Re: INN2 set up user authentication via ckpasswd

On Sat, 12 Jul 2025 17:25:36 -0500
Anonymous <anon@anon.anon> wrote:

For latest version of INN2 in Debian stable.
 
I think using ckpasswd is the most viable option for authentication since it is simple to add and remove users and it is a flat text file without database bugs and vulnerabilities.
 
I need to prevent all non-authenticated users from posting to newsgroups and authenticate via ckpasswd.
 
How do I configure INN2 so that I can add users with ckpasswd and force INN2 to authenticate via ckpasswd?
 
If there is a better method I am all ears. Please don't suggest some 3rd party program that is not included in the Debian stable repos. Please don't suggest something that uses a database or some other attack surface generator. I'm not interested in complicated stuff like that.
 

I added this to readers.conf:

auth: "/usr/lib/news/bin/auth/passwd/ckpasswd -f /etc/news/userdb"

I created a test user and got auth failure.

~ htpasswd -nbd test test > /etc/news/userdb

~ chown news:news /etc/news/userdb

~ stat /etc/news/userdb
  File: /etc/news/userdb
  Size: 20        Blocks: 8          IO Block: 4096   regular file
Device: 254,1 Inode: 257747      Links: 1
Access: (0644/-rw-r--r--)  Uid: (    9/    news)   Gid: (    9/    news)

~ cat /etc/passwd | grep news
news:x:9:9:news:/var/spool/news:/usr/sbin/nologin

In the telnet session:

authinfo user test
502 Authentication will fail
authinfo pass test
502 Authentication will fail

What am I missing?