XFOR: How to Publish Exchange Public Folders as NNTP

This article describes how to publish an existing Exchange Server public folder as a newsgroup. This allows people using Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP) newsreaders to participate in Exchange public folder discussions.

The key to understanding how Exchange Server supports newsgroups is the newsgroup hierarchy anchor. A newsgroup hierarchy anchor is used to designate the top folder in a new newsgroup hierarchy. This is demonstrated in the following example:

You have seven public folders in your public folder hierarchy. Indentations represent the relationship between parent folders and sub-folders: You decide to publish the Outlook, Development, Usage, and MAPI Service Providers folders as newsgroups. To do this, you must create a new newsgroup hierarchy anchor:

1. In the Exchange Administrator program, on the Tools menu, select Newsgroup Hierarchies.
2. In the Newsgroup Hierarchies dialog box, select Add.
3. Select the public folder you want to designate as the new newsgroup hierarchy anchor. In this example, it is the Outlook folder.
4. Click OK.
5. Repeat steps 1-4 for the anchor folder Usage.
   
   The subfolders of Outlook and Usage are automatically published as newsgroups when you designate the parent folders Outlook and Usage as the anchors. Newsgroup readers now have access to four new newsgroups: outlook, outlook.development, usage, and usage.mapi-service-providers.
   
   Notice that the spaces in the name MAPI Service Providers were replaced with dashes (-). This happened because spaces are not allowed in newsgroup names. Most other illegal characters in newsgroup names are automatically discarded or changed. It is better to carefully select the folder names and avoid unusual characters and spaces as much as possible.
6. After you have designated your anchors, you must change permissions for the published folders. You can do this with either the Exchange 5.0 Administrator program or the Exchange/Outlook clients. New features in the Administrator program make it easier to grant permissions from the Administrator rather than from the client.
   
   Often, you want to just allow anonymous access to the newly published folders. The following example shows you how to grant anonymous access to the newly published folders through the Administrator program:
   
   
   1. In the Exchange Administrator program, select Public Folders.
   2. Select the top-level public folder.
   3. On the File menu, select Properties.
   4. On the General property page, select Client Permissions.
   5. Assign the role desired to the anonymous user. By default, the role of Anonymous is None.
   6. Click OK.
   7. Select the Propagate These Changes to All Sub-folders check box.
   8. Click Apply.
   9. On the Sub-folder Properties dialog box, the Client Permissions check box should already be selected, but be sure it is selected.
   10. Click OK until you fully exit all dialog boxes.