NNTP vs. SMTP

[Grant Taylor]

On 05/18/10 15:13, William Ottley wrote:
> Hello all,

*wave*

> I'm looking to create a simple text transport system.

Is this "simple text transportation system" used between multiple 
servers or between clients and servers?



> Yes I could use SMTP, but the truth is, its overkill for what I want.

I too often think of NNTP as a wonderful way to disseminate information 
between multiple systems.  I think the peering between servers is quite 
good at what it does.

> So all these text messages won't be having attachments, mime, etc.

Ok.  Though, NNTP can use proper MIME encoded posts if you did want to 
transfer such.  (See more below.)

> I'm thinking for authentication, I can implement my existing mysql 
> users database.

Unless your users are going to be interacting with the news server 
directly, I don't think authentication is much of an NNTP related issue. 
(It is out side of the scope of NNTP.)

> I guess in my head, since i'm only wanting simple text to be picked 
> up by the client, then INN would be the perfect situation.

Please clarify what you mean by "client" here?  Do you mean end users 
logging in and checking messages?  Or do you mean other servers that you 
are communicating with that will pull messages out of the news server?

> Would anyone know where I could start with regards to stats of how 
> much CPU would be used for X amount of users?

I don't know where to start.  Though I'm sure that it will be able to 
handle quite a few on moderate hardware.  Especially seeing as how you 
are talking about texts posts, which should be small.

> I'm also looking for a good open source php nntp client...

I've heard that a couple different NNTP web clients (think "web news" 
compared to "web mail") exist.  I've never used any of them.  Though, 
again, this depends on what the "client" really is, the server or end users.

I have often wondered about using NNTP as a back end transportation 
system for a blog / web site / RSS gateway.  I love how NNTP will push 
posts to other servers.  Thus other servers don't have to poll their 
peers to see if there are new messages.  Further, if you allow, NNTP 
being a standard protocol can easily be interfaced with directly, thus 
allowing your ""system to be accessed via multiple modes.



Grant. . . .