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Table of Contents
UNIX
sbbs.ini
Unix Sysops will particularly want to pay attention to the [UNIX] section of your initialization file (e.g. ctrl/sbbs.ini file.
If you do not want to run Synchronet (and all external programs/doors) as
root, you will have to set the User and Group key values. Example:
User=sbbsgroup Group=sbbsuser
Also, the file permissions/ownership should be such that the other user would have read and write access to them. The best way to accomplish this is a command like:
# chown -R sbbsuser:sbbsgroup /sbbs
If you want Synchronet to fork and run in the background as a daemon, logging via syslog rather than the local console, set Daemonize=True in this section. Example:
Daemonize=True
To configure syslog and the LogFacility, a good default to use is:
LogFacility=3
Then, in /etc/syslog.conf you will need to add the line:
local3.* /var/log/synchronet.log
Depending on how your vendor set up syslog.conf initially, you may also want
to exclude local3.* from other log files (Noteably /var/log/messages). how to
do this varies with your syslogd implementation, but for BSD based ones
(Which BSD and many Linux distros use) you would add “;local3.none” to the
end of the first field in the /var/log/messages line.
You will have to create this file manually initially by running:
# touch /var/log/synchronet.log
Then send a HUP to syslogd like so:
# killall -HUP syslogd
You will want to investigate how your system rotates logs and set it up to
rotate synchronet.log also.
Further use of the LogFacility setting is beyond the scope of this document.
Read your syslog.conf manpage for more information about this. In particular,
do NOT use the 'S' setting unless you are familiar with advanced syslogd
configuration. The S setting will use different facilities for each feature
of Synchronet as appropriate. Specifically, S will use:
LOG_AUTH LOG_DAEMON LOG_FTP (If available) LOG_MAIL LOG_CRON
LogIdent
Default: Synchronet
PidFile
Default: /var/run/sbbs.pid
umask
Default: 077
Terminal Capabilities
As you may have noticed by now, most telnet clients designed for use with
ANSI BBSes do not display full-screen Unix programs correctly. Included with
Synchronet is a pair of terminal capability definition files that enable you
to run native full-screen Unix programs and have the output displayed correctly
in a standard ANSI-BBS terminal. These files are termcap and terminfo,
located in your Synchronet install directory. Your system will use one or the
other, and it won't hurt to install both. You will need to be logged in as
root to install the files.
Installing the terminfo file
1) Get the Synchronet ANSI-BBS terminfo file from: http://cvs.synchro.net/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/*checkout*/install/terminfo
2) Enter the command ``tic terminfo
==== Installing the termcap file ====
1) Get the Synchronet ANSI-BBS termcap file from:
http://cvs.synchro.net/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/*checkout*/install/termcap
2) Enter the command ``cat termcap >> /etc/termcap
3) * FreeBSD Only * run the command:
# cap_mkdb -f /usr/share/misc/termcap /etc/termcap
Once the terminal capability files are installed, edit the ExternalTermANSI
value in the [BBS] section of your sbbs.ini file to read:
ExternalTermANSI=ansi-bbs
Note: Once again, many Linux distros do not have a termcap. This is fine. You do NOT need to install the termcap-compat package. If termcap isn't installed, it means nothing uses it. Only if there is a termcap do you need to add the ansi-bbs termcap definition.
