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News Groups

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News groups are the central feature of any NNTP server. A news group is a virtual bulletin board on which users can post their own messages and read the messages posted by others. With Configure you can easily create and manage your own news groups. The tree pane contains a Groups branch. Expand the Groups branch to view the news groups available on your CoffeeLink News Server. The current news groups appear in sorted order under the Groups branch. The <New Group> item at the end of the list allows you to create a news group.

When you click on a news group, the properties pane shows the properties of that news group. The properties available are:

Name
The name of the news group. News group names can contain up to 120 letters, digits, and dots (``.''). Dots are used to arrange related groups into a hierarchy. For example, a company named ``Some Company'' might create three news groups: one for announcements, one for general discussion among Some Company's customers, and one for supporting customers. The names for these groups might be:
public.somecompany.announce
public.somecompany.discuss
public.somecompany.support
A news group's name cannot be changed once the group has been created so choose carefully!

Email
Each news group can have an email address associated with it. The email address is generally used to contact the person responsible for creating and managing the news group. The email address is optional.

Description
Each news group can have a brief (up to 250 characters) description associated with it. Some news clients display this description when presenting an overview of available news groups. The description is optional.

When you click on the <New Group> item, the properties pane shows the news group properties with all values initially blank. To create a new news group, simply click <New Group>, enter a name for the group, and click the Apply button to save the group. Once you have applied the changes, the group's name will appear in the Groups branch and you can update the group's properties or delete the group normally. The Apply button allows you to save any changes you have made in the properties pane. The Revert button allows you to cancel any changes you have made in the properties pane. Once you have modified any field in the properties pane, you must either Apply or Revert those changes before you can click on anything in the tree pane. The Delete button deletes the group and all messages posted to that group. This operation cannot be undone so consider carefully before deleting a news group!


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Next: Standard Roles Up: Administrator's Guide Previous: Logging Settings   Contents
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