From LinuxBBS.FAQ@telematique.org Fri Oct 30 20:09:03 1998 Return-Path: Received: from chanae.alphanet.ch (chanae.alphanet.ch [192.168.85.130]) by chanae.alphanet.ch (8.9.0/8.9.0) with ESMTP id UAA26415 for ; Fri, 30 Oct 1998 20:08:51 +0100 From: LinuxBBS.FAQ@telematique.org Received: from pophost.ping.be by chanae.alphanet.ch (fetchmail-4.4.1 POP3) for (single-drop); Fri, 30 Oct 1998 20:09:03 CET Received: from (out2.ibm.net [165.87.194.229]) by ping3.ping.be with ESMTP id JAA23214 for ; Fri, 30 Oct 1998 09:53:02 +0100 (MET) Received: from slip139-92-49-127.lux.lu.ibm.net (slip139-92-49-127.lux.lu.ibm.net [139.92.49.127]) by out2.ibm.net (8.8.5/8.6.9) with SMTP id JAA141452 for ; Fri, 30 Oct 1998 09:05:12 GMT Received: by slip139-92-49-115 (IBM OS/2 SENDMAIL VERSION 2.01/2.12um) id JAA002.41; Fri, 30 Oct 1998 09:59:15 +0100 Date: 30 Oct 1998 09:49:27 MET-1DST Subject: New FAQ: LINUX BBS Message-Id: <201B68_981030949@telematique.org> Organization: Anarchy is better than no governement at all X-Mailer: FTList beta UUCP 0.26 X-Files: The truth is elsewhere To: pablo.sarachaga@ping.be X-UIDL: 7f4c044f22fd55dddd3603386f414129 Status: OU Archive-name: Linux-BBS-FAQ Version: $VER: Linux-BBS-FAQ v9811-0.02 Posting-Frequency: monthly URL: http://www.telematique.org/ft/linuxbbs.htm LINUX BBS FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS (FAQ) Original author: Francois Thunus Current maintainer: Francois Thunus Nov98 - v0.02 Welcome to the FAQ for Linux BBSing. Table of Contents is below. Questions and constructive comments are welcome. Send them to me at: 2:270/25.2 or linuxbbsfaq@telematique.org _________________________________________________________________ Contents I. DISCLAIMER II. CREDITS III. COPYRIGHT IV. FAQ UPDATES V. WHERE CAN I GET THIS FAQ? 1 - Using a ready-made package 1.1 DayDream/Linux 1.2 BBBS 1.3 Sauron BBS 1.4 FreeWorld BBS 1.5 Falken 1.6 Lora 1.7 Synchronet 2 - Making your own 2.1 Introduction 2.2 1BBS - One: Pablo 2.3 1BBS - Two: Robert _________________________________________________________________ I. DISCLAIMER This document is provided "as is" without any express or implied warranties. While every effort has been taken to ensure the accuracy of the information contained in this document, neither the authors, the maintainer or the contributors will assume responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein. This document is compiled in spare time for free, and I cannot check all of its contents. However,I am interested in making the FAQ as good as it can be, so your constructive feedback is welcome. II. CREDITS The original skeleton was based on my own LinuxFAQ and the contributions of several people from the LINUX fidonet echo. Insofar as possible, the name of the original contributor is listed alongside the contribution. If you have a question which is not answered in the actual FAQ, please Email it to me (Francois Thunus, see address at the top of this FAQ), otherwise if you want more information from one specific section of this FAQ, ask :-). III. COPYRIGHT I assert copyright on this document. I encourage you to distribute it widely, but only in its complete and original form and if you do not make any money out of it. IV. FAQ UPDATES For the time being, I (Francois) am the keeper of the FAQ. If you have comments or suggestions, corrections, or you have some information you want to see added or a request that I find some new answers, please let me know. Please contact me via the Email address at the top of the FAQ. V. WHERE CAN I GET THIS FAQ? You're reading it aren't you? SAVE it :-). If you don't have reliable Usenet access, you can also retrieve the FAQ by: File Request 2:270/25 magic name : LinuxBBS FTP ftp://ftp.telematique.org/linuxbbs.faq WWW http://www.telematique.org/ft/linuxbbs.htm (Note that there is no "l" at the end of "htm", this is not a typo!) Please use the telematique site for any reference from your own web pages because it is under my direct control and easily changeable. It also contains links to numerous Linux resources. _________________________________________________________________ 1 - Using a ready-made package 1.1 DayDream/Linux ported from AmigaOS. :) Totally free with sources Telnet/FTP/FidoNet-support. http://www.daydream.ml.org/ 1.2 BBBS telnet http://www.bbbs.net 1.3 Sauron BBS (Jonathan Roberts) a telnetable BBS: Sauron BBS has recently been ported to Linux (formerly DOS only). the author's web site is at http://members.tripod.com/~HortonS/ 1.4 FreeWorld BBS (J Kinsley) Its goal is to be the Ultimate Unix BBS, and completely free. http://www.FreeWorldBBS.ORG. 1.5 Falken (Eric Kilfoil) Website: http://www.falkenbbs.com Alt: http://bbs.ipass.net/falken-mirror FTP: ftp://ftp.falkenbbs.com/pub/FalkenBBS/linux/FalkenBBS-current.tgz