passworded archives

[richy99]

seeing as people are asking for this and Quade is preparing to do soemthing about this, ive been thinking about how best people think it should be handled

1 - the file is checked, its passworded so it gets tossed into the failed files
2 - the file is checked, contains another rar/cab/ace/zip file it gets tossed to the failed files
3 - the file is checked, contains any other format such as avi etc let it download and leave it in the download list for either :
a - allow the user to enter a password via right click
b - have a preconfigured list of passwords that gets scanned and checked, this i can see possibly being a pain especially as its checking passwords almost brute force
4 - the file is checked, contains a password, treat it as an any other archive which then goes back to treating it as 3

there will be other scenarios i've not mentioned so if you have ideas for how to treat the passworded archives then please post in here so that we can give Quade an idea of how they should be handled, obviously somewhere down the line whatever gets implented is not going to please 100% of the userbase as everyone wants different things and works differently

[Genotipe]

I think a good idea would be to make it a right-click option for the main archive. When you know the archive requires a password, you should be able to right-click and have an option for password on extraction. That way, it can still do it's thing while you are asleep. Also, some sort of text notification that the archive requires a password would be nice, but without it interrupting remaining queued downloads.

[Kraut2003]

I think it would be a big help just to mark passworded archives in the posts list and search results

may be with a different color - binsearch does something like that in their posts listings

Thomas

[kamakazi downloader]

Now, theres an idea I wholeheartedly second! I believe it wasn't too far in the past I made a post about all the passworded crap I was running into (such a waste) as to the method...item #2 seems to be the most complete way to handle it (just mho) thnx

[richy99]

I think it would be a big help just to mark passworded archives in the posts list and search results

may be with a different color - binsearch does something like that in their posts listings

Thomas

this option was discussed between Dthor and myself, that it could get flagged inthe download list that it is passworded then the user candecide wah tto do with it

[Quade]

think it would be a big help just to mark passworded archives in the posts list and search results

You don't really know until you start downloading. It's not like these guys go out of their way to make it easy to filter them.

[Semel]

You don't really know until you start downloading.

thats why quite often i prefer to use http://www.mysterbin.com as a search service.


The file is checked,if its passworded, let it download and leave it in the download list for either :
a - allow the user to enter a password via right click

That will do.
It has been in UE for ages.

[neilt0]

It was my request to hugbug that got passwords added to nzbget. That's handled quite well and it can be done in any app with a bit of thought -- right-clicking works for me.

I always know when a collection is password-protected, either via the forum where I found the headers or the filename or using my primary indexer -- nzbindex.nl -- that always flags password-protected posts.

[richy99]

dont forget tho not everyone uses nzb files or sites suchas that to tell if they are passworded

[neilt0]

dont forget tho not everyone uses nzb files or sites suchas that to tell if they are passworded

It's 2011, if you're still downloading headers, you really are in the minority. I realise some Newsbin users still do, but not the general usenet public.

[Quade]

That's not the case. Dex did a survey. I think 60% of Newsbin users still download headers. It's all I use and I get search for free. With compressed headers, I've seen header download speeds up to 1 Gbps from Astra on my 100 Mbps connection.

I'm not keen on telling other people what I download, which is what you're doing when you use NZB sites. Not trying to dissuade you or anything. It's just not for me.

[neilt0]

60% of Newsbin users who visit these forums?

That's a subset of a subset of usenet users! Of course that's what you'll see, as Newsbin is one of the few popular apps to support headers.

SAB and nzbget don't even support headers, and lots of people use those. I use those and Newsbin about equally. I still use Newsbin because it's so powerful and fast.

I think it was actually in these forums that you, Quade, said a few years ago that you could see a time when people would stop downloading headers. I did so many years ago, and so did most other people.

Anyway, I don't really care how it's implemented, it's a feature I'd like to see.

[mimauk]

I only download headers because I can actually see what I am going to download and take an educated guess that the files are safe to accept.

All I know about nzb files is that they are supposed to have all the information neccessary to download a specific file

BUT

I also know that it was written by somebody that I don't know anything about and contains information I cannot see, allowing something to be downloaded to my machine.

I'll stick with headers.

[Quade]

NZB's are safe by themselves. I can generate an NZB, email it to you and nobody but me, will know what you're downloading.

When you download an NZB from some site, they have a reasonable assumption that you're going to download it. The know your IP address, unless you mask it, and they know who you are, assuming you have to log in and they probably know at least one of you email addresses. It's the same thing for the passworded archives. If you have to sign in to get a password. You're basically telling them what you download.

These sites might all be legit too and not log or anything like that, so they're perfectly safe. My problem is you have to take that on faith and I don't have much faith.

[neilt0]

assuming you have to log in

I don't log in. My favourite NZB indexers don't require it. I'm not that paranoid to worry about man-in-the-middle or other attacks against me.

I know header downloads are now excellent with Newsbin, but I really can't be arsed. And it wasn't that long ago that you admitted that header downloading was becoming cumbersome: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=27223&start=0#p166367

[richy99]

dont forget tho not everyone uses nzb files or sites suchas that to tell if they are passworded

It's 2011, if you're still downloading headers, you really are in the minority. I realise some Newsbin users still do, but not the general usenet public.

thats quite an assumption to make

and i tihnk quade was refereing to purely downloading boneless

[neilt0]

dont forget tho not everyone uses nzb files or sites suchas that to tell if they are passworded

It's 2011, if you're still downloading headers, you really are in the minority. I realise some Newsbin users still do, but not the general usenet public.

thats quite an assumption to make

No, it's not. Look for any guide to usenet binaries and find one that suggests downloading headers. I've been using usenet since 1994, but I don't live in the past. Live in the now, Wayne!

[snes150]

Once again a whole lot of spergin' that just dances around the main issue:

Please add some support for passworded archives. Many clients have this functionality and Newsbin Pro is falling behind by not having it.

A simple solution would be to have a password manager which you can place common passwords in that the program will rotate through on a passworded archive. Two common passwords on a lot of Usenet posts are "password(tab character)" and "3DBLURAYISO.com" for example. If the program had the functionality to automatically check passworded archives with those two entries in a password manager it would save a lot of people a lot of time. An option on the right click menu to note the password of a collection of rars in the download window would also be another nice option to add.

[richy99]

its already been mentioned that support for password protected files will be added, when it will who knows, it might not be til the last beta cycle, it might be in the next beta cycle

[egandt]

2 - the file is checked, contains another rar/cab/ace/zip file it gets tossed to the failed files

Would also catch a number of valid archives, that also contain a second archive, for instance a rared zip file, which may not be password protected.

[snes150]

That's a bad idea for a feature since all scene applications are double packed (rar'd then a whole bunch of zips inside the rars)

[Quade]

Just means it has to be optional. There's nothing I download that contains rars and zips.

[neilt0]

Here's how sabnzbd is handling passwords:

http://wiki.sabnzbd.org/password-protected-rars

Password-protected RARs

Sometimes you encounter encrypted (or password-protected) RARs.
Pause (0.6.0+)

There's an option that will pause a job as soon as the first encrypted RAR file has been downloaded.
You can choose to delete the job or resume it.
Password per NZB

Supposing you know the required password, you can give it to SABnzbd before the download starts post-processing.
You can do this in two ways:

In the NZB file name you can embed the password like this: "My Job {{PW}}.nzb".
This will set the the job name to "My Job" and the password to "PW".

You can rename the job in the queue.
"My Job / PASSWORD" will set the password. The '/' is used as a separator because it cannot be part of a folder name.
The folder name will be "My Job" and "PASSWORD" will be used as the decryption password when unpacking.

The password can be changed until the job enters the post-processing queue.
Password file (0.6.0+)

If you don't set a password per job, you can create a text file containing all passwords to be tried.
It's a simple ASCII text file (created with Notepad, VI or TextEdit) and should contain one password per line.
Please note that having a large number of passwords will make unpacking very slow.
Specify where the file is in Config->Folders.

sabnzbd 0.6 just went Beta -- here are the release notes: http://wiki.sabnzbd.org/introducing-0-6-0

[richy99]

im not sure that can be compared to newsbin as that program is purely nzb only, newsbin is more than that and as such should have better capabilities for the passworded archives once completed

[neilt0]

im not sure that can be compared to newsbin as that program is purely nzb only, newsbin is more than that and as such should have better capabilities for the passworded archives once completed

They both download rar sets from usenet and unpack encrypted rars. Not that different.