tinews.pl(1)

📦
version 2.6.6 · 2 versions
, in alpine 3.24, epel 10, fedora 43, fedora 44

✨ tinews.pl(1) ✨ — post & sign an article via NNTP 💌

okay so bestie, imagine posting to Usenet but make it signed and secure and honestly a little bit iconic. that's this. it's tinews.pl(1) and she's the whole moment. 🫶

🌸 NAME 🌸

tinews.pl — post and sign an article via NNTP

🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

tinews.pl [OPTIONS] < input

💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

tinews.pl reads an article on STDIN, signs it via pgp(1) or gpg(1) and posts it to a news server. that's the whole vibe. read, sign, yeet. 💅

the article shall not contain any raw 8-bit data, or it needs to already have the relevant MIME-headers — because tinews.pl will not add any MIME-headers nor encode its input. she is not doing that for you, bestie, no cap. 😭

if the article contains To:, Cc: or Bcc: headers and mail-actions are configured, it will automatically add a Posted-And-Mailed: yes header to the article and send out the mail-copies. considerate queen behavior tbh. 👑

if a Cancel-Lock secret file is defined it will automatically add a Cancel-Lock: (and Cancel-Key: if required) header. slay. 🔥

the input should have unix line endings (<LF>, '\n'). use --transform to convert from <CR><LF> to just <LF>. do it. i'm begging. 🙈

💅 OPTIONS 💅

  • -4 | --ipv4 — force connecting via IPv4 to the remote NNTP server.
  • -a "Approved" | --approved "Approved" — set the article header field Approved: to the given value.
  • -c "Control" | --control "Control" — set the article header field Control: to the given value.
  • -d "Distribution" | --distribution "Distribution" — set the article header field Distribution: to the given value.
  • -e "Expires" | --expires "Expires" — set the article header field Expires: to the given value.
  • -f "From" | --from "From" — set the article header field From: to the given value.
  • -i header | --ignore-headers header — comma separated list of headers that will be ignored during signing. usually the following headers will be signed if present:

From, Newsgroups, Subject, Control, Supersedes, Followup-To, Date, Injection-Date, Sender, Approved, Message-ID, Reply-To, Cancel-Key, Also-Control and Distribution.

some of them may be altered on the Server (i.e. Cancel-Key) which would invalid the signature, this option can be used to exclude such headers if required. protect the vibes. 🛡️

  • -m "Message-ID" | --message-id "Message-ID" — set the article header field Message-ID: to the given value.
  • -n "Newsgroups" | --newsgroups "Newsgroups" — set the article header field Newsgroups: to the given value.
  • -o "Organization" | --organization "Organization" — set the article header field Organization: to the given value.
  • -p "port" | --port "port" — use "port" as NNTP-port
  • -r "Reply-To" | --reply-to "Reply-To" — set the article header field Reply-To: to the given value.
  • -s directory | --savedir directory — save signed article to directory directory instead of posting.
  • -t "Subject" | --subject "Subject" — set the article header field Subject: to the given value.
  • -v | --verbose — warn about disabled options due to lacking perl-modules or executables and unreadable files and enable warnings about raw 8-bit data. she's chatty and we love her for it.
  • -w "Followup-To" | --followup-to "Followup-To" — set the article header field Followup-To: to the given value.
  • -x "Path" | --path "Path" — prepend the article header field Path: with the given value.
  • -D | -N | --debug — set Net::NNTP(3pm) to debug mode, enable warnings about raw 8-bit data, warn about disabled options due to lacking perl-modules or executables and unreadable files.
  • -E | --discard-empty — silently discard an empty article. not today, nothing-burger. 💀
  • -F | --references — set the article header field References: to the given value.
  • -H | --help — show help-page.
  • -I | --no-injection-date — do not add Injection-Date: header.
  • -L | --no-canlock — do not add Cancel-Lock: / Cancel-Key: headers.
  • -O | --no-organization — do not add Organization: header.
  • -R | --no-control — restricted mode, disallow control-messages.
  • -S | --no-signature — do not append $HOME/.signature.
  • -T "seconds" | --timeout "seconds" — override the connection timeout setting. default is 120 seconds.
  • -X | --no-sign — do not sign the article.
  • -Y | --force-auth — force authentication on connect even if not required by the server.
  • --canlock-algorithm "Algorithm" — digest algorithm used for Cancel-Lock: / Cancel-Key: headers. supported algorithms are sha1, sha256 and sha512. default is sha1.
  • --ssl | --nntps — use NNTPS (via port 563) if available. this requires a recent version of Net::NNTP(3pm) and IO::Socket::SSL(3pm). be aware that no SSL verification will be done. 🚨
  • --transform — convert network line endings (<CR><LF>) to unix line endings (<LF>).
  • --version — show version.
  • -A -V -W — these options are accepted for compatibility reasons but ignored. ghosts of manpages past, fr fr. 👻
  • -h | --headers — these options are accepted for compatibility reasons but ignored.

