tinews.pl(1)

NAME
tinews.pl - Post and sign an article via NNTP

SYNOPSIS
tinews.pl [OPTIONS] < input

DESCRIPTION
tinews.pl reads an article on STDIN, signs it via pgp(1) or gpg(1) and posts it to a news server.

The article shall not contain any raw 8-bit data or it needs to already have the relevant MIME-headers as tinews.pl will not add any MIME-headers nor encode its input.

If the article contains To:, Cc: or Bcc: headers and mail-actions are configured it will automatically add a "Posted-And-Mailed: yes" header to the article and send out the mail-copies.

If a Cancel-Lock secret file is defined it will automatically add a Cancel-Lock: (and Cancel-Key: if required) header.

The input should have unix line endings (<LF>, '\n'). Use --transform to convert from <CR><LF> to just <LF>.

OPTIONS

-a "Approved" | --approved "Approved"
    Set the article header field Approved: to the given value.

-c "Control" | --control "Control"
    Set the article header field Control: to the given value.

-d "Distribution" | --distribution "Distribution"
    Set the article header field Distribution: to the given value.

-e "Expires" | --expires "Expires"
    Set the article header field Expires: to the given value.

-f "From" | --from "From"
    Set the article header field From: to the given value.

-i header | --ignore-headers header
    Comma separated list of headers that will be ignored during signing. Usually the following headers will be signed if present:

    From, Newsgroups, Subject, Control, Supersedes, Followup-To, Date, Injection-Date, Sender, Approved, Message-ID, Reply-To, Cancel-Key, Also-Control and Distribution.

    Some of them may be altered on the Server (i.e. Cancel-Key) which would invalid the signature, this option can be used the exclude such headers if required.

-m "Message-ID" | --message-id "Message-ID"
    Set the article header field Message-ID: to the given value.

-n "Newsgroups" | --newsgroups "Newsgroups"
    Set the article header field Newsgroups: to the given value.

-o "Organization" | --organization "Organization"
    Set the article header field Organization: to the given value.

-p "port" | --port "port"
    use "port" as NNTP-port

-r "Reply-To" | --reply-to "Reply-To"
    Set the article header field Reply-To: to the given value.

-s directory | --savedir directory
    Save signed article to directory directory instead of posting.

-t "Subject" | --subject "Subject"
    Set the article header field Subject: to the given value.

-v | --verbose
    Warn about disabled options due to lacking perl-modules or executables and unreadable files and enable warnings about raw 8-bit data.

-w "Followup-To" | --followup-to "Followup-To"
    Set the article header field Followup-To: to the given value.

-x "Path" | --path "Path"
    Prepend the article header field Path: with the given value.

-D | -N | --debug
    Set Net::NNTP(3pm) to debug mode, enable warnings about raw 8-bit data, warn about disabled options due to lacking perl-modules or executables and unreadable files.

-E | --discard-empty
    Silently discard an empty article.

-F | --references
    Set the article header field References: to the given value.

-H | --help
    Show help-page.

-I | --no-injection-date
    Do not add Injection-Date: header.

-L | --no-canlock
    Do not add Cancel-Lock: / Cancel-Key: headers.

-O | --no-organization
    Do not add Organization: header.

-R | --no-control
    Restricted mode, disallow control-messages.

-S | --no-signature
    Do not append $HOME/.signature.

-X | --no-sign
    Do not sign the article.

-Y | --force-auth
    Force authentication on connect even if not required by the server.

--canlock-algorithm "Algorithm"
    Digest algorithm used for Cancel-Lock: / Cancel-Key: headers. Supported algorithms are sha1, sha256 and sha512. Default is sha1.

--ssl | --nntps
    Use NNTPS (via port 563) if available. This requires a recent version of Net::NNTP(3pm) and IO::Socket::SSL(3pm). Be aware that no SSL verification will be done.

--transform
    Convert network line endings (<CR><LF>) to unix line endings (<LF>).

--version
    Show version.

-A -V -W
    These options are accepted for compatibility reasons but ignored.

-h | --headers
    These options are accepted for compatibility reasons but ignored.

EXIT STATUS
The following exit values are returned:

0   Successful completion.

!=0 An error occurred.

ENVIRONMENT

$NEWSHOST
    Set to override the NNTP server configured in the source or config-file. It has lower priority than $NNTPSERVER and should be avoided.

$NNTPSERVER
    Set to override the NNTP server configured in the source or config-file. This has higher priority than $NEWSHOST.

$NNTPPORT
    The NNTP TCP-port to post news to. This variable only needs to be set if the TCP-port is not 119 (the default). The '-p' command-line option overrides $NNTPPORT.

$PGPPASS
    Set to override the passphrase configured in the source (used for pgp(1)-2.6.3).

$PGPPASSFILE
    Passphrase file used for pgp(1) or gpg(1).

$SIGNER
    Set to override the user-id for signing configured in the source. If you neither set $SIGNER nor configure it in the source the contents of the From:-field will be used.

$REPLYTO
    Set the article header field Reply-To: to the return address specified by the variable if there isn't already a Reply-To: header in the article. The '-r' command-line option overrides $REPLYTO.

$ORGANIZATION
    Set the article header field Organization: to the contents of the variable if there isn't already an Organization: header in the article. The '-o' command-line option overrides $ORGANIZATION, The '-O' command-line option disables it.

$DISTRIBUTION
    Set the article header field Distribution: to the contents of the variable if there isn't already a Distribution: header in the article. The '-d' command-line option overrides $DISTRIBUTION.

FILES

pgptmp.txt
    Temporary file used to store the reformatted article.

pgptmp.txt.asc
    Temporary file used to store the reformatted and signed article.

$PGPPASSFILE
    The passphrase file to be used for pgp(1) or gpg(1).

$HOME/.signature
    Signature file which will be automatically included.

$HOME/.cancelsecret
    The passphrase file to be used for Cancel-Locks. This feature is turned off by default.

$HOME/.newsauth
    "nntpserver password [user]" pairs or triples for NNTP servers that require authorization. First match counts. Any line that starts with "#" is a comment. Blank lines are ignored. This file should be readable only for the user as it contains the user's unencrypted password for reading news. If no matching entry is found $HOME/.nntpauth is checked.

$HOME/.nntpauth
    "nntpserver user password" triples for NNTP servers that require authorization. First match counts. Lines starting with "#" are skipped and blank lines are ignored. This file should be readable only for the user as it contains the user's unencrypted password for reading news. $HOME/.newsauth is checked first.

$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/tinewsrc $HOME/.config/tinewsrc $HOME/.tinewsrc
    "option=value" configuration pairs, last match counts and only "value" is case sensitive. Lines that start with "#" are ignored. If the file contains unencrypted passwords (e.g. nntp-pass or pgp-pass), it should be readable for the user only. Use -vH to get a full list of all available configuration options.

SECURITY
If you've configured or entered a password, even if the variable that contained that password has been erased, it may be possible for someone to find that password, in plaintext, in a core dump. In short, if serious security is an issue, don't use this script.

Be aware that even if NNTPS is used still no SSL verification will be done.

NOTES
tinews.pl is designed to be used with pgp(1)-2.6.3, pgp(1)-5, pgp(1)-6, gpg(1) and gpg2(1).

tinews.pl requires the following standard modules to be installed: Getopt::Long(3pm), Net::NNTP(3pm), Time::Local(3pm) and Term::Readline(3pm).

NNTPS (NNTP with implicit TLS; RFC 4642 and RFC 8143) may be unavailable if Net::NNTP(3pm) is too old or IO::Socket::SSL(3pm) is missing on the system. tinews.pl will fallback to unencrypted NNTP in that case.

If the Cancel-Lock feature (RFC 8315) is enabled the following additional modules must be installed: MIME::Base64(3pm), Digest::SHA(3pm) or Digest::SHA1(3pm) and Digest::HMAC_SHA1(3pm). sha256 and sha512 as algorithms for canlock-algorithm are only available with Digest::SHA(3pm).

gpg2(1) users may need to set $GPG_TTY, i.e.

 GPG_TTY=$(tty)
 export GPG_TTY

before using tinews.pl. See <https://www.gnupg.org/> for details.

tinews.pl does not do any MIME encoding, its input should be already properly encoded and have all relevant headers set.

AUTHOR
Urs Janssen <urs@tin.org>, Marc Brockschmidt <marc@marcbrockschmidt.de>

SEE ALSO
pgp(1), gpg(1), gpg2(1), pgps(1), Digest::HMAC_SHA1(3pm), Digest::SHA(3pm), Digest::SHA1(3pm), Getopt::Long(3pm), IO::Socket::SSL(3pm), MIME::Base64(3pm), Net::NNTP(3pm), Time::Local(3pm), Term::Readline(3pm)