so vichan has a very simple to use api, see here for example:
https://lainchan.org/%CE%A9/catalog.json
so i guess all one needs to do is to write an interface from that json to ./post.php on rslight, generating and translating some information like threading and message id and so forth.
this would be to get messages from a vichan instance to a rslight instance.
for the other way round, i will first start with the buildin nntp option of vichan, and if it does not work, and replace it by the rslight nntp client code.
altogether this seems to be a simple excercise....

cheers

trw

Posted on def4

https://github.com/vichan-devel/vichan/blob/master/inc/nntpchan/nntpchan.php

That one should take care of posting to an nntp server.

Posted on def4

and here is where the hacking starts:

function nntp_publish($msg, $id) {
global $config;
$server = $config["nntpchan"]["server"];
$s = fsockopen("tcp://$server");
fgets($s);
fputs($s, "MODE STREAMrn");
fgets($s);
fputs($s, "TAKETHIS $idrn");
fputs($s, $msg);
fputs($s, "rn.rn");
fgets($s);
fputs($s, "QUITrn");
fclose($s);
}

they have no auth in this, and i seem to remember that this was solved by some ssl certificates or other (in the case of overchan). so if i just replace this function with the appropriate counterpart from rslight/post.php, that should be it.

I have an instance of vichan running on the same machine as rslight now, and it should be possible to just use the rslight news server directly.

cheers

trw
--
Posted on def2
z5bqfv5v75kxy7pj.onion

anon wrote:

> work, and replace it by the rslight nntp client code. altogether this
> seems to be a simple excercise....

....said every programmer in history :)

anonymous wrote:

> and here is where the hacking starts:
>
> function nntp_publish($msg, $id) {
> global $config;
> $server = $config["nntpchan"]["server"];
> $s = fsockopen("tcp://$server");
> fgets($s);
> fputs($s, "MODE STREAMrn");
> fgets($s);
> fputs($s, "TAKETHIS $idrn");
> fputs($s, $msg);
> fputs($s, "rn.rn");
> fgets($s);
> fputs($s, "QUITrn");
> fclose($s);
> }
>
>
> they have no auth in this, and i seem to remember that this was solved by
> some ssl certificates or other (in the case of overchan). so if i just
> replace this function with the appropriate counterpart from
> rslight/post.php, that should be it.

Yeah, no auth at all. It's a simple function it seems, so adding auth
shouldn't be difficult at all:

fputs($s,"AUTHINFO USER $server_auth_user\r\n");
$weg=line_read($s);
fputs($s,"AUTHINFO PASS $server_auth_pass\r\n");
$weg=line_read($s);
if (substr($weg,0,3) != "281" {
AUTH FAILED
can't do stuff...
} else {
IT DIDN"T FAIL, YAY!
do stuff...
}

> I have an instance of vichan running on the same machine as rslight now,
> and it should be possible to just use the rslight news server directly.

Do you know if this is sending one message at a time? If so, STREAM isn't
really necessary and could easily be MODE READER. If it's more than one
message, then I can add STREAM to nntp.php
rslight news server doesn't currently support MODE STREAM (I didn't need
it), but it can be added.

Retro Guy

>Do you know if this is sending one message at a time?

from the way the code is written, i would say yes (post.php is called when you make a post), can't be sure though.
i will try around a little. if need be, i can also connect to one of the inn servers (i mean if i need stream right now).

cheers

trw

Posted on def4

anon wrote:

>
>>Do you know if this is sending one message at a time?
>
> from the way the code is written, i would say yes (post.php is called when
> you make a post), can't be sure though. i will try around a little. if
> need be, i can also connect to one of the inn servers (i mean if i need
> stream right now).

Sounds good. I'll add mode stream soon anyway so it's able to connect if it
really requires stream.

I need to get a copy of vichan (post.php really) and take a look at it. I
can do that in a few days.

