I need to be able to explain succinctly how a INN peer should connect
to a Rocksolid Light peer if such is possible.

Rocksolid Light (rslight) peers and syncs using client commands instead
of innfeed. It is very simple to configure. Rocksolid Light will peer
with any NNTP peer that has user account authentication. Enter the
credentials into the rslight config, list the desired newsgroups, and
away we go. Rslight uses client commands to check, push and pull
articles.

But what if a sysop using INN wants to peer with rslight? Does INN have
facility for this at user level? If I sync rslight with a INN peer, only
the rslight peer is doing the synchronization of articles. Does INN have
the facility to do the inverse with a rslight peer?

I configure the rslight cron job to synchronize at randomized
intervals. Ultimately my strategy is to check and synchronize articles
at random intervals from ten to thirty minutes over a tor hidden onion
circuit. I would expect a remote peer to do similarly. Randomization of
the synchronization times is a hedge against traffic analysis. Delays
of a few minutes before forwarding buffers connecting clients from
message timing correlation. It is not perfect but it helps and it
increases the cost for eavesdroppers.

The hidden onion circuit is an extra layer of security for the
connections. Each peer I link to would use a different hidden onion
address, and I would give a different hidden onion address to each such
peer. This allows every peer to hide physical location. It also allows
every peer to have a secure, private pipe to only one other peer.

Firstly I need to know how, if possible, to configure INN to
synchronize via client authentication and client commands, without
respect to the kind of network transport.

Secondly I need ideas on how to configure INN to use multiple Tor
hidden onion services, and connect INN to unique remote onion services
on a per-peer basis.

Please advise with concrete information.

--
3883@sugar.bug | web: sybershock.com | news: alt.sources.crypto

On Thu, 28 Sep 2023 01:58:43 -0500
Syber Shock <admin@sybershock.com> wrote:

> I need to be able to explain succinctly how a INN peer should connect
> to a Rocksolid Light peer if such is possible.
>
> Rocksolid Light (rslight) peers and syncs using client commands instead
> of innfeed. It is very simple to configure. Rocksolid Light will peer
> with any NNTP peer that has user account authentication. Enter the
> credentials into the rslight config, list the desired newsgroups, and
> away we go. Rslight uses client commands to check, push and pull
> articles.

Correct. rslight acts as a news client (nnrpd client), and also as a nnrpd
server. MODE STREAM is not supported in rslight at this time.

> But what if a sysop using INN wants to peer with rslight? Does INN have
> facility for this at user level? If I sync rslight with a INN peer, only
> the rslight peer is doing the synchronization of articles. Does INN have
> the facility to do the inverse with a rslight peer?

I am not aware of any feature of INN that allows it to act as a nnrpd client.
That doesn't mean there is no such feature, just that I am not aware of it.
> I configure the rslight cron job to synchronize at randomized
> intervals. Ultimately my strategy is to check and synchronize articles
> at random intervals from ten to thirty minutes over a tor hidden onion
> circuit. I would expect a remote peer to do similarly. Randomization of
> the synchronization times is a hedge against traffic analysis. Delays
> of a few minutes before forwarding buffers connecting clients from
> message timing correlation. It is not perfect but it helps and it
> increases the cost for eavesdroppers.

This should be simple with just shell scripts.

> The hidden onion circuit is an extra layer of security for the
> connections. Each peer I link to would use a different hidden onion
> address, and I would give a different hidden onion address to each such
> peer. This allows every peer to hide physical location. It also allows
> every peer to have a secure, private pipe to only one other peer.

Makes sense.

> Firstly I need to know how, if possible, to configure INN to
> synchronize via client authentication and client commands, without
> respect to the kind of network transport.
>
> Secondly I need ideas on how to configure INN to use multiple Tor
> hidden onion services, and connect INN to unique remote onion services
> on a per-peer basis.
>
> Please advise with concrete information.

On Thu, 28 Sep 2023 04:46:51 -0700
Retro Guy <retroguy@novabbs.com> wrote:

> > I configure the rslight cron job to synchronize at randomized
> > intervals. Ultimately my strategy is to check and synchronize
> > articles at random intervals from ten to thirty minutes over a tor
> > hidden onion circuit. I would expect a remote peer to do similarly.
> > Randomization of the synchronization times is a hedge against
> > traffic analysis. Delays of a few minutes before forwarding buffers
> > connecting clients from message timing correlation. It is not
> > perfect but it helps and it increases the cost for eavesdroppers.
>
> This should be simple with just shell scripts.

My setup avoids crontab and uses systemd init to spawn. Maybe a little
cleanup for install path vars would make this useful.

