Subj : Who is running FD as Telnet Mailer?
To : rick christian
From : mark lewis
Date : Wed Sep 28 2016 03:31 am
27 Sep 16 17:39, you wrote to me:
ml>> that must have been before Ray Gwinn (yes, the x00 fossil author)
ml>> released SIO for OS/2...
rc> Ummm.. I left in late '99 due to job relocation and some other
rc> things...
yeah, we had SIO with telnet and vmodem protocols before win95 came out...
likely you just don't remember or didn't know about the vmodem protocol at that
time :)
ml>> yup... AFAIK SIO on OS/2 is the only way one can use the vmodem
ml>> protocol...
rc> Well that probably is part of why I never really paid much attention I
rc> didn't do OS2! I was dragged kicking and screaming from my DOS world
rc> heavily customized with 4DOS and FANSI-CONSOLE to winstupper...in the
rc> ~ 5 years or so from that to eXtremely stuPidows.. then I moved to
rc> Linux full time via Knoppix with KDE 3 right before that one went down
rc> the Linux Holy Roller route ie: "It must be open! ! ! "
yep, that explains it :lol: i went from DOS/DESQview to OS/2 and never looked
back at anything else for that system... yeah, i ran the various winwhatevers
but not for mission critical stuff...
ml>> to avoid the scanner bots on port 23, choose any other port... you
ml>> can use 3141 if you like... i was just pointing out that vmodem
ml>> normally runs on that port...
rc> Well I was thinking that putting it there might be "correct" since
rc> this is some sort of "VMODEM" but from what it appears this is
rc> probably not the same protocol.
well, remember, vmodem is the protocol... virtual modem is the artificial
device (modem) that is the shim between analogue FOSSIL comms and telnet or
vmodem protocols...
rc> And dosxbox would need to be run as root to get below 1024! And that
rc> ain't happening!
it really doesn't matter since you can forward your WAN side port 23 to any
other port internally so set your BBS up on 2023 for instance and forward port
23 to that... the BBS doesn't have to know that it isn't talking to port 23 all
the way...
rc> I get plenty of scans on stuff... but since SSH and a select few are
rc> the only ones passed through.. they get bubckious... I chose to leave
rc> SSH v. something else in the off chance I run into things blocking non
rc> standard ports which I have with some VPN services and LAN's.
i always configure my SSH to use a non-standard port anyway... that allows me
to do silly things like running SBBS and let it provide SSH on port 22 ;)
ml>> so they say ;)
rc> I spend alot of time using them... If I blow up a VM.. no biggie... I
rc> go back to the base image, and go on from there after I triage what
rc> went wrong..
yep...
rc> Thats why I despise compiling since it takes 3-4-5-x-x- times to try
rc> get it work when the instructions mostly leave out the key things,
rc> namely dependencies..
sadly that's because developers code and don't always remember the individual
steps or additional requirements...
rc> I don't install anything till I read, read, read, read, then read read
rc> read again, and thats for a DEB!
screw that shite :lol:
rc> I need to know what it is going to do to things that could potentially
rc> muck up things.
agree there... for me, that goes for most anything, though... not just DEB...
rc> Once I get things to a stable level, then I will install to physical
rc> hardware if applicable or create a VM and repeat installs from my
rc> notes to get error free operations.
sometimes it is too much busy work, too...
ml>> hahahaha... i'd probably fall back to QEMU from quarterdeck because i
ml>> know it... no clue if it would even work with today's stuff,
ml>> though...
rc> I am not sure if you need it as DOSbox I think tries to provide a lot
rc> of this...like EMS/XMS etc..there is a lack of info, or info at the
rc> level I prefer on setup and use.
i was thinking that DOXBOX was the virtual machine and you could use your own
DOS on it...
rc> I used QEMU for a long time then TLB came along.. and it ran rings
rc> around QEMU.
i've never heard of TLB... if i have, it was for a very brief passing moment
back in the '90s...
rc> I got more memory, I think because one of the newer units I built had
rc> one of the needed chipsets that would do some of the extra magic that
rc> QEMU couldn't I was getting like 760K free DOS or something silly and
rc> thats with FANSI-CONSOLE loaded, 4DOS etc...
