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