
PREFACE
=======
Original Author - Tim Smith (tzs@coho.halcyon.com)
Maintainers - 
March 1995 - Sven Goldt (goldt@math.tu-berlin.de)
July 1995  - Robert A. Yetman (boby@pixi.com)

Current Maintainer - boby@pixi.com
Japanese Docs - Motoharu Kubo (mkubo@3ware.co.jp)
Italian Docs - Giuseppe De Marco (gdm@rebel.net)
Spanish Docs - Simon Mudd (sjmudd@redestb.es)
	       Abraham Nevado (nevado@redestb.es)

INTRODUCTION
============
The primary use for suck is to feed a local INN or CNEWS server, without
the remote NNTP feeding you articles.

This package contains the following software for copying news from an
NNTP server to your local machine, and copying replies back up to
an NNTP server.

The suck/rpost combination allows you to run your own INN/CNEWS site, 
controlling where you get your news, and where you post outgoing articles.
Suck/rpost use only standard NNTP commands that are used by your favorite
news reader (tin, xvnews, strn) such as POST and ARTICLE.  If you can use tin
or xvnews against a NNTP site, than you can use Suck/Rpost.  

suck			Pull a small newsfeed from an NNTP server

lpost			Gives one article fetched by suck to the local server.

rpost			Posts article(s) to an NNTP server (like inews)
			using the POST command

testhost        	Check to see what commands your host recognizes or
			get the active or new list.

************************************************************************
NOTE:
Suck will not work with obsolete NNTP servers that can't handle the xhdr
command. inn-1.4sec has its own NNTP server that can handle xhdr, cnews.CR-G
has no own NNTP server so it depends on which NNTP server you connect to cnews.

NOTE2:
This code assumes an ANSI-compliant compiler, it will NOT work with old
compilers (Such as Sun's) which don't accept function prototypes.  You could
try using the unprotoize program included in gcc, but then if you are going
to get that, why not just build gcc? :)

NOTE3:
The Makefile assumes you are using GNU make, other makes may or may not work.

NOTE4:
If your remote INN server slows drastically after 100 messages are downloaded,
and they are using INN 1.5.1, chances are they compiled INN with "LIKE_PULLERS"
set to DONT, which causes INN to put a small sleep before each message.  
Talk to the SA for the system and see if they'll compile with "DO".  Chances
are they didn't even know this option existed.


LOCATION
========
Site1	     = sunsite.unc.edu
Path1        = /pub/Linux/system/Mail/news
File1        = suck-3.4.1.tar.gz

Site2        = tsx-11.mit.edu
Path2        = /pub/linux/sources/sbin
File2        = suck-3.4.1.tar.gz

THANKS to all the users who have sent me mail, both good and bad.

A DOUBLE THANKS to the v3.0 beta-testers:
- harleys@io.org (current address unknown)
- jh@yahoo.com
- maho@Uni-paderborn.de
- paonia@home.welcomehome.org
- stuart@mannet.mcb.net
- tom@mtanet.com

They helped me work out quite a few bugs with portability problems.

************************************************************************  
If you don't see a feature that you asked for, it is because I have
rejected it for various reasons, usually because I can't find a 
graceful way to implement it in the code, or I don't think that it
is something that is needed by most of the users.

---------------------------HOW-TO-USE-------------------------------------
1.  run ./configure
2.  If your history file is not a flat file, edit the top of the Makefile.
3.  Edit suck_config.h - lots of configurable stuff here
4.  Make it.  (make CFLAGS=-O2, make install)
5.  Create a sucknewsrc - which groups to download (see suck man pg)
6.  Take a look at sample/get.news(.innxmit or .rnews)
	These scripts show the whole scheme, from sucking news to
	posting replies to your remote host.  Use .innxmit if you
	are using INND, or .rnews if you are using CNEWS.
	The get.news.innxmit is the script I actually use, since I
	am running INND.
7.  READ THE MAN PAGES
**************************************************************************
MAJOR CHANGES FROM 3.4.0 -> 3.4.1

* Various bug fixes in the phrases routines, which caused suck to 
  either core dump or get stuck in an infinite loop.

* Added code to handle suck -V

MAJOR CHANGES FROM 3.3.2 -> 3.4.0

* Added foreign language capability (-l phrase_file).

* Made killfile logging a run-time vice compile-time option (-L).

* Added ability to slow suck down during run, using a signal (-w)

* Added options to killfiles to change the separators for the path,
  subject, from, and nntphost options.

* Fixed bugs in writing of suck.newrc if got non-standard errors.

* Got rid of log10() call, eliminating math lib from linkage.

* Spanish docs, courtesy of Simon Mudd and Abraham Nevado

**************************************************************************
PLANS FOR NEXT VERSION.

1. Make DEBUG a run-time option vice compile-time option

2. Add code to handle inn which sends debug commands (dbminit: start eg)
   immediately after I send the first <ARTICLE> command.

3. Add more modifications for Ultrix & OS2.

LONG TERM PLANS

1. Store messages in news/group/nr style format (yes I know I've been 
promising this for 6 months now, one of these days I'll actually sit
down and write it.)

***************************************************************************
MAILING LIST!
Thanks to Motoharu Kubo (mkubo@3ware.co.jp), there is now a mailing list
for suck.  It is intended as a place to discuss problems, etc, plans, and
other issues related to suck.  Its address is "suck-ml@3ware.co.jp".

To subscribe to the mailing list, send a mail message to majordomo@3ware.co.jp
with the message text reading "subscribe suck-ml"

boby@pixi.com
