From Newsbin

This section of the User Guide covers topics that are related to more advanced usage of Newsbin.

Using Multiple Servers

If you have multiple servers available, then Newsbin will make it easy to use them all in parallel.

Adding an Additional Server

From the Servers tab, right-click and select "Server Options". This will bring up the dialog for adding/deleting or editing servers.
Click on the "New Server" button. This will bring up a little dialog asking you to give the Server Name. Use a descriptive name for this server. This is what will be displayed in the Servers and Connections tab after the server is added.
You are also asked if you want to "Copy Settings from Server". If you specify an existing server then its settings will be copied across as initial values for the new server. Leaving it blank will cause default values to be used.
Enter the Server Address. This is the news server address specified by your news service provider or your ISP if they provide a news server. It usually looks something like "news.yourisp.com". If you get this wrong, you will get connection errors and a message in the Status tab to the effect of "address not found".
The port defaults to 119, which is standard for NNTP. You normally don't need to change this unless you plan to run on an Alternate Port or through a Tunnel.
If your news server requires a login (every pay service does, most ISP's do not) then check "Requires Login".
Enter your Username and Password if your news server requires it.
Sthe "Connections" to the number of simultanteous connections you want NewsBin to use. Most services have a limit, the average is 4. You should only use as many connections as needed to get your highest line speed. Using more than you need unnecessarily wastes your news server resources and could actually result in slower download speeds due to the extra resources on your computer needed to maintain all the connections.

Other options in the Advanced tab are explained later. When you complete your server settings, hit the OK button then look in the Connections tab to make sure the server successfully connects. If it doesn't, look in the Status tab to see what errors are occuring.

Alternate Ports

If you use SSL, this section doesn't apply to you. SSL hides the downloaded data from both the ISP and from your local virus scanner or firewalls. Changing the standard TCP port has no affect when using SSL.

Many ISP's are now limiting your speed for Usenet access. They do this by putting a limit on internet traffic using port 119, which is standard for Usenet. Many news servers, including Astraweb provides Usenet access on alternate ports that are set aside for different protocols like telnet, mail, web, or proxies.

Before changing your port number, first check with your news service provider to determine which alternate ports they support. Astraweb supports ports 23 and 8080 in addition to the standard port 119 for example. If you use Astraweb and don't use SSL we recommend using port 8080 instead of port 119.

Changing your port number:

Right-click on the server in the Servers tab and select "Server Options". This will bring up the Server Options dialog with the server you selected as the one whose properties are currently displayed.
Enter the port number in the "TCP Port:" field.
Hit OK
Exit NewsBin
Start NewsBin

Check your Connections tab to make sure the server reconnects. If there are problems, check your Status tab for clues as to what is wrong. You may have to configure your firewall to allow Newsbin to have outbound access on this port (depending on the type of firewall you have).

Slave Server

NewsBin allows you to configure a server to not download headers but still be available to download posts either using headers from other servers or, with NZB files. Turning on "Slave Server" in the Advanced section of the Server Properties puts the server into that mode.

Uses for Slave Servers:

Less time spent Downloading headers.
Reduce storage requirements on disk for headers.
Reduce memory usage when a post list is loaded.
Servers that count header downloads towards your total download limit.

It is normal to use your best server to download headers. This would normally be the one with the longest retention. This ensures that you have as complete a set as possible.

Fill Server

Setting a server as a "Fill Server" under the Advanced properties of the server tells NewsBin to only use this server if no other servers has a specific post (chunk). NewsBin will try every other non-fill server in your server list and, when all else fails, will use a Fill server. This is most effective if you choose a high quality, long retention server to serve as backup if your primary server (like the one from your ISP) is missing some critical posts.

Note that if you have an account with your high-quality server which is unlimited (i.e. you do not pay additional fees if you download more) then it is not worth setting it as a fill server - simply use it all the time. In such a case you may wish to forgo using any low retention servers such as those typically provided by many ISP's

Uses for Fill Servers are:

Maximize use of free servers and use pay servers only if needed.
Limit use of servers with download limits.
Limit use of servers where you pay accoring to the amount you download.

If you want the best in Service and retention to use as a Fill server then we recommend Astraweb as a high quality service to work in addition with your ISP's news service. If you want a basic fill server to act as a backup to a free or ISP news server, then Astraweb is a good candidate as it offers block accounts that do not expire.

