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POUNCE(1) General Commands Manual POUNCE(1)

pounceIRC bouncer

pounce [-LNTev] [-A local-ca] [-C local-cert] [-H local-host] [-K local-priv] [-P local-port] [-Q queue-interval] [-R blind-req] [-S bind] [-U local-path] [-W local-pass] [-a sasl-plain] [-c client-cert] [-f save] [-h host] [-j join] [-k client-priv] [-m mode] [-n nick] [-p port] [-q quit] [-r real] [-t trust] [-s size] [-u user] [-w pass] [-y away] [config ...]

pounce -o [-S bind] [-h host] [-p port] [config ...]

pounce [-A ca] -g cert

pounce -x

The pounce program is a multi-client, TLS-only IRC bouncer. It maintains a persistent connection to an IRC server while allowing clients to connect and disconnect, receiving messages that were missed upon reconnection. Clients must uniquely identify themselves to pounce by their IRC username (not nickname). The IRCv3 server-time extension is used to indicate when messages were originally received. See Client Configuration for details.

The local server portion of pounce requires a TLS certificate, which can be obtained for example by an ACME client such as acme-client(8). The private key must be made readable by the user running pounce.

One instance of pounce must be configured for each IRC network. Instances of pounce must either use different local ports with local-port or different local host names with local-host and local-path to be dispatched from the same port by calico(1).

Client connections are not accepted until successful login to the server. If the server connection is lost, the pounce process exits.

Options can be loaded from files listed on the command line. Files are searched for in $XDG_CONFIG_DIRS/pounce (usually ~/.config/pounce) unless the path starts with ‘/’, ‘./’ or ‘../’. Certificate and private key paths are searched for in the same manner. Files and flags listed later on the command line take precedence over those listed earlier.

Each option is placed on a line, and lines beginning with ‘#’ are ignored. The options are listed below following their corresponding flags.

path | = path
Require clients to authenticate using a TLS client certificate either contained in or signed by a certificate in the file loaded from path. The file is reloaded when the SIGUSR1 signal is received. See Generating Client Certificates. If local-pass is also set, clients may instead authenticate with a server password.
path | = path
Load TLS certificate from path. The file is reloaded when the SIGUSR1 signal is received. The default path is host.pem, where host is set by local-host.
host | = host
Bind to host. The default host is localhost.
path | = path
Load TLS private key from path. The file is reloaded when the SIGUSR1 signal is received. The default path is host.key, where host is set by local-host.
|
Advertise the IRCv3 vendor-specific capability to clients. This option only enables the capability; push notifications must be provided by the pounce-palaver(1) special-purpose client.
port | = port
Bind to port. The default port is 6697.
|
Do not advertise a strict transport security (STS) policy to clients.
path | = path
Bind to a UNIX-domain socket at path. Clients are only accepted as dispatched by calico(1). If path is a directory, the host set by local-host is appended to it. This option takes precedence over local-host and local-port.
pass | = pass
Require the server password pass for clients to connect. The pass string must be hashed using -x. If local-ca is also set, clients may instead authenticate using a TLS client certificate.
path | = path
Save and load the contents of the buffer from path in $XDG_DATA_DIRS/pounce, usually ~/.local/share/pounce, or an absolute or relative path if path starts with ‘/’, ‘./’ or ‘../’. The file is truncated after loading.
size | = size
Set the number of messages contained in the buffer to size. This sets the maximum number of recent messages which can be relayed to a reconnecting client. The size must be a power of two. The default size is 4096.

