c-nocem - NoCeM for C News and INN

   This is a program for the easy and efficient application of the NoCeM
   protocol on the news spool. Which means, articles for which a NoCeM
   with "action=hide" is accepted, will be deleted from your news system
   as if they had been cancelled. With the installation described below,
   these will be processed as fast as possible and should work like real
   cancels.

   Unlike the standard implementation of NoCeM, this version is optimized
   for the most common case of "spam cancels". In fact, it can do nothing
   else. It can not be run by a normal user, it does not need or
   manipulate state like .newsrc files, it processes only "hide" actions,
   and that only by actually deleting the articles.

   c-nocem is designed for easy setup and fast run and needs no
   maintenance.

Installation

   This describes c-nocem version 3.4.

   You need:
     * Perl version 4 or 5.
     * PGP version MIT 2.6 or 2.6i, or GnuPG version 0.9.1 or later.
     * A running news system, and knowledge on how to configure it. This
       program supports C News and INN.
     * The compiled source code for the news system. c-nocem needs the
       libraries and configuration files used for building the news
       system.
     * A customized PGP public keyring containing the keys of all people
       from whom you accept NoCeM notices. See below.

   Run the configure script. Give it the --with-cnews=dir or
   --with-inn=dir options to point to the top of the news system's source
   tree. Run make install. Copy ncmperm into the right place. Create
   ncmgroups there if needed, see below. Look at the top of c-nocem and
   correct any wrong parameters. Make sure the programs created by the
   make, as well as pgp are in the news system's PATH (configure usually
   gets that right). Create a temp directory as indicated in c-nocem, if
   you don't have it already. Do not use /tmp or any other globally
   writable directory for this purpose - that would be a serious security
   problem. Note for users of previous versions: The programs are now
   installed in the main news binary directory. Make sure to correct any
   wrong paths. For INN 2.0 and newer, the configuration files like
   ncmperm belong into the etc directory.

  C News special

   Arrange for the NoCeM newsgroups to be feeded to the c-nocem program.
   The means for this is the standard batching system. (The setup below
   is for the Cleanup Release of C News, older versions use a different
   batchparms file format.)
     * Set up a feed in the sys file:
       nocem-extractor:alt.nocem.misc,news.lists.filters/all:F:
       Insert the newsgroups containing relevant NoCeM notices.
     * Create a batch directory $NEWSARTS/out.going/nocem-extractor.
     * Set up a special batching method in the batchparms file:
       nocem-extractor N 1000000- - c-nocem -b -s
       (note: no "batcher" invocation here). Make sure the class letter
       "N" is unique. You can use any letter, but use the same one in the
       next step.
     * Replace the command "newsrun" in your crontab with "newsrun;
       sendbatches -c N -p".

   That's it. Now incoming news will be processed by NoCeM as soon as
   possible. You may want to watch the progress, at least at the
   beginning. For this purpose, change the batchparms line to:
   nocem-extractor N 100000 - c-nocem -b | report "NoCeM"

  INN special

   Arrange for the NoCeM newsgroups to be feeded to the c-nocem program.
   The means for this is a channel feed.
     * Set up a feed in the newsfeeds file:
       nocem!:!*,alt.nocem.misc,news.lists.filters\
         :Tc,Wn:/var/lib/news/bin/c-nocem -c200 -t600 -s
     * If you want logging, replace the -s with
       >>/var/log/news/nocem.log.

   That's it. Now incoming news will be processed by NoCeM as soon as
   possible.

Configuration

   Configuration consists of the permissions file and the public key
   ring. Every NoCeM notice is checked for a PGP signature with the NoCeM
   key ring (usually $NEWSLIB/ncmring.pgp). If no known and valid
   signature is found, the notice is ignored entirely. If the signature
   is good, the NCM headers are checked:
     * Version: must be 0.9 or 0.9x (for any x)
     * Action: must be "hide"
     * Type and Issuer: must be allowed by the permissions file.

  The key ring

   Every NoCeM notice carries a PGP signature. A public key ring is
   needed to check the validity and integrity. This key ring should
   contain exactly the keys of those people from whom you want to accept
   NoCeM notices. You should use a version of PGP which supports the
   "+pubring=filename" argument (MIT, 2.6i, 2.6in do; 2.6ui does not).

   The c-nocem distribution contains some keys of frequent NoCeM issuers.
   Check for yourself from whom you want to accept the NoCeM notices, and
   try to verify the keys e.g. via a public key server instead of blindly
   trusting them.

   Create the key ring or add a key to it with a command like
   pgp +pubring=ncmring.pgp -ka ncmring.asc
   Be sure to specify the right key ring file, i.e. the same as in the
   c-nocem script.

  The permissions file

   ncmperm contains a permission table, similar to
   "controlperm"/"control.ctl". Each entry in this table consists of
   three whitespace-separated fields: issuer, type, permission. "Issuer"
   is a string that is checked against the Issuer NCM header, "type" is
   checked against the Type NCM header. If both match, the permission is
   determined from the third field as "yes" or "no". First match wins. If
   no entry matches, it defaults to "no". Only a NoCeM notice with "yes"
   permission is processed.

   The issuer field of the ncmperm file may contain a substring of the
   actual Issuer header (e.g. "clewis@ferret" matches Chris Lewis' spam
   cancels). The type field may be "*" which means "everything".

   c-nocem re-reads this file when it changes immediately.

  The groups file

   You can control for which groups you accept NoCeMs, i.e. articles in
   which groups are cancelled by NoCeM notices. This is useful to limit
   NoCeM processing to the groups you actually get from your feeds.
   (Example: if you have excluded alt.binaries, you don't need NoCeMs for
   alt.binaries either.) To implement this restriction, you need a file
   $NEWSLIB/ncmgroups which contains a subscription list.

