Re: spam_from_hits vs. moderated newsgroups

[NetWin Support]

dnews@netwinsite.com wrote:

"Bert Hyman" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

Is there any way to add a list of IP addresses and host names that will be
excluded from the "spam_from_hits" count?

As it is, setting this to any useful figure will also wipe out traffic in
a lot of moderated groups where the moderator posts messages in batches.

It will also wipe out traffic from any news provider that uses a single 
gateway
IP address for all its users.

More on this...

I notice that setting a value in "spam_from_hits" in the "Advanced" settings page doesn't seem to work in that it 
doesn't get written to "dnews.conf", and manually adding this entry to "dnews.conf" doesn't show up in the 
"Advanced" settings page. Does the feature actually work, or is all the filtering being done by the "spam_from_cross" 
filter?

If I want to disable this particular filtering but keep the rest of the spam filter active, can I just enter a value of 0 (zero)?

To disable it set it to a large number
        spam_from_hits 9000
Sorry, no there is no exception to the setting.

Here is a corrected template, place it in \dnews\dmgr
and it will allow the setting to be saved from the web admin tool

        ChrisP.

Title: DNEWS Advanced Config Settings

%%menu%% DNEWS Advanced Config Settings Setting Description Value access_twice - Lookup users by 'number' before attempting a DNS lookup. active_static - Dont get groups that are added from your sucking feed. allow_world - Stop warning if any ip address can access the server. auth_case - Case sensitive for usernames and passwords. autoexpire - Trigger an expire when disk usage hits n percentage bind_ in - The IP number of adapter to listen for connections on (for multiple IP's) bind_out - The IP number of adapter to use for output connections (for multiple IP's) body_chunk - The size of chunks read from disk when user reads article cachedall - Pretend all groups are cached, use this if you are taking a full IHAVE feed in. This command stops the 'Downloading' messages appearing. cachedonly - Only accepts items into groups which are cached, this is used for the hybrid feed where items are sent by a feed but only taken if users are reading that particular group. cache_ongroup - Set group to cached when nntp group commands are recieved cache_onxover - Set group to cached when nntp xover commands are recieved cancel_anyone - Allows anyone to cancel a message cancel_users - Only allow cancel messages from this email address chan_nobuff - Use to help the Mosaic news reader to work. (it has a bug) control_me - Apply the 'me' newsfeeds.conf rules to control messages config - Directory for configuration files (*.conf) all except dnews.conf confirm - Send email confirmation to postings from these addresses. (set this to match your local email addresses) convert_add - Makes Import/Convert simply add rather than replicatethe item numbers expire_any - deletes all linked cross postings if a cross post link is deleted. expire_at - Run an expire job at 5 past eleven and 5 past 3 in the morning. Unless expire_minutes is set to true the minutes value will be ignored. expire_chunk - Sets how many lines from the history file to expire in one go. Increasing this makes expire faster but uses more memory. Generally the default will be fine. expire_delay - The maximum delay before dnews will expire some more items even if it is flat out answering user requests. (not generally needed) expire_fast - Increases priority of expire job. expire_min - This sets the maximum wasted space in the bucket files, the value is a percentage, the default is 10% or 5% if disk usage is above 90%. expire_minutes - Used to make dnews use the minutes setting in the expire_at rule. expire_small - When dnews is using more than 89% of the disk space there is a danger of it deleting to many items in one go, this setting is used to limit how many it deletes before checking to see if the disk is still almost full. feed_reader - Sends the 'mode reader' command when connecting to a feeding site, this is the default. You will probably never have to change this setting. fts_dir - Sets the directory where the fts index files are being stored. (see the section on FTS for more details) fts_expire - Automatically set if fts_dir is true, this tells dnews to write a list of all expired articles so that the fts system can remove them from the fts database. groups_at - Sets when dnews should check for newly created news groups on the site that it is sucking news from. (not needed with an IHAVE feed where the control news items perform this function). head_cache - How many item headers to keep in memory. head_limit - Limits the size of headers to keep in the cache, the default is about 2000 hide_queue -Stops list of groups shown in 'Downloading' messeage item_max - Sets the maximum size for any article that DNEWS can deal with. life - Number of days to keep fetching a news group from the upstream server after someone reads an item in it. list_min - How many groups need to be cached before the update method switches to the technique that works best for large numbers of groups. live_stream - stops live feeds from using the streaming extensions to send articles, (this configures automatically normally) log_ihave - Enables logging of ihave/takethis commands log_inline - Enables logging of all the 'item ok' messages inside the dnews.log file log_nntp - Stops logging of all the nntp commands sent to dnews loglvl - One of: error,warn,info,debug,flush. There are four levels of error reporting, "error" includes serious errors, "warn" includes possible problems, "info" includes general information messages and "debug" which is used for tracing bugs. "flush" is the same as debug but the log file is flushed with every single line written, this is useful if the system is crashing but not providing a stack dump. loguse - write a log of every item/body read by users (u_yymmdd.log_n) mail_from - Sets the from address used when dnews sends a report or email confirmation to a user. manager - Email address