The gemlog comment daemon - now with notifications

... so you know when someone has something to say!

Initial writeup: 2024-12-22

gmlgcd v2.2

Two new dependencies, libcurl and imsg. Why? Well, gmlgcd now lets you know once someone left a comment to one of your posts! With new configuration, you're able to notify some endpoint that implements, or is

=> ntfy.sh ,

on new interactions.

Talking to ntfy is fairly simple with the CURL C-API, since it is just a HTTP POST. And to stay with the objective of gmlgcd being implemented with security in mind, the process forks when notifications are enabled to then create a child process that is only concerned with sending notifications. This way, talking to the internet and modifying files is seperated, because the child sandboxes itself as well.

I also integrated my latest incarnation of ridiculous macros,

=> https://git.sr.ht/~shtrophic/landloc.h

that i mentioned in my latest post,

=> Sandboxing on Linux - it needn't be complicated

into this release of gmlgcd for more convenient, landlock(7) based sandboxing.

For some IPC between parent and child I opted for imsg on OpenBSD and

=> https://github.com/bsd-ac/imsg-compat

which is a port of the former for operating systems which do not focus on convenient C-APIs.

Yes two more dependencies, and I started with the intention for gmlgcd to be somewhat dependency-less... But:

• a UNIX-like OS without CURL installed or available, is that a thing?
• imsg will be built and linked statically when not present. Thanks to meson's ability of subprojects!

I really love meson. Have I already said that? Without it, I surely wouldn't be writing C projects in my free time! :b

And now, given that there is some "framework" for notifications, there are two options for me to consider for gmlgcd going forward:

• notifications via talking to an SMTP server, because ntfy really is some newschool stuff that is: another dependency, and
• gmlgcd as a fully fledged, gemini-based 4chan?? anon writes, subscribers to a given commentfile receive notifications... I digress :D

Cheers!

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