SSL Support

SSL (Secure Socket Layer) connections are used if you want the connection to your News Server to be encrypted.

Reasons you might want to use SSL connections are:

You would like the extra security provided by encrypted connections.
Your ISP uses "Traffic Shaping" to limit the speed of connections to news servers, and SSL allows this to be by-passed. Note however that the use of SSL is not guaranteed to by-pass traffic shaping as it depends on the exact technisques being used.

Once SSL is enabled, every connection to this server will be encrypted with the same technology used to provide security for websites. SSL for Usenet is also referred to as NNTPS. Most commercial News Servers now offer SSL as an option (sometimes at an additional charge). Astraweb which was mentioned earlier offer SSL support.

If your News Service supports SSL connections then you can enable SSL for the server using these steps:

Right-click on the server entry in the Servers tab.
Select "Server options"
Click the checkbox next to "Use SSL"
Set the Port to 563. This is nearly always the the value used for SSL although it is possible some servers might allow alternative values.
Click OK
Close and restart NewsBin

To verify SSL is turned on, you will see a "Lock" icon next to the server entry in the Servers tab and in the Connections tab (Version 5.32 and above only). In the Status messages, if you have the logging level (in the advanced options) set to "Debug and if you have "Show Server Commands" enabled under Options/Network, you will see a message like this:

11/27/2006 14:10:38 MODULE=InterSocket, MSG=SSL Connection Server: ssl.astraweb.com Stats AES256-SHA 256 Bits Version: TLSv1/SSLv3

If you enable SSL for your server, newsbin will ONLY connect using SSL. This means that even if you don't see this message or notice the lock, with SSL enabled, an SSL connection will be required for download.

Note that Giganews offers a product that its users can use called the "Giganews Accelerator". Newsbin versions newer than 5.55 have the Accelerator built in so, you no longer need to use the Giganews accelerator. Set the Address to "news.giganews.com" and restart Newsbin to use the built in accelerator. The built in Accelerator works with many other major news servers too.

Limiting Connections that can be used for Headers

Very often users ask if they can stop a header update using all the available connections, and keep some dedicated to downloading files. In extreme cases this can go as far as having only a single connection being used for handling header downloads and all other connections being dedicated to downloading files.

You can use manual intervention to move the file download tasks above the header download tasks in the Download list, but most people want some automated way of achieving the desired results.

A way to achieve this is to take advantage of Newsbin's facilities for handling multiple connections and proceed as follows:

Set up 2 instances of a server with the available connections split across the two instances. The total number of connections across the server instances must not exceed the maximum your account allows.

The First instance is set up a Master server that is allowed to be used for downloading headers. This server instance is given the maximum number of connections you wish to be allowed to be used for downloading headers. When not downloading headers these connections will be used for downloading files.

The second instance is set up as a Slave server and will thus use headers downloaded from the Master server. This instance is given the remaining connections, and these will only ever be used for downloading files.

A slight extension of this technique is to also set the first server instance to be a Fill server. This will mean that it is not used for normal file downloads. This can be of particular use if you want to track the volume of the headers downloaded as the figures for this instance of the server then apply only to headers.

Opening a different Configuration File

Newbin version 5 does not allow you to open a different configuration file once NewsBin is running. Newsbin v5 has implemented many features that should remove the need most people had to maintain different configuration files in earlier versions of Newsbin. Newsbin incorporates a check that will not allow you to run two instances of Newsbin on the same machine using the same configuration file. If you try to do this you will get an error message stating that there is already an instance of Newsbin running.

The default behavior in Newsbin is to always open the last configuration file used. The Newsbin configuration files will have the file extension of .NBI. You can always tell which particular configuration file is in use by an instance of Newsbin as it is displayed in the Title bar at the top of the Newsbin window. If you are not sure of the location of the current configuration file, then one way is to select the "Save Configuration As" option from the Newsbin File menu. This will open a Save dialog preset to the current location.

If you really have a situation that requires different configurations, there are two ways to open NewsBin with a specific configuration file:

Launch NewsBin from the NBI File: Close NewsBin, use Windows Explorer to navigate to the NBI file you want to use, then double-click on it to launch. If you have Nero installed, the .nbi file may be associated with Nero BackItUp. If this is the case, you need to either right-click and select "Open With..." to launch with NewsBin or, manually change your windows association for .NBI files.
Pass the NBI filename as a parameter: Create a shortcut to NewsBin then go under the shortcut Properties and type the full path to your NBI file in the "Target" field. For example

"C:\Program Files\NewsBin\nbpro.exe" "C:\Documents and Settings\Dexter\Application Data\Newsbin\NBConfig.nbi"

Changing the Newsbin Data Folder location

The Newsbin DATA folder is where Newsbin stores all its working files.

