Re: INN2 set up user authentication via ckpasswd

On Mon, 14 Jul 2025 07:00:16 +0200
Julien ÉLIE <iulius@nom-de-mon-site.com.invalid> wrote:

Hi,
 

I added this to readers.conf:
 
auth: "/usr/lib/news/bin/auth/passwd/ckpasswd -f /etc/news/userdb" 

 
What is the whole contents of your readers.conf file?
It needs at least something like:
 
auth "users" {
     auth: "ckpasswd -f /etc/news/userdb"
     default: "<unauthenticated>"
}
 
access "authenticatedpeople" {
     users: "*"
     newsgroups: "*"
}
 
access "restrictive" {
     users: "<unauthenticated>"
     newsgroups: "!*"
}

I pasted this into readers.conf, removing all other lines. I still get the message, "authentication will fail."

 
See https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/software/inn/docs/readers.conf.html
The rights for authenticated people (and for unauthenticated people)
have to be explained.

It's not that I need an explanation of the rights--I need an explanation of configuration that will actually work. An example of a working configuration that is working in real life on an active install would be helpful.

I created a test user and got auth failure. 

 
Here, if you successfully authenticate with the "test" user, his
assigned identity is "test" in the "users" keyword of access blocks.
When authentication fails, the identity is "<unauthenticated>" (the
default value of the auth block).
 
 

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

 
More secure hashes are recommended, like ones obtained with:
     openssl passwd -5 test
 
   https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/software/inn/docs/ckpasswd.html

My goals are simple:

Nobody can post without having a entry in the user list. Only I can create such an entry. No PAM, no shadows, just a list of usernames and password hashes is all I want, so that INN2 will check against this list and deny access to any not included in the list.

At this point, after looking at the documention, it appears there is not enough information to proceed. I have already spent an inordinate amount of time poking around and this is where I am stuck.