reddit-nntp

reddit-nntp

What is reddit-nntp?

Reddit-NNTP is an NNTP frontend for Reddit. Reddit-NNTP has two modes: one mode for fetching posts and storing them into a spool and another mode for serving NNTP requests through this spool. Reddit-NNTP uses a SQLite database for its spool, so a version of the server can be running serving NNTP requests while a background job can be run updating the contents of the spool from reddit.

It's recommended to always have the server running and to have a job running on a timer (e.g. cron or systemd timer) fetching new content into the spool.

Does reddit-nntp support posting?

Currently Reddit-NNTP does not support posting and disables posting on client connect. In the future this will probably change, but for now I'm more interested in getting full MODE READER support in place before adding code for posting.

Why should I use reddit-nntp?

Reddit-NNTP is mostly RFC-3977 compliant. Reddit-NNTP advertises capabilities. Reddit-NNTP supports almost all MODE READER commands. Reddit-NNTP strives to be a compliant NNTP server, not a minimal implementation. Reddit-NNTP tries to be usable as both a standalone server and as another upstream for aggregating newsservers. Work will continue making reddit-nntp more RFC compliant. Reddit-NNTP mounts all of its subreddits in a parent hierarchy which is configurable. By default this is set to reddit, so if you wish to read /r/Usenet for example, you will find content available in reddit.usenet.

Reddit-NNTP makes a great companion to Leafnode. Use Leafnode to fetch articles from Reddit-NNTP and make sure to only grab articles in the namespace that you've configured Reddit-NNTP to use (reddit by default.) Then you can read the groups you usually read alongside Reddit groups!

Reddit-NNTP is RFC compliant enough that you should be able to hook up INN or any other newsserver to it, though I haven't tested it with anything other than Leafnode and a direct connection to slrn.

Usage

Defaults

By default the path to the Spool DB is set to $HOME/.config/reddit-nntp/spool.db.

By default the path to the config is set to $HOME/.config/reddit-nntp/config.toml.

CLI Options

Usage of ./reddit-nntp:
  -conf string
        path to config file (default "$HOME/.config/reddit-nntp/config.toml")
  -db string
        path to sqlite database (default "$HOME/.config/reddit-nntp/spool.db")
  -init
        initialize the database
  -subs
        get subreddits
  -update int
        update spool with contents of last n hours

Building

go build

Create a config

An example config with documented options is found at config.toml.example.

Initialize the Spool Database

reddit-nntp -init

Populate the Spool Database for the First Time

reddit-nntp -subs

Fetch the last n hours of content into your spool

reddit-nntp -update n

Use this to update your spool in a cron or systemd-timer.

Serve NNTP requests (start Reddit-NNTP)

reddit-nntp

Run this as a service to use with your newsreader or another newsserver.