On New installations of Newsbin you are given the chance to specify the location of the Newsbin DATA folder. You are not given a chance to do this on an Upgrade install.

There are times when existing users want to move the Newsbin DATA folder to another location, typically to another drive on the same computer. This could be for a number of reasons the commonest of which are:

You are running out of space on the drive that currently holds the DATA folder, so would like it to be at a different location.
You have just upgraded from XP to Vista,. If you were using the default location for the Newsbin DATA folder area on XP (under the Documents and Settings) area, then you will find that this area has silently been set as Read-Only during the upgrade. Newsbin will therefore start to misbehave until you move the DATA folder to somewhere where write access is allowed.

The steps to achieve this are:

Make sure you know where your current configuration file is located. The name of the current configuration file is displayed in the title bar of the Newsbin main window. If you are not sure of its location then using the "Save configuration As" option on the Newsbin File menu is probably the easiest way to find out its location.
Make sure you know where your current DATA folder is located. If you are not sure you can find out by pressing the "Open Data Folder" button on the Newsbin Options->Setup dialog.
Exit from Newsbin.
Load the configuration file into a text editor. Notepad will do fine, but feel free to use any alternative. It might be a good idea to make a back-up of your configuration file before you change it in case you make a mistake.
Locate all instances refering to the existing path and change them to the new path you want to use. There will normally be 3 instances to change - the entries for SpoolPath, PosterFile and DataPath.
Move all the files that were in the old path to the new path.
Restart Newsbin. If by any chance your configuration file was also in the DATA path so its location has changed then start Newsbin by double-clicking the .NBI file.

Using Multiple Newsbin Configurations

The vast majority of people will only need to ever use a single Newsbin configuration. However there are a small number of people who want the ability to use multiple configurations. Reasons for this can be varied, but examples might be:

Different configurations are used at different times of the day.
Two instances of Newsbin are to be used in parallel. These may use different servers, or perhaps just different groups within the same servers.

You cannot have multiple instances of Newsbin running using the same configuration file. It is not possible to change the configuration file from within a running instance of Newsbin. It is possible, however, to launch Newsbin to use a specific configuration file. There are several possible ways to achieve this:

Starting Newsbin each time by double-clicking the appropriate configuration file
Create shortcuts to each configuration file and use these to launch Newsbin. This relies on the windows file association between .nbi files and Newsbin.
Creating shortcuts to the Newsbin binary to start Newsbin that specify specific configuration files as parameters. This works even if the windows file association to .nbi files is changed for any reason.

Note that if you want to run multiple instances of Newsbin at the same time they should have different DATA folders or unpredictable behavior may occur.

Backing up Newsbin

A question that users regularly ask if what Newsbin related files should be backed up in case a disk crashes, or perhaps if you want to move Newsbin to another machine keeping your settings intact.

To do this you want to make sure that the following are backed up:

A copy of the Newsbin software so that you can re-install it if necessary.
A copy of your Newsbin registration information. This is stored in the Windows registry which is not that easily backed up, so in a recovery situation you will need to re-enter it.
You Newsbin configuration file (the one with the .NBI file extension). This stores most of your configuration information such as server details, subscribed groups etc. In a recovery situation you can double-click this file to launch Newsbin with the configuration information contained in the file.
The location of this file is under user control, but many users like to store it in the folder that is the DATA path to keep all Newsbin's working files together. The Default location for this file is 'C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\newsbin'.
The files at the location specified as the DATA path under Options->Setup. If you have not changed the DATA path from its default value then it is probably 'C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\newsbin', but it is easiest to use the button on the Newsbin Options->Setup screen to find where it is as it can vary with different versions of Windows. You definitely want files that are at this level, but do not necessarily want files that are in the sub-folders of this location. Files that are of particular interest (they may not all always be present) are:
- filters.db3 which contains your current filters
- downloads.db3 which contains the download list, failed files list and scratch lists
- downloaded.db3 which contains the files list
- autopar2.db3 which contains details of files from the AutoPAR tab
- groups.db3 which contains your groups list.
- rpb.db3 which contains any posts read using "Read Post"
- signature.db3 which contains the current signature cache values for previously downloaded files. This is used as part of the duplicate detection mechanism.
- search.db3 which contains search related information. Not normally any need to back this up but it is very small.

