[OT] Usenet/news servers
 

Ok, end of this month is the end of an era - UKC will be shutting down it's
news service :-(

Seems hardly any universities run news services anymore so our upstream
feeds have reached EOL and won't be being replaced so we will be effectively
cut off. Given we would have to find (pay) for a new feed and also replace
our existing machine (Sun E250 - ancient) it's not going to happen :-(

Sad given the history etc but more importantly, I'll lose access! (I'm one
of the few people still using it!).

Given this, I need to find another news server I can use. I know people
on here have recommended stuff before - is news.Individual.net still a good
option?

Not interested in much beyond uk.d-i-y tbh :-) Recomendations?

Darren

[OT] Usenet/news servers
 

On 7/17/2010 4:44 PM, D.M.Chapman wrote:

Given this, I need to find another news server I can use. I know people
on here have recommended stuff before - is news.Individual.net still a good
option?

They're no longer free - but 10 euros per year is _nearly_ free!
They filter out vast quantities of spam, are reliable, and don't provide
binaries.
eternal september is free, but doesn't seem to be as good at filtering
out cr*p.

[OT] Usenet/news servers
 

D.M.Chapman wrote:
Ok, end of this month is the end of an era - UKC will be shutting down it's
news service :-(

Seems hardly any universities run news services anymore so our upstream
feeds have reached EOL and won't be being replaced so we will be effectively
cut off. Given we would have to find (pay) for a new feed and also replace
our existing machine (Sun E250 - ancient) it's not going to happen :-(

Sad given the history etc but more importantly, I'll lose access! (I'm one
of the few people still using it!).

Given this, I need to find another news server I can use. I know people
on here have recommended stuff before - is news.Individual.net still a good
option?

Not interested in much beyond uk.d-i-y tbh :-) Recomendations?

Darren

albasani is ok ish.

irritates the **** out of me if you want to post to two newsgroups and
they decide its got to have a followup set, but is OK for text.


Sad that UKC is closing down..must be the oldest setup in the country.

Pretty sure my first ever post sometime about 1986 went through UKC..

green screen VAX, UUCP connection IIRC.

[OT] Usenet/news servers
 

In article ,
dmc@puffin. (D.M.Chapman) writes:


Ok, end of this month is the end of an era - UKC will be shutting down it's
news service :-(

Seems hardly any universities run news services anymore so our upstream
feeds have reached EOL and won't be being replaced so we will be effectively
cut off. Given we would have to find (pay) for a new feed and also replace
our existing machine (Sun E250 - ancient) it's not going to happen :-(

I used to run the news service in Sun for Europe on a couple of
E250's, one for all the peering connections, and the other for
the client connections. Neither of them ever ran much above a
few % CPU using INN.

Given this, I need to find another news server I can use. I know people
on here have recommended stuff before - is news.Individual.net still a good
option?

Also news.eternal-september.org - free, but you have to register
on their website first to get a username/password.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]

[OT] Usenet/news servers
 

In article ,
D.M.Chapman dmc@puffin. wrote:


Ok, end of this month is the end of an era - UKC will be shutting down
it's news service :-(

Has an email from Pipex (Opal) saying the same. Or rather that I'll have
in future to pay Giganews for what I get for 'free' at the moment.

Seems hardly any universities run news services anymore so our upstream
feeds have reached EOL and won't be being replaced so we will be
effectively cut off. Given we would have to find (pay) for a new feed
and also replace our existing machine (Sun E250 - ancient) it's not
going to happen :-(

Sad given the history etc but more importantly, I'll lose access! (I'm
one of the few people still using it!).

Given this, I need to find another news server I can use. I know people
on here have recommended stuff before - is news.Individual.net still a
good option?

I've already set up free accounts with Aioe and News Eternal-September.
Both seem to work fine.

Not interested in much beyond uk.d-i-y tbh :-) Recomendations?

