1This file concerns a setup of slrn that is suitable for multiple users.
2
3The installation instructions given in this file provide information about
4setting up slrn with defaults that are global to all users.  These defaults
5include such information as the name of the organization and the hostname.
6In addition, only one newsgroup description file is needed instead of one
7per user.
8
9The files that provide such "global" information are put in
10  SYSCONFDIR/slrn.rc           : global initialization file and
11  DATADIR/slrn/newsgroups.dsc  : newsgroup description file.
12The values of SYSCONFDIR and DATADIR can be set when building slrn
13(--sysconfdir and --datadir options of ./configure).
14
15On my system, the global slrn.rc file simply contains the two lines:
16
17   set hostname space.mit.edu
18   set organization "Center for Space Research"
19
20which will appear in the appropriate headers when a user posts a message. In
21addition to specifying these quantities in the slrn.rc file, suitable
22defaults may be compiled into the executable.  Simply edit the slrnfeat.h
23file for this option.
24
25Background:
26
27  When slrn runsn it looks for a file that contains the description of all
28  the news groups.  This is NOT the newsrc file.  Rather, it is a file that
29  contains a one line summary of what each group is about.  This file can be
30  quite large if there are many newsgroups.  For example, on my system, the
31  newsgroup description file is 225 Kilobytes.  It is not desirable for each
32  user to have their own private copy of this file, especially when there is
33  more than one user of slrn on a given system.  Instead, the system
34  administrator only has to keep a copy of it in a directory that slrn knows
35  about.  Part of the installation process described in this file involves
36  the creation of such a directory.
37
38  slrn assumes that newsgroup description file will be called
39  `newsgroups.dsc'.  The directory where this file is located get hardcoded
40  into the binary. By default, it is /usr/local/share/slrn, but you can
41  change this with the --datadir option when running ./configure.
42
43  Now, you have to obtain the newsgroup description file. You can do that in
44  at least two ways.  The easiest is to simply get the file `newsgroups.dsc'
45  from space.mit.edu:/pub/davis/slrn.  The other method is just as easy but
46  involves slrn to create such a file for you.  This is described below.
47
48With this background, the steps presented below should be clear.
49
50  0. Execute the steps outlines in README before continuing.
51
52  1. Create the directory `/usr/local/share/slrn' (or equivalent; after a
53     successful installation of slrn, it should already exist).
54
55  2. Run slrn as follows:
56
57         slrn -f SHAREDIR/slrn/newsgroups -d
58
59     (Of course, make the proper substution of SHAREDIR).  This will create
60     a file newsgroups.dsc in SHAREDIR/slrn.
61
62     This step may take some time to complete for slow NNTP connections.
63
64  3. If more that one person will be reading this file, make sure it is
65     world readable, e.g.,
66
67         chmod go+r SHAREDIR/newsgroups.dsc
68
69
70That's it!!
71