You may optionally want to consider backing up the SPOOL (or SPOOL_V1 if using 5.50 or later) sub-folder under the DATA path location. This would back up all your downloaded headers, and status information relating to these headers. Alternatively you may well decide that if necessary you will simply redownload headers and therefore not bother with backing them up.

The Images sub-folder is used to store the Image database entries if you make use of this facility.

Advanced users

There is a small amount of display related information stored in the Windows registry under the key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\DJI Interprises. None of this information is critical to Newsbin running, and backing up/restoring registry entries is deemed an advanced topic that the average user would not want to get involved in attempting to carry out, so it is not covered in any detail here. Advanced users might wish to examine this information and decide if they want to try and include any of it in their Newsbin backup.

Copying Newsbin to another computer

Newsbin stores a minimal amount of information in the registry, so it is relatively easy to copy Newsbin to another system keeping the settings and information intact. The steps involved are:

Install Newsbin: The Newsbin software needs to be installed and registered on the target machine. Note that the terms of the standard Newsbin license allows you to install the software on up to 3 computers (typically something like a home machine, a work machine and a laptop). If you intend to run a beta release you will need to first install the last production release, and then upgrade to the beta release.
Copy the data folder over: The folder set as the DATA location under Options->Setup in Newsbin is the place where all the Newsbin working files are kept. Copying this across from the old installation to the new installation keeps all this information intact. This will include the files described under the section above on backing up Newsbin. Whether you also copy the sub-folders depends on why you are making the copy of Newsbin.
Copy the layout file over: The Newsbin window and tab settings are stored in the file Guiitems.db3, and these needs to be copied to the location 'C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\newsbin' on the new computer if you want to use the same settings as on the previous one.
Copy the Configuration file: The Newsbin configuration file keeps all your important settings such as the groups you are subscribed to; the servers you use; and all the settings that are set via the Newsbin Options dialogs. This file will have a .NBI file extension and the name is displayed in the Newsbin title bar. The location and name of this file is controlled by the user, so you need to find where you have put this file. Some users like to put this in the same location as the DATA path but this is not a requirement.
Set folders: The chances are that you will want your Newsbin files in a different location to that on the original system. See the section earlier on how to change the DATA folder. You can use the same technique to change the DOWNLOAD path as well.
Note: Changing the DOWNLOAD folder only changes it for new items that you queue for download - it does not change those already queued. If they have already started downloading then you can no longer change the path. If an item has not started downloading you can right-click the entry and use the option to assign a new path.
Start Newsbin: The first time you launch Newsbin you want to tell it to use the configuration file you copied rather than try and create a new one. The way to achieve this is to launch Newsbin by double-clicking the .NBI configuration file that you copied earlier. This is only required the first time you launch Newsbin - on subsequent launches Newsbin will remember the last configuration file you used and default to that one if you do not provide a specific configuration file at Newsbin launch.

One thing that is not copied is the column widths in the various tabs. These are stored in the registry so copying the settings across (although technically possible) is normally not worth the effort - it is easier to reset them as required on the target machine.

CAUTION: The path specified in a download list is not changed by changing the DOWNLOAD folder as described above - the change is only used for queuing new items. To change existing entries you need to explicitly right click entries in the download list and select the Download to Folder option to mke the change.

Hidden Settings

Some functions that have either been needed for troubleshooting, or have been requested by users have been implemented through configuration file settings and are not available via the Newsbin user interface. This was done for functions it was decided would not be widely usedl could not be changed while newsbin was running; or were confusing for new users.

These setting are changed by either manually editing the Newsbin configuration file using a Text Editor, or alternatively by edting Windows registry entries using the Registry Editor. Each entry below tells you the method to use.

NOTE: The changes discussed in this section must be made while Newsbin is NOT running.

Logging Status Tab messages to disk

Newsbin writes various types of information (in particular errors) to the Status tab.

In its default setting there is not that much information written to the Status tab, so it is easy enough to examine the messages visually from within Newsbin itself. However if you are getting more detailed information written to the Status tab, either because you are running a beta version with additional built-in diagnostic messages, or you have used the option to display Server commands, then you may prefer to get copies of these messages written to disk so that can be examined at more leisure.