Retro Guy

I can upload it somewhere, if you want me to. but you can also get everything from github (be sure to take the devel version, though).
If I understand post.php right, the inserting of messages (from another node into the vichan instance) is solved by using http. You just hand over all the parameters in a get request and post.php imports the message. That would be very nice (don't understand how attachments wor with that, yet).
So in this case you could post with wget or curl. Very nice.

Hope I can spend some time on this soon.

cheers

trw
--
Posted on def2
z5bqfv5v75kxy7pj.onion

anonymous wrote:

> I can upload it somewhere, if you want me to. but you can also get
> everything from github (be sure to take the devel version, though). If I
> understand post.php right, the inserting of messages (from another node
> into the vichan instance) is solved by using http. You just hand over all
> the parameters in a get request and post.php imports the message. That
> would be very nice (don't understand how attachments wor with that, yet).
> So in this case you could post with wget or curl. Very nice.

I'll download it soon (the devel version) and take a look.

Sounds like a simple matter of maybe just one function to send via http, or
a simple script on the vichan end to pull articles via nntp, then just
forward them via http to vichan. spoolnews.php could be easily modified to
do that.

This would require no changes on the remote end, it doesn't even need to
care if it's vichan getting messages, or some other nntp server.

Retro Guy

the big question for me is: push or pull ? I think pull makes more sense for this kind of deployment, it will have a higher latency, but be more reliable and not require any changes on any existing node (or newsserver).
so the installation instructions would be something like:
-get vichan to run
-get the rslight nntp server and spoolnews, and install them on the same machine
-set up a cronjob to update
-patch post.php (or replace it with some patched version)

that sound really nice.

trw
--
Posted on def2
z5bqfv5v75kxy7pj.onion

if i enter MODE READER on the rslight nntp server, it says:
200 Rocksolid Light NNRP Server ready (no posting)
seems like posting in this mode does not work ?

Posted on def4

fputs($s,"AUTHINFO USER $server_auth_user
");
$weg=line_read($s);
fputs($s,"AUTHINFO PASS $server_auth_pass
");
$weg=line_read($s);
if (substr($weg,0,3) != "281" {
AUTH FAILED
can't do stuff...
} else {
IT DIDN"T FAIL, YAY!
do stuff...
}

And I guess the "do stuff" would be some variant of message_post and message_post_with_attachment from /lib/post.inc.php. not sure it is better to just put that code into the vichan function, or to call some function in the rslight framework. i guess the latter, this way we can do minimal changes on the vichan code.
actually, the way this is done in vi might be superior, because the whole message is already composed and then sent in one go (instead of composing and sending the individual pieces).
now it gets a bit tricky, i have to read up a bit on nntp before i can continue.

cheers

trw

Posted on def4

anon wrote:

>
> if i enter MODE READER on the rslight nntp server, it says:
> 200 Rocksolid Light NNRP Server ready (no posting)
> seems like posting in this mode does not work ?

It doesn't actually change anything, it just sends the '200' reply.

You can post once authenticated. Try the same commands with an inn server
and you should see almost exactly the same response.

anon wrote:

>
> fputs($s,"AUTHINFO USER $server_auth_user
> ");
> $weg=line_read($s);
> fputs($s,"AUTHINFO PASS $server_auth_pass
> ");
> $weg=line_read($s);
> if (substr($weg,0,3) != "281" {
> AUTH FAILED
> can't do stuff...
> } else {
> IT DIDN"T FAIL, YAY!
> do stuff...
> }
>
> And I guess the "do stuff" would be some variant of message_post and
> message_post_with_attachment from /lib/post.inc.php. not sure it is better
> to just put that code into the vichan function, or to call some function
> in the rslight framework. i guess the latter, this way we can do minimal
> changes on the vichan code. actually, the way this is done in vi might be
> superior, because the whole message is already composed and then sent in
> one go (instead of composing and sending the individual pieces). now it
> gets a bit tricky, i have to read up a bit on nntp before i can continue.

