ANetBBS

What is ANetBBS?

A modern bulletin-board system that talks both new and old:

• Web — Flask + WebSockets, mobile-friendly, themed
• Telnet / SSH / rlogin — for the classic experience
• FidoNet echomail — BinkP + QWK over real networks
• Door games — DOS, Synchronet JS, Mystic Pascal Script, generic exec for anything else
• Multinode chat, IRC bridge, MRC bridge
• Personal web pages per user

One SQLite DB. One config file. Five systemd services. Done.

What you need before installing

• Linux server (Ubuntu 22.04+ or Debian 12+ recommended)
• Python 3.10+
• ~500 MB of disk for the app + venv
• Open ports for the protocols you want exposed:
  • 5000 (web — usually proxied behind nginx on 80/443)
  • 2233 (telnet)
  • 2234 (SSH)
  • 513 (rlogin — optional)
• A domain (optional, makes share links nicer)
• An evening (you'll be done in under an hour)

Decisions to make ahead of time

The install wizard will ask you. Have answers ready:

• Install mode — production (public, HTTPS via Let's Encrypt) / behind (your own reverse proxy) / test (local/LAN, no domain)? This comes first and changes several other defaults.
• What's your BBS name?
• What's your sysop handle? (Password can be left blank to auto-generate one.)
• What's your domain (or leave blank for IP)?
• Which protocols (telnet/SSH/nginx) do you want enabled?
• Want the MRC bridge (inter-BBS chat), MSP/SYSTAT instant messaging, Finger, or BinkP (FidoNet inbound mail)?
• Any optional extras — DOSBox-staging, ClamAV, lhasa, sixel support, Mystic BBS runtime?

Concurrent terminal nodes and echomail on/off aren't wizard prompts — they default on and get changed later via .env or Admin → Settings.

First install — three commands

tar xzf ANetBBS-v1.0b2.NNN.tar.gz
cd ANetBBS-v1.0b2.NNN
sudo bash install.sh

The wizard handles:

• Generating a strong SECRET_KEY
• Writing .env with your settings
• Creating data/, logs/, etc.
• Building the Python venv and installing deps
• Initializing the SQLite database
• Creating + saving your sysop account
• Installing systemd unit files and starting every service you enabled — nothing left to start manually

Visit http://your_host:5000/ (port 5000 in production mode, 8080 in test/behind mode).

nginx + HTTPS (recommended)

Don't expose Flask directly. Put nginx in front:

sudo cp deploy/anetbbs-nginx.conf.template \
        /etc/nginx/sites-available/anetbbs.conf
sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/anetbbs.conf
# Edit "server_name" to your real domain
sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/anetbbs.conf \
           /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
sudo nginx -t && sudo systemctl reload nginx
sudo certbot --nginx -d bbs.example.com

The template handles:

• HTTPS via Let's Encrypt
• WebSocket upgrade for SocketIO + MRC bridge
• auth_request gating MRC behind login

First login → launch checklist

Log in with your sysop account, then visit /admin/checklist.

Green check = done, red X = needs your attention. You'll typically need:

• BBS name customized (you did this in the wizard)
• SECRET_KEY production-ready (wizard generated one)
• Default theme picked (Admin → Themes)
• At least one custom board (Admin → Boards → Add)
• At least one bulletin (Admin → Bulletins → Add)
• MOTD pool populated (Admin → MOTD)
• At least one file area (Admin → File Areas → Add)

Each item links straight to where you fix it.

The fun part — make it yours

• Welcome / goodbye / newuser ANSI — paste your ANSI art at /admin/bbs-menus/screens. Telnet visitors see your art before login.
• Customize the main menu — every hotkey is data-driven. Add an item, give it any shell command via the exec action_type.
• One-click sub-menus — wizard at the bottom of any menu's edit page.
• Add doors — Admin → Door Games. Native, DOS, Synchronet JS, Mystic Pascal Script all supported.

Spam control

Five layers, all toggleable:

• Bot gate — telnet visitors press ESC or * twice. Filters scanners. always on
• NUV — set NUV_ENABLED=true. New users wait for sysop approval.
• IP bans — Admin → IP Bans. CIDR + TTL.
• Word filter — Admin → Word Filter. Applied to shouts, posts, PMs.
• File queue — set FILE_MOD_QUEUE_ENABLED=true. Sysop approves uploads.

Day-to-day operations

The Sysop Control Panel (/admin/control) is your cockpit:

• Service status badges + Start / Stop / Restart buttons
• NodeSpy — see every terminal user's current page + last action + idle time. Click for last-screen snapshot.
• Live who's-online (web + terminal) refreshing every 5s
• One-click journal viewer per service

update.sh sets up the sudoers rule for service control automatically on every run. If you haven't updated yet, set it up yourself — the template ships with a __SERVICE_USER__ placeholder that needs substituting, not a plain copy:

sudo sed "s/^__SERVICE_USER__ /anetbbs /" deploy/sudoers.anetbbs \
    | sudo tee /etc/sudoers.d/anetbbs > /dev/null
sudo chmod 0440 /etc/sudoers.d/anetbbs

Upgrades are one command

tar xzf ANetBBS-vX.Y.Z.tar.gz
cd ANetBBS-vX.Y.Z
sudo bash update.sh

The script:

• Backs up .env, the SQLite database, and your systemd units to /tmp/anetbbs-backup-* (data/ and logs/ are never touched by an update at all, so there's nothing to back up there)
• Stops services
• Rsync's the new code (preserves your data + config)
• pip install -e picks up new modules
• Runs the schema migrator
• Restarts services
• Probes /healthz — auto-rolls-back if it fails, no prompt

That's it. Welcome aboard, sysop.

Once installed, every detail is in /docs/ on your BBS.