GopherProxy

	020.txt - gopherhole - My gopherhole source code.
	git clone git://jay.scot/gopherhole
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	020.txt (4320B)
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	1 [jay.scot]
	2 [020]
	3
	4
	5 --[ Getting to grips with slrn
	6
	7
	8 Until a few weeks ago, I occasionally visited Usenet using the Lynx
	9 browser's built-in NNTP handler. It's a basic tool that served its
	10 purpose for browsing a few groups. However, Lynx couldn't handle
	11 killfiles, and the abundance of spam on Usenet nowadays made it very
	12 discouraging, looking at you google groups!. Recently, my other computer
	13 stopped working, which gave me a clean slate, so I decided to invest
	14 more time into finding a better solution. I remember using Pan back in
	15 the day, towards the end of Usenets hayday, but I wanted something CLI
	16 based so that's why I ended up going with slrn.
	17
	18
	19 When I used Lynx, I had an old Usenet block account that I purchased
	20 about three years ago from usenet.farm, honestly it wasn't for
	21 backfilling binaries! It worked fine for reading, and I rarely posted so
	22 wasn't and issue on that front. This time, though, I went to
	23 eternal-september.org and created a new account there.
	24
	25
	26 At first, I set up slrn in NNTP mode, which means it interacts with the
	27 news server remotely. However, this quickly became inconvenient for
	28 several reasons. Loading groups by connecting directly to the server
	29 every time I started up slrn felt sluggish. Moreover, I couldn't find
	30 a good way to separate my authentication credentials and store the slrn
	31 configuration in Git. In the slrn config file, I had to define the
	32 credentials explicitly, without the ability to call an external password
	33 manager or encrypted file, like so:
	34
	35
	36 nnrpaccess "snews://news.eternal-september.org:563" "my-user" "m…
	37 set force_authentication 1
	38
	39
	40 After some research over on the slrn homepage, I discovered that slrn
	41 comes with another tool called slrnpull. As the name suggests, it pulls
	42 all news articles to a local spool, which can then be viewed in slrn.
	43 Setting this up was a breeze, and with this method, I was able to
	44 separate my authentication credentials into a single file called
	45 "authinfo," which I could easily add to my Gitignore. I am now setup and
	46 good to go, looking forward to being more involved with Usenet!
	47
	48
	49 Below, I've included my configuration, which should serve as a good
	50 starting point for anyone wanting to use slrn. All files are relative to
	51 ~/.config/slrn
	52
	53
	54 slrnpull -d ~/.config/slrn/ # pull posts
	55 slrn -i ~/.config/slrn/config # read posts
	56
	57
	58 --[ config
	59
	60
	61 % user
	62 set username "jay.scot"
	63 set hostname "me@invalid"
	64 set generate_message_id 0
	65
	66 % apps
	67 set editor_command "vim '+set tw=72' +%d '%s'"
	68 set Xbrowser "firefox '%s' &"
	69
	70 % attrib
	71 set followup_string "On %D, %r <%f> wrote:"
	72 set reply_string "In %n, you wrote:"
	73
	74 % paths
	75 set spool_inn_root "~/.config/slrn/"
	76 set spool_root "~/.config/slrn/news"
	77 set spool_nov_root "~/.config/slrn/news"
	78 set read_active 1
	79 set use_slrnpull 1
	80 set server_object "spool"
	81
	82 set scorefile ".config/slrn/score"
	83
	84 % mime
	85 charset display utf8
	86 charset outgoing utf8
	87
	88 % display
	89 set confirm_actions 0
	90 set sorting_method 9
	91 set uncollapse_threads 1
	92 set top_status_line " %n"
	93 set group_status_line "%D %-20g -- %L (%P)"
	94 set header_status_line "%p [%r/%t] %-20g -- %L (%P)"
	95 set art_status_line "%p %s %-20g -- %L (%P)"
	96 set overview_date_format "%d %b %Y %H:%M"
	97
	98 visible_headers "Date:,From:,Newsgroups:,Subject:"
	99 header_display_format 0 "%F%B %21r %T%s %-26g %D %-5c"
	100
	101 % keybinds
	102 setkey group "set_prefix_argument(4); () = select_group();" "
	103 setkey article create_score "K"
	104
	105
	106 --[ slrnpull.conf
	107
	108
	109 # NAME \| MAX_ARTICLES \| DAYS_BEFORE_EXPIRE \| FETCH_HEADERS_ONLY
	110 default 0 0 0
	111
	112 eternal-september.info
	113 eternal-september.newusers
	114 eternal-september.talk
	115 alt.gopher
	116 uk.radio.amateur
	117
	118
	119 --[ score
	120
	121
	122 % : Logical AND ie all tests must be passed (Conjunction)
	123 % :: Logical OR ie any of the tests are passed (Disjunction)
	124 % ~ Logical NOT ie an exception from the score rule (Negation)
	125 % = Stop score processing and award the score if the test is passed
	126 % * Wild card character
	127
	128 [*]
	129 Score:: -9999
	130
	131 % Kill all articles which are uppercase and contain $ sign
	132 Subject: \$
	133 ~Subject: \c[a-z]
	134
	135 % Google groups are a source of, basically, all spam
	136 Message-ID: googlegroups
	137
	138 % Known spam remailer
	139 From: nobody@dizum\.com
	140
	141 % Prolific spammer
	142 From: doctor@doctor\.nl2k\.ab\.ca
	143
	144 [eternal-september.*]
	145 Score:: -9999
	146 From: Tigerbrother
	147 From: Dragonbrother
	148
	149
	150
	151 --[ authinfo
	152
	153
	154 username
	155 password
	156
	157
	158 .EOF