CS492/692 Newsgroup Quickstart (Tips and Tricks)

Overview

Follow the detailed instructions here: https://www.student.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~isg/coursework/newsgroups/offcampus

Note: If you use Linux, the terminal command given on the page above for Macs will also work:

ssh -N -L 1190:news.uwaterloo.ca:119 linux.student.cs.uwaterloo.ca

If you already use Thunderbird, you will need to go to "Account Settings" and use the "Account Actions" dropdown to "Add Other Account" in order to add a newsgroup account.

If you already use a command-line Unix newsgroup reader like trn, you can ssh into your account on linux.student.cs.uwaterloo.ca and use that reader.

More details on the above option and an alternate are below:

Method 1 (Preferred) --- Mozilla Thunderbird:

Pros: Intuitive, effective GUI

Cons: Configuration

Follow the detailed instructions here

Note: If you use Linux, the terminal command given on the page above for Macs will also work:

ssh -N -L 1190:news.uwaterloo.ca:119 linux.student.cs.uwaterloo.ca

If you already use Thunderbird, you will need to go to "Account Settings" and use the "Account Actions" dropdown to "Add Other Account" in order to add a newsgroup account.

Method 2 --- Unix command line:

Pros: Minimal configuration

Cons: No GUI

  1. Log onto your linux.student.cs account. If you want to log in remotely (off campus), use an SSH client. If you are using Windows, download and use PuTTY.
  2. Once you are on your school account, you can access the Newsgroup using the "trn" (Threaded Read News) program. Enter the command "trn cs492" from a bash terminal.
    3. If you have never used trn to access uwaterloo newsgroups before, there will be some setup screens that you need to navigate through. The first screen will tell you about trn generally, and the second screen will mention some important information about trn. The setup will also create a ".newsrc" file to store your newsgroup subscriptions. You will be prompted to subscribe to uw.cs.cs492: enter "y" to subscribe, and then hit again to store the newsgroup in its default location.
  3. After setup has completed, you will be shown a prompt that indicates the number of unread articles in the newsgroup, like this:

    ====== 0 unread articles in uw.cs.cs492 -- read now? [ynq]

    Entering "y" will start cycling through the unread messages, one at a time.

  4. If you start trn without the cs492 newsgroup name, you might see a prompt like this:

    ****** End of newsgroups -- what next? [npq]

    or else there will be a prompt for the first newsgroup in the list of groups to which you are subscribed:

    ====== 9 unread articles in news.newusers.questions -- read now? [+ynq]

    From either prompt, you can type "g uw.cs.cs492" to go the the cs492 newsgroup. (You will be prompted to subscribe if you have not yet subscribed).

  5. To reply to an existing article, start by reading the article. From within the read-article screen, enter "f" at the command prompt and follow the on-screen instructions.
  6. In trn, you might have issues trying to delete characters using the "backspace" key. You might have to try +h to delete characters.
  7. Type "q" to quit. (If you are currently perusing a newsgroup, "q" will take you back to the newsgroup selector screen).
  8. Typing "h" at any prompt will show a help screen relating to that prompt. These help pages contain lots of commands, so they are a good source of information.
  9. Check out the trn man pages for more info (25 pages): http://www.skrenta.com/rt/man/trn.1.html