Subj : Re: SSH on BBSes
To   : Arelor
From : tenser
Date : Thu Apr 14 2022 09:58:22

On 13 Apr 2022 at 07:29a, Arelor pondered and said...
 
 Ar>   Re: Re: SSH on BBSes
 Ar>   By: tenser to boraxman on Wed Apr 13 2022 03:54 am
 Ar> 
 Ar>  > Fixating on the captive BBS experience misses the forest for
 Ar>  > the trees.  The power and flexibility of what you get out of a
 Ar>  > timesharing system is much greater than what you get out of
 Ar>  > any BBS package.  Moreover, it can be customized by the user
 Ar>  > in a way that a BBS never can, and systems can be federated
 Ar>  > using open protocols; don't like the default message editor?
 Ar>  > No problem; just use a different one.
 Ar> 
 Ar> I often think this myself.
 Ar> 
 Ar> But then BBS packages offer convenience for the administrator, that he
 Ar> can deploy a "thing" with somehow automated user management which won't
 Ar> let the users access arbitrary resources within the machine.

I mean, I kind of want that.  :-)  These machines are
there to be used.  The average computer running a BBS,
even a li'l Raspberry Pi, is seriously undersubscribed.
It almost feels like a waste.

 Ar> I can build a telnet interface capable of letting people connect and send
 Ar> messages back and forth using traditional Unix utilities, but then I
 Ar> also have to set permissions for the system users involved and probably
 Ar> build some unveil() and pledge() wrappers.
 Ar> 
 Ar> A BBS package is ready to go. A portal you have to deploy takes time.

I suppose it depends on whether you want to keep users
sandboxed into a small part of the system or not.  But
I admit that once you let them have access to a shell,
you have a much larger administrative burden.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
 * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

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