tin (Usenet client)

table of contents

tin is a text-mode threading NNTP and spool-based Usenet client for a variety of platforms.

Local connection §

tin is installed on tilde.club and preconfigured to access the local spool of the news.tilde.club server by default. You need only run tin without arguments:

$ tin

There is also a local NNTP server on the tilde.club premises, to which you can connect via:

$ tin -r [-g localhost[:119]]

You can forward this port over SSH to your own machine and point your local tin (as well as any newsreader) to it.

Remote connection §

Server configuration §

To connect tin to a remote news server over NNTP, a little bit of setup is required. By default, most of your tin configuration is located in the .tin directory in your home. In order to register a remote server, add a line to the newsrctable file in that directory, with the following whitespace-separated fields:

1. server address with an optional port after a colon, which is needed only for non-standard ports,

2. path to the newsrc file for that server, for internal use by tin to store an index of downloaded articles. for each newsgroup.

3. optionally—but highly recommended—a short alias for the server, to facilitate invocation of tin.

For example, here are a few lines from my newsrctable:

news.tilde.club             ~/.tin/newsrc.club     tc
news.eternal-september.org  ~/.tin/newsrc.e-s      es
fidonews.mine.nu            ~/.tin/newsrc.mine.nu  fi
news.gmane.io               ~/.tin/newsrc.gmane    gm
*                           ~/.tin/newsrc.local

Now you can connect to any of the registered servers via rtin -g. For example, to read the tilde.club server configured above, enter:

$ rtin -g tc

But you will not be able to post yet, if the server requires authorisation, as most servers do:

Authorisation §

tin reads your credentials for each server from the file .newsauth, by default located in your home directory. It also has a table structure similar to .newsrc, with one line per server, but this time the fields are:

1. server address,
2. password,
3. username.

For example, my line for tilde.club server (with a dummy password, however) is:

news.tilde.club  ant  H1dd3nPa$$w0rd

Some servers (Eternal September is one of them) require that the client authorise immediately upon connect, or they will not show you all newsgroups, if any. To cause tin to authorise immediately, pass the -A option, e.g:

rtin -Ag es

If you are among the unlucky fellows who are guilty of using a password with space or (I tremble to say) tab characters, you will need to enclose it in double quotes ("). Make sure your .newsauth is not readable by other users:

$ chmod 600 ~/.newsauth

Specifying the NNTPS protocol §

By default, rtin connects over the unencrypted NNTP protocol. These days, however, most servers support the more secure NNTPS. To cause tin to use it, it should be invoked with the -T option. So, the final invocation for Eternal September, with the necessary initial authorisation and the recommended encrypted connection, is:

$ rtin -ATg es

Simplifying the invocation §

If remembering to supply -T and -A for servers that require them annoys you, consider storing the complete invocation in an alias in your shell’s initialisation script (~/.shrc for sh, ~/.bashrc for Bash), e.g.:

alias news_es='rtin -ATg es'

#!  /bin/sh
#   tinr--launch the tin(1) newsreader
#   with a specified newsserver alias,
#   automatically providing the options
#   -A (authorisation) and -T (NNTP over TLS)
#   if they are required,
#   to save the user remembering
#   the respective properties of each server.
#   Invoke as:
#   #  $ tinr <alias> [params]
#   supplying a server alias
#   and optionally whatever parameters
#   you want to pass to tin.
#   -A is provided if the server is present in .newsauth,
#   and -T--if newsrctable in its fourth field
#   specifies any second alias for the server.
#   #
#   #Written by: Anton Shepelev <ant@tilde.club>
#   #and released into the void under The Unlicense:
#   #<https://unlicense.org/>
#SPDX-License-Identifier: Unlicense
#URL: <svn://insomnia247.nl:5120/ant-dots/bin/tinr>

help()\
{   sed -ne '
        1d
#   prefix-juggling to keep the script compatible
#   after conversion of tabs to spaces,
#   as Markdown processors will often do:
        s/^#\([  ]\+\)/PREF/
        t cont; q
    :cont
        s/^PREF#//
        p
    ' $0 \
    | fmt -74 -p "PREF"\
    | sed -e 's/^PREF//'
    exit 1
}

help_ref="See tinr -h for instructions."
while getopts h opt; do
    case $opt in
    h) help; exit 0;;
    ?) [ ${OPTARG-x}=x ] && echo $help_ref && exit 1;
    esac
done
shift $(($OPTIND - 1))

if [ $# -lt 1 ]; then
    echo 1>&2 \
A server alias is not specified. $help_ref
    exit 1
fi
alias=$1

nrct=${TIN_HOMEDIR:-"$HOME"}/.tin/newsrctable
naut=${TIN_HOMEDIR:-"$HOME"}/.newsauth

get_serv() \
{
    [ ! -r $nrct ] && return 1

    script=$(
    awk -e '
        /^[^#]/{ if( $3=="'${alias}'" )
        {   print $1
            if( $4 )
                print("T")
            exit
        }}' \
        < $nrct
    )
#   awk failed, exiting:
    if [ $? -gt 0 ]; then exit   1; fi
#   no server entry was found:
    if [ ! -n "$script" ]; then return 1; fi
#   a server entry was found:
    while read s o; do
        server=$s
          opts=$o
    done <<EOF
$(echo $script)
EOF
    return 0
}

if [ -r $naut ] && get_serv; then
#   the server is found by the alias,
#   let's see whether it has an auth entry:
    if awk -e '$1=="'$server'"{exit 1}' $naut; then :
    else opts=${opts}A
    fi
fi

#   Swallow the alias:
shift
#   The final invocation:
rtin -${opts}g $alias "$@"

The script above will add -A if the server is present in your .newsauth and -T if a secondary alias is assigned to it in the fourth column of newsrctable. Invoke it with the primary alias of the desired server, optionally followed by whatever arguments you may want to pass to tin, e.g.:

$ tinr es    # connect to Eternal September
$ tinr tc -o # submit all postponed articles

Interface overview §

tin works at four nested levels with (more or less :-) uniform navigation within and between them:

tin starts at the topmost level (selection).

Whereas the selection, group, and article levels are linked with fixed up/down transitions, the thread level is the odd one out, for it comes between the group and article levels only upon explicit invocation from either of them by the l key. Furthermore, if the article level was entered from the thread level the level-up command (q) goes back to the thread level instead of the group level.

The levels share many common keys for navigation and operations, often borrowed from The Vi editor interface. The most important keys are:

For a complete UI reference and settings, see the tin(1) manpage.