CentOS - May 2013 - Is there a good nntp client for Centos 6 that handles SSL native?

Is there a good nntp client for Centos 6 that handles SSL native?

It was difficult, to say the least, on Centos anyway, to get
Pan to post to Mixmin servers, which require SSL (so we have 
to use Stunnel to add SSL capabilities to Pan) on Centos.

Had Pan native SSL support, this wouldn't have been a problem.

Hence the question:
 Q: Is there a good freeware NNTP client with a Centos repository 
    that handles SSL native?

Note: Here's the abbreviated sequence to install Stunnel with Pan
      (but it took me months to come up with this as all the 
      tutorials on the web fail in the little Centos details).
 
Install Stunnel:
$ sudo yum install stunnel -y

Read bug reports to find a stunnel init script for Centos:
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=455815

Add & modify that stunnel /etc/init.d/stunnel script:
http://bugzilla.redhat.com/attachment.cgi?id=325164

Configure the Stunnel /etc/stunnel/stunnel.conf file:
;setuid = nobody
;setgid = nobody
client = yes
[nntp]
accept = localhost:2119
connect = news.mixmin.net:563

NOTE: It took me months to figure out that these two
now-commented lines cause stunnel to fail on my Centos box:

Test Stunnel:
$ telnet localhost 2119
  Trying ::1...
  telnet: connect to address ::1: Connection refused
  Trying 127.0.0.1...
  Connected to localhost.
  Escape character is '^]'.
  200 news.mixmin.net InterNetNews NNRP server INN 2.6.0 (20120622 prerelease)
  ready (posting ok)
post
  340 Ok, recommended message-ID <kuyt4l$e21$1 at news.mixmin.net>
From: foobar <foo at bar.com>
Newsgroups: alt.test
Subject: This is a test

This is a test of stunnel to mixmin.
.
240 Article received <kuyt4l$e21$1 at news.mixmin.net>
quit
205 Bye!
Connection closed by foreign host.

Install Pan:
 $ sudo yum --enablerepo rpmforge install pan -y

Configure any known good Pan newsserver:
[Pan]Edit->Edit News Servers->Add->(see below)->OK
     Address: aioe.org
     Port: 119

Configure a test Pan posting profile:
[Pan]Edit->Edit Posting Profiles->Add->
     Profile Name: New Profile
     Full Name: Foo Bar
     Email Address: foo at bar.com
     Post Articles Via: aioe.org
     OK

Test Pan setup by reading & sending a message to alt.test.
[Pan]Post->Post to Newsgroup->alt.test

Now you're ready to configure Pan for SSL via Stunnel:
[Pan]Edit->Edit News Servers->Add->(see below)->OK
     Address: localhost
     Port: 2119

Switch the test user to this encrypted server:
[Pan]Edit->Edit Posting Profiles->Edit->
     Post Articles Via: localhost
     OK

Test this setup by reading & sending a message to alt.test.
[Pan]Post->Post to Newsgroup->alt.test

Note: It would have been easier had Pan native SSL
capability; hence the question:

Q: What nntp client handles SSL native on Centos 6?

On Wed, 01 May 2013 18:20:46 +0000, Rock wrote:
> Had Pan native SSL support, this wouldn't have been a problem.
I found out elsewhere that the latest Pan handles SSL, but
the one in the rpmforge repository doesn't. Every time I 
try to compile source, it's a disaster, so, for me, Pan 
doesn't handle SSL.

I also found out elsewhere that Thunderbird has native
SSL support - but TB treats NNTP as SMTP which makes
it difficult, if not unwieldy to use.

So, I'm still looking ...

Rock wrote:
> Is there a good nntp client for Centos 6 that handles SSL native?
I like knode (in kdepim rpm)

-- rex

On 02.Mai.2013, at 00:54, Rock wrote:
> I also found out elsewhere that Thunderbird has native
> SSL support - but TB treats NNTP as SMTP which makes
> it difficult, if not unwieldy to use.
What exactly do you mean with that?
At times I use thunderbird with the gmane news to mail gateway and it seemed to
worked great for me.
I did not bother with ssl for that, though.
-- 
Markus

On Sat, 04 May 2013 05:39:24 +0000, Stef wrote:
> Try xpn.
On Sat, 04 May 2013 10:49:46 +0000, J G Miller wrote:
> you can get the source code from
> http://xpn.altervista.ORG/index-en.html
Since no easily-found repository existed for xpn:
$ yum --noplugins --showduplicates --enablerepo \* --disablerepo
c6-media,\*-source,\*debug\* provides "*/xpn"
REPORTS: No Matches found

I downloaded version 1.2.6 from:
 http://xpn.altervista.org/codice/xpn-1.2.6.tar.gz

As suggested, I simply extracted and executed "xpny.py" to start xpn, 
and the setup was as easy as I would have expected an NNTP setup to be.

I simply set up the minimum user & server information:
 http://www2.picturepush.com/photo/a/12853990/img/12853990.png

Fetched the list of available groups for that server:
 http://www4.picturepush.com/photo/a/12853992/img/12853992.png

And, then posted to the alt.test newsgroup:
 http://www5.picturepush.com/photo/a/12853993/img/12853993.png

Unlike Thunderbird & Knode (which were nntp-horrid for different reasons)
it was that easy (as it should be) on xpn to post using port 553 SSL native!

Thanks! 
 
SUMMARY:
Linux native SSL NNTP clients:
a) xpn (worked on the first pass after a simple and intuitive NNTP setup)!
b) Knode (problematic - didn't work on first pass & provided no error
messages)
c) Thunderbird (problematic - setup was not intuitive and didn't work for
me)
d) Pan 0.136 (problematic - requires compilation - which often fails for me)

On Wed, 2013-05-01 at 18:20 +0000, Rock wrote:
> ...
> Q: What nntp client handles SSL native on Centos 6?
evolution

-- 
Markus