Text 163, 142 rader
Skriven 2004-10-04 16:19:52 av Maurice Kinal (1:153/401.1)
    Kommentar till text 162 av MICHEL SAMSON (1:10/345)
Ärende: Kermit, BBS UNIVERSALITY
================================
Hey MICHEL!

Oct 04 16:33 04, MICHEL SAMSON wrote to MAURICE KINAL:

 MS> goal is to make BBSing UNIVERSAL, euh... 

Good luck with that.  About the best I could offer towards that direction is an
ansi capable networking BBS via telnet, but given the crippled nature of the
most popular OS (<- snicker on that) currently is Win98 which sadly lacks in a
suitable client for a stright text based terminal, let alone ansi.  This is
well known.  When I first got my neighbour involved on the wireless we soon
discovered this.  He now uses Linux except we sort of gave up on a BBS when he
became a point off the node.  He prefers that but perhaps we'll take up the
cause again.

 MS> BBSing too ONLY WHEN USERS CAN SWITCH to regular ~TelNet~ 

Huh?  There is *NO* regular telnet other then in Unix world that I am aware of.

 MS> ~IKSD~ 
 MS> would
 MS> certainly sound a bit too proprietary to a vast majority of BBS 
 MS> SoftWare
 MS> authors/SysOps who avoided to finish their work for so many years 
 
That is their problem.  They are the ones that need to compensate for the lack
of siutable clients.  The standard telnet client that comes with most, if not
all, Linux distribtions works excellent as is.  I imagine the DOS kermit client
would have no problems with the IKSD I compiled to run on a Linux server.  I
can use straight telnet to connect to it but the kermit client (compiled for
Linux with ncurses) works even better, ftp functions too.  I like it.


 MS>      I once saw a lot of negative reactions against the use of 
 MS> `Kermit',
 MS> this made me mention that ~FTP~ could be made interactive enough for 
 MS> our
 MS> .QWK doors to be built around it;

Quite possible.  All I'd need here is a suitable qwk utiltity to convert from
either msg, squish or pkt format.  Personally I'd say don't even bother with
qwk and just provide a door that would create pkt's for use with a suitable
Fido editor and packer.  But I imagine if there was a need for qwk it could be
taken care of.  All the users off this node are points here though and don't
need an offline door since they all, including myself, connect directly to
binkd.  My neighbour wireless, one over the internet from Germany, and myself
over the LAN.  Works great.

 MS> Of course, it isn't less proprietary than `IKSD' but 
 MS> most
 MS> users are likely to find a suitable application (~FTP~ is 
 MS> widespread)...

Right.  Not a problem except the blocking of the ftp port by isp's.  Same can
be said about http though.

 MS>      All right, i got no doubt about the `Kermit' file transfer 
 MS> protocol
 MS> and it's quite probable ~IKSD~ (which `C-Kermit'/`K95' integrate) 
 MS> should
 MS> work great too;

It should.  I see no reason why it shouldn't.  At least this way Windows users
get a useful terminal tool out of the deal whereas with other terminal packages
that becomes more debateable how "universal" their client is.  Right?

 MS> i'm just worried, as a BBSer, that i'll find the 
 MS> choice
 MS> of applications to be rather limited though...

No more limited then they already are.  If their local BBS goes down they have
nothing to connect to whereas kermit can handle internet connections.

 MS>      I must determine where to obtain ~SSH~+`Kermit' support, unless 
 MS> you
 MS> agree to grant ~TelNet~ access in ~POP3~-before-~SMTP~ fashion?  ;^)  

You don't need ssh but it will work to the iksd if provided.  I tried both
telnet and ssh connections.  They both worked fine.

 MS> If
 MS> only it were an easy matter to install `Linux'/`C-Kermit' on LEGACY 
 MS> PCs!

No problem here.  :-)

 MS>      Brazil is a place where communications are said to be miserable 
 MS> and
 MS> people who were responsible for organizing an election, not so long 
 MS> ago,
 MS> chose `Kermit' because it manages well with noise

Right.  I'll let you know as soon as I know.  We'll try it here over the
wireless and compare that with binkd.  My neighbour is planning a reinstall so
it'll probably be a little while before we know.

 MS> Quite frankly, i find your project 
 MS> to
 MS> be so *STIMULATING* i can't wait to read about your preliminary 
 MS> results!

Me too.  :-)

 MS>           Keep me posted, i'm curious about ~WiFi~ BBSing!  :)

Our biggest problem is with antennas at the moment.  We're planning to put up a
repeater between us to enhance the signal a tad.  Too much interferance and
distance at the moment but my neighbour's homebuilt antennas really helped
alleviate quite a bit of that.  We're getting there.

 MS> forgot
 MS> where but i once read `Kermit' would be able to send data to the 
 MS> moon...

I heard kermit intersatellite communications is in wide use these days.

 MS>      It's a surprize to find a SysOp who's willing to expose a system 
 MS> to
 MS> the outside world by giving access thru a `Kermit' service.

As long as it isn't anonymous and on a nonstandard port, no problem.  If your
client can specify the port at runtime then I am willing to give it a shot. 
ssh would be best though but I have some confidence in the chroot jail on a
standard telnet connection.

 MS> I'd urge you to pay attention to 
 MS> SECURITY,
 MS> there's been `Kermit' packages with setup defaults improper for BBS 
 MS> use.

Right.

 MS>      Nice aborted thread where `Kermit' spells change guys into 
 MS> baboons!

Which is different how exactly?  They got squat.

Life is good,
Maurice

--- Msged/LNX 6.1.2
 * Origin: Coffin Point - Ladysmith, BC Canada (1:153/401.1)