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WTF? Did you try going to:

Bob

Nope. Didn't. I pinged it like this:

That matched up with what IAN posted. So I just used it with NNTP:, not HTTP:. Worked to get a few things, including your post there. I was also able to pull down a list of newsgroups they support and add that to my newsgroup directory list of lists.

I didn't expect it to support serving out HTML, so I didn't expect an answer to http: requests.

Is there something you discovered?

Jon

When you just put that URL into a browser it says, "It works!"

I didn't realize that NNTP was the name of the transfer protocol for usenet. I'll try that server on my newsreader and see if anyone salutes.

Bob

Oooh. Yeah. That worked. Hmmm...I could save $3/month.

Bob

Well, that's probably just the dummy page they serve out. An address on the internet is just a "location" so to speak, but not a lingo. Each location can support one or more (okay, I won't argue if someone insists on zero) lingos. They use different software programs for each, basically. So when you connect to an address somewhere, that location also needs to know what lingo you want. If you specify HTTP: then you get a port or hookup that ties in with a specific prorgam running at that location. That program takes over the hook, so to speak, and start speaking it's own lingo -- hopefully, your end understands it. If you use HTTP, then you get the web page serving program which has it's own rules about default directories, which page to serve by default, etc., etc. If your end is a web browser program, everything is good because it speaks HTTP. If you use NNTP, you get a different program and it expects to talk to something quite different on your end, too. Whole different thing, same address. They probably just set up a dummy stub for their HTTP program, which minimizes any worries, effort, etc., and just lets you know they are there. Kind of like PING.

Yes. A later one, if I remember. NNTP has been around a long, long time, but I remember something earlier. I think it was called Netnews and it used an underlying UUCP, rather than TCP and IP. RFC977 talks about NNTP, I think.

Looks like it did, given your later post.

Jon

Hehe. Every dollar counts. That's three high-calorie double beef cheese burgers from McDonalds. Might make the difference between starving to death and life some month! ;)

Jon

Or,

Looks like a Japanese company owns it?

Jon

apache default web page page.

they're called "ports" and there's 65535 of them. some of them are reserved for special puropsed (like WWW, Email, FTP etc) but you can run the services on odd-ball ports and if the client supports it it'll still work.

yeah if you use the wrong client program to connect to the server the experienc can be less satisfying. however most internet protocols are plain text based, and if the user knows what to type they can interact with the server.

eg telnet google.com 80 [wait for the connection] get / http/1.0 host: google.com [empty line]

telnet freenews.netfront.net 119 [wait for the '200' message] list [wait for the list] quit

It looks like the apache web server software has been installed but not configured, also the web server is old (2004) whilst the news server is new (2009-june-02) it may have been installed and forgotten.

whois will do it for this one

also

It also carries News:alt.binaries.e-book.technical from time to time there's a huge collection of electronics books (that is the collection is re-posted occasionally) and some of the electronics magazines get uploaded.

I'm finding some problems with it, now. Not sure if it is my setup? Or what. Almost no headers. I got Bob's files showing up and I think that is all I've seen in days. That worries me and makes me think there is something else wrong, since I'm pretty sure there is more activity of late, than just ZERO.

Jon

You could try eu.usenet-news.net but I just tried it and it didn't collect as many headers from e-book.technical as did the one named by its IP address.

I haven't seen any activity there for a while. I'll go post something.

Bob

Just a thought but news.virginmedia.com stopped requiring UN&PW to log in some time ago so I'm not sure what stops anyone from using the server who wants to - maybe that's why its overloaded so often!

If you aren't connecting via Virgin you can't use the server.

alt.binaries.e-book.technical shows 2,040,572 messages on Giganews

Some ISPs use your IP address to control who uses their news server.