Home › Forums › Archives › Instant Messaging › AIM Support › send IM archives to an FTP site?
- This topic has 2 replies, 3 voices, and was last updated 14 years, 11 months ago by frowning.
-
AuthorPosts
-
May 19, 2009 at 6:20 am #30301EiivlMember
instead of saving my IM archives locally to my pc at home… is there a way to save IM conversations to an ftp site?
I switch computers a lot (laptop on the road, PC at home, blah blah), so i wanted to send ALL conversations somewhere where I can see them all.
May 19, 2009 at 11:07 am #174776Doris KenneyParticipantThere are sites like Dexrex that offer this service to you – storing your conversations online, but I wouldn’t want my personal conversations stored who knows where – regardless of how safe it’s supposed to be. I suppose that is for each person to decide on how they feel about online storage of anything really. Meebo (according to their website,), if you have IM History enabled, will store it on their server and as long as you were logged in through Meebo you’d have access to it.
You could also use any site that offers free online storage to you to upload the files from your computer – but whether you can access them easily will depend upon AIM – how it opens the files, if they need to be on the local computer etc. I don’t use it, but I’m pretty sure AIM does not store as plain text or HTML files. So it could get very complicated.
Also, think about the conversation participants. You might want to consider how they might feel about the conversation being stored out there on the web as well. If it’s for work – and the person knows the conversation is being saved – perhaps no issue. But in the realm of the personal – it could be a completely different matter. No server is totally impenetrable to attack. Perhaps I’m just paranoid, but there is always the possibility someone else gets ahold of your personal conversations and that can have long lasting effects.
May 21, 2009 at 8:08 pm #174777frowningMemberIf you’re using Pidgin on Linux to connect to AIM you can do this easily with the bash script i just wrote. Pidgin is able to store plain-text logs. Linux has a very easy to learn scripting language, bash, along with a wide variety of command line tools that make it easy to “play” with text files.
I must warn you that ftp is inherently insecure. Your username, password, and data will all be sent in plain text. The script also stores your username and password in plain text so if you cant trust your own machine don’t use it.
Also, unless you are using the OTR (Off the Record) Messaging plugin in Pidign your AIM (and all other protocols Pidgin supports except maybe SILC or IRC w/ SSL) conversations are unencrypted and can be spied on at various points in transit. Note: Since 2.5.5 Pidgin has support for AIM logins via SSL.
I’m using Pidgin 2.4.1 on Ubuntu Linux 8.04 LTS. These directions might vary depending on the version of Pidgin or the distribution you choose to use. Of course, you can try to run this on Windows with Cygwin but I cannot confirm that this works. You might also be able to run this on OS X but I’ve never used Adium (native Pidgin alternative based on libpurple for OS X) and have not provided info on how to enable logging in it.
Before we begin you must have Pidgin and gpg installed. gpg comes with the base install of many Linux distros including Debian and its derivatives (which use signed packaging). Of course, you will also need a few utilities like bash, tar, ftp, wget and a text editor of your choice (to create the script) among others but these should be installed by default.
Bugs:
* Scenario: You run this script _before_ you finish talking on Pidgin and then go to your other box. On the other box you run the script to get the logs and you start talking on Pidgin. After you finish talking you run the script again and send an updated archive to your site. When you return to your first box and unarchive, the logs that were created after you ran the script will be lost forever.
** Just make sure you only run the script ONLY AFTER you have finished talking on Pidgin or else you run the risk of loosing some of your logs.
* after running the script hundreds/thousands of times “/tmp/old_tty_setting” might get too big… just make sure to clean up /tmp once in a while. :/
* every once in a while you will need to delete old files named with the prefix logs_ from your ftp site.
* disregard the TODO: i forgot to remove it before i uploaded it… getting the archive is implemented!
** also pastebin.ca mistakenly makes half the script red — its syntax highlighting is broked, i guess
* Report any bugs/suggestions to [email protected] (remove SPAM and NO)
USE LAPSE.SH TO SEND PIDGIN LOGS TO A FTP SITE1. First, enable plain text logs in Pidgin.
* From the “Tools” menu select “Preferences”
* select the “Logging” tab
* check “Log all instant messages”This will enable logging of all instant messages.
2. create a gpg key
* generate a key by typing this in the command lineCode:gpg –gen-key* Answer the prompts presented. Usually the defaults are good enough. don’t forget your passphrase!
* find your key idCode:gpg –list-keys* remember this keyid, you will need it later
This will allow you to encrypt your conversations before sending them to an ftp server. If you don’t want to encrypt your logs skip this step.
3. Create a text file with the following contents
* Open your favorite graphical or CLI text editor
* paste this into it: pastebin – Someone – post number 1430227
* save the file as lapse.sh in your home directory ~/
* or use wget:Code:wget -O – http://pastebin.ca/raw/1430227 > ~/lapse.sh* or get it from the forum: i’ve attached it to this post
* make the file executable:Code:chmod +x lapse.sh3.1 Modify the file
* edit it to add your site name, type, user/pass, location of logs (if they’re in a non-default location,) keyid (if you’re encrypting,) and the remote directory where you want to store the archive.4. Run the file
* whenever you want to send your logs to the ftp site just run the file:Code:./lapse.shThis will archive the logs, encrypt (if you choose), and send those logs to your ftp site.
4.1 get the archive
* run the script with the following:Code:./lapse.sh getThis will get the archive from ftp only!
4.2 decrypt the archive
* run the script with the following: (notice the decrypt after the script name)Code:./lapse.sh decryptThis will get the archive from ftp and decrypt (if it is encrypted) it only!
4.3 unarchive and place your logs
* run the script with the following: notice the unarchive after the script name)Code:./lapse.sh unarchiveThis will get the archive from ftp unarchive, decrypt that archive (if it is encrypted), and potentially overwrite logs that already exist.
OTHER THOUGHTSIf you don’t have Pidgin installed or don’t want to fool around with the above script you can use a aim client on a remote site. But of course, you’ll have to trust that site to a certain degree.
I suggest getting a shell account at silenceisdefeat.com ($1 USD). They have access to naim which is a terminal AIM client capable of storing logs. If you use screen along with this client you can have your aim conversations automatically saved at a centralized place and you will always (as long as SD is up) remain logged in.
bshellz.net provides a similar service which is no cost for initial sign up but you must send text to a robot in their irc channel once a week. That is, unless you donate more than ~15$ USD/ 10 GBP. They have access to pidgin’s text client finch, unlike SD! 🙂
If you want to take it further you can try to implement Soashable http://github.com/harlanji/soashable OR http://soashable.sf.net/ — FLOSS meebo clone on your own box/server.
-
AuthorPosts
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.