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207 lines
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207 lines
10 KiB
Plaintext
<!DOCTYPE article SYSTEM "supybot.dtd">
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<article>
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<articleinfo>
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<authorgroup>
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<author>
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<firstname>Jeremiah</firstname>
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<surname>Fincher</surname>
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</author>
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<editor>
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<firstname>Daniel</firstname>
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<surname>DiPaolo</surname>
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<contrib>DocBook translator</contrib>
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</editor>
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</authorgroup>
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<title>Supybot capabilities system explanation</title>
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<revhistory>
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<revision>
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<revnumber>0.1</revnumber>
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<date>18 Feb 2004</date>
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<revremark>Initial Docbook translation</revremark>
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</revision>
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</revhistory>
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</articleinfo>
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<sect1>
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<title>Introduction</title>
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<subtitle>
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Supybot's capabilities overview and comparisons to other bots
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</subtitle>
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<para>
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Ok, some some explanation of the capabilities system is probably
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in order. With most IRC bots (including the ones I've written
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myself prior to this one) “what a user can do” is set
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in one of two ways. On the <emphasis>really</emphasis> simple
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bots, each user has a numeric “level” and commands
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check to see if a user has a “high enough level” to
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perform some operation. On bots that are slightly more
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complicated, users have a list of “flags” whose
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meanings are hardcoded, and the bot checks to see if a user
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possesses the necessary flag before performing some operation.
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Both methods, IMO, are rather arbitrary, and force the user and
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the programmer to be unduly confined to less expressive
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constructs.
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</para>
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<para>
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This bot is different. Every user has a set of
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“capabilities” that is consulted every time they give
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the bot a command. Commands, rather than checking for a user
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level of 100, or checking if the user has an <varname>o</varname>
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flag, are instead able to check if a user has the
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<capability>owner</capability> capability. At this point such a
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difference might not seem revolutionary, but at least we can
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already tell that this method is self-documenting, and easier for
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users and developers to understand what's truly going on.
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</para>
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</sect1>
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<sect1>
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<title>What sets supybot's capabilities apart</title>
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<para>
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If that was all, well, the capability system would be
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“cool”, but not many people would say it was
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“awesome”. But it <emphasis>is</emphasis> awesome!
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Several things are happening behind the scene that make it
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awesome, and these are things that couldn't happen if the bot was
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using numeric userlevels or single-character flags. First,
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whenever a user issues the bot a command, the command dispatcher
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checks to make sure the user doesn't have the
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“anticapability” for that command. An anticapability is
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a capability that, instead of saying “what a user can
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do”, says what a user <emphasis>cannot</emphasis> do. It's
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formed rather simply by adding a dash (“-”) to the
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beginning of a capability; <botcommand>rot13</botcommand> is a
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capability, and <botcommand>-rot13</botcommand> is an
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anticapability. Anyway, when a user issues the bot a command,
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perhaps <botcommand>calc</botcommand> or
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<botcommand>help</botcommand>, the bot first checks to make sure
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the user doesn't have the <capability>-calc</capability> or the
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<capability>-help</capability> capabilities before even
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considering responding to the user. So commands can be turned on
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or off on a <emphasis>per user</emphasis> basis, offering
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finegrained control not often (if at all!) seen in other bots.
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</para>
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<sect2>
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<title>Channel capabilities</title>
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<para>
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But that's not all! The capabilities system also supports
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<emphasis>Channel</emphasis> capabilities, which are
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capabilities that only apply to a specific channel; they're of
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the form <capability>#channel.capability</capability>.
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Whenever a user issues a command to the bot in a channel, the
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command dispatcher also checks to make sure the user doesn't
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have the anticapability for that command <emphasis>in that
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channel</emphasis> and if the user does, the bot won't respond
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to the user in the channel. Thus now, in addition to having
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the ability to turn individual commands on or off for an
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individual user, we can now turn commands on or off for an
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individual user on an individual channel!
