2024-08-09 NNCP setup automation

This is a continuation of the minimal NNCP setup to get started. Once we verified that everything works as expected with manual invocations, the next step is automation. There are two options:

the minimal NNCP setup to get started

• Enable all the services. This makes sense if you expect a lot of traffic.
• Only call the executables every now and then. This makes sense if you expect very little traffic.

If you want to enable all the services, the `examples` directory has service definitions for you. Running `nncp-caller` only makes sense if there is at least one entry in your `/etc/nncp.hjson` that has a `cron` key.

sudo systemctl enable /usr/share/doc/nncp/examples/nncp-daemon.service
sudo systemctl enable /usr/share/doc/nncp/examples/nncp-caller.service
sudo systemctl enable /usr/share/doc/nncp/examples/nncp-toss.service
sudo systemctl start nncp-daemon.service 
sudo systemctl start nncp-caller.service
sudo systemctl start nncp-toss.service 
sudo systemctl status nncp-daemon.service 
sudo systemctl status nncp-caller.service
sudo systemctl status nncp-toss.service 

I don't expect a lot of NNCP traffic. This is why my setup on the laptop and server uses the alternative.

In order to conserve resources, you could decide not to have these services running all the time. I'm doing this for two reasons: I don't want to upgrade the virtual machine I'm renting. It's a point of pride to do much with very little. From the perspective of impeding collapse, I also think that we should all get on board with frugal computing (@wim_v12e@scholar.social).

frugal computing

Ready for some frugal computing? Here we go.

Run the daemon on the server. That is, if other sites know your internet address and call you, then you need this. My laptop does not but my server does. When somebody calls the server on port 5400, start the `nncp-daemon` using `inetd` (from the `openbsd-inet` or the `inetutils-inetd` packages on Debian).

In your `/etc/inetd.conf` file:

5400	stream	tcp	nowait	nncp	/usr/bin/nncp-daemon	nncp-daemon -quiet -ucspi

Run `nncp-call` every hour or every day from cron for the systems you want to call. Those systems don't need a `cron` key in the `/etc/nncp.hjson` file.

This is my laptop calling my server every hour, via `/etc/cron.hourly/nncp`:

#!/bin/sh
if [ -x /usr/bin/nncp-call ]; then
        su nncp -s /bin/sh -c "/usr/bin/nncp-call -noprogress sibirocobombus"
fi

This is on the laptop, for my neighbours `erebor` and `quux` in `/etc/cron.daily/nncp`:

if [ -x /usr/bin/nncp-call ]; then
    for neighbour in erebor quux; do
        su nncp -s /bin/sh -c "/usr/bin/nncp-call -noprogress $neighbour"
    done
fi

This is for the server, tossing stuff once per hour, via `/etc/cron.hourly/nncp`:

#!/bin/sh
if [ -x /usr/bin/nncp-toss ]; then
	su nncp -s /bin/sh -c "/usr/bin/nncp-toss"
fi

Adding `autotoss: true` only helps for the system calling others. On the server, tossing needs to happen on a regular basis.

Finally, you can do some clean-up by copying `/usr/share/doc/nncp/examples/cron-daily-nncp` to `/etc/cron.daily/nncp-cleanup`.

I'm using the following, both on the laptop and the server:

#!/bin/bash

if [ -x /usr/bin/nncp-rm ]; then
    for TYPE in part seen hdr area; do
            su nncp -s /bin/bash -c "nncp-rm -quiet -all -older 7d -$TYPE"
    done
    su nncp -s /bin/bash -c "nncp-rm -quiet -tmp -older 7d"
fi

​#NNCP