PASSWD.NNTP(5)

💖 NAME 💖

okay so this is PASSWD.NNTP(5) — the passwd.nntp(5) page from the InterNetNews Documentation, bestie. it's literally passwords for connecting to remote NNTP servers. 🎀

✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

pathetc/passwd.nntp is the file that holds host / name / password triplets for use when authenticating client programs to NNTP servers. it's normally interpreted by "NNTPsendpassword()" in libinn(3), slay.

Blank lines? ignored. Lines beginning with a number sign ("#")? also ignored. All other lines should have three or four fields separated by colons, and the shape is exactly:

host:name:password
host:name:password:style

First field is the host name, and it's matched in a case-insensitive manner. (No detailed matching is done — like, it doesn't compare IP addresses or anything. 💅)

Second field is the user name, and third is the password. If either the username or password is empty, then that portion of the authentication will not occur. For example, a server may require only a username, in which case the password is not necessary. Note that a username is mandatory with AUTHINFO USER/PASS.

The optional fourth field specifies the type of authentication to use. At present, the only recognized "authentication style" is "authinfo"; it's also the default. That means AUTHINFO USER/PASS commands are used to authenticate to the remote host. (These NNTP commands are described in RFC 4643.)

For example:

mit.edu:bbn:mypasswd
uunet.uu.net:bbn:yoyoma:authinfo

🚨 permission check, bestie: this file should not be world-readable. keep it private, periodt.

These programs make use of passd.nntp when needing to connect to a remote server: actsync, getlist, inews, innxbatch, innxmit, nnrpd, nntpget and rnews. yep, that's the exact spelling on the page — iykyk. 🫶

🦋 HISTORY 🦋

Written by Rich $alz <rsalz@uunet.uu.net> for InterNetNews. iconic author moment, honestly. ✨

🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

Go read these too, bestie: inn.conf(5), innd(8), libinn(3).

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that's the whole page — INN 2.7.4, dated 2022-07-10, signing off with main character energy 💖🫶