   For C News
          The subscription list is a sys file pattern. Whitespace,
          newline etc. are equivalent to a comma. Example:
          all,!alt.binaries

   For INN
          The subscription list is a list of wildmat patterns, like a GUP
          subscription list. The patterns are separated with commas,
          whitespace or newlines. Example: *,!alt.binaries.*

   You can add an -a option to the c-nocem command to ignore groups which
   are not in your active file.

  Using GnuPG

   c-nocem can run with GnuPG instead of PGP. The configure script checks
   for gpg and uses it if available. Because NoCeM issuers use PGP 2.6
   keys, you have to install an RSA extension to GnuPG. It is available
   from the GnuPG Web page (under "More crypto") as a file rsa.c, which
   has to be compiled according to a comment in the file and placed in
   the extensions directory (default /usr/local/lib/gnupg). Then put the
   following line in ~/.gnupg/options:
   load-extension rsa

How it works

   c-nocem does its work in two stages: first, it reads the NoCeM notices
   and checks the permissions as described above. It collects all
   Message-IDs mentioned in the accepted notices, (if the associated
   newsgroups list matches active and ncmgroups if that check is
   requested), into a batch file (tmp/nocem). In the second stage, these
   IDs are processed: for each Message-ID, if the article is on the
   system, the article is deleted. If it is not there, a history entry is
   generated which prevents later arrival. A log file entry is emitted
   for each of these entries. The result is like that from a regular
   cancel.

   When getting end-of-input in channel mode (i.e. after a flush or
   shutdown) c-nocem writes a batch file tmp/nocem.input of all
   unprocessed input lines (NoCeM notice file names/tokens) and quits
   immediately. The next invocation of c-nocem will pick up this batch
   file, a la "innfeed".

  Invocation

   c-nocem must be run under the news UID. For C News, it takes on
   standard input either a single NoCeM notice (in unbatched mode) or a
   batch file (in batched mode). For INN, it runs in channel mode. The
   possible arguments to c-nocem are:
     -b: run in batched mode.
     -cn: run in channel mode. Spawn delete process every (n) articles.
     -ts: timeout. Spawn delete process every (s) seconds.
     -n: testing. Don't delete articles or manipulate the history.
     -s: silent. Do not give any output except for fatal errors.
     -dn: delay. See below.
     -k: kill cancels. See below.
     -l: no logging. Don't emit logfile entries.
     -r: remove only. Don't add history entries.
     -a: active-file check. Don't cancel articles in groups not in the
       active file.
     -zf: Leave list of deleted articles in file (f) (relative to spool
       directory). This can be fed into expireover -z.

   Do not use unbatched mode except for testing. Batching saves on
   resources.
   On INN, use only channel mode - the -c flag tells c-nocem that it runs
   under INN.

  Helper programs

   c-nocem comes with two little C programs that it calls to do part of
   its work. The "fastcancel" program takes a list of Message-IDs and
   locally cancels them, i.e. deletes the article files or notes the IDs
   in the history file. It must run with the news system locked/paused.
   On INN, fastcancel emits a list of articles to remove which c-nocem
   feeds to "fastrm". This keeps the actual article deletion out of the
   paused time, like with "news.daily delayrm".

   The "groupcheck" program takes a list of Message-IDs with newsgroups
   and checks them against a subscription list. This is only needed for
   INN; C News uses the "gngp" program (part of C News) instead.

  Logging

   The "fastcancel" program emits logfile entries for every processed
   Message-ID which look just like the news system's logfile entries.
   Here the "+" mark is used for added IDs, the "-" mark for removed
   articles. This matches C News' behaviour for cancels. Note: INN's log
   analyzer counts the "-" entries as "bad articles", so the cancelled
   articles (not the NoCeM notices) show up in the daily log summary as
   "bad articles sent by '(NoCeM)'". The "fastcancel" program also logs
   statistics via syslog. c-nocem itself logs debugging messages and
   performance statistics on stdout, if called without the -s flag.

  Delay mode

   Delay mode helps spreading out the load c-nocem generates over an
   extended period of time. This helps to keep system load low when news
   traffic comes in bursts, e.g. for UUCP sites. Call c-nocem with the -d
   n parameter, where n is an estimate on the numbers of NoCeM notices
   received per day. (You can find this number by running c-nocem for at
   least two days in undelayed mode, then do a grep nocem-extractor
   /var/log/news/OLD/log.1.gz | wc -l, or whatever the right feed name
   and file location is.) In channel mode, c-nocem will count the actual
   NoCeM notices received and adjust the delay dynamically.

  Kill cancel mode

   With "kill cancel" mode, for any article that is cancelled by NoCeM,
   the corresponding "canonical cancel" will be added to the history file
   so that any regular spam cancel arriving later is ignored. This can
   help to cut down on the size of the control.cancel newsgroup, but it
   can also disturb the propagation of regular cancels. (Ultimately they
   should all be replaced by NoCeM, but by now it depends on your site's
   position in the network whether this is a problem.)

  System dependencies

   c-nocem needs the flock() system call and a correctly compiled version
   of perl which supports that call. If your system does not have the
   select() system call (INN systems must have this call, but perhaps
   your perl is broken), the -t option won't work correctly.

Getting the software

   The c-nocem package is posted in alt.sources and archived on my Web
   page ready for download. The software is in the public domain.

   Since release 3.3, c-nocem comes with the default permissions file and
   public key ring from The NoCeM Registry at
   http://www.xs4all.nl/~rosalind/nocemreg/nocemreg.html. Look there and
   in the news.admin.nocem newsgroup for updates.
     _________________________________________________________________


    1999-06-13 Olaf Titz
    http://sites.inka.de/~bigred/