Re: Connection fails

[Ted Zlatanov]

On 10 Sep 2009 14:40:46 -0500 reingold@emr.cs.iit.edu (Edward M. Reingold) 
wrote: 

>>>>>> "TZ" == Ted Zlatanov <tzz@lifelogs.com> writes:
EMR> (setq gnus-newsrc-alist '(("nntp+news.cs.illinois.edu:cs.announce" 3
EMR> ((1 . 904)) nil "nntp:news.cs.illinois.edu";)
EMR> ("nntp+news.cs.illinois.edu:cs.general" 3 ((1 . 5237)) nil
EMR> "nntp:news.cs.illinois.edu";)
EMR> ("nntp+news.cs.illinois.edu:cs.grad.announce" 3 ((1 . 268)) nil
EMR> "nntp:news.cs.illinois.edu";)
EMR> ("nntp+news.cs.illinois.edu:cs.undergrad.announce" 3 ((1 . 327)) nil
EMR> "nntp:news.cs.illinois.edu";)
EMR> ("nntp+news.cs.illinois.edu:cs.undergrad.general" 3 ((1 . 2547)) nil
EMR> "nntp:news.cs.illinois.edu";)
EMR> ("nntp+news.cs.illinois.edu:research.area.theory" 3 ((1 . 33)) nil
EMR> "nntp:news.cs.illinois.edu";)

EMR> The Illinois server recently changed to one requiring a secure
EMR> connection; is that "nntp" part now wrong?

TZ> Not there, but you have to change the NNTP server's definition to deal
TZ> with the secure connection.  The newsrc file has the logical server
TZ> name, while the real address, port, etc. are defined elsewhere (in the
TZ> newsrc file for external servers and in Lisp for primary/secondary
TZ> servers).

EMR> I don't understand--exactly what do I need to do, and where?

Method 1:

In the group buffer, hit `^' to get to the Server buffer
Then hit `e' on the server in question.
The Gnus manual tells you what server parameters are available for each
server; you probably want the connection-related ones:

http://www.gnus.org/manual/gnus_168.html#SEC168
http://www.gnus.org/manual/gnus_170.html#SEC170

Here's an example of a NNTP server with an unusual port number; you can
see how the definition is constructed:

("nntprss.myne.com" nntp "nntprss.myne.com" (nntp-port-number 10919))

Method 2:

If you can't edit the server, it's probably defined in your Lisp
configuration as a primary or secondary, so you need to make the changes
there.  The manual examples use Lisp code so you should be able to get
the needed formatting from there.  It's slightly different from the
server buffer parameters.

I tried connecting to that server and it seems to allow outside
connections over NNTP and NNTPS; the latter is an SSL connection so you
can use nntp-open-ssl-stream (with nntp-port-number set to 563).  The
manual's example will show you how to do it.

Ted