|
Do not request ‘NAMES’ for each channel when a client connects. This avoids already connected clients receiving unsolicited responses but prevents new clients from populating user lists.
ms | = ms
Set the server send queue interval in milliseconds. The queue is used to send automated messages from pounce to the server. Messages from clients are sent to the server directly. The default interval is 200 milliseconds.
caps | = caps
Blindly request the IRCv3 capabilities caps, which must be supported by pounce. This can be used to enable hidden capabilities, such as userhost-in-names on some networks.
host | = host
Bind to source address host when connecting to the server. To connect from any address over IPv4 only, use 0.0.0.0. To connect from any address over IPv6 only, use ::.
user:pass | = user:pass
Authenticate as user with pass using SASL PLAIN. Since this method requires the account password in plaintext, it is recommended to use CertFP instead with sasl-external.
path | = path
Load the TLS client certificate from path. If the private key is in a separate file, it is loaded with client-priv. With sasl-external, authenticate using SASL EXTERNAL. Certificates can be generated with -g.
|
Authenticate using SASL EXTERNAL, also known as CertFP. The TLS client certificate is loaded with client-cert. See Configuring CertFP.
host | = host
Connect to host.
channels [keys] | = channels [keys]
Join the comma-separated list of channels with the optional comma-separated list of channel keys.
path | = path
Load the TLS client private key from path.
mode | = mode
Set the user mode.
nick | = nick
Set nickname to nick. The default nickname is the user's name.
port | = port
Connect to port. The default port is 6697.
mesg | = mesg
Quit with message mesg when shutting down.
real | = real
Set realname to real. The default realname is the same as the nickname.
path | = path
Trust the certificate loaded from path. Server name verification is disabled. See Connecting to Servers with Self-signed Certificates.
user | = user
Set username to user. The default username is the same as the nickname.
pass | = pass
Log in with the server password pass.
mesg | = mesg
Set away status to mesg when no clients are connected and no other away status has been set.

path
Generate a TLS client certificate using openssl(1) and write it to path. The certificate is signed by the certificate authority if -A is set, otherwise it is self-signed.
Print the server certificate chain to standard output in PEM format and exit.
|
Log IRC messages to standard output:

<<
from pounce to the server
>>
from the server to pounce
->
from clients to pounce
<-
from pounce to clients
Prompt for a password and output a hash for use with local-pass.

Clients should be configured to connect to the host and port set by local-host and local-port, with TLS or SSL enabled. If local-pass is used, clients must send a server password. If local-ca is used, clients must connect with a client certificate and may request SASL EXTERNAL. If both are used, clients may authenticate with either method.

Clients must register with unique usernames (not nicknames), for example the name of the client software or location from which it is connecting. New clients with the same username are assumed to be reconnections and will cause previous connections to stop receiving messages. The nickname and real name sent by clients are ignored.

Normally a client sending QUIT will simply be disconnected from pounce. If, however, the quit message starts with the keyword , pounce itself will quit. The remainder of the message following the keyword will be used as pounce's quit message, or the default set by quit if there isn't any.

Clients which request the causal.agency/passive capability or with usernames beginning with hyphen ‘-’ are considered passive and do not affect automatic away status.

Pass-through of the following IRCv3 capabilities is supported: , , , , , , , , , , , , , server-time, , userhost-in-names.

Private messages and notices sent to the user's own nickname are relayed only to other clients, not to the server.

  1. Generate self-signed client certificates and private keys:
    $ pounce -g client1.pem
    $ pounce -g client2.pem
  2. Concatenate the certificate public keys into a CA file:
    $ openssl x509 -subject -in client1.pem \
    	>> ~/.config/pounce/auth.pem
    $ openssl x509 -subject -in client2.pem \
    	>> ~/.config/pounce/auth.pem
  3. Configure pounce to verify client certificates against the CA file:
    local-ca = auth.pem
    # or: $ pounce -A auth.pem

Alternatively, client certificates can be signed by a generated certificate authority:

  1. Generate a self-signed certificate authority:
    $ pounce -g auth.pem
  2. Generate and sign client certificates using the CA:
    $ pounce -A auth.pem -g client1.pem
    $ pounce -A auth.pem -g client2.pem
  3. Since only the public key is needed for certificate verification, extract it from the CA:
    $ openssl x509 -in auth.pem -out ~/.config/pounce/auth.crt
  4. Configure pounce to verify client certificates against the CA:
    local-ca = auth.crt
    # or: $ pounce -A auth.crt

