The Sysadmin’s Daily Grind: Leafnode

GROUP THERAPY

Article from Issue 59/2005
Author(s):

Leafnode is a Usenet server for small sites where just a few users need access to a large number of groups. The Leafnode server is designed to recover from errors autonomously and needs very little attention.

If you are faced with the task of setting up a news server, you might discover INN in your package management tool. The INN daemon is powerful and flexible, and it scales well. On the downside, INN can be hungry on resources, depending on the configuration and peerings, and maintenance is not exactly trivial. In fact, INN is total overkill for smaller workgroups, and this is where Leafnode steps in. Although Leafnode is formally an NNTP server, it might be more fitting to refer to Leafnode as a news proxy. To save resources, the Leafnode server does not attempt to store every article in every newsgroup. If a user subscribes to a newsgroup, Leafnode will tell the user that the postings for the group are not available and offer to fetch the postings from a real news server.

Buy this article as PDF

Express-Checkout as PDF
Price $2.95
(incl. VAT)

Buy Linux Magazine

SINGLE ISSUES
 
SUBSCRIPTIONS
 
TABLET & SMARTPHONE APPS
Get it on Google Play

US / Canada

Get it on Google Play

UK / Australia

Related content

  • Charly's Column

    If protocols were human beings, NNTP would be a kind and slightly confused person that always believes the best of other people – even if they drop trash in the mailbox. Postfilter gives NNTP a watchdog.

  • KTools: Konqueror 3.4

    Following in the tracks of previous invaders such as Navigator and the Internet Explorer, Konqueror is on a mission conquer the Internet. The KDE 3.4 version of Konqueror is a truly versatile tool that feels at home on the web.

  • Charly's Column

    Browsers live in continual danger of compromise by a malicious site. An intermediate proxy combined with a virus scanner can help.

  • Charly's Column

    Ornithologists already know that magpies don’t really deserve their reputation. The true kleptomaniac in the world of birds is the raven. And it’s worthwhile for data dealers to make the acquaintance of Munin, a monitoring tool named after one fabled raven.

  • Usenet

    Before the web as we know it existed, Usenet performed the same tasks now done by web forums and social networks. Despite its declining popularity, Usenet is still employed to publish articles, sustain mailing lists, and even upload files.

comments powered by Disqus