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Member "tin-2.6.2/doc/auth.txt" (23 Aug 2021, 3498 Bytes) of package /linux/misc/tin-2.6.2.tar.xz:

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    1                   Authentication to an NNTP server with tin
    2 
    3 Tin is able to do authentication to news servers according to the "Common
    4 NNTP Extensions" (this document is available at [1]). There are several ways
    5 of authentication described in that text which are referred to as Original
    6 AUTHINFO, AUTHINFO GENERIC, and AUTHINFO SIMPLE. Tin supports the Original
    7 AUTHINFO and if tin is linked against libgsasl and the server announces it
    8 as described in RFC 3977 [2] it supports the AUTHINFO SASL PLAIN mechanism
    9 as described in RFC 4643 [3]. In addition to answers to authentication
   10 requests as described in the "Common NNTP Extensions", tin also provides
   11 authentication at connection startup.
   12 
   13 Unfortunately, you cannot rely on the response codes of authentication
   14 requests as described in the "Common NNTP Extensions"; today's news servers
   15 mostly send NNTP codes 480, regardless of the type of authentication they
   16 expect. Therefore, authentication is always done in the same manner: First,
   17 tin tries AUTHINFO SASL PLAIN authorization (see above). If this fails or is
   18 unavailable, Original AUTHINFO is used.  If this does not work for you
   19 (which it should), please contact me to track this problem down.  There are
   20 known problems with the reference nntp server available at ftp.academ.com --
   21 this is a server bug and not tin's fault; if you need a patch or workaround,
   22 drop me a mail.
   23 
   24 Authentication requests will be handled whenever they occur; the command
   25 that caused the request will be sent again.
   26 
   27 For an authentication with the Original AUTHINFO method, tin needs a
   28 user-name and a password for the current news server. This information is
   29 obtained from a file .newsauth in the $HOME directory. The format of the
   30 .newsauth file is as follows:
   31 
   32 news.server1 password1 [username1]
   33 news.server2 password2 [username2]
   34 ...
   35 
   36 The first line matching the current news server is taken. The delimiters
   37 between the fields MUST be spaces or TABS. If a password contains spaces,
   38 you have to surround the whole password by double quotes. If no user-name is
   39 given for the current news server, the user-id of the user who started tin
   40 is assumed. Mind that tin expects unix line endings ('\n'), a
   41 .newsauth-file with dos line endings ('\r\n') or mac line endings ('\r')
   42 is likely to cause trouble.
   43 
   44 Security consideration: Make sure that the .newsauth file cannot be read by
   45 others. Tin checks the permissions of the file and complains if they are
   46 insecure (i.e., if they are not -rw-------) but continues.
   47 
   48 If you do not have a .newsauth file in your $HOME directory, tin prompts
   49 you for a user-name and a password. This is not done automatically at
   50 connection startup, because there is no way for tin to find out if an
   51 authentication at this time is needed. If you need to authenticate at the
   52 beginning of your news session, use the -A option when invoking tin or just
   53 provide a .newsauth file.
   54 
   55 The AUTHINFO SASL PLAIN authentication method requires tin to be linked
   56 against libgsasl.
   57 
   58 The AUTHINFO SIMPLE authentication method is not supported by tin (and
   59 possibly won't be since nobody seems to use it and there are some problems
   60 with the protocol). If you need this, drop me a message or see the source
   61 code in auth.c. With the specification at [1], the implementation should not
   62 be difficult.
   63 
   64 Dirk Nimmich (2000-01-22)
   65 <nimmich@uni-muenster.de>
   66 
   67 References:
   68 [1] <http://www.karlsruhe.org/rfc/rfc2980.txt>
   69 [2] <http://www.karlsruhe.org/rfc/rfc3977.txt>
   70 [3] <http://www.karlsruhe.org/rfc/rfc4643.txt>