The definitive guide on how to upload/post to usenet

Whether you're wondering how to upload to your news server, how to create recovery volumes, how to make sfv files or just simply how to create RARsets - then you've found the right tutorial. The guide is split into 5 easy to read sections and has screenshots throughout to make the process as painless as possible. By the end you should be able to upload whatever you like to usenet..

You will need the following tools to carry out this uploading to usenet tutorial:

1. WinRar (Latest Graphic & Command Line Release)
2. QuickPar (Latest Version: 0.9.1 at time of writing)
3. Powerpost A&A (Latest Version: 11B at time of writing)

PowerPost Assert & Alain is used here instead of the classic Powerpost 2000 because it is a development branch of the original with many extra helpful features such as multi-thread uploading and other advanced settings.

The following tools are optional but recommended:

• Coolbeans NFO Creator (No longer in development)
• QuickSFV (Latest version in 32 or 64 bit flavour depending on your OS)
• GSpot (Latest Version: v2.21 at time of writing)

Step One

Using Winrar to split your file into RARs/a RARset.

Right, lets begin. First of all, the file names are blurred out throughout as to not distract from the instructions (it's Ubuntu 9.04 if you care); I had a lot of emails through asking questions that were spelled out clearly in the text, yet people had been relying on the photos to skim through it - you need a thorough understanding of the reasons behind certain things.

Right then, you'll be wanting to split your file into a set of smaller individual RARs. Right click your file and add to archive and use these settings:

If your files are already compressed (mp3, codec'd video, etc) use the store compression method as they cannot be compressed much more anyway so its effectively pointless setting it to best because it just wastes your time and the time of the guy extracting it at the end. If you're wondering why we bother RARing in the first place, it's due to the fact not everyone is on a fast connection and small files are more manageable in this respect.

Another purpose of the volume being split is so that its easily posted and downloaded from Usenet and missing blocks can be easily repaired using QuickPAR PAR2 archives: simply posting the full huge 700MB++ file is not acceptable. 15,000,000 is ideal for files from 150-2100MB after that you may think about increasing the size to 20,000,000 or in the case of multi-gigabytes (e.g 4GB+) you should use 50,000,000.

After pressing OK the creating archive window should appear.

That shouldn't take long depending on your compression level, processor speed and file size among other things. Now after that's done you should be left with a set of RAR files containing your original file and the original file as well

Right that's Step 1 finished. Sorted!

Step Two

Using QuickPar to create the recovery Par2 volumes

This is the QuickPAR stage of things, this beautiful little program creates the recovery blocks for your RAR files. These are used to recreate the RARs in cases where a person may be with a usenet providers with a low completion rate or just general mistakes with posting/downloading.

Now before you begin this it may be an idea to move your original file to a different location to avoid confusion when creating recovery volumes and posting your files. You don't have to though.

Load up QuickPAR and you should be at the main menu screen:

Then click add files and add the set of RARs you have just made, Ctrl-A to select all of them, be sure to get them all:

Click open, they should now all be in the QuickPAR source files menu:

Now use these settings:

Ensure that the Restrict block size to multiples of UseNet article size is ticked because this increases the chance of someone being able to repair the set of RAR archives. The recovery file size is best set to Variable (limit to size of largest data file) because when someone is missing an entire file, they can download one of these corresponding large files and know that it will contain exactly the right amount of recovery data of one complete RAR file.

The redundancy slide bar can be set anywhere between 10 and 20% depends how many recovery volumes you want to offer, but I usually go for around 10%. If requested you can always post more when required. Now click create, the time this takes depends on the size of RAR files and how many recovery volumes you wish to create.

When its succeeded click exit.

Step Three

Using QuickSFV to create a .sfv checksum file for data integrity

At this point you can create a SFV checksum file using QuickSFV or you can do it at a later stage automatically from within PowerPost-A&A if you want to do it that way skip to Step 4. If you wish to do it now using QuickSFV follow these intructions:

Select all of your RAR archives of the initial file, not the PAR recovery volumes just the RAR files, make sure you do not include the first par2 file at the top of list if ordering by name, right click and click Create .SFV File, this menu should now appear:

By default the sfv filename will include the name of the first RAR archive, you can remove this, it is unnecessary.

