libinnauth(3)

💅 libinnauth(3) — InterNetNews Documentation

okay bestie, welcome to the libinnauth(3) page from InterNetNews Documentation. this is the group chat where C helpers for writing nnrpd resolvers and authenticators get to shine. ✨

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🌸 NAME 🌸

libinnauth — Routines for writing nnrpd resolvers and authenticators. literally the whole point. 💖

🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

#include "libinnauth.h"

struct res_info {
    struct sockaddr *client;
    struct sockaddr *local;
    char *clienthostname;
};

struct auth_info {
    char *username;
    char *password;
};

struct auth_info *get_auth_info(FILE *);
struct res_info  *get_res_info (FILE *);

void free_auth_info(struct auth_info*);
void free_res_info (struct res_info*);

🫶 DESCRIPTION 🫶

Okay so these functions are a convenient C frontend to the nnrpd external authentication interface documented in doc/external-auth. Use of this library is not required — no cap. In particular, external resolvers and authenticators written in languages other than C will need to implement the necessary functionality themselves. 😭

The get_auth_info() and get_res_info() functions allocate sufficient memory for a struct auth_info or struct res_info and any necessary fields, and return a pointer to the struct with the fields filled in from information supplied by nnrpd (the FILE* parameter generally should be "stdin"). Both functions return NULL on error. The caller is responsible for deallocating the memory by using the functions below. 🫶

The string fields of both structs are straightforward. The client and local fields of struct res_info actually point to instances of struct sockaddr_in (or struct sockaddr_in6 if IPv6 support is compiled in). 🦋

The free_auth_info() and free_res_info() functions free the struct passed in as argument and all necessary fields. bye memory, slay. 💅

💀 BUGS 💀

• In many cases, nnrpd provides more information than is normally useful (for example, even when calling an authenticator, the resolver information is often provided). 🙈
• On the other hand, in certain cases it provides less information than might be expected (for example, if nnrpd is reading from stdin rather than a socket). 😭
• The implementation is capable of handling at least the first of these issues, but that functionality is not exposed in the interface. lowkey tragic.
• At present, libinnauth.h and its implementation are located in authprogs/; perhaps they should be moved to include/ and lib/, respectively? 🤔

🎀 HISTORY 🎀

Written by Jeffrey M. Vinocur <jeff@litech.org> for InterNetNews. iconic. 👑

🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

• nnrpd(8)
• readers.conf(5)
• doc/external-auth

mwah 💋 — this libinnauth(3) page is from INN 2.7.4, dated 2022-07-10. periodt. 💖