🦋 EXIT STATUS 🦋

the following exit values are returned:

  1. 0 — successful completion. ate. ✨
  2. !=0 — an error occurred. 😭

🌈 ENVIRONMENT 🌈

  • $NEWSHOST — set to override the NNTP server configured in the source or config-file. it has lower priority than $NNTPSERVER and should be avoided.
  • $NNTPSERVER — set to override the NNTP server configured in the source or config-file. this has higher priority than $NEWSHOST.
  • $NNTPPORT — the NNTP TCP-port to post news to. this variable only needs to be set if the TCP-port is not 119 (the default). the '-p' command-line option overrides $NNTPPORT.
  • $PGPPASS — set to override the passphrase configured in the source (used for pgp(1)-2.6.3).
  • $PGPPASSFILE — passphrase file used for pgp(1) or gpg(1).
  • $SIGNER — set to override the user-id for signing configured in the source. if you neither set $SIGNER nor configure it in the source the contents of the From:-field will be used.
  • $REPLYTO — set the article header field Reply-To: to the return address specified by the variable if there isn't already a Reply-To: header in the article. the '-r' command-line option overrides $REPLYTO.
  • $ORGANIZATION — set the article header field Organization: to the contents of the variable if there isn't already an Organization: header in the article. the '-o' command-line option overrides $ORGANIZATION, the '-O' command-line option disables it.
  • $DISTRIBUTION — set the article header field Distribution: to the contents of the variable if there isn't already a Distribution: header in the article. the '-d' command-line option overrides $DISTRIBUTION.

🍓 FILES 🍓

  • pgptmp.txt — temporary file used to store the reformatted article.
  • pgptmp.txt.asc — temporary file used to store the reformatted and signed article.
  • $PGPPASSFILE — the passphrase file to be used for pgp(1) or gpg(1).
  • $HOME/.signature — signature file which will be automatically included.
  • $HOME/.cancelsecret — the passphrase file to be used for Cancel-Locks. this feature is turned off by default.
  • $HOME/.newsauth — "nntpserver password [user]" pairs or triples for NNTP servers that require authorization. first match counts. any line that starts with "#" is a comment. blank lines are ignored. this file should be readable only for the user as it contains the user's unencrypted password for reading news. if no matching entry is found $HOME/.nntpauth is checked.
  • $HOME/.nntpauth — "nntpserver user password" triples for NNTP servers that require authorization. first match counts. lines starting with "#" are skipped and blank lines are ignored. this file should be readable only for the user as it contains the user's unencrypted password for reading news. $HOME/.newsauth is checked first.
  • $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/tinewsrc $HOME/.config/tinewsrc $HOME/.tinewsrc — "option=value" configuration pairs, last match counts and only "value" is case sensitive. lines that start with "#" are ignored. if the file contains unencrypted passwords (e.g. nntp-pass or pgp-pass), it should be readable for the user only. use -vH to get a full list of all available configuration options.

🔒 SECURITY 🔒

if you've configured or entered a password, even if the variable that contained that password has been erased, it may be possible for someone to find that password, in plaintext, in a core dump. in short, if serious security is an issue, don't use this script. 😭 that's the tea, bestie, and it's not the fun kind.
be aware that even if NNTPS is used still no SSL verification will be done. 🚩

📝 NOTES 📝

tinews.pl is designed to be used with pgp(1)-2.6.3, pgp(1)-5, pgp(1)-6, gpg(1) and gpg2(1). the whole roster, honestly. 👑

tinews.pl requires the following standard modules to be installed: Getopt::Long(3pm), Net::NNTP(3pm), Time::Local(3pm) and Term::Readline(3pm). no modules no service, that's the rule. 💅

NNTPS (NNTP with implicit TLS; RFC 4642 and RFC 8143) may be unavailable if Net::NNTP(3pm) is too old or IO::Socket::SSL(3pm) is missing on the system. tinews.pl will fallback to unencrypted NNTP in that case.

if the Cancel-Lock feature (RFC 8315) is enabled the following additional modules must be installed: MIME::Base64(3pm), Digest::SHA(3pm) or Digest::SHA1(3pm) and Digest::HMAC_SHA1(3pm). sha256 and sha512 as algorithms for canlock-algorithm are only available with Digest::SHA(3pm).

gpg2(1) users may need to set $GPG_TTY, i.e.

GPG_TTY=$(tty)
export GPG_TTY

before using tinews.pl. see <https://www.gnupg.org/> for details. do not skip this step, i will find out. 🙈

tinews.pl does not do any MIME encoding, its input should be already properly encoded and have all relevant headers set. she said bring your own encoding. 😌

👑 AUTHOR 👑

Urs Janssen <urs@tin.org>, Marc Brockschmidt <marc@marcbrockschmidt.de>

🔗 SEE ALSO 🔗

pgp(1), gpg(1), gpg2(1), pgps(1), Digest::HMAC_SHA1(3pm), Digest::SHA(3pm), Digest::SHA1(3pm), Getopt::Long(3pm), IO::Socket::SSL(3pm), MIME::Base64(3pm), Net::NNTP(3pm), Time::Local(3pm), Term::Readline(3pm)

and that's the page, bestie 💜 this one is version 1.1.70, dated October 16th, 2024 — she's giving vintage but still serving 🎀 go sign something pretty. ✨🦋

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