This window should now appear:

When done click OK. You should now have an SFV file in your directory containing your set of RAR archives and PAR2 recovery volumes.

To test your SFV file double click it and will load in QuickSFV or QuickPAR and it should check all the RAR archives and state:

Great for now. Now moving on to the NFO creation part.

Step Four

Using Coolbeans NFO Creator to create a .nfo description file

No doubt you know what an NFO is but for those who don't its a file used to give information about the file you are posting.

Load Cool Beans NFO Creator and begin filling in the details you know. To get information from audio/video files use Gspot, load it up and drag your original file over it to get its information.

It is usenet standard to post an .nfo file with an upload - not doing so is frowned upon by the community as a whole for the basic reason that someone would have to download your entire fileset just to see what it is (if the subject headers or filename are not descriptive enough..)

Now for the actual posting. Getting close..

Step Five

Using yEnc Powerpost A&A v11B to upload all the created files to usenet

Load YENC-POWER-POST-A&A-V11b

To begin with click the Setup icon located in the top left corner of the Window underneath the File menu:

Fill in your details in the menu, in the NNTP News Server box type your providers address eg news.giganews.com or whatever yours is. Set the connections to whatever you want, depends on how many your server allows and whether you want to be downloading from UseNet at the same time because if you wish to do that be sure to leave your chosen amount of connections open so that you can upload and download at the same time.

At this point it may be wise to mention that some usenet providers require you to "enable" posting rights in your admin control panel or by emailing them. This is mostly to stop spammers.

Click the headers tab and fill that in to your requirements:

Now click the Newsgroups tab, at this point you must decide what is an appropriate group for your post, in this case alt.binaries.cd.image seems a likely candidate, base your Newsgroup choice on the content of your post. i.e. A CD Image should be posted to alt.binaries.cd.image etc.

Below shows the newsgroup we will be uploading to for simplicity:

Now on the program tab I use these settings:

You can use the default value for Default Max Lines Per Part or use 5000 as I do which is better for posting large amounts of binary attachments.

Now, click ok and go to File > Add files to Queue or Ctrl-Q. Select your entire upload set, that is all RARs, PARs, SFV and NFO:

They should now appear in the add files window:

In the subject header template you may write whatever you want, the titles, perhaps a request of your own, a greeting or a pointless fuck you message, its up to you.

Now in the Newsgroups tab select the Newsgroups you wish to post to. In this case as I have explained I will be posting this to alt.binaries.cd.image as the upload is the ISO for Ubuntu 9.04. Now, conveniently we now come onto the issue of cross-posting, that is the act of posting your files to multiple Newsgroups, this may well be acceptable in your own little world but not on Usenet, so don't do it.

Leave the prefix tab how it is unless you wish to add something.

On the file order tab I would recommend putting your NFO and SFV file highest top priority. Usually this can be done by pressing the Sort.PXX button but if not just drag them up or repeatedly click (tap enter) to move up. Like so:

On the checksums tab if you did not choose to create an SFV file earlier using QuickSFV check the box that says Generate .SFV file. No doubt you will have also noticed the generate PAR and PAR2 files some people prefer to do it this way but I find it messy and you do not get a chance to properly check and verify your files before they get posted. Also you may wish to generate an NZB file so someone with an NZB client can just download that one file and it'll do the rest:

Now, click OK and your entire file list should appear on a Matrix style green on black background. Go on, admit it, it makes you feel pro:

Right, that's it. Click file > start posting, allow it through your firewall and go to bed - unless you like waking up to see it at 0%. Wake up in the morning with a load of Post Accepted messages under the Posting Result tab.

Congratulations, the post should be on it's way around the world. Feel free to link straight to this guide and/or tell friends about it. Any questions? Use the comment form below and we'll do our best to answer.

UPDATE 17.Jul.09: If you would like extra security by encrypting your upload connections out of Powerpost then check out this guide on how to upload using Powerpost and SSL.