Just posting on this site from the past (green screen lol)

Retro Guy

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Posted on def4

RetroGuy wrote:

> Just posting on this site from the past (green screen lol)

Well, that works nicely!

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Posted on Rocksolid Light
news.novabbs.org

>It wouldn't be hard to make it specific to a user and not
>just the site. rslight users already have a 'key' that can be
>used, or we can use another method.
>If we can come up with a standardized method for nodes, I'm
>all for it.

If we take valid pgp signatures as credentials, we are fully interoperable, and get rid of a whole lot of problems that other methods would pose (like how to securely exchange account data between nodes and such), with this method every authentication is public and contained in the message itself.
And yes, I remember similar discussions between us from before, but this solution would have some big advantages imo.

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Posted on def4

....and so are the screens :-)

I am quite pleased with the outcome so far, just have to implement proper uudecoding for embedded attachments and proper checks if an attachment is actually encoded or not (some nodes don't encode text files, some do). Also some work left to do on the code to make postings to remote servers with lynx, and finally to clean up.

The handling on bbx is different to rslight or vichan, where you have all the latest news on one glance, using the respective overboards. On bbx it takes much longer to check all the groups individually. This makes it more inviting to scroll through older messages as well (least for me). So it is a slower way to use the forums, and it is kind of nice if have the time (if you just want to spent two minutes checking for the latest, the other nodes are better).
It is also nice to have one node where posting is only possible with credentials. Anonymous posting certainly has its merits and advantages, but so does posting with an identity (average quality of published content is usually higher imo).
So in the future, it will be like:
def2 --> forced anonymous
def3 --> choice between anonymous (guest) and account
def4 --> mandatory account

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Posted on def4

Did you change the settings on your news server on asq5mo52aghemn2i.onion ?
When I connect now with the same commands, I get just a lot of
500 What ?
responses. Did you disable read access for anonymous ?

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Posted on def4

500 Syntax error or unknown command

I swear it was working. Maybe I stressed the servers too much during testing ?

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Posted on def4

On Sun, 20 Dec 2020 20:28:15+0000
trw <trw@anon.com> wrote:

>
> Did you change the settings on your news server on
> asq5mo52aghemn2i.onion ? When I connect now with the same commands, I
> get just a lot of 500 What ?
> responses. Did you disable read access for anonymous ?
>

I haven't changed anything there. asqn5... is an inn2 server. A 500
error is the response when it doesn't recognize the command sent.

I can look into stuff later tonight but not atm.

On Sun, 20 Dec 2020 20:58:10+0000
trw <trw@anon.com> wrote:

>
> 500 Syntax error or unknown command
>
> I swear it was working. Maybe I stressed the servers too much during
> testing ?
>

That response is from an rslight server, but the previous message you
sent is a response from an inn2 server.

inn2: 500 What?
rslight: 500 Syntax error or unknown command

Either way they are saying the same thing.

Now, off to work I go :(

I thought the onion address and novabss.com would point to the same server. Anyway, I can't connect to either one with Lynx, like I did before. Maybe the connection is too slow ? I will try again during the day.

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Posted on def4

On Mon, 21 Dec 2020 07:16:00+0000
trw <trw@anon.com> wrote:

>
> I thought the onion address and novabss.com would point to the same
> server. Anyway, I can't connect to either one with Lynx, like I did
> before. Maybe the connection is too slow ? I will try again during
> the day.
>

the asq5 address is the same inn2 server as novabbs.org. Not sure where
you saw '500 Syntax error or unknown command', asq5 and novabbs.org
shouldn't send that. rslight will, and I think Synchronet sends the
same reply as rslight, but Synchronet is on rocksolidbbs.com.

It's strange that lynx did work and now does not. It would be good to
be able to see the command it is sending that apparently isn't
recognized. rslight can log all commands if that helps.

I've just set up tor to point to rslight here:
ikew5tjh2zt365d2.onion

If you connect there, rslight will log the commands (without logging
passwords). I can then take a look. The logging was for my own testing,
so it may or may not provide helpful info but you're welcome to try
(then let me know to check the logs)

As a note, I have connected to rslight news server with lynx and it
seems to work ok. I didn't try doing any more that reading an article
or two.

