X-Authentication-Warning: delorie.com: mail set sender to opendos-bounces using -f Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 22:56:49 -0600 From: Rob McGee To: opendos AT delorie DOT com Subject: Re: FreeDos, twenty four Message-ID: <20040117045649.GK1471@obrien.1984.lan> References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.1i Reply-To: opendos AT delorie DOT com Errors-To: nobody AT delorie DOT com X-Mailing-List: opendos AT delorie DOT com X-Unsubscribes-To: listserv AT delorie DOT com Precedence: bulk On Fri, Jan 16, 2004 at 03:39:00PM -0500, Michele Marie Dalene wrote: > RM> B'ichela!! It sure is a small Internet. Good to see you here! I've been > RM> a part-time-lurker on this sleepy old list for a long time, and I don't > RM> recall having seen you here before. > I'm around here and there. mostly read usenet, helps when one Ah, well at the time I wasn't aware of this list being gated to FIDO. After all this time, here I am back on FIDO! :) Yes, I mostly read Usenet as well, and a.o.l.slackware in particular. > RM> your BBS run on DOS? Are you using dosemu for it? Hey, watch me wiggle > RM> this message back on topic. ;) > Not currently. I was debating and testing running Maximus 3.02 > under Dosemu with DR-DOS 7.03. Had bad karma with dosemu eating my > nodelists. Hmmm, not good. My kids are running DOS games on FreeDOS in dosemu. Sometimes they work, sometimes not. The nifty thing is that you get networking and access to your Unix filesystems (and commands!) right there from a DOS prompt. Bless their hearts for giving me LS.EXE, else I would never be able to list my files. :) And for no extra charge you get an emulated Sound Blaster. :) (When I ran native DOS I didn't have sound in games, so all these noises are new to me.) How long ago did you try dosemu? They're up to an almost-1.2.0 release now, under a new maintainer. I made an i686 package for Slackware 9.1, which I could send you if you like. ("installpkg" it and go.) > If I could find a Telnetd for Dos that works with a packet > driver that emulates a modem (freeware please). I might just set up a > few Dos boxen to handle a few telnet/dialup nodes. This part I would not know how to do, but perhaps with a lot of work you could port the GNU telnetd to DOS. This list certainly has some who could accomplish that! > Nothing Wrong with Synchronet but... I just don't like it very I mostly used PCBoards back in the day. I never was a sysop. Back then I didn't know enough about computing. Now I know too much ... LOL! ;) > Of course how would I tell my linux firewall to try another > dos bbs when the first is busy? You know like a hunt group, thus 3 > 386s/486s. one caller per machine. if Machine 3 is free send all Originally I thought about round-robin DNS, but that's wrong. I think you need a special (albeit not very complex) daemon to listen on 23 and distribute the incoming connections among available nodes. I don't know what keywords to try, but I'll bet if you looked around freshmeat long enough you would find something to do this. On further thought this entire thing might be possible in iptables and shell scripts. Your firewall's first filter rule must be a state rule for ESTABLISHED and RELATED. In nat PREROUTING it would be set to DNAT the first incoming 23 to the first node. Next (this part I am not sure how to do) a script is signalled to send the next connection to the next node. It simply changes the DNAT rule to go to the next node, and above that puts in a DNAT specific to the client IP to continue the DNAT to the original node. AHA! Use a ULOG rule just before the DNAT. That could be set to trigger the change of the DNAT rule. I'm still a bit fuzzy on details, but I now know that this can work. You just need something listening on the ULOG socket, and have that run the script to change the DNAT. Perhaps the nodes could be set to notify the firewall machine when they become available again. Or, the /proc/net/ip_conntrack table could be grep'ed for telnet connections to the node. That way if a node is still in use the firewall knows not to put it in the rotation yet. (I'd think the latter method would be the fastest.) > telnets to that machine. Of course most of the time the 4 nodes I > currently have are empty! Need users! Mostly get one call at a time. Same problem BBS's had a long time ago. :) In some ways I miss the sense of community that existed on BBS's, but the Internet has many advantages too. And horror of horrors -- I find I actually *prefer* anarchic newsgroups over well-ordered echomail conferences. I just tune out the obnoxious self-appointed netcops, and I refuse to be bothered by any rudeness or profanity. It works for me. > Anyway, if you know me from the web ... Well, technically speaking (and who is better qualified to speak technically than a bunch of computer geeks? :) Usenet is not the Web. Yes, I know you from a.o.l.s. This thread stuck in my memory because you were on such hard times: (watch for word wrap) http://groups.google.com/groups?&threadm=slrnae8u63.8nm.mdalene%40pinkrose.local.net I've seen you posting since then, too, along with taking over Cnews and ... > then you know I ran a bbs right? ;) its in my usenet signature. ... starting the BBS. Yes, I did know that, and yesterday I finally looked in on you. :) I was amazed to see that so many of the old echo networks are still around! But there's not a lot of activity. Rob - /dev/rob0