UNDERSTANDING THE NNTP SERVER
The ability to post and receive messages on a bulletin board is becoming increasingly important in communications. IIS facilitates this through its Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP). The NNTP Server is not automatically installed as a default component of IIS. It must be selected from the Configure Your Server Wizard from the list provided with the Add and Remove Programs option. Select Web Server Applications from the list click Details select Internet Information Services click Detail select NNTP Services, and then follow the wizard's instruction through the completion of the installation. It is possible to select FTP and SMTP for installation at the same time as NNTP Services are installed by also selecting these features.Newsgroup communication can be established and administered through the Internet Information Services snap-in. The system administrator can Start, Stop, or Pause it by right-clicking the targeted NNTP server and selecting the desired option. Additional NNTP virtual servers are created by right-clicking NNTP, selecting New, selecting Virtual Server, and entering the appropriate data in the associated dialog boxes (see Figure 16.26).
Figure 16.26. The IIS Snap-in Tool with Default Administration Tree Options
Under the NNTP console tree, policies can be set for newsgroups, expiration, virtual directories, and current sessions. NNTP virtual server configuration is carried out by right-clicking the desired NNTP server, selecting Properties, and then sequentially configuring from the four available tabs.The NNTP General tab (Figure 16.27) is used to establish the virtual server's name, IP-assigned addresses, connection options, and enabled logging. The other three tabs are essentially the same as those for SMTP, which were discussed in the previous sections. They are illustrated in Figures 16.28 through 16.30.