4.4 KiB

Raw Blame History

Supybot Irccat Plugin

This is a plugin for the IRC bot Supybot that introduces the ability to listen to a TCP port and relay incoming text to one or more IRC channels, using some primitive security mechanisms.

Dependencies

python-twisted (tested with 12.1)
supybot (tested with 0.83.4)
ncat for unit tests

Getting started

Refer to the supybot documentation to install supybot and configure your server e. g., using supybot-wizard. Verify that you can start and contact your bot.
Unpack the plugin into the plugins directory (created by supybot-wizard):

      $ cd plugins
      $ git clone https://github.com/leamas/supybot-irccat Irccat

Restart the server and use @list to verify that the plugin is loaded:

    <leamas> @list
    <al-bot-test> leamas: Admin, Channel, Config, Irccat, Owner, and User

Identify yourself for the bot in a private window. Creating user + password is part of the supybot-wizard process.

     <leamas> identify al my-secret-pw
     <al-bot-test> The operation succeeded.

Define the port you want to use as listener port (still in private window):

     <leamas> config plugins.irccat.port 12345
     <al-bot-test> The operation succeeded.

In order to use irccat you need to define a section. A section has a name, a password and a list of channels to feed. Define your first section named foo with password pwfoo sending data to the channel #al-bot-test:

    <leamas> sectiondata foo pwfoo #al-bot-test
    <al-bot-test> leamas: The operation succeeded.

The lines sent to irccat should be formatted like section;password; some text to show. To test, send such a line using nc:

    $ echo "foo;pwfoo;footext to show" | nc  --send-only localhost 12345
    $

In the selected channel you will see:

    *al-bot-test* footext to show

Configuration

The configuration is done completely in IRC. There are general settings and section specific ones. To see the general settings:

    @config list plugins.irccat
    leamas:  port, public, and sectionspath

Each general setting has help info and could be inspected and set using the config plugin, see it's documents. Quick crash course using port as example:

Getting help: @config help plugins.irccat.port
See actual value: @config plugins.irccat.port
Setting value: @config plugins.irccat.port 6060

The public, option is internal, please don't touch.

NOTE! After modifying the variables use @reload Irccat to make them effective.

The available sections can be listed using

    <leamas> sectionlist
    <al-bot-test> yngve ivar

To see actual settings:

    @sectionshow ivar
    leamas: ivar #al-bot-test

These variables can be manipulated using sectiondata as explained in Getting Started.

Input line format

Each line read from the input port should have the following format:

<name>;<password>;<any text>

name: The name of a configuration section i. e., a value from @sectionlist.
password: As defined in the configuration section, use @sectionshow <section name> to display.
The text after the second ';' is sent verbatim to the channel(s) listed in the section.

Unparsable lines are logged but otherwise silently dropped. Blacklisted clients are not even logged.

Command List

sectiondata: Takes a section name, a password and a comma-separated list of channels to feed. Creates section if it doesn't exist.
sectionkill: Delete a section given it's name.
sectionlist: List available sections.
sectionshow: Show password and channels for a section.
sectionhelp: Show help URL i. e., this file.
config plugins.irccat.port: Show the TCP port irccat listens to.

Security

Irc servers are normally not Fort Knox, so this is not the place for ssl or 2-factor authentication. That said, leaving a TCP port open as a relay to irc channel(s) certainly requires some precaution. The steps here are:

The client must know the section and it's password as described above.
Managing passwords requires 'owner' capability in irc.
Clients which repeatedly fails to send correct data are blacklisted for a while.

Static checking

pep8 (in the Git directory):

  $ pep8 --config pep8.conf . > pep8.log

pylint: (in the Git directory):

  $ pylint --rcfile pylint.conf \*.py > pylint.log

Unit tests:

  $ supybot-test plugins/Irccat

4.4 KiB Raw Blame History