Add irc-soju-senpai article

content/2022-02-23-irc-soju-senpai/index.md

@@ -0,0 +1,224 @@
++++
+title = "Setting up IRC with soju and senpai"
+[taxonomies]
+tags = [ "irc","privacy", "howto" ]
++++
+
+Despite the rapid movement of many Free Software project communities to
+proprietary platforms like Slack and Discord, many communities continue to live
+on IRC. Notably, [The Tor Project](https://www.torproject.org/contact) has
+[several channels](https://www.torproject.org/contact/) on
+[OFTC](https://www.oftc.net/). While many of these projects also have bridges to
+Matrix channels, I don't use Matrix, and there are many communities who continue
+to live only on IRC.
+
+Thus, I wanted to set up a simple IRC bouncer and client combination. While I've
+used projects like [TheLounge](https://thelounge.chat/) in the past, I wanted an
+IRC experience that could exist without a browser.
+
+[SourceHut](https://sr.ht) is a project that I've been interested in for a
+while. They provide git hosting like GitHub or GitLab, but avoid locking in
+projects and communities with proprietary platform-specific features. They make
+heavy use of mailing lists, all of their software is completely Free, and,
+perhaps most importantly, the project is refreshingly human. In short, they
+value many of the things that make Free Software more than just Open Source.
+
+Projects that are independent, make entirely Free Software, and design systems
+to protect user privacy are often difficult to fund, which is why SourceHut is
+so exciting to watch. They seem to have a relatively [steady
+flow](https://sourcehut.org/blog/2022-01-09-how-does-our-business-work/) of
+income, and I'm optimistic that their model will prove itself, paving the way
+for more Free Software projects to become sustainable.
+
+While not directly related to git hosting, they also operate an [IRC
+bouncer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BNC_(software)#IRC).  In short, an IRC
+bouncer maintains a connection to IRC networks and collects messages for you.
+You can then connect to the bouncer to read those messages and send messages in
+the channels that you've joined.
+
+This has many benefits over operating a client on your own machine. For me,
+however, the two biggest advantages were the ability to register and connect
+over the Tor network and financially support SourceHut. Most IRC networks fight
+spam by blocking registration over Tor. By contrast, SourceHut is happy to
+accept registration without any JavaScript; all it needed was a username, email
+address, and password. While the [chat.sr.ht](https://chat.sr.ht) project
+requires a paid account, this was a perfectly acceptable compromise for me, as
+anonymity was never my goal.
+
+[`soju`](https://soju.im/), a project by SourceHut, is the software underlying
+the [chat.sr.ht](https://chat.sr.ht) bouncer. It's written in `Go`, financially
+supported by SourceHut, and seems relatively simple to interface with.
+
+Normally, I would self-host a service like this. Actually, for a while, that's
+what I did.  What compelled me to try the hosted solution was the inherently
+public nature of how I plan to use IRC. I won't be using IRC for one-to-one
+communication, or even within small groups. That's what messaging platforms like
+Signal are for. I intend to use IRC for interacting with public communities,
+where all of my messages can (and should) be readable by everyone.
+
+### SourceHut Account Setup
+
+As mentioned previously, SourceHut's hosted
+[https://chat.sr.ht](https://chat.sr.ht) instance of `soju` requires a paid
+account. This seems fairly reasonable, especially given the very generous and
+flexible [pricing](https://sourcehut.org/pricing/).
+
+![signup](signup.png)
+
+Registration is incredibly simple. All I needed to do was provide a username,
+email address, and password. They even let me include a PGP key to both encrypt
+emails sent from their service and be presented on my profile.
+
+Upgrading to a paid account was just as simple. Heading to my [profile
+page](https://meta.sr.ht/profile), I clicked on billing:
+
+![profile](profile.png)
+
+The billing page provided clear information on who needed to sign up for a paid
+account and transparency into the payment processor. I particularly appreciate
+the notice that non-free JavaScript would be required for payment, along with an
+invitation to find an alternative for those who wish to avoid using Stripe.
+
+![billing](billing.png)
+
+### senpai client setup
+
+For my IRC client, I've chosen to go with
+[`senpai`](https://sr.ht/~taiite/senpai/). While there are a [few other
+clients](https://git.sr.ht/~emersion/soju/tree/master/item/contrib/clients.md)
+listed in the `soju` docs, `senpai` is, like `soju`, written in `Go`, and
+explicitly designed to work well with the bouncer. Documentation for connecting
+clients, including `senpai`, to `chat.sr.ht` can be found [on the official
+quickstart guide](https://man.sr.ht/chat.sr.ht/quickstart.md).
+
+First thing's first, we need to create a Personal Access Token for our chat. A
+Personal Access Token gives SourceHut API access to your account for third-party
+applications and scripts. This is done very simply in SourceHut by returning to
+the profile page and selecting [`oauth`](https://meta.sr.ht/oauth).
+
+![oauth](oauth.png)
+
+Fortunately, `senpai` supports SourceHut's experimental `OAuth 2.0` API.
