Gnus on the web?

Gnus on the web?

[Steinar Bang]

After a firewall policy change at work, I am without access to Gmane at
work.  I can't even SSH out to run Gnus on a different machine.

But HTTP and HTTPS are open, and web browsers can be used to surf the
internet. 

I have been pondering to install some webmail solution on my mail
server, but:
 1. All of the webmails I have tried have had a user interface I don't
    like (and also unfamiliar)
 2. Existing webmail systems won't give me NNTP access to Gmane

So: would it be possible to create a web service that could run Gnus in
a web browser?

The user experience could be similar to what I get from ssh or mosh.
That would be good enough just to check my email, and check for
responses to Gmane group postings.

(On the other hand... maybe a slight disconnection from the net will do
me good...)


- Steinar

Re: Gnus on the web?

[Lars Ingebrigtsen]

Steinar Bang <sb@dod.no> writes:

> After a firewall policy change at work, I am without access to Gmane at
> work.  I can't even SSH out to run Gnus on a different machine.
>
> But HTTP and HTTPS are open, and web browsers can be used to surf the
> internet. 

Hm...  hasn't somebody made a general TCP over HTTPS service?  So that
you can tunnel NNTP over HTTPS?

> So: would it be possible to create a web service that could run Gnus in
> a web browser?
>
> The user experience could be similar to what I get from ssh or mosh.
> That would be good enough just to check my email, and check for
> responses to Gmane group postings.

Hm...  That should be possible, but I haven't heard of anybody doing
that.  :-)  But a general "shell console" as a web service over HTTPS
surely exists somewhere...

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no

Re: Gnus on the web?

[Dave]

On 02/19/2016 11:44 PM, Steinar Bang wrote:
> After a firewall policy change at work, I am without access to Gmane at
> work.  I can't even SSH out to run Gnus on a different machine.
> 
> But HTTP and HTTPS are open, and web browsers can be used to surf the
> internet. 
> 
> I have been pondering to install some webmail solution on my mail
> server, but:
>  1. All of the webmails I have tried have had a user interface I don't
>     like (and also unfamiliar)
>  2. Existing webmail systems won't give me NNTP access to Gmane
> 
> So: would it be possible to create a web service that could run Gnus in
> a web browser?

MindTerm might help:
https://www.cryptzone.com/products/secure-access/mindterm

That'll give you a terminal in a web browser.

Or why not just put your sshd on port 80 or 443?  Then you can just ssh in.

> The user experience could be similar to what I get from ssh or mosh.
> That would be good enough just to check my email, and check for
> responses to Gmane group postings.
> 
> (On the other hand... maybe a slight disconnection from the net will do
> me good...)
> 

Once ya' get the shakes, y'll be back!

> - Steinar

/D

Re: Gnus on the web?

[Michael Albinus]

Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> writes:

> Hm...  hasn't somebody made a general TCP over HTTPS service?  So that
> you can tunnel NNTP over HTTPS?

See Bug#10, this wishlist exist for 8 years ...

Tramp has its own implementation of HTTP CONNECT, but this isn't
general. And it is much too slow.

Best regards, Michael.

Re: Gnus on the web?

[Jens Lechtenboerger]

On 2016-02-20, at 08:44, Steinar Bang wrote:

> After a firewall policy change at work, I am without access to Gmane at
> work.  I can't even SSH out to run Gnus on a different machine.
>
> But HTTP and HTTPS are open, and web browsers can be used to surf the
> internet.

The best option is probably to revert that firewall policy.

Second, you might run your SSH server on port 443 and see whether
the firewall lets that pass.

Third, you could try Tor, which is an anonymity network with
censorship resistance, see:
https://www.torproject.org/docs/faq.html.en#FirewallPorts

Tor provides a socks proxy, which you would need to configure for
use from Emacs/Gnus.  Some pointers are given there:
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/help-gnu-emacs/2014-07/msg00544.html

Good luck
Jens

Re: Gnus on the web?

