Last update 23-May-2011

mblogin - Unix login replacement for MBSE BBS.

Synopsis.

mblogin [-p] [-h hostname] [user]

 

Description.

mblogin replaces the standard Unix login program for MBSE BBS. You can use this program from mgetty for modem/ISDN access, or from inetd to allow telnet access. This program logs in the systems syslog facility because the normal login program does this too. It uses the file /opt/mbse/etc/login.defs for the behaviour you prefere. All options in this file are well commented. It uses the bbs user database to see who are allowed to login. Users can use their Fidonet name, Unix name or Handle. If the name is found in the userbase, the name is replaced with the real Unix name to do the password check and to start the mbsebbs program. If the user is not found in the user base, the user is asked if he wants to register as a new user. This behaviour can be turned off. If the user uses the name bbs he will start the mbnewusr program directly. All other users are not allowed to login, not even root. If you change it in the file /opt/mbse/etc/login.defs you may allow user mbse to login. I advice against it, you should use ssh if you want remote access to do maintenance.

 

How to use from inetd.

If your system is connected to the internet you may want to let users login using telnet. The changes you need to make are different for each operating system mbse supports. The right lines for your distribution should already be present, but they are not set active, in other words, you still need to make changes to allow telnet login to work. First I will describe how to use it from inetd. When you make changes to your system to change the telnet login, make sure you are already logged into your system as root from another terminal. If you make a mistake and can't login anymore you will be glad that you are still logged in on another terminal. Here are the tested setups:

Now you can test it with telnet localhost or from another machine with telnet your.machine.com. Check if you can still do other logins such as ssh, rlogin and login on local consoles.

 

How to use from xinetd.

This is how to use xinetd, Read the section above also. Here is a tested setup: This has to be done as root. You have to create a service under /etc/xinetd.d named telnet if you dont have it yet installed, if it is already installed just modify the server_args line to match this: 

server_args = -L /opt/mbse/bin/mblogin
Your /etc/xinetd.d/telnet file should look something like this: 
service telnet
{
        protocol        = tcp
        instances       = 10	
        flags           = IPv6
        log_on_failure += USERID
        socket_type     = stream
        user            = root
        server          = /usr/sbin/telnetd
        server_args     = -L /opt/mbse/bin/mblogin
        wait            = no
}
This will replace the standard login program on xinetd systems to the mblogin program, so that next time someone logs into your bbs they will be presented the issue file on /opt/mbse/etc file and the login prompt for the BBS instead of the standard login prompt. Note that on some systems the server_args need -E instead of -L. If you don't have IPv6 enabled on your system, you must remove the flags = IPv6 line.

 

How to use from mgetty

This is described with the setup for mgetty.

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