+Proceeding to the [OAuth 2.0 Dashboard](https://meta.sr.ht/oauth2):
+
+![oauth2](oauth2.png)
+
+We can generate a new token. Thanks to the experimental API, we can limit the
+permissions of this token so that it doesn't have access to other SourceHut
+services, like git hosting or profile management. As of writing, the permission
+that it needs is the `meta.sr.ht/PROFILE:RO` permission. This seems like a
+strange permission for access to the `chat.src.ht` service, so I'd venture to
+guess that this permission will change as the `chat.src.ht` service improves, or
+the `OAuth 2.0` API comes out of beta. I strongly recommend checking the
+[official quick start guide](https://man.sr.ht/chat.sr.ht/quickstart.md) to see
+if this is still the case. As of writing, the direct link to generate a new
+token is
+[https://meta.sr.ht/oauth2/personal-token?grants=meta.sr.ht/PROFILE:RO](https://meta.sr.ht/oauth2/personal-token?grants=meta.sr.ht/PROFILE:RO):
+
+![oauth2-direct.png](oauth2-direct.png)
+
+Finally, we need to install and configure the `senpai` client. You can install
+it from the [official SourceHut repository](https://git.sr.ht/~taiite/senpai).
+Your system's software repository may have a pre-existing package for it.
+Otherwise, it can be installed relatively simply from source by cloning the
+repository and calling `go install ./cmd/senpai`. Make sure that your `$GOBIN`
+is in your `$PATH`.
+
+The configuration file for `senpai` is located at
+`~/.config/senpai/senpai.scfg`. To use it with `chat.sr.ht`, it should look
+something like this:
+
+```
+nickname your_irc_nickname
+address chat.src.ht
+username your_sourcehut_username
+password "your_sourcehut_personal_access_token"
+```
+
+Note the quotation marks around your password, those are required. More
+configuration options and examples can be found on the [`senpai` man
+page](https://git.sr.ht/~taiite/senpai/tree/master/item/doc/senpai.5.scd). The
+default settings send typing indicators, so I also disabled those with `typings
+false`.
+
+You can finally launch `senpai` with the `senpai` command. Type `/HELP` to get
+usage instructions for `senpai`, or view [the man
+page](https://git.sr.ht/~taiite/senpai/tree/master/item/doc/senpai.1.scd). Below
+is an example of adding `irc.libera.chat` as a network. I switch to the
+automatically-created `BUFFER 1`, which is an IRC chat with the `chat.src.ht`
+`BouncerServ` interface, which allows you to configure your bouncer. This is
+essentially an interface to configure your `soju` user.  Details can, of course,
+be found by looking at the `soju` [man
+page](https://soju.im/doc/soju.1.html#IRC_SERVICE).
+
+```
+> /MSG BouncerServ help
+> /BUFFER 1
+> network create -addr ircs://irc.libera.chat:6697 -name libera -nick your_irc_nickname
+BouncerServ	created network "libera"
+```
+
+Great! Now, I'll check the status of the network:
+
+```
+nickzana	network status
+BouncerServ	libera (ircs://irc.libera.chat:6697) [connected as your_irc_nickname]: 0 channels
+```
+
+Unfortunately, I haven't figured out how to open a buffer to a network without
+quitting and re-launching `senpai`. It seems like some of the bootstrapping is
+undocumented without the web UI, or I'm just misunderstanding the `senpai` man
+page. Regardless, after relaunching, I can switch to the newly-created `libera`
+buffer.
+
+```
+/BUFFER 1
+```
+
+To secure my nickname, I'll generate a `CertFP` self-signed certificate for the
+`libera.chat` network.  Details on CertFP and how to use it can be found on the
+[libera.chat guide](https://libera.chat/guides/certfp).
+
+```
+/MSG BouncerServ help
+/BUFFER 1
+```
+```
+nickzana	certfp generate -key-type ed25519 libera
+BouncerServ	certificated generated
+BouncerServ	SHA-1 fingerprint: ...
+BouncerServ	SHA-256 fingerprint: ...
+BouncerServ	SHA-512 fingerprint: ...
+```
+
+Then, I'll register my nickname (in the `libera.chat` buffer):
+
+```
+/msg NickServ REGISTER your_password your_email@example.com
+```
+
+Don't forget to verify your email!
+
+And, per the [libera.chat guide](https://libera.chat/guides/certfp), register my
+certificate fingerprint with my account:
+
+```
+/msg NickServ CERT ADD
+NickServ:	Added fingerprint ... to your fingerprint list.
+```
+
+Finally, I'll join a channel in the `libera` buffer:
+```
+/join #sr.ht
+```
+
+This shows up as a new buffer in `senpai`.
+
+## Closing Thoughts
+
+This process ended up being a bit more difficult than I had initially thought it
+would be. Most of the issues would've been solved by just using the `chat.sr.ht`
+web client. However, `senpai` is [less than two years
+old](https://git.sr.ht/~taiite/senpai/commit/881d63465cdb17357438763d4d2996d5f1d92fcd),
+so there's plenty of room to improve. Maybe I'll try another client sometime
+soon. Overall, though, I'm quite happy with how it turned out!