Unix BBS

[William E. Davidsen Jr]

In article <10181 at conexch.UUCP> root at conexch.UUCP (Larry Dighera) writes:
| In article <22400004 at uxh.cso.uiuc.edu> fleming at uxh.cso.uiuc.edu writes:
| >
| >	Would somebody please point me in the direction of a public
| >	domain or shareware bbs that will run on a unix mainframe?
	...

| With out a doubt, XBBS is the best BBS software available for UNIX (tm).

  I believe that the author of XBBS posts from the same site as the
poster of this praise, so it may not be totally objective.

  I run a system which offers UNaXcess, XBBS, and Citadel, and has
Magpie in test. I believe that I have at least a bit of experience with
all of them beyond the casual user, and I'll share my opinions with you.

Freeware:

UNaXcess:

  Simple to use system, has messages in individual files, which allows
easy operation but eats inodes and makes things somewhat slow when you
get a lot of messages. I changed the menus and added all sorts of file
transfer protocols. I spent a lot of time writing utilities for this
one, and it is very easy to maintain. There is no file area control in
the version I have, but access to messages is fully controlled.

  I am able to take files from uucp and turn them into messages or
"uploads," and to delete files and messages fairly easily.

  Users are placed in classes, with higher numbers giving more
capability. I looked at changing this so that I could control message
read and write, file read and write, and submenu functions, but it is
non-trivial. All uploads go in a separate subdirectory, and upload or
download may be controlled within any file group.

  There is a user manual in nroff format which is better than only
adequate, and which reduces user questions to a minimum.

XBBS:

  I had an early version and fixed a lot of bugs. I also enhanced a few
areas and sent the changes on. I don't know if they've been incorporated
into the latest version. The user interface is like XBBS, with a main
menu and file and messages submenus. The version I have has a fixed
number of messages in a non-editable format. When I delete messages and
repack all the message numbers change. I believe that most if not all of
this is fixed in the current version, so it's probably not a drawback.

  Files are easy to add and remove in this system, and I share files
between all three systems by links. Messages are not shared. Files
delivered by uucp can easily be moved into the uploads area, but
messages can't be faked in the version I have. The system of bulletins
is quite clean.

   I have no idea how clean the code is in the current version, and it
is supposedly modular, structured, etc, but the version I have is quite
hard to maintain, with at least 70% of the code in one hugh module,
goto's, lines of if's instead of switches, and hundreds of lines of
duplicated code, right down to the spelling in the comments. The latest
version I have checked is at least two version old, and what I'm
running is older than that, so look at the code and make your own
decision, the technique was improving in every version.

  What I have gives no control voer individual functions, but again uses
level of authorization. Each group has an authorization level, both for
messages and files. You may optionally move uploaded files to a
protected directory until you have a chance to look at them, a feature
which has saved me from posting viruses at least six times.

  The version I have has enough online documentation to be useful. It
had a number of errors and ommissions, none serious except the typos.

Citadel:

  A rooms based system, with control of each room, and both files and
messages in a room. Rooms may be public, hidden (you need to know they
exist), passworded, or invitation only (access control list). You can
appoint aides for each room, allowing the people who use the room to
control it. It has private mail, and both uucp mail and usenet groups
may be accessed from rooms. uucp mail and usenet news may be accessed
from this system, and there is an internal networking system on a
by-room basis.

  Files from uucp may be turned into messages or uploads, and file
deletion is easy. I'm writing a delete message facility, but all of the
hooks are there. Uploads are available for download immediately unless
the room is protected against download. There's an easy fix for this, I
haven't gotten it in yet.

  No user documents yet, but only about 5% of users ask any questions
after reading the online context sensitive help.

Shareware:

Magpie:

  A really interesting threaded messages system with files attached to
individual messages. You will love or hate this one, it has a very
strong flavor, and seems to appeal to students and businessmen, but not
techies. I haven't tried to do much with the access control, so I can't
say it there's much that doesn't meet the eye. Seems very solid.

Payware:

Picospan:

  I've only used this one, and it seems to be okay, another well written
rooms system.

Summary as a SYSOP:

  My machine is not run as a bbs, I just offer bbs as a service which
using the machine to do other things. This system has been up since May
1988 (although down waiting for parts as I write this) and I ran CP/M
based systems back in 1980. Be warned, I value low effort keeping it
going!

  I find that UNaXcess is quite low overhead. Outside ov validating new
users and checking uploads, almost everything else can be done by cron
and scripts. I take statistics, get rid of old files, do backups, all by
magic. This is a really nice mode to use, and when I am out of town the
assistant sysop only puts new tapes in the machine for backups. It
doesn't crash.

  XBBS takes a bit more care and feeding, manually deleting messages and
packing the message files, etc. Bear in mind I have an older version and
some or all of this may be better. It crashes a few times a week, but
doesn't hurt the users or the files. If I were going to fix one thing I
would make replies to private sysop messages go in general instead of
the sysop-only group (where no one can read them).

  Even though Citadel is new, it takes almost no effort beyond
developing tools. The tools for statistics are reasonable, and the
access control is very nice. It never crashes, at least in a month of
beta and a month available to the public.

  Since I run accounting I can see what resources these systems take.
Depending on how they are used, UNaXcess or XBBS are the heavy CPU
users, taking 20-40 sec CPU at login to find new messages, etc. I
haven't profiled them, just measured the overall usage. Citadel uses 2-5
sec for the same type of activity. On a machine smaller than a 386 this
could be important, particularly with multiple users.

  File locking looks best on UNaXcess, in terms of reliability, but the
windows I think I see in the others are in miliseconds and have never
been a problem. I would hesitate to mess with them unless I saw a
failure in actual practice.

As a user:

  Users split about evenly between UNaXcess and XBBS. In the month since
I released Citadel it has become the most popular board, getting about
half the total usage of the system, and 70% of the message usage.

Disclaimer:

  All of this is what I have observed, with some items clearly
identified as being for obsolete versions, and possibly fixed. I think
that any of these systems would be useful to you, and that you should
evaluate them on the basis of appeal to your users, effort required,
security needed, and reliability.
-- 
	bill davidsen		(wedu at ge-crd.arpa)
  {uunet | philabs}!steinmetz!crdos1!davidsen
"Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -me