[Mailman-Developers] Bug#57223: mailman: gate_news problems (fwd)

[Jim Tittsler]

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On Mon, Feb 07, 2000 at 07:17:13PM +0100, Thomas Wouters wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 07, 2000 at 12:53:17PM -0500, Barry A. Warsaw wrote:
> 
> > I'm cutting and pasting a message that originated on the mailman-users
> > mailing list.  I think this message is fairly self-explanatory.  Can
> > other NNTP experts look this over and see if it makes sense?  I'll
> > apply it if there are no objections.
> > Note: the bare except is bothersome.

I confess I wasn't sure if a news server that didn't recognize the 'mode
reader' could be counted on to return a 500 series error.  It seemed
logical, but I couldn't be sure.  (All of the servers I have access
to accept the 'mode reader'.)

> Note, though, that i've already posted a small patch to mailman to fix this.
> Since the 'group' command is executed by gate_news, which doesn't need
> authentication, it's easy enough to try the group, and set the connection to
> readermode if it fails. 

I dislike your proposed solution for two reasons:
  1. It uses the nntplib's shortcmd outside of nntplib, even though it is
     documented as "internal".
  2. It doesn't work when you *do* need authentication.  The group command
     will claim 'No such group' for groups that are hidden by authentication.
     (One of my mailman run on such a machine.)  You need to do the 'mode
     reader' before authenticating.
I still think it better to change nntplib.

> Also note that I've already sent a patch to patches@python.org ;) with a
> pointer to the mailman-users discussion in question.
> 
> http://www.python.org/pipermail/patches/2000-February/000015.html
> 
> My patch uses an extra argument to NNTP.__init__, and avoids the bare
> except. To get the same behaviour as the patch below, sending 'mode
> reader' by default, the default value of readermode can be set to 1. I'm not
> sure if that's a wise thing, however, as some users of nntplib.NNTP might
> depend on the connection being able to do things that you cant do in
> readermode.

I sent a similar nntplib patch to mailman-users last week, although I
defaulted to the current behavior and required the additional argument
(or a user specified for authentication) to get the "newsreader" behavior.
http://www.python.org/pipermail/mailman-users/2000-February/003935.html

Jim

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--- /home/jwt/nntplib.py.orig	Sat Sep 18 09:16:08 1999
+++ nntplib.py	Sat Sep 18 11:39:00 1999
@@ -61,17 +61,24 @@
 
 	# Initialize an instance.  Arguments:
 	# - host: hostname to connect to
 	# - port: port to connect to (default the standard NNTP port)
+	# - mode: if not None (or user is specified), issue 'mode reader'
 
-	def __init__(self, host, port = NNTP_PORT, user=None, password=None):
+	def __init__(self, host, port = NNTP_PORT, user=None, password=None,
+                     mode=None):
 		self.host = host
 		self.port = port
 		self.sock = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM)
 		self.sock.connect(self.host, self.port)
 		self.file = self.sock.makefile('rb')
 		self.debugging = 0
 		self.welcome = self.getresp()
+		if user or mode:
+			try:
+				self.welcome = self.shortcmd('mode reader')
+			except:
+				pass
 		if user:
 			resp = self.shortcmd('authinfo user '+user)
 			if resp[:3] == '381':
 				if not password:
@@ -466,9 +473,9 @@
 
 
 # Minimal test function
 def _test():
-	s = NNTP('news')
+	s = NNTP('news', mode='reader')
 	resp, count, first, last, name = s.group('comp.lang.python')
 	print resp
 	print 'Group', name, 'has', count, 'articles, range', first, 'to', last
 	resp, subs = s.xhdr('subject', first + '-' + last)

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