Retro Guy

I just connected here: ikew5tjh2zt365d2.onion with the same results as before. Maybe I was trying another address when there was the other error message and confused the two.

Underneath you will find the full output I get from Lyxn when trying to read rocksolid.shared.linux:
200 Rocksolid Light NNTP Server ready (no posting)
500 Syntax error or unknown command
500 Syntax error or unknown command
500 Syntax error or unknown command
500 Syntax error or unknown command
500 Syntax error or unknown command
500 Syntax error or unknown command

My commands on the cli:
socat TCP4-LISTEN:30119,reuseaddr,fork SOCKS4A:127.0.0.1:ikew5tjh2zt365d2.onion:119,socksport=9150
lynx http://127.0.0.1:30119/rocksolid.shared.linux

The same error messages as above I get from;
lynx http://127.0.0.1:30119/

so without the group.
It is all the more confusing since it was working with your server, and still works with my local inn2.
And just because you were mentioning passwords in your text: there are no passwords involved here, reading messages was working without.

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Posted on def4

On Mon, 21 Dec 2020 09:48:53+0000
trw <trw@anon.com> wrote:

>
> I just connected here: ikew5tjh2zt365d2.onion with the same results
> as before. Maybe I was trying another address when there was the
> other error message and confused the two.
>
> Underneath you will find the full output I get from Lyxn when trying
> to read rocksolid.shared.linux: 200 Rocksolid Light NNTP Server ready
> (no posting) 500 Syntax error or unknown command
> 500 Syntax error or unknown command
> 500 Syntax error or unknown command
> 500 Syntax error or unknown command
> 500 Syntax error or unknown command
> 500 Syntax error or unknown command

It appears to be sending http requests:

Dec 21 09:43:47 GET / HTTP/1.0
Dec 21 09:43:47 Syntax error: GET / HTTP/1.0
Dec 21 09:43:47 Host: x.x.x.x:30119
Dec 21 09:43:47 Syntax error: Host: x.x.x.x:30119
Dec 21 09:43:47 Accept: text/html, text/plain, text/sgml, */*;q=0.01
Dec 21 09:43:47 Syntax error: Accept: text/html, text/plain, text/sgml,
*/*;q=0.01 Dec 21 09:43:47 Accept-Encoding: gzip, compress, bzip2
Dec 21 09:43:47 Syntax error: Accept-Encoding: gzip, compress, bzip2
Dec 21 09:43:47 Accept-Language: en
Dec 21 09:43:47 Syntax error: Accept-Language: en
Dec 21 09:43:47 User-Agent: Lynx/2.9.0dev.5 libwww-FM/2.14 SSL-MM/1.4.1
GNUTLS/3.6.13 Dec 21 09:43:47 Syntax error: User-Agent: Lynx/2.9.0dev.5
libwww-FM/2.14 SSL-MM/1.4.1 GNUTLS/3.6.13

Oh, yeah, it sends http requests because I told it to.
Thanks for noticing. lmao.

it is of course:

lynx nntp://127.0.0.1:30119/rocksolid.shared.linux

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Posted on def4

On Mon, 21 Dec 2020 10:06:44+0000
trw <trw@anon.com> wrote:

>
> Oh, yeah, it sends http requests because I told it to.
> Thanks for noticing. lmao.

lol :)

bumping this thread

I just realized when I researched a bit around the official news group listings (here: http://usenet.trigofacile.com/hierarchies/ ), that you already do pgp signing of the control messages for your news server.
Wouldn't this be the easiest solution to implement (guessing here thet inn does this part of the work) ?

(pic slightly related)

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Posted on def3

trw wrote:

> bumping this thread

> I just realized when I researched a bit around the official news group listings (here: http://usenet.trigofacile.com/hierarchies/ ), that you already do pgp signing of the control messages for your news server.
> Wouldn't this be the easiest solution to implement (guessing here thet inn does this part of the work) ?

