This file concerns a setup of slrn that is suitable for multiple users.

The installation instructions given in this file provide information about
setting up slrn with defaults that are global to all users.  These defaults
include such information as the name of the organization and the hostname.
In addition, only one newsgroup description file is needed instead of one
per user.

The files that provide such "global" information are put in
  SYSCONFDIR/slrn.rc           : global initialization file and
  DATADIR/slrn/newsgroups.dsc  : newsgroup description file.
The values of SYSCONFDIR and DATADIR can be set when building slrn
(--sysconfdir and --datadir options of ./configure).

On my system, the global slrn.rc file simply contains the two lines:

   set hostname space.mit.edu
   set organization "Center for Space Research"

which will appear in the appropriate headers when a user posts a message. In
addition to specifying these quantities in the slrn.rc file, suitable
defaults may be compiled into the executable.  Simply edit the slrnfeat.h
file for this option.

Background:

  When slrn runsn it looks for a file that contains the description of all
  the news groups.  This is NOT the newsrc file.  Rather, it is a file that
  contains a one line summary of what each group is about.  This file can be
  quite large if there are many newsgroups.  For example, on my system, the
  newsgroup description file is 225 Kilobytes.  It is not desirable for each
  user to have their own private copy of this file, especially when there is
  more than one user of slrn on a given system.  Instead, the system
  administrator only has to keep a copy of it in a directory that slrn knows
  about.  Part of the installation process described in this file involves
  the creation of such a directory.

  slrn assumes that newsgroup description file will be called
  `newsgroups.dsc'.  The directory where this file is located get hardcoded
  into the binary. By default, it is /usr/local/share/slrn, but you can
  change this with the --datadir option when running ./configure.

  Now, you have to obtain the newsgroup description file. You can do that in
  at least two ways.  The easiest is to simply get the file `newsgroups.dsc'
  from space.mit.edu:/pub/davis/slrn.  The other method is just as easy but
  involves slrn to create such a file for you.  This is described below.

With this background, the steps presented below should be clear.

  0. Execute the steps outlines in README before continuing.
  
  1. Create the directory `/usr/local/share/slrn' (or equivalent; after a
     successful installation of slrn, it should already exist).
  
  2. Run slrn as follows:
  
         slrn -f SHAREDIR/slrn/newsgroups -d
	 
     (Of course, make the proper substution of SHAREDIR).  This will create
     a file newsgroups.dsc in SHAREDIR/slrn.
     
     This step may take some time to complete for slow NNTP connections.
     
  3. If more that one person will be reading this file, make sure it is
     world readable, e.g.,
     
         chmod go+r SHAREDIR/newsgroups.dsc


That's it!!