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usenet-signcontrol

Copyright (c) 2007-2009, 2011, 2014, 2023, 2024 Julien ÉLIE

This software is distributed under the MIT license. Please see the License section below for more information.

Description

signcontrol.py is a Python script aimed at helping Usenet hierarchy administrators in maintaining the canonical lists of newsgroups in the hierarchies they administer.

This script is also useful to manage PGP keys: generation, import, export, removal, and revokal. It works on every platform on which Python and GnuPG are available (Windows, Linux, etc.).

It also enforces best practices regarding the syntax of Usenet control articles.

Getting started is as simple as:

  1. Downloading and installing Python.
  2. Downloading and installing GnuPG.
  3. Downloading both the signcontrol.py program and its signcontrol.conf configuration file.
  4. Editing the signcontrol.conf configuration file so that it properly fits your installation.
  5. Running python signcontrol.py.

If you intend to generate several control articles during a single run of this script, you can make use of gpg-agent so as to type your passphrase only once. Running gpg-agent --daemon signcontrol.py should work.

If you're running signcontrol.py through a remote terminal, you may have to execute chown user $(tty) as root before running signcontrol.py as user to allow the input of a passphrase. (gpg will otherwise fail because the passphrase cannot be typed.)

Alternately, instead of the above chown command, you can enable loopback pinentry mode with the following instructions added to ~/.gnupg/gpg.conf of the user running this script, creating the configuration file if it doesn't already exist:


use-agent
pinentry-mode loopback

And also the following instructions added to ~/.gnupg/gpg-agent.conf, creating the file if it doesn't already exist:


allow-loopback-pinentry

Then restart the GnuPG agent with echo RELOADAGENT | gpg-connect-agent and you will be able to interactively type your passphrase or provide it when running from cron.

For optimal results, in case you'll use non-ASCII characters in control messages and descriptions, please use UTF-8 for the encoding of your terminal input and the checkgroups file.

If you run your own news server, you can send the generated control articles through it (with INN, the command inews -P -h < article.sig can for instance be used). Otherwise, you'll have to find a news server and negotiate with his newsmaster how you can inject your control articles.

Support

To report an issue or ask a question, please use the issue tracker on GitHub.

Instructions written in French are also available at https://www.trigofacile.com/divers/usenet/clefs/signcontrol.htm.

Source Repository

signcontrol.py is maintained using Git. You can access the current source on the web interface of GitHub or by cloning the repository at:

https://github.com/Julien-Elie/usenet-signcontrol.git

When contributing modifications, either patches or Git pull requests are welcome.

Configuration File

The following parameters can be modified in the signcontrol.conf configuration file:

  • PROGRAM_GPG

The path to the required GPG executable. It is usually C:\Progra~1\GNU\GnuPG\gpg.exe or /usr/bin/gpg.

  • PGP2_COMPATIBILITY

Whether compatibility with MIT PGP 2.6.2 (or equivalent) should be kept. Though this is now fairly obsolete, a few news servers still haven't been updated to be able to process newer and more secure signing algorithms. Such servers do not recognize recent signing algorithms; however, current news servers may refuse to process messages signed with the insecure MD5 algorithm.

Possible values are True, False or Only (default is False).

When set to True, signcontrol.py will generate two control articles: one in a format compatible with MIT PGP 2.6.2 (or equivalent) and another with a newer and more secure format. Sending these two control articles will then ensure a widest processing.

When set to False, signcontrol.py will only generate control articles in a newer and more secure format.

When set to Only, signcontrol.py will only generate control articles in a format compatible with MIT PGP 2.6.2 (or equivalent).

  • ID

One of the user ID of the PGP key used to sign control articles. The user ID is the whole contents of a uid line, as shown in a list of all keys from the secret keyring.

Note that if you do not already have a PGP key, signcontrol.py can generate one for you.

  • MAIL

The e-mail from which control articles are sent.

  • HOST

The host which appears in the second part of the Message-ID of generated control articles. It is usually the name of a news server.

  • ADMIN_GROUP

An existing newsgroup of the hierarchy (where checkgroups control articles will be fed). If an administrative newsgroup exists, put it. Otherwise, any other newsgroup of the hierarchy will be fine.

  • NAME

The name which appears in the From header field. You should only use ASCII characters. Otherwise, you have to MIME-encode it (for instance: =?ISO-8859-15?Q?Julien_=C9LIE?=).

  • CHECKGROUPS_SCOPE

The scope of the hierarchy according to Section 5.2.3 of RFC 5537. For instance: fr (for fr.*), de !de.alt (for de.* excepting de.alt.*) or de.alt (for de.alt.*).

  • URL

The URL where the public PGP key can be found. If you do not have any, leave https://downloads.isc.org/pub/pgpcontrol/README.html. If you want to mention several URLs (like the home page of the hierarchy), use a multi-line text where each line, except for the first, begins with a tabulation.

  • NEWGROUP_MESSAGE_MODERATED, NEWGROUP_MESSAGE_UNMODERATED, RMGROUP_MESSAGE

The message which will be written in the corresponding control article. All occurrences of $GROUP$ will be replaced by the name of the newsgroup.

  • PRIVATE_HIERARCHY

Whether the hierarchy is public or private. If it is private (that is to say if it is intended to remain in a local server with private access and if it is not fed to other Usenet news servers), the value should be True, so that checkgroups control articles are not crossposted to the news.admin.hierarchies newsgroup. Possible values are True or False (default is False).

  • CHECKGROUPS_FILE

The file which contains the current checkgroups. Make sure it is correctly encoded in UTF-8 (if of course it contains non-ASCII characters).

  • ENCODING

The encoding of control articles. The default value is UTF-8, which is the charset that SHOULD be used for non-ASCII characters, per Section 4.2 of RFC 5537. Make sure your terminal is configured for UTF-8 input too!

Using As a Library

You may also want to call the functions provided by signcontrol.py from your own Python scripts. Here is an example for adding or removing a bunch of newsgroups, reading the list from a file (one newsgroup per line). Naturally, the example should be adapted to fit your needs.

#!/usr/bin/python3

import signcontrol

conf = signcontrol.read_configuration(signcontrol.CONFIGURATION_FILE)
checkgroups = signcontrol.read_checkgroups(conf["CHECKGROUPS_FILE"])

# If the file only provides newsgroup names, moderation statuses
# and descriptions will be interactively asked for.
for group in open("list-of-groups-to-add"):
    signcontrol.generate_newgroup(checkgroups, conf, group.rstrip())

# If the file also contains the moderation status and the description
# of each newsgroup, these data will directly be used.
for group in open("list-of-groups-to-add"):
    (name, status, descr) = group.split(' ', 2)
    signcontrol.generate_newgroup(
        checkgroups, conf, name, status, descr.rstrip()
    )

# An example of mass removal.
for group in open("list-of-groups-to-remove"):
    signcontrol.generate_rmgroup(checkgroups, conf, group.rstrip())

An optional sixth argument to generate_newgroup and an optional fourth argument to generate_rmgroup can be used to specify a different message than the default one for the body of generated control articles.

Useful Resources

Here are some resources that can be useful to be aware of:

License

For any copyright range specified by files in this package as "YYYY-ZZZZ", the range specifies every single year in that closed interval.

The usenet-signcontrol package as a whole is covered by the following copyright statement and license:

Copyright (c) 2007-2009, 2011, 2014, 2023, 2024 Julien ÉLIE

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.