Yes, I sign control messages with pgp. I use a python script to make it reasonably simple:
https://github.com/Julien-Elie/usenet-signcontrol

I agree that pgp signing could work well for communication between nodes. I'm still thinking about what is a good way to make it easy for a user to sign messages and the servers know if it is authentic.

Of course the servers would need each user's public key, which isn't a problem. But what is a good way for a user to sign each message that makes their time spent doing so worth it? We can use pgp auth to display an icon simple enough and demonstrate to a reader that the poster is authentic.

Trying to think of good methods to make it simple for end users to want to participate.

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Posted on Rocksolid Light
news.novabbs.org

>>2ddb23cb6be90293b7
>Trying to think of good methods to make it simple for end users to want to participate.

I can see two basic ways:
1) either the nodes offer a piece of js that does the signing (possibly using a local config file) and attaches a file with the signed message automatically when posting.
2) we write a little client to do that (could be in any lanuguage, gui or cli). Then the user would have to download that client and run it locally. To be precise, I don't mean to write a browser here, just some lines to take text and sign it, then make a POST to a predefined node.

Either way, the user would have to trust the code, which might be a showstopper for some already (those would have to do their own coding or do all the steps manually).
In the first case, js would have to be enabled in the browser which is a moot point for many. So I guess the second way is the better one.
Of course this could also be done as a plugin for the browser, but this would be sort of the same as js (from a security point of view, guess it is better to decouple this from the browser).
So the easiest way would probably be to write a shell script that acts as a wrapper for
-an editor to compose the message,
-pgp to make the signature and produce the signature files, and
-curl to make a POST stream to one of the nodes, including all necessary data like username/password, the message and the signature file.
To make it nice, we could give a qt-gui or somesuch.
This local client could be called from links on the webpage of the node, those could also transport additional information so that answering to a message does not require to manually fill the subject and reply-id.
Of course this kind of client software would have to be specific for the OS of the user (so would probably exclude IOS/Android/Windows unless somebody would write code for those - I will most probably not :-), or we use java).
But all of this sounds very doable to me. And not only would it be a supernice way to manage identities for those who want them, it would also enable various ways of flood protection (should we ever need it).
I think I will put that on the todo list.
Maybe the person posting all this stuff on /social has some kind of local solution already.

cheers

trw

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Posted on def2

Getting an error on bbx right now. I tried clicking several messages, both from the overboard and from a group:

"the news server does not answer to this request, and the resource is not cached locally.
this could mean that the requested resource does not exist on the server,or that the news server is down.
giving up for now, you might retry in 10 min or so."

--
Posted on Rocksolid Light
news.novabbs.org

>>7df4a7a8efa70cfe70
>Getting an error on bbx right now.
Yes, I know this one. It is like it says, the news server does not answer, and I don't know why.
When I log in with telnet and do "mode reader", I get:
403 Expiring process 7990
Then after
service inn2 restart
it works again.
I have no clue yet what "Expiring process" really means, and why it happens so often nowadays.

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Posted on def2

>>0db69e823dce479343
Might have to do with this entry in /var/log/news/expire.log:

expireover start Tue Dec 29 04:33:54 UTC 2020: ( -z/var/log/news/expire.rm -Z/var/log/news/expire.lowmark)
Article lines processed 28740
Articles dropped 0
Overview index dropped 0
expireover end Tue Dec 29 04:42:08 UTC 2020
lowmarkrenumber begin Tue Dec 29 04:42:08 UTC 2020: (/var/log/news/expire.lowmark)
lowmarkrenumber end Tue Dec 29 04:42:08 UTC 2020
expire begin Tue Dec 29 04:42:38 UTC 2020: (-v1)
expire: dbzsync: putcore failed
expire: can't dbzclose /var/lib/news/history.n No space left on device
expire: dbzinit: dbzinit already called once
expire: can't dbzinit /var/lib/news/history Success
expire: dbz: fseeko failure in putconf: Bad file descriptor
/usr/lib/news/bin/news.daily: line 401: 7990 Segmentation fault expire -v1
expire end Tue Dec 29 06:26:55 UTC 2020
all done Tue Dec 29 06:26:56 UTC 2020

Or maybe with the fact that my /var/lib/news/history contains over 6 Mio lines (never knew that I ever had this many articles on my news server).