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</para>
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<para>
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So when a user <nick>foo</nick> sends a command
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<botcommand>bar</botcommand> to the bot on channel
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<channel>#baz</channel>, first the bot checks to see if the
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user has the anticapability for the command by itself,
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<capability>-bar</capability>. If so, it returns right then
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and there, compltely ignoring the fact that the user issued
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that command to it. If the user doesn't have that
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anticapability, then the bot checks to see if the user issued
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the command over a channel, and if so, checks to see if the
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user has the antichannelcapability for that command,
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<capability>#baz.-bar</capability>. If so, again, he returns
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right then and there and doesn't even think about responding
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to the bot. If neither of these anticapabilities are present,
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then the bot just responds to the user like normal.
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</para>
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</sect2>
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</sect1>
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<sect1>
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<title>Motivations behind the capabilities system</title>
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<sect2>
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<title>A programmer's perspective</title>
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<para>
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From a programmatical perspective, capabilties are easy to use
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and flexible. Any command can check if a user has any
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capability, even ones not thought of when the bot was
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originally written. Commands/Callbacks can add their own
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capabilities – it's as easy as just checking for a
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capability and documenting somewhere that a user needs that
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capability to do something.
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</para>
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</sect2>
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<sect2>
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<title>An end-user's perspective</title>
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<para>
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From an end-user perspective, capabilities remove a lot of the
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mystery and esotery of bot control, in addition to giving the
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user absolutely finegrained control over what users are
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allowed to do with the bot. Additionally, defaults can be set
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by the end-user for both individual channels and for the bot
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as a whole, letting an end-user set the policy he wants the
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bot to follow for users that haven't yet registered in his
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user database.
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</para>
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<para>
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It's really a revolution!
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</para>
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</sect1>
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<sect1>
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<title>Hard-coded supybot capabilities</title>
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<para>
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There are several default capabilities the bot uses. The most
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important of these is the <capability>owner</capability>
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capability. This capability allows the person having it to use
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<emphasis>any</emphasis> command. It's best to keep this
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capability reserved to people who actually have access to the
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shell the bot is running on.
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</para>
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<para>
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There is also the <capability>admin</capability> capability for
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non-owners that are highly trusted to administer the bot
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appropriately. They can do things such as change the bot's nick,
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globally enable/disable commands, cause the bot to ignore a given
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user, set the prefixchar, report bugs, etc. They generally cannot
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do administration related to channels, which is reserved for
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people with the next capability.
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</para>
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<para>
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People who are to administer channels with the bot should have the
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<capability>#channel.op</capability> capability -- whatever
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channel they are to administrate, they should have that channel
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capability for <capability>op</capability>. For example, since I
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want <nick>inkedmn</nick> to be an administrator in
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<channel>#supybot</channel>, I'll give him the
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<capability>#supybot.op</capability> capability. This is in
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addition to his <capability>admin</capability> capability, since
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the <capability>admin</capability> capability doesn't give the
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person having it control over channels.
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<capability>#channel.op</capability> is used for such things as
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giving/receiving ops, kickbanning people, lobotomizing the bot,
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ignoring users in the channel, and managing the channel
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capabilities. The <capability>#channel.op</capability> capability
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is also basically the equivalent of the owner capability for
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capabilities involving <channel>#channel</channel> –
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basically anyone with the <capability>#channel.op</capability>
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capability is considered to have all positive capabilities and no
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negative capabilities for <channel>#channel</channel>.
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</para>
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<para>
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One other globally important capability exists:
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<capability>trusted</capability>. This is a command that
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basically says “This user can be trusted not to try and
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crash the bot.” It allows users to call commands like
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<botcommand>Math.icalc</botcommand>, which potentially could cause the
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bot to begin a calculation that could potentially never return (a
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calculation like 10**10**10**10). Another command that requires
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the trusted capability is <botcommand>Utilties.re</botcommand>, which
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(due to the regular expression implementation in Python (and any
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other language that uses NFA regular expressions, like Perl or
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Ruby or Lua or …) which can allow a regular expression to
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take exponential time to process). Consider what would happen if
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the someone gave the bot the command <literal>re [strjoin "" s/./
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[dict go] /] [dict go]</literal>.
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</para>
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</sect1>
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</article>
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