  1. Generate a new TLS client certificate:
    $ pounce -g ~/.config/pounce/example.pem
  2. Connect to the server using the certificate:
    client-cert = example.pem
    # or: $ pounce -c example.pem
  3. Identify with services or use sasl-plain, then add the certificate fingerprint to your account:
    /msg NickServ CERT ADD
  4. Enable SASL EXTERNAL to require successful authentication when connecting:
    client-cert = example.pem
    sasl-external
    # or: $ pounce -e -c example.pem

  1. Connect to the server and write its certificate to a file:
    $ pounce -o -h irc.example.org > ~/.config/pounce/example.pem
  2. Configure pounce to trust the certificate:
    trust = example.pem
    # or: $ pounce -t example.pem

The default nickname.

$XDG_CONFIG_DIRS/pounce
Configuration files, certificates and private keys are searched for first in $XDG_CONFIG_HOME, usually ~/.config, followed by the colon-separated list of paths $XDG_CONFIG_DIRS, usually /etc/xdg.
~/.config/pounce
The most likely location of configuration files.
$XDG_DATA_DIRS/pounce
Save files are searched for first in $XDG_DATA_HOME, usually ~/.local/share, followed by the colon-separated list of paths $XDG_DATA_DIRS, usually /usr/local/share:/usr/share. New save files are created in $XDG_DATA_HOME.
~/.local/share/pounce
The most likely location of save files.

Start pounce:

$ pounce -H irc.example.org -h irc.tilde.chat -j '#ascii.town'

Write an equivalent configuration file to ~/.config/pounce/tilde.conf:

local-host = irc.example.org
host = irc.tilde.chat
join = #ascii.town

Load the configuration file:

$ pounce tilde.conf

Add a certificate to acme-client.conf(5):

domain irc.example.org {
	domain key "/home/user/.config/pounce/irc.example.org.key"
	domain full chain certificate \
		"/home/user/.config/pounce/irc.example.org.pem"
	sign with letsencrypt
}

Obtain the certificate and make the private key readable by pounce:

# acme-client irc.example.org
# chown user /home/user/.config/pounce/irc.example.org.key

Renew and reload the certificate with a cron(8) job:

~ * * * *	acme-client irc.example.org && pkill -USR1 pounce

Upon receiving the SIGINFO signal, pounce prints the current producer position and the positions of each consumer identified by username. Following each consumer position is the number by which it trails the producer. On systems lacking SIGINFO, SIGUSR2 is used.

If a client reconnects after having missed more messages than the size of the buffer, pounce will print a warning:

consumer dropped n messages

The size of the buffer can be adjusted with -s.

calico(1)

The vendor-specific IRCv3 capability enables the causal.agency/pos message tag. The value of this tag is a 64-bit unsigned integer indicating the consumer position of the client after receiving each message, e.g. ‘@causal.agency/pos=42069’. This capability may be requested with the value of the last causal.agency/pos tag received by the client, e.g. ‘CAP REQ causal.agency/consumer=42069’, setting its consumer position. By persisting this value across connections, a client can ensure no messages are missed, even in case of network issues or application crashes.

IRCv3 Client Capability Negotiation specifies that capabilities MAY have values in ‘CAP LS’ or ‘CAP NEW’ responses. It does not, however, indicate if ‘CAP REQ’ capabilities MUST NOT have values. The pounce implementation parses ‘CAP REQ’ values in the same way as ‘CAP LS’ values.

The causal.agency/passive vendor-specific IRCv3 capability indicates that a client should not affect the automatic away status.

June McEnroe <june@causal.agency>

Send mail to <list+pounce@causal.agency> or join #ascii.town on irc.tilde.chat.

A client will sometimes receive its own message, causing it to be displayed twice. This happens when a message is sent while responses are not yet consumed.

July 16, 2023 OpenBSD 7.4