Darren

--
*If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? *

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

[OT] Usenet/news servers
 

On 17/07/2010 21:44, D.M.Chapman wrote:
Ok, end of this month is the end of an era - UKC will be shutting down it's
news service :-(

Seems hardly any universities run news services anymore so our upstream
feeds have reached EOL and won't be being replaced so we will be effectively
cut off. Given we would have to find (pay) for a new feed and also replace
our existing machine (Sun E250 - ancient) it's not going to happen :-(

Sad given the history etc but more importantly, I'll lose access! (I'm one
of the few people still using it!).

Given this, I need to find another news server I can use. I know people
on here have recommended stuff before - is news.Individual.net still a good
option?

Not interested in much beyond uk.d-i-y tbh :-) Recomendations?

Darren



http://www.eternal-september.org/

Another Dave

[OT] Usenet/news servers
 

In article ,
The Natural Philosopher wrote:

Sad that UKC is closing down..must be the oldest setup in the country.

Pretty sure my first ever post sometime about 1986 went through UKC..


Quite likely.

I've mentioned this here before, but for people who've not seen it:

http://www.uknof.org.uk/uknof6/Houlder-History.pdf

Interesting stuff.

green screen VAX, UUCP connection IIRC.

Yep :-)

I took over running the news service when Richard Heskith left - 12 years
ago? I'm about the only active user at UKC now :-( (of course, we aren't
called UKC anymore either...)

Still, giving eternal-september a go - seems to work so far :-)

Darren

[OT] Usenet/news servers
 

In article ,
Andrew Gabriel wrote:

Seems hardly any universities run news services anymore so our upstream
feeds have reached EOL and won't be being replaced so we will be effectively
cut off. Given we would have to find (pay) for a new feed and also replace
our existing machine (Sun E250 - ancient) it's not going to happen :-(

I used to run the news service in Sun for Europe on a couple of
E250's, one for all the peering connections, and the other for
the client connections. Neither of them ever ran much above a
few % CPU using INN.

Yep, when I moved the sevice from a Ultra1 to a E250 we took two primary
feeds and then fed something like 20 further sites. Over the time these
dwindled (last vanished around 5 years ago). Now our upstream is going.

Given we are having to make some drastic cuts to service there is no way
usenet is going to make the cut :-(

The E250 was overkill in terms of cpu - but it was a spare machine we had
from some project. CPU and RAM not a problem - disk io is the only bottle
neck when running expires. Oh well, it's time has come :-(


Given this, I need to find another news server I can use. I know people
on here have recommended stuff before - is news.Individual.net still a good
option?

Also news.eternal-september.org - free, but you have to register
on their website first to get a username/password.

Giving that one a go now. Seems ok. Looks like I'm meant to post from a
valid email addr though *scrapes brain trying to remember how the hell to
get trn to do that* :-)

Cheers,

Darren

[OT] Usenet/news servers
 

D.M.Chapman wrote:
In article ,
The Natural Philosopher wrote:

Sad that UKC is closing down..must be the oldest setup in the country.

Pretty sure my first ever post sometime about 1986 went through UKC..


Quite likely.

I've mentioned this here before, but for people who've not seen it:

http://www.uknof.org.uk/uknof6/Houlder-History.pdf

Interesting stuff.


Yup. I'm not in there by name, but my company as was, is :-)


green screen VAX, UUCP connection IIRC.

Yep :-)

I took over running the news service when Richard Heskith left - 12 years
ago? I'm about the only active user at UKC now :-( (of course, we aren't
called UKC anymore either...)


Deep sadness. IF I could get a free feed...


Still, giving eternal-september a go - seems to work so far :-)

Darren

[OT] Usenet/news servers
 

In article ,
The Natural Philosopher writes:

Deep sadness. IF I could get a free feed...

I didn't pay for any of our peering feeds, and didn't charge
for any of the downstreams.
However, you do need to find someone who will pay for your
internet connectivity. Fortunately, I had access to a 34Mb
(symetrical) internet link which was otherwise very under-
utilised at the time.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]