Configuring a News Server
In a Nutshell - CIW Course Section 3, Part B2, Chapter 5
NNTP Service
Network News Transfer Protocol or NNTP is a means of communicating information posted on Usenet newsgroups.
Microsoft Outlook Express is a news client and Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS) can be configured as a news server. The IIS NNTP service does not support Usenet feeds but, the Linux Internet News Daemon (INND) does.
NNTP uses the TCP port 119 but also supports Secure Sockets Layer. If SSL is used the NNTP server listens on port 563.
Create a Newsgroup on IIS
By default, NNTP is not enabled and cannot be started from the IIS console. To rectify this, go to Programs | Administrative Tools | Services ad locate the Network News Transport Protocol (NNTP) service. Right-click it and select "Properties". Change the "Startup Type" to Automatic to have the service start after each server reboot or to Manual to allow the service to be stopped and started from the IIS Console.
To create a new newsgroup right-click on Newsgroups and select New | Newsgroup. Provide a name and description and select if it should be read-only and/or moderated. Click Finish - and that's it. I only make one observation and that is the newsgroup name appears to have limitations. I created one called news.test and could not post anything to it, but several other newsgroups I created not called news.something worked fine.
Did you notice the discrepancy? In the Services plug-in I referred to Network News Transport Protocol and yet at the beginning of the chapter I refer to Network News Transfer Protocol. The former is how it appears in the Windows Services plug-in and the latter is what appears in the course notes.
Enabling User-Based Access
From the Default NNTP Virtual Server right-click and select "Properties". Click the "Access" tab, then click the "Authentication" button.
Clear the "Allow Anonymous" check-box and click "OK". Now click the "Security" tab and add a user or group to this list to permit access to the server. Note: These are local users and groups to the server, I haven't tested domain accounts although I'm sure they would work.
It can be seen that I have created a group called "News Users", so that all users who are members of this group will have access to the News Server. Now from the client machine in Outlook Express right-click the News Server and select "Properties". Click the "Server" tab.
Tick the "This server requires me to log on" check-box and enter the account name and password. In the above example, user "Dilbert" is a member of the "News Users" group and now has access to the server.
IMPORTANT: At this point I must take exception to the course notes, which I think are, at best, misleading or, at worst, completely incorrect. The notes are worded in a way that suggest access to the server is controlled from the client. Access from the client is authenticated by the server and access is controlled by the server. All the client does is provide the user account details to which access will be granted.