Anonymous Servers - Mixmaster Tutorial

Author

Mixmaster Tutorial - Second Draft

Linux Tearwalds

2005-08-12, 5:47 pm

This is an attempt to tell newbies how to get started using Mixmaster under Linux so that they can use the remailer system.

I wanted to put this together because documentation understandable by the average user seems to be lacking.

I hope to provide enough information to get people to the point of sending simple messages through the remailers.

Please chime in with corrections, additions, etc.

It would be especially useful to find out how to update the stats, so that the utility can be kept current (a simple and clear explanation, please).

Any examples of command line usage would be most welcome.

Second Draft
Thanks to the people who replied to the first draft with suggestions.

I assume you have some version of linux installed and know how to use the package manager to add programs.

You will need to install:
Mixmaster
Postfix

To make things as 'gui' as possible, I strongly recommend you also install:
Ncurses
webmin for postfix

Mixmaster
I think I took the defaults for this and didn't have a problem. I think it asks you if you want to install ncurses while you are at it. Say yes, since ncurses will give you a simple gui when you want to send a message.

Postfix
This is a mail server which Mixmaster will automatically use for smtp purposes. Take the defaults when setting this up. The one exception is when it asks for the internet hostname of the mail system. Use a fully-qualified domain name. You can get one from
places like dyndns.org or yi.org, which point to your ip.

Webmin for Postfix
This provides a gui for configuring Postfix. The only thing I had to do was get into general options and change the internet hostname of the mail system to a fully-qualified name, because I had taken the non-fully-qualified default when setting up postfix

Anonymous

2005-08-13, 2:47 am

In article <1GW43YFL38576.6622800926@anonymous.poster>
Linux Tearwalds <linux@buggerall.com> wrote:
>
> This is an attempt to tell newbies how to get started using
> Mixmaster under Linux so that they can use the remailer system.

Pretty pretty please word wrap your posts to under 80 characters. The
human eye finds things much easier to read like that. Having stuff
stretch all the way to the right side of the screen makes it harder to
read.

> It would be especially useful to find out how to update the stats,
> so that the utility can be kept current (a simple and clear
> explanation, please).

The win32 version of Mixmaster 3.0b2 has a stats downloader in it. It
was improved and ported to linux and bsd and all the other systems in
the cvs, but there hasn't yet been an official release of 3.0b3.

Use your cvs client and grab the latest code. Instructions on how to
do that are on the sourceforge page for mixmaster.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/mixmaster/
You should then be able to download stats directly with the mixmaster
client.

> Postfix
> This is a mail server which Mixmaster will automatically use for smtp purposes. Take the defaults when setting this up. The one exception is when it asks for the internet hostname of the mail system. Use a fully-qualified domain name. You can get one fr
om places like dyndns.org or yi.org, which point to your ip.

Remember that you don't actually need Postfix. Mixmaster can send mail
directly from the client.

