XBBX spawning to news

[Jack F. Vogel]

In article <43 at .UUCP> root at .UUCP (Larry Snyder) writes:
>I am running Sandy's latest XBBS and am allowing my users (registered)
>access to usenet.  Is there any way in the configuration to allow all
>users access to reading usenet messages but to lock them out of posting
>to replying?
>
>Also - is there a way to pass the users name into postnews so the
>message originates from the user on the bbs rather than from bbs?
 
Have you heard of that old-fashioned procedure "hacking the code" :-} !!
No, seriously when turnkey was running XBBS, I had a modified version of
readnews that the users were allowed to execute. It basically would only
allow the commands that would allow reading the news while giving a
message to the effect that posting and replying was not allowed if they
tried to use those commands. A trivial little programming exercise.
Now as to how to differentiate between those that are registered and you
will allow to post and those unregistered that cannot, since sandy has
a privelege associated with any of the commands you could simply have
two different commands in the menu, one that was readonly and the other
(with a higher privelege) that allows replies and posting as well. Of
course, there could be fancier schemes but this seems quick and simple.

Now on the matter of how to pass the users real name into postnews, that
would be a little trickier, I imagine you could take the users name known
to the bbs process and put it into the environment and then make sure that
readnews gets if from there. I believe that's the way it works anyway. This,
however is going to involve hacking the XBBS code as well. Anyway, with a
little imagination it should be doable. My real question is, "WHY do it in
the first place???". If you are going to allow individuals all the privelege
of inserting their two cents out into the net why not just give them a shell
account and be done with it?? Unless you have already altered readnews they
could shell out of it anyway. Oh well, just my humble opinion.

--
Jack F. Vogel			jackv at seas.ucla.edu
AIX Technical Support	              - or -
Locus Computing Corp.		jackv at ifs.umich.edu