Spacecat NPM | npm.io

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spacecat

Another Gemini server, written in Node.js.

Features:

Command line interface
Express-style routing and middleware
Static site middleware
Authentication middleware
Titan support, with middleware for token/cert-based authentication

Why another Gemini sever? Because learning is fun!

Quick Start

npm i -g spacecat

# Point spacecat to a Gemini site and your server certs
spacecat ./site --cart ./cert.pem --key ./key.pem

Usage

Instead of using the CLI, you can also set up your own routing. The API is similar to Express:

import { createReadStream, createWriteStream } from 'fs'
import { GeminiServer } from 'spacecat'
import streamToPromise from 'stream-to-promise'

const server = new GeminiServer({
  key: readFileSync('./key.pem'),
  cert: readFileSync('./cert.pem'),
})

// Global middleware
server.use(req => console.log(req.url))

// Gemini route
server.get('/posts', (req, res) => {
  return createReadStream('./posts.gmi')
})

// Gemini route with a parameter
server.get('/posts/:id', (req, res) => {
  return createReadStream(`./posts/${req.params.id}.gmi`)
})

// Titan route
server.put('/posts/:id', async (req, res) => {
  const writeStream = createWriteStream(`./posts/${req.params.id}.gmi`)

  req.data.pipe(writeStream)
  await streamToPromise(writeStream)

  res.redirect(`gemini://example.com/posts/${req.params.id}`)
})

server.listen(() => {
  console.log('> Listening')
})

Routes

Create a route with .get():

server.get('/path', (req, res) => {
  return '# Hello World'
})

Routes use the path-to-regexp library, same as Express, so you can do things like:

server.get('/posts/:id', (req, res) => {
  return `# Post #${req.params.id}`
})

A handler can return a string, Buffer, or readable stream, all of which are assumed to be Gemtext (text/gemini). To use a different MIME type, you can call req.send():

server.get('/path', (req, res) => {
  res.send('Plain text', 'text/plain')
})

You can return other statuses with req.sendStatus():

server.get('/old', (req, res) => {
  res.sendStatus(30, 'gemini://example.com/new')
})

Note that once you've set a status, the server will close the connection once the response has been sent.

A few commonly-used responses have dedicated methods:

res.redirect(url)
res.requestInput(prompt)
res.requestCert([prompt])

Middleware

A route can include any amount of middleware before the main request handler:

const requireInput = (req, res) => {
  if (req.query === '') {
    res.requestInput('Enter a value.')
  }
}

server.get('/input', requireInput, (req, res) => {
  // ...
})

Middleware functions can be sync or async. Unlike Express, there's no next parameter passed to the middleware. If a handler returns a value or sets a response status, then the request stops there. Otherwise, the server will move on to the next handler.

Middleware can also be applied with .use():

// Applies to all requests
server.use(middlewareA, middlewareB)

// Applies to specific routes
server.use('/posts/(.*)', middlewareA, middlewareB)

Titan

Titan is a complimentary protocol to Gemini. While Gemini is for reading pages, Titan is for writing pages.

To create a Titan route, use .put(). This example takes the data from a Titan request and writes it to a file:

import streamToPromise from 'stream-to-promise'

server.put('/page', async (req, res) => {
  const writeStream = createWriteStream('./page.gmi')

  // Write the incoming request to a file
  req.data.pipe(writeStream)

  // Wait until the file is written to fully
  await streamToPromise(writeStream)

  // Redirect to the page we just updated
  res.redirect('gemini://example.com/page')
})

When handling a Titan request, the res object is the same, but the req object is different; refer to the API documentation below.

Requests

Gemini requests have this shape:

interface GeminiRequest {
  url: URL;
  // Client certificate included in the request
  cert: PeerCertificate | null;
  // Params extracted from the route
  params: object;
  // The part of the URL after the `?`
  query: string;
}

The PeerCertificate object is created by Node.js's tls library.

