How to ssh/telnet into old BBS on MSDOS in a VM that only understands COM ports? reddit / bbs ---------------------------------------------------------------------- just4this · 2021-12-06 04:05 I thought this would be an easy-to-find answer but I've had no luck. The BBS I want to run requires MSDOS and won't run on Windows 10. So I run it in a VM. However, I'd like people to ssh/telnet to it because I don't want to set up modems. I need some sort of shim running on Windows 10 that will listen for ssh/telnet connections from the Internet and connect them in a bidirectional way with the COM ports on the virtual machine so the remote users look as if they are connecting to the BBS via the COM ports, even though they used TCP/IP to connect to the host machine. ​ Ideally, the first person to ssh/telnet in would go to a COM1, the second would go to COM2, the third to COM3, and so on so they appear to be multiple modems. Maybe there's a VM where the COM ports look like TCP/IP ports from outside the VM but like COM ports inside the VM? Thanks very much in advance!!! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- crashj · 2021-12-06 04:20 You didn’t state what your hypervisor was. Some VM platforms like QEMU & KVM can map telnet connections to serial ports out of the box. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- nickmackechnie · 2021-12-06 05:32 http://pcmicro.com/netfoss/netfossil.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------- dmine45 · 2021-12-06 09:17 As someone else stated, NetFoss is your friend here. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- CharlieBrown197 · 2021-12-06 14:13 Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think DOSBox might have some functionality similar to this? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- viroiddfi · 2021-12-06 17:55 NetFoss package also comes with net2bbs, which is a telnet server. Net2bbs (or another server) can receive the telnet connections, it then spawns your bbs software by calling netfoss + bbs software. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- just4this · 2021-12-06 17:57 Thank you everyone! I believe I will be able to make progress now. I really appreciate it!!! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- nickmackechnie · 2021-12-06 19:33 I use it on my Searchlight BBS (1999) dos software under Windows 10 ;-) http://bbs.thenet.gen.nz ---------------------------------------------------------------------- BryanLee35 · 2021-12-06 20:36 Hi Just4This, I seen your post and wanted to offer a suggestion. Have you considered using DOSBox to host your BBS? it's probably the easiest to setup. I tried typing some instructions using this comment editor however it wouldn't copy and past very easily so I just placed a text file on my website for you to view. It gives instructions on howto setup a BBS using DOSBox that will listen for a telnet connect on any port you specify. Let me know if this helps you out. https://www.leemagazine.net/dosbox\_help.txt ---------------------------------------------------------------------- just4this · 2021-12-07 14:16 Thank you, I will check it out! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- just4this · 2021-12-08 01:33 Yay, thank you — I was able to connect to an instance of WAFFLE! Now I have to set the rest of things up but, having run WAFFLE 25 years ago, I reckon I'll figure it out! :-) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- National-Painter-747 · 2022-08-12 15:16 Could you repost this text file? Many thanks!