Using Ctunnel with Your Usenet Client

Support: Usenet: Ctunnel

Cotse.Net's news server is only available through the web interface. You can read and post to usenet through the interface using aliases that you create, and such posts will not show your true Cotse.Net username, but they will show a Cotse.Net message ID. You can also use remailers to post to usenet via the web interface.

For those who wish to use their own favorite usenet client, you will need to use another news server. To increase your privacy and anonymity, you can use Cotse.Net's ctunnel proxy to read and post to that server.

You'll need to download the version of connect-tunnel for your system:

• For different flavors of linux, freebsd, etc, go here and build accordingly: http://search.cpan.org/dist/connect-tunnel/connect-tunnel
• For Windows (most versions have been tested to work with this version) download ctunnel.zip. Unzip the file to any folder of your choice.
• Edit the config.txt file and configure your newsreader client, as described below

Editing the config.txt File

Configure Your Newsreader Client

• Open the config.txt file in Notepad or your favorite text editor
• Edit the proxy-authentication line user:password area to match your Cotse.Net username and password
• Edit the tunnel= line to insert the name of your usenet server.* An example of how to setup the server is listed in the config.txt file. Something like 119:news.supernews.com:119 will work. This means your local machine will listen on port 119 and forward any incoming requests to news.supernews.com on port 119. Only your local machine can send this data as ctunnel only listens on 127.0.0.1 (your machine) for input from your machine
• Save config.txt
• Configure your newsreader client (see right column)

Note: You must have a third party usenet server to use this proxy. Many third party usenet servers are available for purchase by different vendors or you may want to try a "free" usenet server.

• Set up your usenet client to connect to 127.0.0.1 port 119 using a proper username and password as given by your usenet provider -- not your Cotse username/password. ** The 127.0.0.1 is entered where the name of your news server would go
• The username and password are optional and only should be used if given to you by your usenet provider (not Cotse). This information will be passed to your third party usenet server for authentication.

Note: Forte Agent uses port 119 by default so if you're using Forte Agent, you don't need to change this.

Using the Proxy

For Added Privacy: Stunnel

• Open your newsreader client
• Double-click ctunnel.exe or your shortcut to it
• Download new groups, download headers -- whatever you want to do with your desktop usenet client. If everything is going well, your usenet client should work seamlessly with our proxy.

If you find this "How To" in error or you have difficulties with the instructions, please email us.

For added privacy, if you would like to set up a Secure SSL tunnel to connect from your machine to the Cotse NNTP Proxy, please see our NNTP, Ctunnel & Stunnel guide.