Yes, rslight builds the message. I wouldn't use message_post with vichan,
it's not necessary. If the message is already built, it's easy to post
straight to the nntp server. See the 'post_articles' function in send.php.
It just sends messages sitting in a folder but as long as it has a message
it's a simple matter to send it:

if(!is_file($outgoing_dir.$message)) {
continue;
}
echo "Sending: ".$outgoing_dir.$message."\r\n";
fputs($ns, "MODE READER\r\n");
$response = line_read($ns);
if (strcmp(substr($response,0,3),"200") != 0) {
file_put_contents($logfile, "\n".format_log_date()." ".
$config_name." Unexpected response to MODE command: ".$respon
se, FILE_APPEND);
return $response;
}
fputs($ns, "POST\r\n");
$response = line_read($ns);
if (strcmp(substr($response,0,3),"340") != 0) {
file_put_contents($logfile, "\n".format_log_date()." ".$config_name."
Unexpected response to POST command: ".$response
, FILE_APPEND);
return $response;
}
$message_fp = fopen($outgoing_dir.$message, "rb");
while (($msgline = fgets($message_fp, 4096)) !== false) {
fputs($ns, $msgline);
}
fputs($ns, ".\r\n");
fclose($message_fp);
$response = line_read($ns);
if (strcmp(substr($response,0,3),"240") == 0) {
unlink($outgoing_dir.$message);
file_put_contents($logfile, "\n".format_log_date()." ".$config_name."
Posted: ".$message.": ".$response, FILE_APPEND);
} else {
file_put_contents($logfile, "\n".format_log_date()." ".$config_name."
Failed to POST: ".$message.": ".$response, FILE_
APPEND);
continue;
}

>See the 'post_articles' function in send.php.

I don't have any send.php, ok, strike that, i found it.

why do need to put the scripts in /etc/rslight/ ? (rant over).

i guess in your example there would have to be some auth before ? and then you would need to import a whole bunch of libs again to do it in the rslight way ? or directly like you have written before.
maybe the easiest way is the best here: just drop the message in the spool, and let rslight take care of the rest ?

Posted on def4

anon wrote:

>
>>See the 'post_articles' function in send.php.
>
> I don't have any send.php, ok, strike that, i found it.
>
> why do need to put the scripts in /etc/rslight/ ? (rant over).

Well, they need to be somewhere :) That's just where I settled as I didn't
want yet another directory to be necessary. I don't want them accessible by
a browser also.

> i guess in your example there would have to be some auth before ? and then
> you would need to import a whole bunch of libs again to do it in the
> rslight way ? or directly like you have written before. maybe the easiest
> way is the best here: just drop the message in the spool, and let rslight
> take care of the rest ?

Yes, if you drop a properly formatted message in the spool
/var/spool/rslight/rocksolid/outgoing, it should be sent.

Since vichan makes a full message with headers, I don't think there is going
to be much difficulty to send it by several different methods.

anonymous wrote:

> and here is where the hacking starts:
>
> function nntp_publish($msg, $id) {
> global $config;
> $server = $config["nntpchan"]["server"];
> $s = fsockopen("tcp://$server");
> fgets($s);
> fputs($s, "MODE STREAMrn");
> fgets($s);
> fputs($s, "TAKETHIS $idrn");
> fputs($s, $msg);
> fputs($s, "rn.rn");
> fgets($s);
> fputs($s, "QUITrn");
> fclose($s);
> }

It might help a lot to see exactly how vichan formats a post it wants to
send via nntp. Maybe if we temporarily change this function to:

function nntp_publish($msg, $id) {
$save_postfh = fopen("/tmp/vichanpost.txt", 'w');
fputs($save_postfh, $msg);
fclose($save_postfh);
}

then we have a saved copy of a post to look at. If we need to modify it to
post properly to inn, rslight etc., we can modify it right in this function
before sending it (for example, maybe we need to add a Message-ID or convert
line breaks, etc.) Maybe adding auth here might be a good place also.

