• Multiple BBSes

    From Charles Pierson@21:4/127 to All on Sat Dec 12 05:46:01 2020
    Those of you that run multiple BBSes I have some questions.

    As it appears that I mostly have this one running, I still have to figure out details lije different Message Groups for different Networks, etc.

    But I have potentially 4 more devices that I could set up BBSes on for experimenting. Different OSes, Different programs, whatever.

    Do I need to do port forwarding for each device? Or how do you set it up so that each one has a unique ip? Because whenever I check with whatismyip.com they all show the same address.

    For exampke, I'm running this just like Meat's instructions say. MysticBBS on Ubuntu 20.

    I have another unused, older phone that I was letting the grandkids play
    games on before they all got their own phones that I was thinking about using Debian and mmaybe Synchronet or Enigma on, since those are the only other programs I know of that have ARM versions available.

    I could set that one up now, but how do I set things up to point to it?

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Raspberry Pi/32)
    * Origin: theoasisbbs.ddns.net:1357 (21:4/127)
  • From Al@21:4/106.1 to Charles Pierson on Fri Dec 11 22:53:49 2020
    Re: Multiple BBSes
    By: Charles Pierson to All on Sat Dec 12 2020 05:46 am

    Do I need to do port forwarding for each device? Or how do you set it up so that each one has a unique ip? Because whenever I check with whatismyip.com they all show the same address.

    If you only have one IP then you need to use a different port for each BBS that you want available to the outside world.

    If you have IPv6 each device gets it's own IP but on IPv4 the same IP is shared between all your computers.

    Ttyl :-),
    Al

    ... Bureaucrats cut red tape, lengthwise
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  • From acn@21:3/127.1 to Charles Pierson on Sat Dec 12 14:40:00 2020
    Am 12.12.20 schrieb Charles Pierson@21:4/127 in FSX_BBS:

    Hallo Charles,

    I could set that one up now, but how do I set things up to point to it?

    As you mentioned, all your devices show the same IPv4 address via whatismyip.com, so you need port forwardings in your router for each of
    them.
    Eg., if you have 4 BBSes on different machines, you can create these port forwardings on your router:

    Port 2301 => bbsmachine1:23
    Port 2302 => bbsmachine2:23

    and so on.

    The same way could be used to have different BBS programs on the same machine, if the BBS programs get different ports:

    Port 2301 => bbsmachine:2301
    Port 2302 => bbsmachine:2302
    etc...

    Using IPv6 is a bit easier, as all your machines have individual IPv6 addresses. You just have to make sure that they always have one specific
    IPv6 address that stays the same (eg. by disabling the "privacy
    extensions"). Then you just have to open the host/port on the firewall.

    Regards,
    Anna

    --- OpenXP 5.0.46
    * Origin: Imzadi Box Point (21:3/127.1)
  • From Vk3jed@21:1/109 to Charles Pierson on Tue Dec 15 14:25:00 2020
    On 12-12-20 05:46, Charles Pierson wrote to All <=-

    But I have potentially 4 more devices that I could set up BBSes on for experimenting. Different OSes, Different programs, whatever.

    Do I need to do port forwarding for each device? Or how do you set it
    up so that each one has a unique ip? Because whenever I check with whatismyip.com they all show the same address.

    That depends on your network configuration. I use separate IPs, as I have a block of 14 (useable) IPv4 addresses available here, and I'm currently using about half of them. But many people will need to setup a bunch of port forwards for their BBSs.


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  • From Havok@21:4/10 to Charles Pierson on Mon Dec 21 17:27:00 2020
    Re: Multiple BBSes
    By: Charles Pierson to All on Sat Dec 12 2020 05:46 am

    But I have potentially 4 more devices that I could set up BBSes on for experimenting. Different OSes, Different programs, whatever.

    Hello there

    One thing you could look into is pfsense it would do all your port forwarding
    plus have a enterprise firewall. I have been using it for about 5 years and
    no lockups or os fails. I started on a normal pc box then last year bought
    a Checkpoint 2200 T-110 6-Port Gigabit Security Appliance for 70 bucks on
    ebay and burn 40w instead of 240w.

    I'm very happy with both the OS and the box.

    Just a thought!

    ::: Havok :::
    ::: Nut House BBS : nuthousebbs.com:2332 :::
















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  • From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to Havok on Tue Dec 22 08:36:00 2020
    Havok wrote to Charles Pierson <=-


    One thing you could look into is pfsense it would do all your port forwarding plus have a enterprise firewall. I have been using it for

    I have a spare pfSense firewall that we took out of service a year
    ago that I was tempted to ask to bring home. it looks like a 2U
    chassis with a modern CPU and a ton of NICs.

    With a single IP, DD-WRT on a modern router seems to do the trick,
    though.

















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  • From Havok@21:4/10 to poindexter FORTRAN on Thu Dec 24 08:20:00 2020
    Re: Re: Multiple BBSes
    By: poindexter FORTRAN to Havok on Tue Dec 22 2020 08:36 am


    With a single IP, DD-WRT on a modern router seems to do the trick,
    though.

    As someone states on TV, I LIKE IT!

    ::: Havok :::
    ::: Nut House BBS : nuthousebbs.com:2332 :::

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  • From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to Havok on Thu Dec 24 07:20:00 2020
    Havok wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-

    With a single IP, DD-WRT on a modern router seems to do the trick,
    though.

    As someone states on TV, I LIKE IT!

    I'm playing with Entware, a way to install Linux packages on DD-WRT.
    I've got a USB drive configured as an ext3 partition, added a swap
    partition, and installed nginx. The plan is to have my border router
    reverse proxy web traffic to my proxmox host for validating SSL
    certs, my BBS, and a test system I'd like to expose without using
    different port numbers.