$ cat /etc/systemd/system/rslight-cron.service

[Unit]
Description=rslight nntp cron
After=network.target
StartLimitIntervalSec=0
[Service]
User=root
Type=simple
TimeoutSec=0
WorkingDirectory=/home/rslight/cron
PIDFile=/var/run/rslight_cron_service.pid
ExecStart=/bin/bash /home/rslight/cron/rslight.cron.bash
KillMode=process Restart=always
RestartSec=31s
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

$ cat /home/rslight/cron/rslight.cron.bash

#!/usr/bin/env bash

# Cron loop randomizer for Rocksolid Light.
# Adjust the paths to match your installation.
# Bundled with a systemd service control script.

counter="0"
crondir="/home/rslight/cron"
cronlog="$crondir/rslight.cron.log"
timelog="$crondir/rslight.cron.timestamp.log"

while :
do

# logging timestamp for begin of cron job
date -u >> "$timelog

counter="$((counter+1))"
echo "$counter" >> "$cronlog"

cd /var/www/public_html/forum/spoolnews
bash -lc "php8.2 /home/rslight/config/scripts/cron.php" >> "$cronlog"
echo "--------" >> "$cronlog"
echo "" >> "$cronlog"

# timestamp for end of cron job in timestamp only file
date -u >> "$timelog"
echo "--------" >> "$timelog"

# rotate log files
tail -c 65536 "$cronlog" > "$cronlog.temp"
mv "$cronlog.temp" "$cronlog"
tail -c 65536 "$timelog" > "$timelog.temp"
mv "$timelog.temp" "$timelog"

# random 10-30 minute pause in loop
randpoz="$RANDOM$RANDOM"
randpoz="$((randpoz%1200))"
randpoz="$((randpoz+600))"
sleep "$randpoz.600600600600600600" # easy to see with ps grep

done # while true

--
3883@sugar.bug | web: sybershock.com | news: alt.sources.crypto

>My setup avoids crontab and uses systemd init to spawn

What is the reason that you use systemd ? Or just by chance ?

--
Posted on Rocksolid Light

On 2023-09-28, Anonymous <Anonymous@news.novabbs.org> wrote:
>>My setup avoids crontab and uses systemd init to spawn
>
> What is the reason that you use systemd ? Or just by chance ?

and here comes the long old with new accents
vim vs emacs
linux vs *bsd
kde vs gnome
tiling vs non-tiling
.....
Systemd vs Initd
xorg vs wayland

:D :D

/me goes to prepare usenet popcorn

Happy Hacking
ReK2

--
- {gemini,https}://{,rek2.}hispagatos.org - mastodon: @rek2@hispagatos.space
- [https|gemini]://2600.Madrid - https://hispagatos.space/@rek2
- https://keyoxide.org/A31C7CE19D9C58084EA42BA26C0B0D11E9303EC5

On Thu, 28 Sep 2023 17:26:31 +0000
Anonymous@news.novabbs.org (Anonymous) wrote:

> >My setup avoids crontab and uses systemd init to spawn
>
> What is the reason that you use systemd ? Or just by chance ?

Buster Scruggs already answered this kreepy kookboi once upon a time.

--
Buster Scruggs
Manners maketh the mongrel.
Angels will dance on toilets to celebrate your digestion.

Retro Guy wrote:

> On Thu, 28 Sep 2023 01:58:43 -0500
> Syber Shock <admin@sybershock.com> wrote:

>> snip

>> But what if a sysop using INN wants to peer with rslight? Does INN have
>> facility for this at user level? If I sync rslight with a INN peer, only
>> the rslight peer is doing the synchronization of articles. Does INN have
>> the facility to do the inverse with a rslight peer?

> I am not aware of any feature of INN that allows it to act as a nnrpd client.
> That doesn't mean there is no such feature, just that I am not aware of it.

I had forgotten that I used to use 'pullnews' before ever starting on rslight.
I would sort of peer inn servers this way because I had no idea what I was
doing :)

Anyway, pullnews will allow you to poll a nnrpd server and feed to another, and
it works quite reliably.

https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/software/inn/docs/pullnews.html

I believe there are other programs that can do this or similar, but I have
not used them.

--
Retro Guy

Retro Guy wrote:

> On Thu, 28 Sep 2023 01:58:43 -0500
> Syber Shock <admin@sybershock.com> wrote:

>> snip

>> Firstly I need to know how, if possible, to configure INN to
>> synchronize via client authentication and client commands, without
>> respect to the kind of network transport.

See my previous message in this thread (pullnews).
>> Secondly I need ideas on how to configure INN to use multiple Tor
>> hidden onion services, and connect INN to unique remote onion services
>> on a per-peer basis.

Multiple instances of pullnews run from however you want (cron, systemd,
whatever) should do this.

I also have a script provided to me by the co-creator of rocksolid.* that
makes it pretty simple to connect anything to a local port and have it
communicate with a remote .onion address. Just let me know if you'd like
a copy.

>> Please advise with concrete information.

My head is full of concrete, so not a problem.

--
Retro Guy

Hi Retro Guy,

> Anyway, pullnews will allow you to poll a nnrpd server and feed to
> another, and it works quite reliably.
>
> https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/software/inn/docs/pullnews.html

Yup! Thanks to recent discussions in news.admin.peering which permitted
to greatly improve pullnews and fix a few bugs.

--
Julien ÉLIE

« Quo vadis ? » (saint Jean)