-onak 0.0.1
+onak 0.3.5
+Copyright 2003-2008 Project Purple. Written by Jonathan McDowell
+http://www.earth.li/projectpurple/progs/onak.html
-First release. You're mostly on your own folks.
-Developed under Linux & FreeBSD. Not currently autoconfed, so might need some
-tweaking to compile under anything else (or indeed either of those with header
-files in different places).
+Introduction:
-The DB2 support for pksd databases is read only at present. It was knocked up
-in an hour to get the pathfinder working with the wwwkeys.uk.pgp.net DB.
+onak is an OpenPGP compatible keyserver. It's primary purpose is the
+storage and retrieval of OpenPGP keys but it also has features that make
+use of the stored keys for various other purposes. The most useful of
+these is probably the pathfinder. This takes two keys, a & b, and
+attempts to find a path of trust from a to b in the key database. I
+started work on it because at the time there was no DFSG compliant
+server that supported multiple subkeys and could act as a drop in
+replacement for pksd, which I was running at the time.
-File database backend support is good for testing.
-It's running on hell.on.earth.li; currently with just under 400 keys in the
-database (Postgres backend). This isn't merging with anything at present
-though; that's the next step which is sort of there.
+Installation:
-You want to put add & lookup in a /pks directory under a web server running on
-port 11371 to make gpg happy. There's a mathopd.conf file that I used for
-testing, however I'm now running it under Apache for the public test rig as
-that host already runs it.
+onak has been mainly developed under Linux with a bit of work on FreeBSD
+at times also. It should run on all architectures, but has only been
+tested on i386, AMD64 and PowerPC so far.
-Really needs a config file so all the hardcoded stuff isn't any more.
+Typing "./configure && make" should produce a version of onak with
+support for the DB4 backend. If you want to choose a different backend
+(see below for a discussion about the options) you'll need to pass the
+appropriate option to ./configure.
-Patches to do stuff welcome. Bug reports welcome. Don't expect quick responses
-though. ;)
+Once make has completed you'll end up with various binaries:
+
+* onak
+ This is the main program. It's intended to be run from the command
+ line and allows the addition, deletion and searching of keys in the
+ database.
+
+* onak-mail.pl
+ The mail processor. Takes incoming mail (usually to
+ pgp-public-keys@host) and calls onak to do the necessary work.
+ Currently only supports INCREMENTAL mails for syncing with other
+ keyservers and INDEX mails from users.
+
+* add, lookup & gpgwww
+ The CGI programs. add & lookup are common to all PGP keyservers while
+ gpgwww is the pathfinder component of onak. To get a keyserver that
+ clients such as GPG can sync with you'll need to put these in a /pks
+ directory on a web server running on port 11371. There's an example
+ mathopd.conf file provided that I used for testing, but I'm now using
+ Apache for the public test rig as it's already present on the host
+ running it.
+
+* splitkeys
+ Utility to take a keyring and split it up into a bunch of smaller ones.
+
+
+Config:
+
+I've finally added config file support. onak.conf is an example config;
+the main thing to change is the db_dir to whereever you want to put your
+database files. The configure script allows you to specific where it
+should live; by default it'll be PREFIX/etc/onak.conf.
+
+
+Backends:
+
+Currently there is support for 5 different database backends:
+
+* file
+ The original backend. Very simple and ideal for testing. Stores each
+ key as a separate file. Doesn't support searching based on key text.
+
+* pg (PostgreSQL)
+ Once the preferred backend. Use onak.sql to create the tables
+ necessary to run with this. Unfortunately although suitable for the
+ keyserver side it was found to be too slow for running the pathfinder
+ with a large number of keys. This may well be due to my use of it - if
+ you can help speed it up info would be appreciated.
+
+* db2 (Berkeley libdb2)
+ Only added to provide the ability to run the pathfinder with a key
+ database produced by pksd. Currently only supports pulling keys out by
+ keyid - no key updating or searching by key test. Found to be
+ tempramental and prone to deadlock in the db2 library.
+
+* db4 (Berkeley libdb4)
+ The currently preferred backend. Supports the full range of functions
+ like the pg backend but is considerably faster. Also easier to setup
+ assuming you have libdb4 installed; there's no need to have an SQL
+ database running and configured.
+
+* fs (file backend)
+ A fuller featured file based backend. Doesn't need any external
+ libraries and supports the full range of operations (such as text and
+ subkey searching). Needs a good filesystem to get good performance
+ though as it creates many, many files and links.
+
+
+Other keyservers:
+
+I'm aware of the following other keyservers. If you know of any more
+please let me know and I'll add them.
+
+* pks
+ http://sf.net/projects/pks/
+ The prodominant keyserver I believe; what I used to run on
+ wwwkeys.uk.pgp.net. Had a spurt of activity a year or two ago, but
+ seems to have died off again. The main issue with pks is that it lacks
+ support for keys with multiple subkeys bound to them and older
+ versions unfortunately mangle them.
+
+* CryptNET Keyserver
+ http://www.cryptnet.net/fsp/cks/
+ A GPLed server with support for multiple subkeys, but unfortunately
+ when I looked at it there was no support for syncing via email which
+ means it can't replace a pks server to act as part of pgp.net.
+
+* OpenPKSD
+ http://openpksd.org/
+ Don't really know a lot about this. Primarily Japanese development
+ AFAICT.
+
+* SKS
+ http://sks.sourceforge.net/
+ A reasonably new keyserver concentrating more on the whole issue of
+ syncronization between keyservers. Seems to be gaining in popularity.
+
+
+Contacting the author:
+
+I can be reached via email as noodles@earth.li. I'm usually on IRC on
+OFTC (irc.oftc.net) as Noodles.
+
+All constructive criticism, bugs reports, patches and ideas are welcome.
+
+
+Obtaining later versions:
+
+onak lives at:
+
+http://www.earth.li/projectpurple/progs/onak.html
+
+Development is carried out using arch; you can access the repository
+with something like:
+
+tla register-archive noodles@earth.li--2004-laptop \
+ http://www.earth.li/~noodles/arch/
+tla get -A noodles@earth.li--2004-laptop onak--mainline--0.3
+
+
+License:
+
+onak is distributed under the GNU Public License, a copy of which should
+have been provided with this archive as LICENSE.
projects / onak.git / blobdiff