> Here are a couple of command line examples. Since you can do a lot more with the command line than the elementary gui, it's probably worth while learning this.
>
> You should change these to fit your wishes and copy and paste them into a terminal session (Linux has sophisticated scripting, but I don't know how to use it. If you do, let us know - as long as your explanation is simple, clear, and sufficient).
>
> The easiest way to send a message using the command line is to create the message in a file and then specify the file in the command line. This allows you to put any headers you want in the message.
>
> Here is an example of sending a mixmaster message to usenet. It has a subject and a 'from' header. If you want the 'from' header to show up, you need to use, as the last remailer, one that supports that. I think Italy and Hastio are two that do.
>
> For easier understanding, the parameters are displayed vertically, with a comment.
>
>
> mixmaster
> -c 1 send 1 copy of the msg
> -p send it to usenet - the headers: Newsgroups:, From:, etc. will be in the file.
> -l italy use this remailer
> <tmp/info.txt the file containing the message
>
>
> Here it is, spread out:
>
> mixmaster -c 1 -p -l italy <tmp/info.txt
>
> N.B. after you run this command, type in: mixmaster -S
> That will send the message from the pool. If you don't type in: mixmaster -S, the message will not be sent.
>
> Here is what the file, info.txt, might look like. Note the skipped line after the last header. That is essential.
>
> Newsgroups: alt.test
> Subject: some test subject
> From: joe blow <joeblow@somewhere.com>
>
> start of message
> second line of message
>
>
>
>
> Here's a variation of the above, using 4 copies and 4 remailers.
>
> mixmaster mixmaster -c 4 -p -l *,*,*,italy <tmp/info.txt
>
>
>
>
> If you want to TYPE IN THE MESSAGE, here is an example. The only difference between this and sending using a message in a file is that you don't specify a file. That makes the line-editor start up. The main thing to know here is that to get out of the
line-editor, and get the message into the pool, ready for sending, you have to enter cntl-D. That is, hold down the control key and press the 'D' key.
>
>
> mixmaster -c 4 -g misc.test,alt.test -l *,*,*,italy -s 'Test Subject' --header='From: joe doakes <jodek@adfdf.com>'
>
>
>
>
>
> TO RUN MIXMASTER USING THE NCURSES GUI
>
> Open a terminal screen and type: mixmaster (if that doesn't work, type Mixmaster. This is Linux.)
> That will bring up the simple gui screen.
>
> Enter m or p for mail or post to usenet.
> Enter the email address(es) or newsgroup(s) you want to send to.
> Enter the Subject
>
> That will bring up another screen with the defaults for remailers, and for copies of the message. It should quickly become clear how to manage those two.
>
> One thing to keep in mind is that you need to specify at least one random remailer (by using an asterisk) if you are sending more than one copy of the message.
>
> If you have the message in a file, enter f then the name of the file.
>
> If you want to type in the message, or edit the existing file, enter e and you will be put into a terrible editor called vi. I would love to find out what conf file I have to change to use one of the good editors, such as Kwrite or Kate.

Simply change the EDITOR environment variable.
windows: set EDITOR=word.exe
unix: export EDITOR=emacs

Linux Tearwalds

2005-08-13, 2:47 am

On Fri, 12 Aug 2005 20:05:45 +0000, Anonymous wrote:

> In article <1GW43YFL38576.6622800926@anonymous.poster> Linux Tearwalds
> <linux@buggerall.com> wrote:
>
> Pretty pretty please word wrap your posts to under 80 characters.

It's done now. Thanks for pointing it out. I had assumed
that newsreaders automatically wrapped long lines, but
see now that they dont.

>
>
> The win32 version of Mixmaster 3.0b2 has a stats downloader in it. It was
> improved and ported to linux and bsd and all the other systems in the cvs,
> but there hasn't yet been an official release of 3.0b3.
>
> Use your cvs client and grab the latest code. Instructions on how to do
> that are on the sourceforge page for mixmaster.
> http://sourceforge.net/projects/mixmaster/ You should then be able to
> download stats directly with the mixmaster client.

Thanks, I'll keep your remarks handy. But I thought there was a
command of some kind in linux to do the updating.

>
>
> Remember that you don't actually need Postfix. Mixmaster can send mail
> directly from the client.

Can you give details? Before I had installed Postfix, I tried
sending messages from Mixmaster and nothing ever worked.

>
> Simply change the EDITOR environment variable....
> unix: export EDITOR=emacs

Speaking as a newbie, I guarantee you that most newbies would
not have the vaguest idea of what you are saying. They would
not know what an environment variable was and would not know
how to change it.

By good luck, I found an old post on a website that described
this in enough detail for me to make it work. The addition to the
tutorial is below. I hope it is clear and that it shows what is
necessary to convey this sort of information to a newbie vs.
somebody who already knows the linux ropes.

Here's the addition. I grant you it is a hell of a lot longer than
what you said, but that's what is needed, I think, to make it clear
to a newbie (I am using my own confusion as the standard).

(1) HOW TO GET MIXMASTER TO USE A BETTER EDITOR THAN VI
My version of linux came with Kate and Kwrite, among other
editors. I use Kwrite. To see if you have Kwrite installed,
open a terminal and type /usr/bin/kwrite. If the editor opens,
it's installed.

Assuming it is installed, go to your /home/user/ folder.
Whatever editor you are using to look at the /home/user
directory should have a VIEW option on the toolbar.
Get into that and click on 'view hidden files'.