It also looks like this function doesn't return anything so vichan has no
way of knowing if the posting was successful (looks like that anyway).

Retro Guy

this is a text message generated by vichan:

--------------------------------------------
Message-Id: <ts.6.3iy3w3@anon.com>
Newsgroups: rocksolid.nodes
Date: Sat, 16 May 2020 09:37:58 -0700
Subject: and the reply
From: Anonymous <poster@anon.com>
References: <ts.3.3xowan@anon.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8

reply

--------------------------------------------
That should do, doesn't look anything strange.
--
Posted on def2
z5bqfv5v75kxy7pj.onion

and this is a message with a picture attached:

Message-Id: <ts.7.geb57@anon.com>
Newsgroups: rocksolid.nodes
Date: Sat, 16 May 2020 09:55:47 -0700
Subject: and one with a picture
From: Anonymous <poster@anon.com>
References: <ts.3.3xowan@anon.com>
Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary=1e4369a05339eca512b691687b1adb267f4539a1
Mime-Version: 1.0

--1e4369a05339eca512b691687b1adb267f4539a1

(lots of b64 encoded chars here)-----------------------------------------------
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
tK64S+QAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==
--1e4369a05339eca512b691687b1adb267f4539a1--

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
looks good as well.

i will try and just put the files in the outspool.

cheers

trw
--
Posted on def2
z5bqfv5v75kxy7pj.onion

ok, just inserting those two into the outspool of rslight made them appear on rocksolid.shared.test (this was the defined group). works out of the box.

to do:

-threading is broken (guess the header is not correct by our standards)
-attachment is lost (guess the b64 way of doing things is not overall appreciated)

but wow, here i thought i needed to actually code something, and instead it just works and merely needs some tweaks. great.

btw, i can see now why the software was appreciated so widely, it is just done very nicely, lots of features and still easy to use (and being able to see and understand what is under the hood). one of the nicer features for developmnt is the debug output to the webserver. just very convenient.

this is gonna be great.

cheers

trw
--
Posted on def2
z5bqfv5v75kxy7pj.onion

>-attachment is lost (guess the b64 way of doing things is not overall appreciated)

actually, the attached pic displays on rslight, but the name is lost. bbs and ff cannot apparently not read it correctly and don't recognize that there is an attachment.
--
Posted on def2
z5bqfv5v75kxy7pj.onion

ok, and threading works as well, but the start of the tread must be present for it to work, as all messages in the thread refer to it (not to each other).

looks really good. now the other way round.

cheers

trw
--
Posted on def2
z5bqfv5v75kxy7pj.onion

while this should be easy enough, it is not. they used a get request to sent over all the parameters for the message, including the body. and also the attachments.
to use a get request to post information is somewhat bad style, but ok. but for the hell of it, i cannot figure out how they did binary uploads with a get request. guess i will use post instead of get, and insert the commands somewhere in spoolnews.
--
Posted on def2
z5bqfv5v75kxy7pj.onion

this will take me a while to figure out, the function in question is >800 lines.
i hoped to look up the code that nntpchan used, but to my surprise it is no longer on github,
--
Posted on def2
z5bqfv5v75kxy7pj.onion

anonymous wrote:

> ok, just inserting those two into the outspool of rslight made them appear on rocksolid.shared.test (this was the defined group). works out of the box.

Nice! The format of the messages looks good, shouldn't be a problem.

> to do:

> -threading is broken (guess the header is not correct by our standards)

As I posted in r.s.test, it may be that vichan only wants one Reference.

> -attachment is lost (guess the b64 way of doing things is not overall appreciated)

I tried a header change in a test spool on the message, but still 'unnamed'. I'll look a bit more into this.

Retro Guy

--
Posted on: Rocksolid Light
news.novabbs.com