Contacting Your Newsfeed Provider

Before you configure your newsfeed, you must contact an Internet newsfeed provider and subscribe to a USENET newsfeed. Your newsfeed provider will ask you for the following information:

• The Fully Qualified Domain Name (FDQN) or Internet protocol (IP) address of the Microsoft Exchange Server computer that is running the Internet News Service. For example, your server's FDQN might be myserver.mycompany.com.
• Whether you plan to use a push feed or pull feeds for inbound messages and outbound messages. In general, you should use push feeds if you plan to receive large newsfeeds over a local area network (LAN) connection. You should use pull feeds if you plan to receive smaller newsfeeds, and you'll be connecting to your newsfeed provider's host computer using a dial-up connection.
• (Optional) The inbound host account and password if you want to make your system more secure. Your newsfeed provider's host computer can use this information to log on to your Microsoft Exchange Server computer.

When you contact your newsfeed provider, you should ask the following questions:

• What is the host computer's FDQN or IP address? Note that there can be multiple host computers.
• How should you access your newsfeed provider's active file? An active file is a file that contains a list of all the newsgroups you can subscribe to through your newsfeed provider. Will your newsfeed provider send it to you (typically through e-mail or File Transfer Protocol) or should you download it directly from the host computer?
• Does your newsfeed provider require the use of secure connections? If so, your newsfeed provider must give you a host account and password, which your Microsoft Exchange Server computer will use to log on to your provider's host computer.