hi, does anyone know of 2FA opensource cross-platform software which works on slackware 14.2 or higher (and windows 10) with paypal 2FA (and doesn't require a mobile) ?
They (paypal) used to work with vipaccess for which there was a python opensource project that worked on slackware, but they decided to retire that :-(.
Now I'm looking for an alternative. So far I've just found authy, but that uses snap which uses systemd so thats not available on slackware AFAIK.

I think you're asking for how to receive text messages without a mobile. Have you tried using Google Voice? Text messages are, or can be, forwarded to email.

Why must it be cross-platform? On Windows, I'd use Authy or WinAuth. Flathub has Authenticator (packaged as gnome-authenticator in Debian) and OTPClient. Besides, there's oathtool (and its Go port, goathtool) for the command line. And OTPClient has a CLI version, too. There's also a wrapper for oathtool, easy2fa.

I never used Yubico Authenticator or Nitrokey Authenticator. I guess you cannot use them without respective USB keys.

Keepassxc supports TOTP, which PayPal can use for 2fa I believe.

Chuck56: I looked at google voice, thanks for the pointer. unfortunately it is targetted towards US users, and I am in the UK. that means that it is not free to get texts in the uk.
just to be clear, as you guessed, I don't own or want/can afford a mobile phone, andI I don't get mobile reception where I live. my internet is via satellite, so I want to be able to continue using the likes of paypal who insist on 2FA, and have retired the software I had previously chosen.

shruggy: Cross platform is important to me because although I do almost all my dev work on slackware, i still use win10 for desktop use more often than not, and having the same solution for both os's makes things easier to manage/transfer hardware id's, etc.
so I don't want to be locked out of desktop use by choice of running either/both slackware/win10
thanks for the list though, it's worth looking at if bosth's suggestion doesn't pan out

bosth: thanks i'll have a look at keepassxc. there's a slackbuild which is good. I'll post back here if I have success.

I've been tooling around with https://jmp.chat/ and XMPP clients lately. It works fine for SMS

I'm not sure if this would be feasible or acceptable, but you could possibly run an Android emulator on your Linux and/or Windows PC(s); I'm pretty sure there's one packaged with the Android SDK. After that you should be able to install whatever 2FA app takes your fancy.

just a report back. I was able to get keepassxc working in both windows10 and slackware, and as I only intend to use it for totp I just coped the passworddb. this enabled me to remove the vipaccess software which paypal no longer supports and do paypal from my favourite os, and the one i need for work.

thanks all for your input.

Here's a quick howto for totp in keepassxc follows..
install it and deps. (sbopkg is your friend.) :-). create database and give it an access password
create and entry (click on the + )
put in a title eg: "my ebay"
put in a username (not going to be used, but it might want something. while in your new entry, click Entries-TOTP-Setup TOTP
login to paypal. in settings, enable 2fa and choose add 2fa application. it will give you a qrcode (and the actual code in text underneath). copy this code into the secret key in the "Setup TOTP" windows. leave everything at defaults, and click ok. click on ok to save your new entry. now rightclick on that entry, select TOTP-Show TOTP
this will show you the code to type into paypal to varify your authentication app. type it in and that is you setup.
to use, go to paypal, when it asks for the otp, open keepassxc (you'll find it under utilities in kde classic menu), type in your access password. right click on your entry eg "my ebay", select TOTP-Show TOTP and it will show you the OTP to type in (you can copy and paste it if you want). ta-da!

4 members found this post helpful.

I know this is old but FWIW you do not need snap or systemd to run authy. Just extract the package from the .snap (SquashFS) container and run it directly (or repackage it). This is also works for .snaps generally. You will tend to find a lot of redundant libs inside snap packages but you can just remove them if that bothers you.

Taking authy as an example (since that was your interest), find the download URL for the latest version like so:

Fetch and then unpack this package (either use "unsquashfs" or mount the .snap file as a loop device and copy out the contents to a new location).

Once you have the files you can (optionally) remove redundant snap-specific libs and other stuff if you want, like so:

Now you can just launch "./authy" from within the extracted directory.

P.S. Bonus points if you make yourself a slackbuild.

6 members found this post helpful.

@ruario: I think you should write a more general version of that post (How to install snap packs on Slackware) and put it in the wiki Tips & Tricks.

2 members found this post helpful.

@hazel Yeah that would be a good idea if I can find the time. I will say that for the majority of packages (I have been interested in) it is as simple as finding the URL using the trick above. The messy bit (on some packages) is usually due to stuff like: working out which libs and other files are redundant and can be deleted (because you have perfectly good ones on the system already); handling the fact that some binaries/libs have custom rpaths (or runpaths) that might need rewriting (via tools like chrpath or patchelf); checking startup scripts as these may have variables that need removing or altering.

I guess a wiki page could probably run through examples. I recall slack (the desktop messaging app, not this OS ) being annoying and in the end I just went with repacking their .deb instead because it was less work (though I am sure you could repackage the slack-desktop .snap contents if you really wanted to).

EDIT: One reason you might want to use the snap for slack app is that that AFAIK their "insider/edge" channel builds are only available here, not via rpm or deb.

1 members found this post helpful.

For the most part with regards to finding the package you want you are just changing the "package name" in the URL (https://api.snapcraft.io/api/v1/snaps/details/{package name}) to match its name on the snapcraft "store". So if you wanted Chromium (https://snapcraft.io/chromium) you could do this:

Or perhaps if you wanted the arm64 architecture build instead:

Or maybe you want the arm64 build from the beta stream:

Yeah… ok maybe I should make a wiki page :P

P.S. If I don't get around to it and someone else does that is obviously perfectly fine. I just worked these thing out from playing around and looking at snap documentation.

1 members found this post helpful.

Ok, this is interesting. I was googling just now and I found an authy "PKGBUILD" for Arch Linux.

https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/authy

This is exceptionally close to what I described above (which is to be expected) but I do notice a couple differences. Perhaps most interesting is how they found the download URL.

It looks like they are using a newer version of the api to query snap meta data than I have used in the past (from when I first looked into snap packages, which was quite some time back). Perhaps that is better or more reliable going forward? I would tweak their example again ever so slightly because 'jq' is not installed by default on Slackware, plus you do not need progress echoed back on such a short request. So:

This is perhaps a better starting point for a wiki entry given it uses a (seemingly) newer api.

1 members found this post helpful.

Ok, have not made a wiki page yet (I am supposed to be working) but to get back on the topic of the original thread here is a Github "gist" of how to get Authy installed on any distro that does not support snaps.

https://gist.github.com/ruario/46c52...f06c451914ada9

Yes… yes, I could have done a Slackbuild but I decided to keep this simple/generic as it is potentially more useful for people who stumble across this thread in searches. In any case enough is now explained that any semi-competent Slackware user could make one easily if they wanted that.

P.S. I actually quite like the look of Authy the more I read up on it. Yes it is proprietary but it is nice that it has apps that work on a range of devices and has a few features missing from the likes of Google Authenticator. I also feel more comfortable now I read up on "why it is free" https://authy.com/blog/why-is-the-au...ree-for-users/. And no I am not affiliated with them in any way.

1 members found this post helpful.