Author: Chris Whitacre Email: cd@falkenbbs.com Support: telnet://falkenbbs.com Falken is the fastest growning BBS software package for Linux. It unleashes the the best of BBS's and Internet capabilities. Unlike most Linux BBS systems, Falken provides an excellent user interface silimar to that found in traditional DOS based BBS packages. It is packed with features. For a list, visit http://www.falkenbbs.com/features 1.6 Lora 1.7 Synchronet (Jonathan Roberts) http://www.weedpuller.com/synchronet or ftp to that address. _________________________________________________________________ 2 - Making your own 2.1 Introduction Most of the people who made their own BBS started on the basis of 1bbs, a free set of scripts available from sunsite.unc.edu. They then customized it. This is a very efficient way of doing this, because it uses all the built-in power of Linux and doesn't need third party utilities. Basically, any user logging into your computer is just a normal unix user. You define what they may or may not do. 2.2 1BBS - One: Pablo Saratxaga My own BBS is a friendly shell script. I use a modified version of 1bbs, I cleaned it up and made it more flexible: menues are separate files, sourced on the spot which allows for multi-lingual config. I sat up a special user: bbs::600:105:BBS Guest:/home/bbs:/usr/local/bin/Menu For those who visit the bbs occasionally and don't want an account. Under "bbs", news and mail access are limited: news to read-only and mail to sysop only. I play on $PATH by having scripts of the same name as mail and news programs. It is not 100% secure, far from it, but since I never had any problem, I never pushed it further. Security holes are mostly in the possibility to abuse news/mail, and possibly to try and fill /tymp by uploading Encarta or something, but that can be plugged by using "quotas". 2.3 1BBS - Two : Robert Heller My system is little more than a basic ifmail (ifcico + ifnews/ifmail/iftoss) / getty_ps, CNews, SMail, and 1bbs system. I did some straight forward customizations to the 1bbs script. Otherwise except for config files, things are pretty much just the basic as-distributed packages. I expect to have lots of fun when I upgrade my system to Linux 2.x.x from my current 1.2.13: Inn and Sendmail are much more hairy beasts then CNews and SMail. My users have the normal UNIX user accesses. BBS users are just normal UNIX users (in the /etc/passwd file). I have a special user name 'new' which runs a captive script as root to create the account. Expert users can get themselves to a "normal" UNIX /bin/csh or /bin/sh shell if they want. Newbies get the /bin/ash w/dialog script, which gives them something that has something of the the "look and feel" of a typical DOS BBS (like OPUS or Maximus). Multi-tasking and user authorization is done via normal UNIX utilities. Access to EchoMail and local message areas is via standard UNIX newsreaders (I run CNews). Private "mail" is just normal UNIX mail -- pine and elm are available. I don't bother with chat functionality, since I only have one line, but could be provided via UNIX's "talk" program. Ifmail contains two main things: ifcico, which is the FidoNet transport (i.e. it speaks FTS-0001, YooHoo/2U2, and EMSI), and ifmail/ifnews/iftoss, which handle gatewaying between FidoNet NetMail and EchoMail and UNIX's /var/spool/mail and /var/spool/news. It also has programs for dealing with nodediffs and nodelists (ifpatch, ifindex). Also: If all you want to do is run some program, say a tty game from your Linux bbs, you just fork it from the BBS. If the BBS is implemented as a shell script, you add a dialog menu item. Below are some excerpts from my standard /bin/ash / dialog script. If you have ever installed Linux using either RedHat Linux or the "color" install disk for Slackware, you seen and used dialog. Both of these Linux installers are just bash scripts using dialog to present colorful menus and dialog boxes to the user. Dialog can be used to create a GUI that is much like what one might have with an X11 app, but uses a character-based ANSI terminal. Playing various "glass tty" games: Games () { local EXIT EXIT="No" while [ "$EXIT" = "No" ]; do if dialog --title "Games in Textmode. Press CTRL-C to stop them!" --menu "Select a Game:" 23 75 17 \ Tetris "Character Based Tetris Version"\ hang "Hangman. Very simple and classic Game"\ Backgammon "Play Backgammon with the Computer"\ Battlestar "Text based adventure Game"\ Canfield "A modified version of Solitaire"\ Cribbage "Card based classical Game of Cribbage"\ Fish "Classical Childrens Card Game"\ Monopoly "Monopoly Game"\ Paranoia "A game based on questionaires"\ Rain "Rain on your screen (Fast Modem required!)"\ Sail "Adventure with old cannon boats"\ Trek "Star Trek Game"\ Worms "Need worms on your Screen?"