I spotted your name in a synchronet wiki post regarding ax25 and packet radio, which made me curious about your board. Anyway I noticed on your webpage that you recently switched from a windows vm to a linux server. If you don't mind my asking, what distro did you use? And what were the hurdles you had to overcome during the process? I'm actually considering a similar move. I'm most familiar with CentOS but have dones some playing around with synchronet on Debian. I like that distro too. Any advice you might have in that arena would be greatly appreciated. But also, I'm currently working for my HAM technician's license and am VERY interested in making the bbs available via packet radio. So... I'm curious what you have done in that regard as well.

Thanks in advance for your time.

~Ken

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þ Synchronet þ The Wholly Chao Cabal - Touching Goddess Where She Pees since 1995

I'm most familiar with CentOS but have dones some playing
around with synchronet on Debian. I like that distro too.

I've been running my little private BBS for about a year under Debian. It has worked pretty well. I think the biggest issues I ran into were with permissions. My BBS runs under a "bbs" user, but sometimes I'd have to do
stuff as root, and that would muck things up, but I wouldn't realize it until much later (and much hair-pulling).

--Josh

////--------------------------------------------------
BiC -=- http://breakintochat.com -=- bbs wiki and blog

---
þ Synchronet

Re: Re: your bbs
By: Kirkman to V1p3r on Fri May 09 2014 18:46:38

I've been running my little private BBS for about a year under Debian. It has
worked pretty well. I think the biggest issues I ran into were with permissions. My BBS runs under a "bbs" user, but sometimes I'd have to do stuff as root, and that would muck things up, but I wouldn't realize it until
much later (and much hair-pulling).

Properly configuring a .profile/.login/.shellrc script for your
'bbs' account and maybe reconfiguring your 'umask' for your root and/or
bbs account will keep this from arising in the future.
Or, put 'bbs' in your 'sudoers' file, disable 'sudo su', and
only allow the commands that you most frequently need to switch to root
in order to execute. Then do your bbs maintenance from the 'bbs'
account and you'll never have the permissions problem again, if your
root account is set up right.


-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Guh up the effbomb down wif yr bad self; seriously. That means 'shut
the effbomb up, in the parlance of the first child I raised from birth
on . . . I recommend it because my patience with people that are only
interested in passing judgement and making pointless jabs without
knowing the exact facts about what they're dealing with is waning.
Consider yrself warned.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-


---
þ Synchronet þ Tinfoil Tetrahedron BBS telnet://bismaninfo.hopto.org:8023/ 1:282/1057

Re: your bbs
By: V1p3r to Echicken on Fri May 02 2014 20:31:47

radio, which made me curious about your board. Anyway I noticed on your webpage that you recently switched from a windows vm to a linux server. If you don't mind my asking, what distro did you use? And what were the

I migrated from Windows to Linux back in January, but I've run Synchronet on Linux for testing and such for a number of years. I've had it working with various distros, and if memory serves these include Slackware, Debian, CentOS, and Ubuntu (which I'm currently running it on.)

hurdles you had to overcome during the process? I'm actually considering a similar move. I'm most familiar with CentOS but have dones some playing around with synchronet on Debian. I like that distro too. Any advice you might have in that arena would be greatly appreciated. But also, I'm

I don't really know that one distro is any easier than another to set Synchronet up on. I guess it just depends on your level of experience. I've never run into any compilation/installation/setup problems that couldn't be resolved by reading and making sense of related error messages.

My advice would be to read and follow the installation instructions on the wiki. Most often when people fuck up getting sbbs running on Linux, it's because they didn't read the instructions thoroughly or follow them closely enough.

currently working for my HAM technician's license and am VERY interested in making the bbs available via packet radio. So... I'm curious what you have done in that regard as well.

Quite a while ago I wrote the AX.25 modules for Synchronet, which enable you to make your board available via packet radio. It's bare bones stuff right now. AX.25 clients can connect and see a basic user interface for reading messages and such. No effort was made to make it work like a typical packet BBS or be interoperable with others. I asked around at the time, and people didn't seem to want that functionality; they wanted an experience closer to calling their board via telnet or dial-up than to calling a typical packet board.

I had planned at one point to write command shells or modules to let Synchronet exchange mail and bulletins with other packet systems. It would be doable using the library that I wrote. I'm not currently working on BBS-related stuff, but if I come back to it at some point I may put more work into this. If you know Javascript or can learn it, you may be able to make use of what I've contributed so far.

---
echicken
electronic chicken bbs - bbs.electronicchicken.com - 416-273-7230
þ Synchronet þ electronic chicken bbs - bbs.electronicchicken.com

From Newsgroup: alt.bbs.synchronet

I don't really know that one distro is any easier than another to
set
Synchronet up on. I guess it just depends on your level of
experience.
I've never run into any compilation/installation/setup problems
that
couldn't be resolved by reading and making sense of related error messages.

Like I said, I found the synchronet installing on unix wiki (which
I
find interesting that it's labeled on 'unix' when the manual
specifically
tells how to use it on Debian, which is linux...) Any way, When you go
looking for the pre-requesits, trying to find the packages on other
systems
can be quite interesting to say the least! On Centos I couldn't even
find a
list of packages to search for the pre-requesits, and Ubunto, there was
one
library I couldn't find because it was depreciated, and the newer
version
didn't seem to want to work for Synchronet. etc., so unless your
really
fluent on what packages map to what packages on other distributions,
your
best in my opinion going with debian. What'd be nice is if someone
could
make a few scripts that the Makefile auto-downloads, then have the
sysop run
eg. pre-ubunto.sh or pre-centos.sh, etc. based on which distribution
they
have... Each script for the os would then load the appropriate pre-requesits...

---
John Guillory [KF5QEO]
westlakegeek@yahoo.com
KF5QEO@1:396/60
--- Synchronet 3.16a-Win32 NewsLink 1.102
þ Synchronet þ Vertrauen þ Home of Synchronet þ telnet://vert.synchro.net

Re: your bbs
By: echicken to V1p3r on Tue May 13 2014 11:59 pm

If you know Javascript or can learn it, you may be able to make use of what I've contributed so far.

Thank you all for your responses. I do know some Javascript and can usually reverse engineer Java when I have to. But will probably need to bone up on it as this project develops. :) Based on the responses here I think I will stick with Debian for the BBS. Thanks again for everyone's input!

V1p3r
limbo.whollychao.org

~Into every life a little chaos must fall...

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þ Synchronet þ The Wholly Chao Cabal - Touching Goddess Where She Pees since 1995