This can be done buy creating following key

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\DJI Enterprises\Newsbin50\Settings\LogFile

in the registry as type String where "LogFile" is the name and path of the logfile you want it to write to. Now when you start Newsbin all messages that are written to the Status tab are also written to this file.

CAUTION: Newsbin will overwrite this file every time that it is started up, so if you want to preserve such log files you may want to write a batch file to launch Newsbin that first copies an existing log file to another name.

Free Space Limits

Newsbin monitors the free space on the drives set as the DATA and DOWNLOAD paths under Options->Setup. When these get below a predetermined value then Newsbin will put up a dialog indicating that it has run out of space. Many users have indicated that they would like to be able to set a much larger trigger value than that built into Newsbin. This can be done by creating an entry of the form

MinFreeSpace=xxxx

where xxxx represents a size in Mbytes to the [Filename] section of your newsbin (.NBI) configuration file. As an example a value of 1024 for xxx would set a limit of 1Gb.

Image Database

When Image Database is enabled, images are written to both the database and to disk. This setting will delete the file after it's written to the image database.

[IMAGESAFE]
SaveImages=0

NOTE: If you DON'T have "ImageSafe" mode turned on, that means you LOSE the downloads.

NZB Path Cleaning prefix

Newsbin gives you the option to create folder names for files downloaded via NZB files where the folder name is based on the NZB Filename. In many cases the NZB filename has a standardised prefix that it is desireable to remove, and you specifiy this by setting the clean NZB path option under options->NZB Files. Newsbin will by default be set up to handle the prefix for one NZB site, but you may want to change the prefix to be removed if you a different source of NZB files.

The prefix is identified using a Regular Expression. The expression to be used can be set by creating an entry of the form:

NZB_PathCleanRE=expression

to the [NZB] section of your newsbin (.NBI) configuration file.

As an example the value that is used for one NZB site is:

NZB_PathCleanRE="^(msgid_[0-9]*_)|([0-9]?_)"

Launching Notepad for Read Post Body

There is an option to suppress launching whatever text editor you have associated with .txt file when you perform a Read Post Body (ctrl-r). Any RPB's automatically show up in the Read Posts tab and by default, your text editor will launch to display the text as well.

To turn off launching the external program, add

DisplayReadPosts=0

to the [SETTINGS] section of your Newsbin (.NBI) configuration file.

TCP/IP Timeouts

TCP/IP connections have a timeout value for the case where no response is received from the remote end (the news server in this case). In most cases the default values built into newsbin will be fine, but users with specific requirements may wish to set their own values.

This can be done by creating registry values with the names:

RecieveTimeout  <-- yes, it is spelled wrong.
TransmitTimeout

to the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\DJI Interprises\Newsbin50\Settings key. The key should be created as a REG_DWORD and make sure you have it set to Decimal if you are entering decimal numbers. The numbers represent number of seconds. Note that a check is done that the values are not less than 20 seconds as lower values can cause even good connections to start behaving badly.

The default values built into Newsbin are equivalent to the following values:

RecieveTimeout = 300
TransmitTimeout = 60

and these are probably good values for general use.

Auto Assembly Timeout

Newsbin will not normally auto-assemble incomplete items that have very recently been posted to Usenet. This is in case these items are still being uploaded and will shortly complete. You can specify the time that Newsbin is to wait (based on the Posting date/time) before Auto-Assembly will happen. For example, you might have an NZB for a file set. The NZB is complete. You try to download it from your server but, it's not on your server yet. By not auto-assembling immediately, as the files complete on your server, they can be downloaded successfully. If they were assembled immediately, the file set would never complete.

To set the time that Newsbin uses for this, add

AutoAssembleTimer=n

to the [SETTINGS] section of your Newsbin (.NBI) configuration file where n is the delay in hours.

The default value that is used if this entry is absent is equivalent to

AutoAssembleTimer=48

which gives a delay of 2 days.

Automatic Processing of Downloaded NZB Files

This facility makes Newsbin automatically load any NZB files that are downloaded by saving them to the NZB Autoload folder. NZB Autoload will then pick up the NZB's and process them using the current NZB Autoload settings.

To activate this feature, add

AutoDownload=1

to the [NZB] section of your Newsbin (.NBI) configuration file.