Access to News Groups - Security for Broadband Users

Use of Stunnel to enable Agent to access news.melbpc.org.au while on a broadband Internet Connection provided by Optus or another Cable or ADSL provider.

This document is intended to assist members having broadband connections to use Agent and Stunnel to access news.melbpc.org.au.   Most email programs, when accessing their ISP, will send usernames/passwords/data in an un-encrypted form.   However, some ISP's require you to have this information encrypted as a security precaution.
There are various methods of encrypting this data but the following guide provides information on setting up SSL encryption, using a free program called Stunnel for connection to the MelbPC news server.

Download Stunnel

Download the following files

libeay32.dll
libssl32.dll
stunnel-4.05.exe

from        http://www.stunnel.org/download/binaries.html

(these were the latest versions at time of writing but check the download site for any later versions)
      
Install Stunnel

1.  Create a folder called c:\stunnel (or possibly c:\program files\stunnel) and place the files you've just downloaded into it.

2.  Create a small text configuration file for stunnel(stunnel.conf) as follows and place it in the same directory as the other files.

client=yes
[nntp]
accept = localhost:119
connect = news.melbpc.org.au:563

You may like to use  this version of stunnel.conf (right click to download)

3.  Create a 'quick start' desktop or start menu icon

Right click on the stunnel.exe file and select Create Shortcut. This will put a shortcut in the stunnel folder if using Windows 9x. If using Windows XP,  right click the file select Send to and Desktop.  If you want to run Stunnel only when you need it, copy this shortcut to your desktop.  If you would like Stunnel to run whenever your computer is turned on so that it will be available whenever you need it, copy a shortcut to the StartUp folder.
Double click the Stunnel.exe  shortcut to start the program. To check all is well, right click the icon on the Taskbar and left click Log to see the log file which will contain information similar to the following.

 2004.04.24 18:03:01 LOG5[16040543:16215911]: stunnel 4.05 on x86-pc-mingw32-gnu WIN32 with OpenSSL 0.9.7c 30 Sep 2003
2004.04.24 18:03:02 LOG5[16040543:16210799]: WIN32 platform: 30000 clients allowed

It is necessary to configure Agent to use the new settings.

After opening Agent, select Options and then General Preferences.
 First the News Server then Outbound Email Server (your ISP) and Inbound Email Server (MelbPC)  are configured, as shown in the following screen dumps.

1.  News Server

In this page insert the Username and Password for the melbpc news connection.   The reason for using '127.0.0.1' or 'localhost' is that Agent will communicate with the copy of Stunnel running on your PC.
If you are using Stunnel on a local network, change '127.0.0.1' to the internal IP address of the network computer on which Stunnel is running (eg. 192.168.0.4).  If you need to do this you will also need to change line 3 of your stunnel.conf file to read:

accept = 192.168.0.4:119       (alter this to suit your network IP address)

2.  Outbound Mail Server

In this page insert Username and Password appropriate for the smtp server. Note that this must be the Username and Password used with your connecting ISP not Melbpc. Change the Optus setting shown to match what is required for your ISP

3.  Inbound Email Server.

As shown in this graphic, insert the pop3 settings for MelbPC - exactly as you would normally set them since Stunnel is not used for pop3.