\ Wump "Hunt the Wumpus!" 2>$TMP; then case "`cat $TMP`" in Tetris) tetris ;; hang) hangman ;; Backgammon) backgammon ;; Battlestar) battlestar ;; Canfield) canfield ;; Cribbage) cribbage ;; Fish) fish ;; Monopoly) monop ;; Paranoia) paranoia ;; Rain) rain ;; Sail) sail ;; Trek) trek ;; Worms) worms ;; Wump) wump ;; esac else EXIT="Yes" fi done } Play glass tty empire: CountryApplicationhelp () { echo "\ Application for Empire Country ------------------------------ Applying for an Empire Country is easy. You supply the 'diety' (the sysop) with a name for the country you want to run and a password. When the 'diety' gets the application (as an e-mail message), the 'diety' will use his godly powers to create a base country with the specified name and password, complete with 2 sanctuary sectors. Be sure to read the Empire docs with the 'info' command ('info Guide' is a good starting place). " >$TMP dialog --title "How to apply for an Empire Country" --textbox $TMP 20 79 } ApplyCountry () { local EXIT local COUNTRY local PASSWORD EXIT="No" COUNTRY="?" PASSWORD="?" while [ "$EXIT" = "No" ]; do dialog --title "Application for Empire Country" --menu "Application for Empire Country" 16 70 5 \ 1 "Information about the Application Process" \ 2 "Prefered Country Name: $COUNTRY" \ 3 "Country Password: $PASSWORD" \ R "Apply with above Information" \ X "No I do not want to apply for Membership" 2>$TMP if [ $? = 1 ]; then EXIT="Shell" elif [ $? -lt 0 ]; then EXIT="Logoff" else case "`cat $TMP`" in "X") EXIT="Leave" ;; "1") CountryApplicationhelp ;; "2") if dialog --title "Application for Empire Country" --inputbox "Please enter your prefered country name here" 8 50 2>$TMP; then if /usr/bin/test -l "`cat $TMP`" -lt 7 ; then dialog --title "Application for Empire Country" --msgbox "The name is a little bit short. I expect at least 7 Characters!" 7 70 else COUNTRY=`cat $TMP` fi fi ;; "3") if dialog --title "Application for Empire Country" --inputbox "Please enter your country password here" 8 50 2>$TMP; then if /usr/bin/test -l "`cat $TMP`" -lt 4 ; then dialog --title "Application for Empire Country" --msgbox "The name is a little bit short. I expect at least 4 Characters!" 7 70 else PASSWORD=`cat $TMP` fi fi ;; "R") if [ "$COUNTRY" = "?" ]; then dialog --title "Application for Empire Country" --msgbox "No Application without a country name!" 7 50 elif [ "$PASSWORD" = "?" ]; then dialog --title "Application for Empire Country" --msgbox "No Application without a country password!" 7 50 else echo -e "\ Application for an Empire Country ------------------------------------------------ Dear Robert Heller, I hereby apply for an Empire Country. Desired Country : $COUNTRY Password : $PASSWORD " >$TMP pico +8 -t -w $TMP if dialog --title "Application for Empire Country" --yesno "Send your Application in?" 5 40; then mail -s "Application for Empire Country" heller <$TMP EXIT="Done" fi fi ;; esac fi done } Empire () { local EXIT EXIT="No" while [ "$EXIT" = "No" ]; do if dialog --title "Empire Choices" --menu "Empire Choices" 10 60 4 \ P "Play existing country"\ A "Apply for a country" 2>$TMP; then case "`cat $TMP`" in "P") /usr/local/bin/emp_client EXIT="Yes" ;; "A") ApplyCountry EXIT="Yes" ;; esac else EXIT="Yes" fi done } The way a BBS works under UNIX (or Linux) is this: the BBS is just an plain singer-user program that talks to stdin/stdout. On my system, the BBS is just a shell script using /bin/ash (a simplified Bourne Shell) with the dialog program. The modem is only messed with by the getty program. I use getty_ps. getty_ps deals with autobaud and can be configured to send the EMSI handshake and recognize the FTS-0001 and YooHoo/2U2 hello bytes -- if it gets the EMSI, FTS-0001, or YooHoo/2U2 hello message/bytes, it forks ifcico in "slave" (answer) mode, otherwise it forks /bin/login. /bin/login deals with asking for a username and a password, checking these against /etc/passwd and forking a user shell. My BBS users get /bin/ash for their shell and the account creation script drops a .profile that runs the BBS script. A multi-line BBS under UNIX simply means multiple getty processes running or different /dev/tty?? lines. An internet BBS just uses telnet via inetd. Timed events, such as scheduled poll events, house-cleaning, TIC processing, and so on are handled by cron jobs. A UNIX bbs is really far simpler than under DOS, since 90% of the work a BBS program needs to do is handled by *standard utilities* that come with UNIX: multi-tasker/multi-line support -- it is in the kernel, modem handling -- getty, mail -- your choise of pine; elm; UCB mail; mh; emacs Rmail, disscusion areas (EchoMail, whatever) -- tin; rn; nn; user authorization -- /bin/login; /etc/passwd, and so on.