A news server is a set of software used to handle Usenet articles. It may also refer to a computer itself which is primarily or solely used for handling Usenet.

A reader server provides an interface to read and post articles, generally with the assistance of a news client. A transit server exchanges articles with other servers. Most servers can provide both functions.

Transit server

Articles are routed based on information found in the header lines. Of particular interest to a transit server are:

• Message-ID - a globally unique key
• Newsgroups - a list of one or more newsgroups where the article is intended to appear
• Distribution - (optional) a supplement to Newsgroups, used to restrict circulation of articles.
• Date - the time when the article was created
• Path - a list of the servers an article passed through on its way to the local server
• Expires - (optional) the time when it is requested that the article be deleted
• Approved - (optional) indicates an article that has been accepted for a moderated newsgroup
• Control - (optional) contains command requests

Numbering server

This server inserts the header into each article, so that the back and front end servers all present article lists in a uniform manner.

Back end server 

This is the data storage system for the front end servers. The provider can increase reliability by using multiple backend servers with redundant data, redundant arrays attached to the same server, or even both.

Front end server 

These are the servers that a user would actually connect to. It is not unheard of for a large commercial news service provider to have more than 50 front end servers. These systems usually only store overviews locally, and retrieve article bodies from the back end servers. These systems typically carry the heaviest CPU load in the farm.