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)
Spanish Docs - Simon Mudd (sjmudd@redestb.es)
	       Abraham Nevado (nevado@redestb.es)

Note: I have removed the Italian docs, due to the lack
of updates from the maintainer. 

LOCATION
========
visit http://www.pixi.com/~boby/index.html
to download the latest version or view the README file.

FTP Sites:
Site1	     = sunsite.unc.edu
Path1        = /pub/Linux/system/news/transport
File1        = suck-3.5.2.tar.gz

Site2        = tsx-11.mit.edu
Path2        = /pub/linux/sources/sbin
File2        = suck-3.5.2.tar.gz

INTRODUCTION
============
The primary use for suck is to feed a local INN or CNEWS server, without
the remote NNTP feeding you articles.  It is designed for a small, partial
news feed.  It is NOT designed to feed 10,000 groups and 3 Gigs of articles
a day.

This package contains 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 a remote NNTP server

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

lmove * NEW *		put articles in news/group/number format.

MAJOR CHANGES FROM 3.5.1 -> 3.5.2
=================================
* Added -q option to not display BPS and number of article message during
  article download (handy for crontab run jobs).

* Lots of minor bug squashes, especially in errorlog reporting for killfiles,
  overflow conditions in using postfixes of >20 characters, non-existant files,
  and bogus information from remote server.  See CHANGELOG for details.

- Added code to Rpost to handle M$ news server method of reporting duplicate
  article

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"

NOTES:
======
Suck will not work with obsolete NNTP servers that can't handle the xhdr
command.

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? :)

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

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.

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

8.  To install supplemental language man pages and phrase file 
	make install_jman		Japanese language docs
	make install_sman		Spanish language docs

PLANS FOR NEXT VERSION.
=======================

1. Overhaul of killfile stuff, including only use of regex, simplier
   internal code, multiple killfile lines.

2. Fix authentication problem when server asks for authentication 
   immediately upon open of port.

