Re: Adding something like IWANT to innd?

Hi Nigel,

The problem is, from what I can tell, both suck and pullnews require
the newsserver to have me setup to issue a "MODE READER" command. It's
not possible to do it via transit mode. Am I right?

Exactly.
As far as INN is concerned, you're speaking of two different programs: innd for transit mode (receiving articles from external peers), and nnrpd for reader mode (serving requested articles).

That means I have to bother every news admin to make a config change
just for me to accomplish this.

If you initially asked to set up a news peering (transit mode), yes you need to ask them as this is a change of configuration and use case.

Also, if I end up pulling articles for a couple that is already
populated and those articles are earlier then the ones that currently
exist, do I need to rebuild the history file?

You'll end up having articles numbers in an order different than the arrival time.  The drawback is that a news reader will see "new articles" whereas they are old ones.
You don't need rebuilding the history file but the *overview* database to fix that.  See the "makehistory -O -x -F" command.

Would I need to for empty groups?

No.
--
Julien ÉLIE
« A man who is not married is incomplete; a man who is married is
   finished. »