">Repair
installation.</span>”
</p><p>Thanks to Jim Gifford who talked to Microsoft to
find this solution.</p></td></tr><tr class="question"><td align="left" valign="top"><a name="id2492362"></a><a name="id2492364"></a><b>Q:</b></td><td align="left" valign="top"><p>Tin complains about a missing file
<tt class="filename">/var/lib/news/active</tt>.</p></td></tr><tr class="answer"><td align="left" valign="top"><b>A:</b></td><td align="left" valign="top"><p>
Either you have started the wrong version of tin (the one
which tries to read news directly from the spool) or your
groupinfo file is corrupt.
</p><p>
In the first case, simply invoke tin with
the -r flag: <b class="userinput"><tt>tin -r</tt></b>. If
this does not help, try to rebuild the
groupinfo file by running
<b class="userinput"><tt>fetchnews -f</tt></b>.
</p></td></tr></tbody></table></div></div><div class="sect2" lang="en"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a name="id2492408"></a>License issues</h3></div></div><div></div></div><div class="qandaset"><dl><dt>Q: <a href="#id2492417">Why is Leafnode not licensed
under the GPL?</a></dt></dl><table border="0" summary="Q and A Set"><col align="left" width="1%"><tbody><tr class="question"><td align="left" valign="top"><a name="id2492417"></a><a name="id2492418"></a><b>Q:</b></td><td align="left" valign="top"><p>Why is Leafnode not licensed
under the GPL?</p></td></tr><tr class="answer"><td align="left" valign="top"><b>A:</b></td><td align="left" valign="top"><p>
There are several reasons:
</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul type="disc"><li><p>
Originally, Arnt Gulbrandsen licensed Leafnode under
his own license:
</p><div class="blockquote"><blockquote class="blockquote"><p>
Use, modification and distribution is allowed without
limitation, warranty, or liability of any kind.
</p></blockquote></div><p>
This license is very broad. The same spirit is (in my opinion)
contained in the X11 license, which is used by Leafnode nowadays.
</p></li><li><p>
I (Cornelius) do not like the philosophy of the FSF.
They seem to emphasize that every project they
conceived is good whereas everything else is
bad. If they cannot argue the software away
this way, they claim it to be part of the project,
such as calling Linux "GNU/Linux". Or, as Arnt
Gulbrandsen put it:
</p><div class="blockquote"><blockquote class="blockquote"><p>Freedom includes the freedom to
disagree with me and still use my
software.</p></blockquote></div><p>
</p></li></ul></div><p>
</p></td></tr></tbody></table></div></div></div><div class="sect1" lang="en"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both"><a name="backtrace"></a>Obtaining a stack backtrace</h2></div></div><div></div></div><p>This section will tell you how to obtain a <span class="emphasis"><em>stack
backtrace</em></span>, a special program state output that is
very useful to somebody who is about to debug a crash.</p><p>The prerequisite to work is that the program is
<span class="emphasis"><em>not stripped</em></span>, i. e. it contains the debug
symbols. That means leafnode must have been installed with
<b class="userinput"><tt>make install</tt></b> rather than <b class="userinput"><tt>make
install-strip</tt></b>. Note that most packagers (for RPM at
least) use <b class="userinput"><tt>make install-strip</tt></b> to save space.</p><p>To find out if your leafnode installation has been
<span class="emphasis"><em>stripped</em></span>, type <b class="userinput"><tt>file
/usr/local/sbin/leafnode</tt></b> (adjust the path as
necessary, packages will usually install to
<tt class="filename">/usr/sbin/leafnode</tt> instead), here is a sample
output of an unstripped program:</p><pre class="screen"><tt class="prompt">$</tt> <b class="userinput"><tt>file /usr/local/sbin/leafnode</tt></b>
<tt class="computeroutput">/usr/local/sbin/leafnode: ELF 32-bit LSB executable, Intel 80386, version 1,
dynamically linked (uses shared libs), not stripped</tt></pre><div class="sect2" lang="en"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a name="id2492562"></a>From a core file.</h3></div></div><div></div></div><p>This is simple:
</p><div class="orderedlist"><ol type="1"><li><p>Type <b class="userinput"><tt>gdb
<i class="replaceable"><tt>PROGRAM</tt></i>
core</tt></b>. Replace
PROGRAM by the name of the
program that crashed, for
example fetchnews.</p></li><li><p>Type <b class="userinput"><tt>backtrace
full</tt></b>.</p></li><li><p>Type
<b class="userinput"><tt>quit</tt></b>.</p></li></ol></div><p>
</p></div><div class="sect2" lang="en"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a name="id2492615"></a>Running a program under gdb supervision.</h3></div></div><div></div></div><div class="orderedlist"><ol type="1"><li><p>Type <b class="userinput"><tt>gdb
<i class="replaceable"><tt>PROGRAM</tt></i></tt></b>.