Titan Requests

Titan requests have this shape:

interface TitanRequest {
  url: URL;
  cert: PeerCertificate | null;
  // Mime type of the provided file
  mime: string;
  // Token provided in request
  token?: string;
  // Stream of provided file
  data: PassThrough
}

Responses

Besides the various .send() methods detailed earlier, the GeminiResponse class also includes these computed properties:

handled: boolean indicating if a status code has been set yet
header: string of response header

Middleware

staticMiddleware

Enables serving of static files. This is the middleware the CLI uses.

import { staticMiddleware } from 'spacecat'

server.use(staticMiddleware('./site'))

Features:

Pretty URLs; the request /home is assumed to be /home.gmi
Will first try to load an index.gmi

Optionally, you can also turn on Titan support for your static pages, allowing any of them to be edited.

server.use(staticMiddleware('./site', {
  titan: true,
}))

Most likely, you will want to authenticate Titan requests. You can do this the usual Gemini way, with a client certificate, or the Titan way, by reading the token parameter sent with the request.

When authenticating with a client cert, the server will compare the SHA256 fingerprint of the client cert with the value provided to the middleware. This means exactly one client certificate is allowed write access.

In the below example, the titanOnly function narrows the scope of the auth middleware so it only applies to Titan requests. This means your site is still publicly accessible, but can only be written to by an authenticated user.

import {
  staticMiddleware,
  titanOnly,
  requireToken,
  requireCert,
} from 'spacecat'

// Method 1: client cert
server.use(
  titanOnly(requireCert({ fingerprint256: '...' })),
  staticMiddleware('./site', { titan: true }),
)

// Method 2: token
server.use(
  titanOnly(requireToken('correct horse battery staple')),
  staticMiddleware('./site', { titan: true }),
)

requireToken

Only applies to Titan requests. Sends status 50 if a token is not provided or if it does not match the one required by the server.

server.use(requireToken('password here'))

requireCert

Sends status 60 if the client does not provide a certificate. Optionally, a specific cert fingerprint can be set that the server will check for, returning status 61 if it doesn't match.

// Require any cert
server.use(requireCert())

// Require a specific cert
server.use(requireCert({
  fingerprint256: '...',
}))

titanOnly

Not a middleware function, but a wrapper that will only invoke the given middleware for Titan requests. Basically it saves you an if request.

const logTitanOnly = titanOnly(req => {
  console.log(`Titan request: ${req.url}`)
})

server.use(logTitanOnly)

createPage

Add an endpoint to create pages through Titan. Pairs well with staticMiddleware.

server.use('/new', createPage('./public'))

How it works:

The client first requests the /new route through Gemini
The server asks for input, which is the full path of the file as it will live in the static directory. Examples:
- posts/post.gmi will be accessible at /posts/post
- files/file.txt will be accessible at /files/file.txt
- The path is always interpreted as relative to the root of your static directory
The client then sends a Titan request containing the contents of the file

Full CLI Usage

Usage
  $ spacecat <dir>

Options
  --cert,  -c  Path to server certificate
  --key,   -k  Path to server key
  --port,  -p  Port to bind to (default: 1965)
  --titan, -t  Allow editing pages with Titan (default: false)

Example
  $ spacecat ./public --cert ./cert.pem --key ./key.pem

In conjunction with the --titan flag, you can set one of these environment variables to authenticate Titan requests:

TITAN_REQUIRE_TOKEN: require a token
TITAN_REQUIRE_CERT_FINGERPRINT: require a client cert with the given SHA256 fingerprint

Local Development

Run npm test to start a test server with various features enabled; see test/test.ts.

You'll need to generate a certificate for the server first:

openssl req -x509 -newkey rsa:4096 -keyout test/key.pem -out test/cert.pem -days 365 -nodes -subj '/CN=localhost'

License

ASCII cat found here: https://www.asciiart.eu/animals/cats

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