[David Engster]

Lars Ingebrigtsen writes:
> Steinar Bang <sb@dod.no> writes:
>
>> After a firewall policy change at work, I am without access to Gmane at
>> work.  I can't even SSH out to run Gnus on a different machine.
>>
>> But HTTP and HTTPS are open, and web browsers can be used to surf the
>> internet. 

I'd guess those are not really open but proxied.

> Hm...  hasn't somebody made a general TCP over HTTPS service?  So that
> you can tunnel NNTP over HTTPS?

You can use corkscrew to tunnel ssh over http(s) proxies.

http://agroman.net/corkscrew/

And when you have ssh, you can tunnel everything else. Doing this at
work though... not the best idea.

>> So: would it be possible to create a web service that could run Gnus in
>> a web browser?
>>
>> The user experience could be similar to what I get from ssh or mosh.
>> That would be good enough just to check my email, and check for
>> responses to Gmane group postings.
>
> Hm...  That should be possible, but I haven't heard of anybody doing
> that.  :-)  But a general "shell console" as a web service over HTTPS
> surely exists somewhere...

Back in my adminstrator days I not-so-fondly remember phpshell. When you
found that one somewhere, you knew you've been hacked. I'm sure
something better is out there nowadays.

-David

Re: Gnus on the web?

[Steinar Bang]

>>>>> David Engster <deng@randomsample.de>:

[snip!]
>>> But HTTP and HTTPS are open, and web browsers can be used to surf
>>> the internet.

> I'd guess those are not really open but proxied.

That would be my guess, as well.  I haven't really checked, though.

[snip!]
> And when you have ssh, you can tunnel everything else. Doing this at
> work though... not the best idea.

My thought as well... but a webmail should be ok.

[snip!]
> Back in my adminstrator days I not-so-fondly remember phpshell. When
> you found that one somewhere, you knew you've been hacked. I'm sure
> something better is out there nowadays.

I googled earlier today, and found something like this.  The code looked
ok, but I'm dubious of the security of something like this.

Thanks!


- Steinar

Re: Gnus on the web?

[Tassilo Horn]

Steinar Bang <sb@dod.no> writes:

> After a firewall policy change at work, I am without access to Gmane
> at work.  I can't even SSH out to run Gnus on a different machine.
> But HTTP and HTTPS are open, and web browsers can be used to surf the
> internet.

Same for me but this weekend I've configured my server's sshd to listen
also on port 443 so that I'll hopefully be able to tunnel through my
work's HTTP proxy to reach Gnus and rcirc running on that machine.  See
https://daniel.haxx.se/docs/sshproxy.html.

Bye,
Tassilo

Re: Gnus on the web?

[Bjørn Mork]

Steinar Bang <sb@dod.no> writes:

> After a firewall policy change at work, I am without access to Gmane at
> work.  I can't even SSH out to run Gnus on a different machine.
>
> But HTTP and HTTPS are open, and web browsers can be used to surf the
> internet. 

So.... setup sshd listening on port 443 on some external machine?


Bjørn

Re: Gnus on the web?

[Bjørn Mork]

Dave <gnu.org@niwas.net> writes:

> Or why not just put your sshd on port 80 or 443?  Then you can just ssh in.

Port 80 might not be a good idea.  With strict firewall policies like
that, you'll usually meet some intercepting HTTP proxy there.

But 443 should work.


Bjørn

Re: Gnus on the web?

[Bjørn Mork]

David Engster <deng@randomsample.de> writes:

> You can use corkscrew to tunnel ssh over http(s) proxies.
>
> http://agroman.net/corkscrew/

Or netcat with '-X connect'.  There is an example in the ProxyCommand
section of ssh_config(5).

But this will usually require some cooperating HTTP proxy.  You will
normally not be allowed to CONNECT to port 22 (or 119 for that sake).


Bjørn