Replace PROGRAM by the name of the program that
crashes, for example fetchnews. Do not give any program
options, gdb does not understand them here.</p></li><li><p>Type <b class="userinput"><tt>run
<i class="replaceable"><tt>OPTIONS</tt></i></tt></b>, where
you name the options that you would normally pass to the
program itself. Just a plain
<b class="userinput"><tt>run</tt></b> is
also fine.</p></li><li><p>Wait until the program crashes. The output might
look like similar to this:</p><pre class="screen"><tt class="computeroutput">
This GDB was configured as "i686-pc-linux-gnu"...</tt>
<tt class="prompt">(gdb)</tt> <b class="userinput"><tt>run -vvn</tt></b>
<tt class="computeroutput">
Starting program: /tmp/crashme
Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault.
main () at crashme.c:4
4 *x = 4;
<tt class="prompt">(gdb)</tt>
</tt></pre></li><li><p>Type <b class="userinput"><tt>backtrace
full</tt></b>, this is the
desired <span class="emphasis"><em>stack backtrace</em></span>.</p></li><li><p>Type <b class="userinput"><tt>quit</tt></b> to leave
gdb.</p></li></ol></div></div><div class="sect2" lang="en"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a name="id2492730"></a>From a running/hanging leafnode
program.</h3></div></div><div></div></div><div class="orderedlist"><ol type="1"><li><p>Find out the Process
ID of the hanging leafnode
program. Type
<b class="userinput"><tt>ps axw | grep
<i class="replaceable"><tt>PROGRAM</tt></i> | grep -v
grep</tt></b> on BSD
systems and Linux,
replacing
<i class="replaceable"><tt>PROGRAM</tt></i> by the
name of the program. Use
<b class="userinput"><tt>ps -ef</tt></b>
instead on SysV systems such
as Solaris.</p><p>You will get an output
like:
</p><pre class="screen"> 1995 ? S 0:00 /usr/local/sbin/leafnode
</pre><p> 1995 is the
Process ID.</p></li><li><p>Then attach gdb:
<b class="userinput"><tt>gdb
<i class="replaceable"><tt>PROGRAM</tt></i>
<i class="replaceable"><tt>12345</tt></i></tt></b>,
replacing
<i class="replaceable"><tt>PROGRAM</tt></i> by the
program's name and
<i class="replaceable"><tt>12345</tt></i>
by the PID that you have just
found out.</p></li><li><p>Type
<b class="userinput"><tt>backtrace
full</tt></b>.</p></li><li><p>Type
<b class="userinput"><tt>detach</tt></b>.</p></li><li><p>Type
<b class="userinput"><tt>quit</tt></b>.</p></li></ol></div></div></div><div class="sect1" lang="en"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both"><a name="redhat-xinetd"></a>Red Hat and the inetd vs. xinetd issue.</h2></div><div><div class="author"><h3 class="author"><span class="firstname">William</span> <span class="surname">Hooper</span></h3></div></div></div><div></div></div><p>RedHat Linux has changed stance on <span class="application">inetd</span>/<span class="application">xinetd</span>
over the years. In the 6.x version, <span class="application">inetd</span> was used, while
<span class="application">xinetd</span> is used in the 7.x series and 8.0. Note in the
following I make the assumption that the "Gnome workstation"
and "KDE workstation" installs are the same in regard to our
discussion. Also, when in doubt a simple <b class="userinput"><tt>rpm -qa
| grep <span class="application">inetd</span></tt></b> will show you if either inetd
or <span class="application">xinetd</span> is installed. The <span><b class="command">service</b></span> and
<span><b class="command">chkconfig</b></span> commands can be used to be sure
[x]<span class="application">inetd</span> is running and configured to run at boot time. By
default, runlevels 3, 4, and 5 start [x]<span class="application">inetd</span>.</p><p>Beginning with Redhat 6.2, <span class="application">inetd</span> was broken out as a
separate RPM and not included when doing a "Workstation"
install. This stands true for the 7.x series (<span class="application">xinetd</span> not
installed) until 7.3. In Redhat 7.3, <span class="application">xinetd</span> was added back
to the "Workstation" install as a dependency for "sgi_fam".
Note, this change is not reflected in the RH documentation,
which states that <span class="application">xinetd</span> is not installed in "Workstation"
installs. </p><p>In Redhat 8.0, the install options have changed, now
offering a "Personal Desktop" install. When doing a
"Workstation" or "Personal Desktop" install <span class="application">xinetd</span> is
installed as in 7.3, presumably to satisfy the same
dependency. </p><p>In cases where <span class="application">inetd</span> is not installed, no other RPMs
are required to install it. This means to install it you
have three options (for RedHat 6.2 substitute <span class="application">inetd</span> instead of
<span class="application">xinetd</span>): </p><div class="orderedlist"><ol type="1"><li><p><span class="emphasis"><em>Best</em></span>
- If you have registered for Redhat's up2date
service, just type "up2date xinetd" as
root.</p></li><li><p><span class="emphasis"><em>Next Best</em></span>
- Install RPM from updates.redhat.com (version
numbers current as of 2002-11-10 for RH 7.3). You
can manually download the RPM and install it (as
root) using <b class="userinput"><tt>rpm -ivh
xinetd-2.3.9-0.73.i386.rpm</tt></b>, or have
RPM download it for you by using (again, as root)
<b class="userinput"><tt>rpm -ivh
http://updates.redhat.com/7.3/en/os/i386/xinetd-2.3.9-0.73.i386.rpm</tt></b></p></li><li><p><span class="emphasis"><em>Worse</em></span>
- Install the RPM from the original CD. This is usually the worse
option because the updates (used above) are released to fix security issues.
</p><p>
(All as root) First mount the first RH CD by putting it in the CD-ROM and
doing a <b class="userinput"><tt>mount /mnt/cdrom</tt></b>, and install the
RPM similar to this: <b class="userinput"><tt>cd
/mnt/cdrom/Redhat/RPMS/xinetd-2.3.7-2.i386.rpm</tt></b>.
</p></li></ol></div></div></div></body></html>
|
