passwd.nntp5

Overview

The file pathetc/passwd.nntp contains host / name / password triplets for use when authenticating client programs to NNTP servers. This file is normally interpreted by "NNTPsendpassword()" in libinn(3). Blank lines and lines beginning with a number sign ("#") are ignored. All other lines should consist of three or four fields separated by colons:

    host:name:password
    host:name:password:style

The first field is the name of a host, and is matched in a case-insensitive manner. (No detailed matching, such as comparing IP addresses, is done.)

The second field is a user name, and the third is a password. If either the username or password is empty, then that portion of the authentication will not occur. (For example, a server may require only a username, in which case the password is not necessary. Note that a username is mandatory with AUTHINFO USER/PASS.)

The optional fourth field specifies the type of authentication to use. At present, the only recognized "authentication style" is "authinfo"; this is also the default. It means that AUTHINFO USER/PASS commands are used to authenticate to the remote host. (These NNTP commands are described in RFC 4643.)

For example:

    mit.edu:bbn:mypasswd
    uunet.uu.net:bbn:yoyoma:authinfo

This file should not be world-readable.

actsync, getlist, inews, innxbatch, innxmit, nnrpd, nntpget and rnews make use of passd.nntp when needing to connect to a remote server.