PMDAEMON(1)

NAME
pmdaemon - Automatically check postings to newsgroups

SYNOPSIS
pmdaemonarticle

DESCRIPTION
Pmdaemon is invoked by INN as articles arrive in particular newsgroups. When an article is in a newsgroup that is being monitored, pmcheck(1) is run to check the X-Auth: header for that group. An article which fails the check will cause a mail message to be sent to the configured destination for that newsgroup, and can optionally issue an automatic cancellation message. Messages are also checked for any individual's authorisations, and if the message fails such a check mail is sent to the address given on the X-Auth: line.

To arrange for pmdaemon to be invoked, an entry similar to the following should be added to the newsfeeds(5) file.
PGPMoose!	:!*,local,sci.crypt.research,	misc.test.moderated,comp.binaries.geos,	comp.os.linux.announce,comp.std.c++,comp.sources.misc        :Tp:/home/ggr/pgpmoose/pmdaemon %s

A configuration file, by default called checkedgroups, determines which of these newsgroups are actually being controlled. Messages in uncontrolled groups are nevertheless scanned for individuals' authentications. This configuration file must contains a sorted list of lines, each with three tab-separated fields. The first field is the name of a controlled newsgroup. The second is a keyword specifying the action to be taken upon receipt of an article which fails the check; currently the supported possibilities are email and cancel which each send mail, but one also cancels the posting automatically, or ignore, which can be used as a placeholder if a newsgroup is temporarily being ignored. The third field is an email address to which the mail notification will be sent.

The mail gives the output of the pmcheck command, which will detail the reason for rejection of the article, the full article itself, and a preformatted cancel message which can be posted (after approving it of course) to cancel the article. If the article is automatically cancelled, the cancellation is approved by a special user, whose key is distributed with pmdaemon.

There are certain kinds of messages which are ignored by pmdaemon. These are: all cancel messages, so that two PGP Moose daemons can never get into an argument with each other; control messages, and all messages approved by (tale|newgroups-request|group-admin)@isc.org; messages approved by people entered in the othermoderators file.

The othermoderators file lists newsgroups and corresponding approval lines for groups where some of the moderators use the PGP Moose, and others don't (but should...). It can also be used to allow cooperating groups to approve posts to each other's groups.

Pmdaemon keeps a log of its actions, by default in a file called mooselog. This must be cleaned up manually.

FILES
The checkedgroups, mooselog and othermoderators files live in a configurable directory. There is also a special keyring, pmcancel.pgp which provides the PGP userid which authenticates cancel messages.

SEE ALSO
pmapp(1), pmcheck(1)

AUTHOR
Greg Rose, RoSecure Software.