An article submitted from a particular client to a particular server will usually propagate to the bulk of the servers on the Internet within 24 hours. As it reaches each server, it becomes available to all the users who have clients that connect to that server. Servers typically retain articles for a few days or weeks, and then discard them. News software Needless to say, all of this is managed by software. We can identify four major components that are required to make usenet work.
Every server needs a database to store articles.
Many servers store each article in single file, and organize these files into a directory tree. This effectively uses the file system as a database. The user needs application software that provides an interface to usenet All this software exists so that users can read usenet without having to understand or worry about the mechanics of running a large distributed database. Traditionally, the user's experience of usenet was mediated by the newsreader, and looked something like this. The user selects articles to read The newsreader displays the articles to the user Details vary between newsreaders.