Anyway, it seems to me that the expiration process is failing somewhere on the way with a segfault, and I guess that leaves inn2 in an unresponsive state.
What is also strange is that a manual restart with
service inn2 restart
solves the problem, but the same called from a cronjob does not.

And for this line:
expire: can't dbzclose /var/lib/news/history.n No space left on device,
there are 390 Mb space left on the device, so probably it is just not enough.

Maybe I could just skip expiration altogether (since I do not use it anyway) ? Or maybe I just need a bigger hd ?

--
Posted on def2

Anonymous <poster@anon.com> wrote:
> expire: can't dbzclose /var/lib/news/history.n No space left on device,
> there are 390 Mb space left on the device, so probably it is just not enough.

And the number of inodes (df -i) ?

The basic INN2 storage model is one file per article.

Also, you may want to ask your NNTP peers not to send you what you don't
want, because it might end up in the junk pseudo-newsgroup.

>>422fcfe1ec494621f7
df -i:
Filesystem Inodes IUsed IFree IUse% Mounted on
/dev/sda1 283360 156142 127218 56% /
/dev/sda3 5242880 428145 4814735 9% /var/spool/news

Should be enough, I guess ?

>Also, you may want to ask your NNTP peers not to send you what you don't
want, because it might end up in the junk pseudo-newsgroup.

ok, thanks, I did not know that. What is the way to make an overall cleaning to all the obsolete groups and articles (if there is a way) ?
Or maybe I could just start over on a new machine to solve the problems shortterm.

cheers

trw

--
Posted on def2

Anonymous <poster@anon.com> wrote:
> ok, thanks, I did not know that. What is the way to make an overall cleaning to all the obsolete groups and articles (if there is a way) ?
> Or maybe I could just start over on a new machine to solve the problems shortterm.

I would look at /var/lib/news/active and remove any newsgroups you
don't want (you need to ctlinnd pause STUFF and then ctlinnd go STUFF or
stop inn2 altogether to change files).

Then I would check expirectl, the retention delay.

Then contact all my feeds to modify the exclusions.

Etc.

/dev/mapper/vg1-lxc--104 47M 1.5M 46M 4% /
/dev/mapper/vg1-lxc--104 733G 646G 53G 93% /

number of lines:

21396 /var/lib/news/active
532494 /var/lib/news/history
2 /var/lib/news/history.dir
12599 /var/lib/news/history.hash
6415 /var/lib/news/history.index
572906 total

You can also restart from scratch :)

On Tue, 29 Dec 2020 15:01:42 +0100 (CET)
Marc SCHAEFER <schaefer@alphanet.ch> wrote:

> Anonymous <poster@anon.com> wrote:
> > expire: can't dbzclose /var/lib/news/history.n No space left on
> > device, there are 390 Mb space left on the device, so probably it
> > is just not enough.
>
> And the number of inodes (df -i) ?
>
> The basic INN2 storage model is one file per article.

That's most likely exactly the hd space problem. Here's a clip from
a while back in rocksolid.nodes:

i2pn2 has been running out of inodes, while bytes availble is high
(many GBs) This is due to the small size of news articles just wasting
inodes.

I created a new partition not much bigger than the original, but with
more available inodes. The new partition 20% larger than the old, but
has 500% more inodes available.

If you format the partition as 'mkfs.ext4 -t news', you will end up
with an ext2 filesystem that is very appropriate for a tradspool inn2
setup.

I've done this two times, and both times I found it necessary to repair
the install with tdx-util to repair tradindexd inode mismatch errors.
This has happened each time. Once repaired 'tdx-util -F', it seems to
be working well.

Just thought I'd leave all the detail here in case you choose to go this
direction with your server.

Retro Guy

>>e111b21b9e8af42d5f
it is not the inodes, I have > 100k free on the root partition, > 4 Mio on the partition that holds the spool ('cause I followed your advice when I created those).

Maybe I will just install rslight and use it as a news server, seems to be less complicated and more stable than inn2 to me.

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Posted on def2