How to manually test usenet credentials?

[bluenote]

Hey guys

Sorry this isn't directly an sabnzbd question. I have this silly 1 connection free account from gibinews, and when entering it into sabnzbd it always gives me a timeout error.

I can ping their host, though. Whatever I try in sabnzbd doesn't seem to work.

What I wanted to try next was to manually login (like through telnet) or somehow else. Is there such a way? telnetting to port 119 didn't really work.

I know I should just install another usenet client but I'd rather not have the clutter and well, maybe learn something for the future.

Can someone point me in the right direction?

thanks

[sander]

Easy:

Code: Select all

sander@R540:~$ telnet news.gibinews.eu 119
Trying 46.105.162.73...
Connected to news.hartech.eu.
Escape character is '^]'.
201 Welcome to GIBInews. Have fun (ng08)
AUTHINFO USER itsme
381 More Authentication Required
AUTHINFO PASS something
482 Authentication Rejected
quit
205 Exit articles 0, bytes 0, groups 0, posts 0, postbytes 0
Connection closed by foreign host.
sander@R540:~$

[sander]

PS:

I can't login *if* I get a connection. But now I even can't get a connection at all. Looks like a bad / overloaded server ...

Code: Select all

sander@R540:~$ telnet news.gibinews.eu 119
Trying 46.105.162.68...
Trying 46.105.162.72...
Trying 46.105.162.71...
Trying 46.105.162.66...
Trying 46.105.162.73...
Trying 46.105.162.69...
Trying 46.105.162.70...
Trying 46.105.162.67...
telnet: Unable to connect to remote host: Connection timed out
sander@R540:~$ 

[sander]

EDIT:

The password you fill out during registration, is NOT the password you use to access the newsserver. After registration and mail-confirmation, you have to go to https://gibinews.eu/en/moncompte/mon-compte and there is shows you your newsserver password.

And now SABnzbd says: "Connection Successful!"

A manual session also works well:

Code: Select all

sander@R540:~$ telnet news.gibinews.eu 119
Trying 46.105.162.86...
Connected to news.hartech.eu.
Escape character is '^]'.
201 Welcome to GIBInews. Have fun (ng06)
AUTHINFO USER blabla
381 More Authentication Required
AUTHINFO PASS aQdjdjdj
281 Authentication Accepted
help
100 Supported Commands
   MODE READER
   AUTHINFO USER <username>
   AUTHINFO PASS <password>
   LIST <active|newsgroups|overview.fmt|active.times> <pattern>
   XGTITLE <pattern>
   GROUP <newsgroup>
   LISTGROUP <newsgroup>
   NEWGROUPS <yy><yymmdd> <hhmmss>
   OVER <range|msgid>
   XOVER <range|msgid>
   XZVER <range|msgid>
   XHDR <header> <range|msgid>
   XPAT <header> <range|msgid> <pattern> <pattern..>
   NEWNEWS <newsgroup> <yymmdd> <hhmmss> <gmt|utc>
   STAT <msgid|number>
   HEAD <msgid|number>
   BODY <msgid|number>
   ARTICLE <msgid|number>
   POST
   NEXT
   LAST
   HELP
   DATE
   QUIT
The NEWNEWS command is only partly supported for single newsgroups only.
.
quit
205 Exit articles 0, bytes 0, groups 0, posts 0, postbytes 0
Connection closed by foreign host.
sander@R540:~$ 

[bluenote]

Thanks sander you are a life saver.

I can't connect at all using Putty to telnet to port 119 (it just disconnects immediately) so at least that gives me a starting point. I didn't realize that was or wasn't normal behaviour. That'll give me enough to hand off to their (unhelpful) support.

EDIT: Although I first replicated the behaviour elsewhere, I may have been using putty incorrectly. Putty changes the port after you've filled it in manually if you change the connection type, so I may have missed that the first time around. Now, I am able to telnet and get a response from my remote server, but not from home.
Seems like it may be a geo-ip issue or something, either way thanks.

[sander]

Hold on: first test another server:

Code: Select all

sander@R540:~$ telnet news.xs4all.nl 119
Trying 2001:888:0:4::119...
Connected to news.xs4all.nl.
Escape character is '^]'.
quit
200 news.xs4all.nl NNRP Service Ready (posting ok).
205 Transferred 53 bytes in 0 articles, 0 groups.  Disconnecting.
Connection closed by foreign host.
sander@R540:~$

Does that work for you?

[bluenote]

Yes I confirmed that I DO get expected behaviour with other news servers. I should have thought of that originally ...