KFUPM Newgroup Service

The kfupm newsgroups contain useful announcements and crucial information enhancing information distribution and announcements within KFUPM community. The server name is news.itc.kfupm.edu.sa

The newsgroups on this server were carefully created to reflect the needs of the community to enhance communication besides saving valuable resources. These newsgroups are divided into several titles so that the user may subscribe to the ones that mostly satisfy his needs. However, more newsgroups can be created upon requests and need.

Some of these Newsgroups were created to replace the currently existing aliases, widely used to distribute valuable information to the community. Now, instead of sending e-mail to these aliases (kfupm.faculty and kfupm.staff), users can post articles to the newsgroups KFUPM.faculty and KFUPM.staff. When the poster feels that his posting is of interest to both Faculty and Staff, he can post it to the newsgroup KFUPM.general. Another newsgroup is KFUPM.seminars which is mainly created for KFUPM seminars announcements.

Advantages of using the newsgroups over the mail broadcasting:

• Postings of information are kept in one place accessible to everyone by several means.
• Mailboxes won't be filled up with unnecessary e-mails.
• Postings will be read within more convenient times and kept for proper time.
• Postings won't be sent physically to hundreds of mailboxes, (i.e. around 800 faculty and 500 staff members) instead, one copy for all.
• The main mail server will save valuable CPU time and disk space that should be more utilized towards research and academic usage (i.e., an e-mail of 1 MB to all KFUPM faculty and staff using the aliases was costing the system around one hour of execution time and 1.3 GB of disk space in the common mailboxes space).

Currently available newsgroups

Newsgroup: KFUPM.general
Description: KFUPM General Announcements and Information
Expiration: 30 days

Newsgroup: KFUPM.faculty
Description: KFUPM Faculty Newsgroup
Expiration: 30 days

Newsgroup: KFUPM.staff
Description: KFUPM Staff Newsgroup
Expiration: 30 days

Newsgroup: KFUPM.seminars
Description: KFUPM Seminars Announcements
Expiration: 14 days

Newsgroup: KFUPM.internet
Description: KFUPM Internet Announcements
Expiration: 90 dys

Newsgroup: 4sale
Description: Items for sale within KFUPM
Expiration: 14 days

Newsgroup: KFUPM.students
Description: KFUPM Students Official Announcements
Expiration: 120 days

Note: Please don't mind if you see newsgroup names (kfupm, junk and control). They would appear as newsgroups, but they are not. These are created by the server for internal use. Please don't subscribe to them.

Note: All of the above mentioned newsgroups are open to the community to read and post except KFUPM.students. Those who like to post to KFUPM.students newsgroup should contact the Newsmaster by e-mail at <newsmaster@kfupm.edu.sa>.

How to subscribe to newsgroup(s)

Pine on Unix:
KFUPM newgroups auto-configuration is implemented for all users who use the Unix based pine utility as their email client. Users will get a standard list of available newsgroups.

Netscape Communicator (the best to access the Netscape Collabra):

1. Go to "Edit" then "Preferences".
2. Add under "Mail and Groups" and "Groups Server": Discussion groups (news) the server name which is news.itc.kfupm.edu.sa and leave the default port as is.
3. Under "File", "Subscribe to Discussion Groups" menu item to subscribe to the newsgroup(s).

Microsoft mailer interfaces:

1. Go to "Go" and "News" menu and sub-menu.
2. Follow the steps of the setup wizard (add the server name news.itc.kfupm.edu.sa ).
3. Use subscribe facility to subscribe to the newsgroup(s).

For more information, please contact by e-mail the NewsMaster at <newsmaster@kfupm.edu.sa>