/znc-otr

OTR encryption plugin for the ZNC IRC bouncer

Primary LanguagePerl

znc-otr

znc-otr is a plugin for the ZNC IRC bouncer which adds support for Off-the-Record encryption in private messages

Installation

These instructions are for debian but the process is probably similar on other distros

  • aptitude install znc-perl
  • aptitude install libotr2-dev
  • cpan Digest::SHA1
    • unfortunately this package isn't included in libdigest-sha-perl so we have to get it from CPAN
  • cpan Crypt::OTR
    • requires a working C compiler and make - the easiest way to get these is to install build-essential
  • copy otr.pm to ~/.znc/modules/otr.pm

Loading in ZNC

  • loadmodule modperl
  • loadmodule otr
    • if this causes Crypt::OTR to complain about taint then do mkdir ~/.otr and try again

Usage

  • when the module is loaded, outgoing PMs will use whitespace marking to announce that you support OTR
  • to forcibly initiate an OTR session, send the message otr on its own to the recipient

Notes

  • encryption is done on the server-side so you need to connect to your bouncer over SSL otherwise this is pointless
  • initial key generation requires a lot of entropy. /dev/srandom may block on headless servers - installing haveged may help
  • this does not support OTR verification
  • this does not encrypt DCC
  • there's no way to end an OTR conversation yet other than unloading the module