mcntp: how to

This explanation is only for the mcntp specific parts and not for setting up multicast in general.

This page also does not explain how to compile - there is enough documentation coming with mcntp.

Sender side

The task of setting up a sender can be splitted in the following parts:

Generating a key pair

This is done by calling keygen. The private key must be kept secret in the library directory that you specified at compile time in config.h in the file mcntp-key.priv. The public key must be given away to hosts that want to receive news over multicast.

Starting yawgmoth

The directory server, yawgmoth, should be started at the very beginning of rc.news to be able to answer queries, when the mcrcv processes are starting. To be able to run, yawgmoth needs a config file, which must be installed before running yawgmoth for the first time.

Specify a feed entry for your news server

The sender process, mcxmit, is started from innd itself from a so called 'channel feed'. A newsfeeds entry to distribute comp.* could be as follows:
comp-cast:comp.*:Tc,Wnm:mcxmit -g comp

Receiver side

Getting the sender's key

In order to be able to decode the received news articles, the receiver must posses the sender's public key. This key can be obtained from the sender via http or ftp or other mechanisms.
To use the key you must add it to the keyring:
cat new.public.key >> /path/to/mcntp/lib/keyring

Start receiver process(es)

You just start the mcrcv processes for the groups that you want to receive.
mcrcv -g comp
If the newsserver is on another machine (e.g. the news machine is not multicast capable), then you can specify another server:
mcrcv -g comp -s nntp.some.isp
It is a good idea to start the mcrcv processes from rc.news

Mcntp is hosted on