[leafnode-list] Re: Error installing leafnode

[Benjamin Esham]

[cross-posted to fink and leafnode lists]

With a little bit of ingenuity (a.k.a. "blind luck") I managed to get
Leafnode working with Fink on Mac OS X 10.6.  I don't have the expertise to
become the official maintainer of the Leafnode package for Fink, but perhaps
my notes can help someone else to create a package.

The current Leafnode package was developed for OS X 10.4, when xinetd was
being used.  The package built without error, but when Fink tried to install
it I got the message

ln: creating symbolic link `/etc/xinetd.d/leafnode': No such file or directory

To counter this, I just created the directory (i.e. "sudo mkdir
/etc/xinetd.d").  Fink then installed the package without complaining.

Instead of using xinetd, we need to use launchd; using the instructions at
[1], I came up with this /Library/LaunchDaemons/de.netzallee.leafnode.plist:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN"
    "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>de.netzallee.leafnode</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/sw/sbin/leafnode</string>
    </array>
    <key>Sockets</key>
    <dict>
        <key>Listeners</key>
        <dict>
            <key>Bonjour</key>
            <true/>
            <key>SockServiceName</key>
            <string>nntp</string>
        </dict>
    </dict>
    <key>UserName</key>
    <string>news</string>
    <key>inetdCompatibility</key>
    <dict>
        <key>Wait</key>
        <false/>
    </dict>
</dict>
</plist>

Now enable it using

sudo launchctl load /Library/LaunchDaemons/de.netzallee.leafnode.plist

and set up Leafnode itself as usual.  This includes adding cron jobs to
fetch new articles and prune old ones.  I had issues running Leafnode with
the OS X firewall enabled; turning it off did the trick.  Finally, I had
issues connecting to the server using slrn; changing NNTPSERVER from
'localhost' to '127.0.0.1' made it work.  Apparently this is a problem with
slrn's support of IPv6 [2].

I hope these instructions are helpful to someone else as well!

[1] http://www.kutilek.de/technik/news-macosx.en.php

[2] http://trac.macports.org/ticket/18648#comment:7

-- 
Benjamin D. Esham
bdesham at gmail.com
“They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist—”
                       — the last words of General John Sedgwick