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    * Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)
  • From Havok@21:4/10 to poindexter FORTRAN on Fri Dec 25 09:27:00 2020
    Re: Re: Multiple BBSes
    By: poindexter FORTRAN to Havok on Thu Dec 24 2020 07:20 am

    I'm playing with Entware, a way to install Linux packages on DD-WRT.
    I've got a USB drive configured as an ext3 partition, added a swap partition, and installed nginx. The plan is to have my border router reverse proxy web traffic to my proxmox host for validating SSL
    certs, my BBS, and a test system I'd like to expose without using different port numbers.

    First hope you enjoy today!

    Let me ask you being you may know better then me, I'm thinking of playing
    with docker why is it so much better the say oracle virtualbox. I'm wondering
    myself being I have played with about all of them other the docker.

    Merry Christmas!

    ::: Havok :::
    ::: Nut House BBS : nuthousebbs.com:2332 :::
















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  • From deon@21:2/116 to Havok on Sat Dec 26 09:57:14 2020
    Re: Re: Multiple BBSes
    By: Havok to poindexter FORTRAN on Fri Dec 25 2020 09:27 am

    Howdy,

    Let me ask you being you may know better then me, I'm thinking of playing
    with docker why is it so much better the say oracle virtualbox. I'm wondering
    myself being I have played with about all of them other the docker.

    Why is it "better" is not really the right question - it does things differently (very differently) and depending on what you are wanting to do would determine if it was better (for you) or not.

    VMware, Proxmox, Hyper-V, virtualbox, etc are all about slicing a machine up to run multiple "machines" on a single physical machine. So you need to manage devices, OSes, etc inside the virtualised environment. Some of those are better than others because, of features like machines floating between 2 physical machines, virtual networking, etc.

    Docker is an application runtime environment and the analogy is "live CD". An application is "built" into an image, and the imagine doesnt change. So everytime you start the image anything inside it from last time is lost. If there is important data you need to keep, then you need to put that data on a persistent mount (analogy think USB stick that is used with the live CD).

    What's good about the image, is it has everything it needs to run the application and it can run anywhere the docker runtime is installed (for the architecture of the application). As a example, I run Synchronet on my MAC while I code in javascript (for my videotex interface), but then deploy the same image on my linux host when I run it live. If you ran docker on Windows, that same image would work as well.

    ...ëîåï

    ... To a friends' house, the road is never long.
    --- SBBSecho 3.11-Linux
    * Origin: I'm playing with ANSI+videotex - wanna play too? (21:2/116)
  • From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to Havok on Fri Dec 25 16:30:00 2020
    Havok wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-

    Let me ask you being you may know better then me, I'm thinking
    of playing with docker why is it so much better the say oracle
    virtualbox.

    I'm not totally up on Docker, but the advantage is being able to run
    containerized services in a way that you can template and recreate
    easily.

    Virtualbox just replaces physical hardware, but you still need to
    load an OS, applications, and so on in the same way. You don't get
    the flexibility you get with containers.

    Does someone else want to chime in and explain this better than I
    can?




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  • From Havok@21:4/10 to deon on Sat Dec 26 14:26:00 2020
    Re: Re: Multiple BBSes
    By: deon to Havok on Sat Dec 26 2020 09:57 am




    VMware, Proxmox, Hyper-V, virtualbox, etc are all about slicing a machine up to run multiple "machines" on a single physical machine. So you need to manage devices, OSes, etc inside the virtualised environment. Some of those are better than others because, of features like machines floating between 2 physical machines, virtual networking, etc.

    If that is the case I'll stick with VMware!

    I have ran VMware and Hyper-V and liked both, by the sounds of it I'll
    stick with VMware for running a bulletin board.

    Thanks for the information though...



    ::: Havok :::
    ::: Nut House BBS : nuthousebbs.com:2332 :::
















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  • From deon@21:2/116 to Havok on Sun Dec 27 07:57:54 2020
    Re: Re: Multiple BBSes
    By: Havok to deon on Sat Dec 26 2020 02:26 pm

    Howdy,

    If that is the case I'll stick with VMware!

    Given that, I run both (VMware and docker), and where I can I put everything into docker images - I'm a huge fan.

    My BBS (SBBS) and fidohub are both containers (that auto-build using gitlab CI).

    I like docker for a few reasons:

    * Its an OS environment that I dont need to manage, update, etc

    * My OS hosts are very "thin" - bare, bare minimum, enough to run the docker runtime. (Again less to manage and less
    security exposures.)

    * And lastly, docker makes you think about "application files", "working space" and "data". Application files go in the
    image, workspace I dont care about (its ephemeral), and data goes onto a persistent mount. So now, when I backup, I only need a copy of the image (which is in my registry and any other host that my container ran on), and the data of the application.

    With this strategy, backup is super easy - and you can take the image with the data (for that image) and arhive it, move it between hosts very easily.

    With VMware, I create 3 docker hosts and create a "swarm". Most of my containers "float" between the 3 hosts, enabling me to take 1 down for something (OS updates, etc), and the apps just float to another host and continue to run (without doing anything).

    So for me, I'm a huge fan of docker (and of VMware).

    ...ëîåï

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    * Origin: I'm playing with ANSI+videotex - wanna play too? (21:2/116)
  • From Havok@21:4/10 to deon on Wed Dec 30 16:08:00 2020
    Re: Re: Multiple BBSes
    By: deon to Havok on Sun Dec 27 2020 07:57 am

    So for me, I'm a huge fan of docker (and of VMware).

    It all sounds interesting and soon as I get a smaller server I'll have to
    play with it. But as stated looking for a smaller server to run vmware on
    then comes the play time.

    Thanks for the information and ideas..

    ::: Havok :::
    ::: Nut House BBS : nuthousebbs.com:2332 :::
















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