Newsx is a Unix-based NNTP client that allows users to access newsgroups and retrieve messages.
One of the major advantages of Newsx is that it obeys the normal news spool configuration file and needs very little specific configuration, minimizing the administrative burden. Newsx is compatible with C News and INN local news servers, and its configuration mechanism is heavily reliant on standard C News and INN mechanisms for setting up newsservers and newsgroups.
Newsx makes administration easy by allowing for the setting of which newsgroups to exchange with which remote server, based on sys or newsfeeds files. It logs error statistics as well as article transfer statistics along with optionally creating a log file for the actual articles posted and collection of posted articles in folders. It has also been designed to be nice, so as not to overload the remote news server. It utilizes only standard RFC-977 functions, making it compatible with the vast majority of news servers.
Newsx provides comprehensive error recovery for posting as well as fetching. Failed postings will be retried at the next available opportunity, while fetching resumes from the point it stopped. It refers to news history database to prevent fetching of articles already in the local spool and does not fetch crossposted articles more than once. Newsx also provides an interface to popular news filters like Cleanfeed.
Pulling news through the transfer of news via fetching to local news spools has been considered an inefficient way of transferring news when compared to connecting newsreaders directly to the remote NNTP server. However, a local news spool allows news transfer to occur at off-peak hours, decreasing the host server load in the critical period. This will tie up fewer modems at peak hours and decrease the connect time as the actual transfer runs much quicker. A fetch-based system is also easier to administrate than the feeding kind since every site decides for itself what groups it will exchange with whom.
Overall, Newsx is an excellent NNTP client for Unix systems made with the administrator in mind. Its extensive list of features, error recovery, compatibility, and easy administration make it a highly effective choice for news administration.
Version 1.6: N/A