Re: noffle&pan

On 23-Feb-2003 Tomislav Ivan Flis wrote:
>>2. If you 'telnet localhost nntp', do you see
> 
>    Trying 127.0.0.1...
>    Connected to localhost.
>    Escape character is '^]'.
>    200 NNTP server NOFFLE 1.1.4
> 
> No. I get:
> [tompa@localhost xinetd.d]$ telnet localhost nntp
> Trying 127.0.0.1...
> telnet: Unable to connect to remote host: Connection refused

OK, this is the problem. To function as a NNTP server (which is how Pan access
it), Noffle needs to be run by a 'super-server'. Depending on your system, this
will be either 'inetd', which takes its configuration from /etc/inetd.conf, or
'xinetd', which takes its configuration from files in the /etc/xinetd.d
directory. This is easier to manage, as you just have to add or remove files
from the directory when installing/removing packages, rather than edit a file
(xinetd has other improvements too, but they aren't relevant here).

Since you said:

> /etc/inetd.conf:
> 
> nntp stream tcp nowait news /usr/sbin/tcpd /usr/bin/noffle -r

which looks completely correct, maybe you're running xinetd. Do a 'ps ax'
and see if you see 'xinetd' in the list of running processes.

If you see 'xinetd', you need a file /etc/xinetd.d/noffle with this in it:

# default: off
# description: Usenet newsserver for small sites
 
service nntp
{
        disable         = yes
        socket_type     = stream
        protocol        = tcp
        wait            = no
        user            = news
        group           = news
        only_from       = 127.0.0.1
        server          = /usr/bin/noffle
        server_args     = -r
}

If you see 'inetd' and NOT 'xinetd', then something else is going wrong. Try
doing the telnet again, and them immediately look in /var/log/messages or
/var/log/syslog to see if any errors were logged by Noffle.

> [tompa@localhost xinetd.d]$ cat /etc/hosts.deny
>#
># hosts.deny    This file describes the names of the hosts which are
>#               *not* allowed to use the local INET services, as decided
>#               by the '/usr/sbin/tcpd' server.
>#
># The portmap line is redundant, but it is left to remind you that
># the new secure portmap uses hosts.deny and hosts.allow.  In particular
># you should know that NFS uses portmap!
> 
> 
> noffle: ALL EXCEPT LOCAL
> 
> Is the ptopblem maybe in that?

No, that's fine. It's just saying 'prohibit access to Noffle from all hosts
*except* localhost'. So 'telnet localhost nntp' should work.

-- 
Jim Hague - [email protected] (Work), [email protected] (Play)
Never trust a computer you can't lift or you don't control.


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