motm/readme.md

motm - the messageboard on the moon

a flexible messageboard for the gemini protocol

live @ gemini://illegaldrugs.net/cgi-bin/motm

features

• account registration with client certs
• unlimited length post creation
• basic moderation
• bans and unbans
• customizable templates for each page
• flexible messageboard creation

prerequisites

• python >= 3.7.3
• cryptography >= 3.1
• sqlite3
• a gemini server fully compatible with jetforce's cgi implementation

using motm (end user)

• navigation
  • navigating motm is fairly straightforward, select a board to view its posts, select a post to view its replies.
• registration
  • if you try to post to a board you will get an error
  • this is because you are not registered
  • registration is a simple process, but it is easy to mess up and lose your username, read this fully before attempting to register
  • in order to register, go to gemini://[path to motm]/register, e.g. gemini://illegaldrugs.net/cgi-bin/motm/register for the messageboard hosted at gemini://illegaldrugs.net/cgi-bin/motm
  • you will be prompted for a username
  • input your username
  • if it is not taken, you will be given a client cert, as well as a key
    • DO NOT SHARE THIS KEY.
  • save this page, it will not be regenerated
    • copy the key and cert into separate files, you should probably name them something like "[username].cert" and "[username].key" respectively
    • now, restart your client, this time supplying the respective certificate and key files
      • for example, with av98 i would run av98 --tls-cert [username].cert --tls-key [username].key
• posting
  • once you have registered, you can create a new post by selecting the 'Create new post' option
  • input the title you would like to use for your post
  • now the post has been created
  • in order to add text to the post, navigate to it and select the 'Append' option
  • you may repeat this process as much as you like, the post is automatically updated on each append
  • no spaces or newlines are added for you when appending to a post, however a newline can be inserted by using the string "\n" in your text

hosting motm

• make sure you are not root
• clone this repo somewhere onto your computer
• open the 'config/settings.json' file
  • edit the hostname entry in the server section to reflect the hostname or ip of your server
  • edit the names and settings for the 3 default boards, under defaultPosts adding more boards if you like
  • motm is not a board, leave that alone
• run ./cli.py once to generate the necessary files
  • once you're done, ^C to exit
• copy the 'motm.cgi' file to your cgi-bin
• edit the 'motm.cgi' file so that it points to the repo you cloned earlier
• start your server, making sure to specify the newly created 'certs/ca.cert' as your cafile

moderating motm

• moderating your messageboard is done through the 'cli.py' script
• motm provides a few commands for moderation
  • del_post [post id]
    • deletes a post
  • ban [username]
    • bans a user
  • unban [username]
    • unbans a user

customizing motm

• basic customization is done by editing the templates in the 'config/templates' dir
• further customization can be done by editing the settings.json file, though this file is fragile and improper editing can easily break the script

notes/bugs

• this software was tested with jetforce's cgi implementation, it should work with other servers provided they implement the necessary cgi vars for verifying tls certificates
• password protected cas are not supported right now, if you create your ca with a password motm will break
• the scoring system might be broken, or it might just be very inefficient
• the code is a bit weird because i hastily switched from building off of jetforce to writing a purely cgi app. there are also probably some bugs because of that

q&a

q: why did you write this?

a: bored.

q: wait, what is this gemini thing anyway?

a: gemini is a protocol. https://gemini.circumlunar.space/

q: how do i pronounce 'motm'

a: one word like "bottom", or 4 letters like "em-oh-tee-em"

q: is motm named after the kid cudi album or the counter-strike player?

a: the counter-strike player, though those albums are fantastic, and you should check them out

the first experiment.

(c) 2020 oneseveneight/sose