nntplib and ssl

[Andrew]

On Fri, 22 Oct 2010 23:23:31 +0200, Antoine Pitrou wrote:

> On Fri, 22 Oct 2010 17:02:07 -0400
> Andrew <none at none.com> wrote:
>> 
>> Python's nntplib seems ideal for my purposes, but as far as I can see it
>> doesn't support nntps connections. If I understand nntp correctly (I may
>> not) that means, among other things, it sends passwords in cleartext. 
>> 
>> That won't do. I note that python has a separate ssl module but I must
>> admit I'm at a loss as to how to fit the two together. I'm working from the
>> Python 3.1.2 documentation, page noted here:
> 
> There's an issue open for this:
> http://bugs.python.org/issue1926

I found that but noted it was dated for a few years ago. Of course like an
idiot I didn't scroll down the page and see that it was still active as of
last month. 

> A patch is there, but it's totally outdated. If you're interested, you
> could provide a new patch against py3k SVN (that is, the next 3.2,
> although the deadline for new features is in a couple of weeks).

I'd say I'm interested...but despite not being too terrible a programmer,
I've never written and submitted a patch for anything in my life and have
no idea how to go about it. ;-) I suppose google could solve that problem.

> It's probably not very difficult to write such a patch. You mostly need
> to wrap the connection in an SSL socket, then give that socket to the
> NNTP connection class. Details will be found out by studying the
> nntplib code.

I might take a crack at it if I can figure out how. Thanks for the help.

--

Andrew