rc> I think it and Terminate were about the only thing at that time I
rc> actually paid registrations for.. the rest was shareware and lived
rc> with its limits like Silver Xpress and SLMR.
ml>> joho was very forward thinking... frontdoor was the first to offer
ml>> this capability...
rc> That definitely happened after '99 then... or if not I didn't pay
rc> attention to it in the updates.. I used uucp to get news and mail till
rc> then.. relocation brought ISDN, and then finally cable based internet.
i am/was a frontdoor beta tester so i had access to additional capabilities
that were not available to the mainstream users ;)
ml>> frontdoor development stopped before the nodelist INA flag was put
ml>> into use so a lot of stuff has to be done manually instead of reading
ml>> from the nodelist unless someone wants to write a tool to convert the
ml>> distributed nodelist to the form that frontdoor can read directly...
ml>> it is easy enough to do
rc> Is there something that outlines what conversions need to be done for
rc> FD..
not really... just a matter of creating a slightly older format of nodelist and
moving the domain from the INA flag or the system name field to the phone field
and prefixing it with 000- BUT only doing this with nodes flying the ITN or IVM
flags... remember, the nodelist is for mailers so it doesn't matter if there's
a BBS or not... only that there's a mailer on the listed ports... that's one
reason why so many have embraced binkd and the binkp protocol... they fly on
another port and leave 23 alone for the BBS to ride on... kinda like having two
phone lines... one for the BBS and one for the mailer so the two don't
interfere with each other and the mailer rides beside the BBS instead of in
front of it...
rc> I think I've found 2.26 and a 2.12 SL's or basically read in the
rc> domain names in the one field and move them to the phone # location in
rc> the nodelist sort of like a FDNODE.txt similar to the binkd list that
rc> its little script makes from the raw nodelist.
yeah, kinda similar to that...
rc> I can possibly write a BASH or python script to take nodelist.999 in
rc> and spit out something for FD to read... maybe even PHP as an option..
the script that creates the distributed binkd.txt is written in perl...
ml>> and there are still examples using '000-' as their areacode to signal
ml>> that the following numbers are an IPv4 number...
rc> Yeah.. I read that in reading the nodelist notes...but I see mostly
rc> "unpublished" for nearly 90+% of things.. so this conversion would
rc> need to be done.
yeah, we've split "PVT" and "-Unpublished-" from each other... one does not
require the other these days... this because some could not agree that the
"phone number field" is really a "contact field" and allow IP numbers and/or
domains to be listed there... frontdoor, if it had been able to remain in
development would have helped to force that option and pedantic arseholes would
not have complicated things like they have... "it says phone field so phone
numbers are all that's allowed there. we'll have to find somewhere else to put
IP numbers and domain names. then you folks using other software that can't
handle the new format will have to write yourselves a nodelist shim to move
things where you need them to be." :grumble: [/rant]
rc> That clue probably saved me from dropping the experiment when it
rc> barfed on the node list...
TBH, i really don't even need to be running FD any more... very rarely do i get
any mailer connections over telnet... tobias (from fastecho) still polls me on
telnet but he's using some winwhatever mailer instead of frontdoor like he used
to do... sometimes i get a FREQ or two but most of my traffic is now using
binkp on port 24554... me using frontdoor has, however, allowed me to detect
and write some IDS/IPS rules for a recent round of skiddiots and their
infestation bots ;)
ml>> IPv6 is different and requires additional conversions... SIO doesn't
ml>> do IPv6
rc> I don't do IPv6 either... that is proof that engineers should not be
rc> allowed to set standards without supervision! :) ;)
hahahahahahahahaha...
rc> And honestly does EVERYTHING on the planet need an IP???? ;)
that's my thing, too... it is no one's business how many machines i have on my
network and you're surely not going to charge me for each one that uses the
internet... we won't even mention that 640k is enough for anyone and the number
of available IPs is no more or less shortsighted than IPv4 is/was... available
IPv6 numbers will run out one day...
)\/(ark
Always Mount a Scratch Monkey
Do you manage your own servers? If you are not running an IDP/IPS yer doin' it
wrong...
... Famous Last Words: "It hurts." - Chas. DeGaulle
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* Origin: (1:3634/12.73)
