INN 1.5.1 installation

Useful files

I have recently installed INN 1.5.1 on my Linux 2.0 box. Installation caused very few problems, which I was able to solve by adapting some of the patches I had for inn 1.4unoff4:

• A fix to getfqdn so that it won't break when gethostname returns a non qualified name and gethostbyname does not qualify it. Uses getdomainname(2), which is non-POSIX ; actually, when INN wants to force a DNS lookup, it should not call gethostbyname with a non-qualified hostname with a trailing dot as an argument, but rather do an explicit query, bypassing the resolver (as Sendmail does.)
• A simple fix to getsafe.sh. As far as I am concerned, it was borken. Now it works.

Additionnally you can get my site/ directory (scripts+config.data). If you encounter problems with the archive, you can also get an uncompressed config.data. Please note that it caters for my personal taste & legacy, especially regarding paths. I tried to keep it mostly FSSTND compliant (except for the /var/lib nonsense), thus keeping my directories in the same place as before, instead of applying the new /{usr,var}/news scheme. Customization required (mainly for access control files.) Your mileage may vary.

Tips

If you are upgrading from a running INN 1.4* setup, you may find the following tips useful:

• shut down your existing server before upgrading...;
• note the file lay-out has changed a bit: all article directories are now under /var/spool/news/articles/ (with my config.data;
• things have been moved under /usr/local/news: most config. files are now in /usr/local/news/etc/; innd and inndstart, which may have been in /usr/sbin/ are now in /usr/local/news/bin/, and so is rc.news (see hereunder for details);
• if you are using a version of Tin compiled with libinn.a as the NNTP library, chances are that it won't be able to find its config. file (inn.conf, moved to /usr/local/news/etc/) anymore. You can fix the problem by using /etc/nntpserver or the NNTPSERVER environement variable, and INN's inews instead of Tin's built-in implementation, but I suggest that you recompile Tin;
• rnews now lives in /usr/local/news/bin/, not /bin/. Tell UUCP about it or it will barf.

The present page pertains to INN 1.5.1, bu the latest production release of INN is 1.5.1sec2. You can get inn-1.5.1sec2 from ftp://ftp.isc.org/isc/inn/inn-1.5.1sec2.tar.gz.

Further information can be found in Fabien Tassin's INN-FAQ or on Usenet.

Usual disclaimers apply : use at your own risk. It would be nice if you gave (dis)credit where (dis)credit is due :-).

Patches for inn1.4unoff4

Now INN 1.5.1 is out, these are obsolete !

• A fix to expire so that it will create the new history database in the same directory as the current one. This is necessary if history does not reside on the same FS as _PATH_NEWSLIB.
• A fix to getfqdn so that it won't break when gethostname returns a non qualified name and gethostbyname does not qualify it. Uses getdomainname(2), which is non-POSIX ; actually, when INN wants to force a DNS lookup, it should not call gethostbyname with a non-qualified hostname with a trailing dot as an argument, but rather do an explicit query, bypassing the resolver (as Sendmail does.)
• A simple fix to getsafe.sh. As far as I am concerned, it was borken. Now it works.
• An implementation of GetLoadAverage using the /proc file-system. I did not write this patch. I found it in both Miquel van Smoorenburg and Florian La Roche's patch sets for unoff4.

Additionnally you can get my site/ directory (scripts+config.data). If you encounter problems with the archive, you can also get an uncompressed config.data. Please note that it caters for my personal taste & legacy, and might not be completely FSSTND-compliant. Say "No" to /var/lib. This will require some customizing (mainly for access control files.) Your mileage may vary.

You can get inn1.4unoff4 from ftp://ftp.math.psu.edu/pub/INN/inn1.4unoff4.tar.gz.

Further information can be found in Fabien Tassin's INN-FAQ.

Usual disclaimers apply : use at your own risk. It would be nice if you gave (dis)credit where (dis)credit is due :-).

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Last update: 1997-08-31