You should then see a file called .bash_profile. Open it.
Somewhere in there are a bunch of lines beginning with 'export'.
Insert a line among them and type: export EDITOR="/usr/bin/kwrite"

Reboot the computer.

Run mixmaster again, using its gui, and when you choose 'e' to
edit / create the file, you will find that you are editing with
kwrite rather than vi.

Anonymous

2005-08-13, 7:45 am

In article <CQ6PGS9338576.9569907407@anonymous.poster>
Linux Tearwalds <linux@buggerall.com> wrote:
>
>
> It's done now.

Thanks

>
> Thanks, I'll keep your remarks handy. But I thought there was a
> command of some kind in linux to do the updating.

You could use wget which usually comes with linux distributions.
It's a command line utility that will download web pages or files
that you specify on to your disk. You could point it to a stats
source and have it download mlist.txt pubring.mix and type2.list
from it.

I can't provide a command line to do that though as I rarely use
linux these days. Should be easy to work out from wget's man page
though.

>
> Can you give details? Before I had installed Postfix, I tried
> sending messages from Mixmaster and nothing ever worked.

Sure, though for detailed instructions check the mixmaster manual.
Basically you put these in your mix.cfg file and comment out (with
a #) or remove the SENDMAIL option, like this.

#SENDMAIL /usr/lib/sendmail -t

SMTPRELAY smtp.example.net
SMTPUSERNAME foo
SMTPPASSWORD bar
HELONAME example.net
ENVFROM mix-bounce@example.net

The SMTPRELAY option makes mixmaster deliver to that smtp server
instead of sendmail. SMTPUSERNAME and SMTPPASSWORD are options
you use if your smtp server requires authentication. HELONAME is
the host name that is given. ENVFROM is who it will say the mail
is from to the smtp server.

>
> Speaking as a newbie, I guarantee you that most newbies would
> not have the vaguest idea of what you are saying. They would
> not know what an environment variable was and would not know
> how to change it.
>
> By good luck, I found an old post on a website that described
> this in enough detail for me to make it work. The addition to the
> tutorial is below. I hope it is clear and that it shows what is
> necessary to convey this sort of information to a newbie vs.
> somebody who already knows the linux ropes.
>
> Here's the addition. I grant you it is a hell of a lot longer than
> what you said, but that's what is needed, I think, to make it clear
> to a newbie (I am using my own confusion as the standard).

I was only providing pointers to how to change the editor, not
rewriting the tutorial. I leave those jobs to you as I'm lazy

Your rewritten part looks good

-=-
This message was sent via two or more anonymous remailing services.

Thrasher Remailer

2005-08-14, 5:46 pm

Anonymous <anonymous@invalid.com> wrote:

> In article <1GW43YFL38576.6622800926@anonymous.poster>
> Linux Tearwalds <linux@buggerall.com> wrote:

> Simply change the EDITOR environment variable.
> windows: set EDITOR=word.exe
> unix: export EDITOR=emacs

Wrong expression; 'export' applies only to Bourne shell and derivatives,
it has nothing to do with tcsh nor csh.

George Orwell

2005-08-14, 5:46 pm

Thrasher Remailer

2005-08-14, 5:46 pm

Linux Tearwalds <linux@buggerall.com> wrote:
> You should then see a file called .bash_profile. Open it.
> Somewhere in there are a bunch of lines beginning with 'export'.
> Insert a line among them and type: export EDITOR="/usr/bin/kwrite"
>
> Reboot the computer.

???

> Run mixmaster again, using its gui, and when you choose 'e' to
> edit / create the file,

'e' isn't even remotely close to begin with editting. Next time you
start Mixnaster try hitting 'm', 'p', and 'r' to edit.

Anonymous via Panta Rhei

2005-08-14, 5:46 pm

On Sun, 14 Aug 2005 16:14:30 +0000, Thrasher Remailer wrote:

> Anonymous <anonymous@invalid.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> Wrong expression export applies only to Bourne shell and derivatives,
> it has nothing to do with tcsh nor csh.

I bet Linux newcomers the world over are thanking you for that useful observation.