of the news manager max_speed - Limits the speed, in characters per second, that any channel can send news into dnews. max_out - Maximum outgoing speed, per channel. char/sec. me_continue - Feed messages to uucp feeds even if me feed blocks item. myname - Your full Internet name, if left out this may be picked up from the system. It's best to put it in by hand tomake sure it's right. See path_stamp below. newnews_users - List of IP names DNEWS accepts the newnews command. nntp_logoff - Specifies the message to give to users who are not granted connect access via access.conf. nntp_xposting - Lets you add a header that will identify your spammers. no_newnews - Disables the newnews command. nocontrol - Prevents automatic creation of the 'control' news group. nodns - Stops DNEWS from doing reverse DNS lookups every time a user connects, you will have to put ip numbers into access.conf if you use this feature, but if your DNS is faulty or slow then this can improve connection times. nospacecheck - Stops dnews checking for free disk space. nostream - Tells dnews to pretend it cannot take a streaming incoming feed. open_block - Makes nntp open calls block the news server. open_retry - How long to wait after failing to open an nntp connection before retrying . org - Sets the name added to local posts which don't have 'organization'. org_replace - Always changes 'organization' to be changed. out_size - Sets the size of packets to be sent in one write operation to a socket. path_stamp - The name used to stamp the path of messages that go through your system, this should be a fully qualified text name in lower case, it need not have a genuine DNS entry. Use this if your MYNAME parameter is a single word or a number. e,.g.myname 22.33.23.4 path_stamp news.netwinsite.com. Ver 4 pgp - Path/Command for PGP on your system (PGP 2.6) pgppath - PGPPATH directory environment variable to find key ring etc port - The socket port that DNEWS uses for NEWS connections post_log - Logs every local post to a post.log. post_rec - Record pertinent information about all local posts in post.log post_route - Enables routing of incoming ihave messages to outgoing posting feeds. post_nosuck - This option disables the 'suck' that occurs when a group is posted to. postonly - Stop items from being posted locally until the 'echo' back from the feeder site. ras_entry - Setting this gets DNEWS to automatically dial up, fetch news and hang up by itself. ras_number - If you are have a dial up line to the Intenet you can on Windows have DNEWS automatically dial up, update news and then hang up. To do this you set the ras_number, ras_username and ras_password commands to the dial up phone number, your username and password respectively and DNEWS will automatically dial up in accord with your update rules. Alternatively simply set the ras_entry as described above and DNEWS will look up the informantion it needs. ras_password - Refer ras_number ras_username - Refer ras_number reject_addhist - If a message is rejected, add it to history file so it won't be accepted from a second feed site. replicate - Makes dnews use the same item numbers for each item as are used on the server it's sucking from. send_at - Send messages upstream when the time matches. send_later - Stops DNEWS from attempting to send a post immediately. see requeue slave_feed - IP number of any host sending an ihave feed. No IP names. slave_n - Number of dnews processes to run, 2-5 is recommended. slave_ports - TCPIP ports to use for the slaves. slave_restart - Restarts the slave processes at that time each day. spam_debug - Tell user when messages are rejected (they are normally accepted and then thrown away so the spammer doesn't know they have been foiled) spam_dup_cross - Number of duplicate bodies counting cross posts to allow. spam_dup_hits- Number of duplicate bodies (not cross posted) to allow. spam_dup_total - Number of items to 'remember' in our history of 'duplicate' bodies. Uses about 30 bytes per entry. spam_from_cross - Number of messages counting cross posts from any single user per hour. spam_from_hits - Number of messages from any single user per hour spam_from_total - Number of users to keep tabs on in our history of duplicate users, uses about 100 bytes per user. spam_host - Use 'nntp-posting-host' instead of 'from' for the above 3 rules. spam_keepn - Number of rejected items to store in spam_n.tmp files spam_stop - Reject messages which appear to be spam or match words or phrases in filter.dat spam_test - Don't actually reject messages, just log what you would have done, spam_stop must be set to true as well spool_free - Choose which spool to use based on actual space. suck_batchn - Maximum number of items to get from one group before going onto the next. suck_batchsize - Maximum bytes to get from one group before going onto the next group. suck_disable -Disables sucking groups, but not getgroups, matchgroups. see xreplic suck_maxgroups - Uncaches all groups when this number is reached. suck_maxold - Limits the maximum number of old items that dnews should suck from a group. suck_percent - Suck only this much of availble new items, e.g. 80% use this to 'fill in gaps' suck_requeue - Tells dnews to reque a group that is not finished. suck_stream - Makes dnews suck much faster, don't set this unless you need to as it hurts the server you are sucking from suck_uucp - Directory and file names of incoming uucp files. tcp_nodelay - Sets the socket to send data immediately. timeout - Define how long to wait after a channel becomes idle before disconnecting it, the default is 120 minutes. timing - Enable timing statistics shown with 'tellnews stats' command too_old - Reject items more than n days old. update_at - Check for new items every time the minutes end in a 5 or a zero and at any hour, e.g. every 5 minutes.. uucp_crlf - Writes uucp files as MSDOS text files instead of proper unix format. uucp_simple - Ignore rnews count and just gues where bag files start and end xover_cache - How many xover records to cache. xover_moved - If your xover directory is not on the spool disk, check this true.