So I am way out of the loop as far as things like DoorParty and GameSrv and stuff.

But I really saw someone talking about GameSrv and I am wondering what is the purpose of it? Why would someone not just use Mystic or something to do the same thing?

I understand from a client side why something like DoorParty is awesome, but
I guess what I am saying is from the server side what is needed that is "special".

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/03/05 (Windows/64)
* Origin: Sector 7 (21:1/108)

But I really saw someone talking about GameSrv and I am wondering what
is the purpose of it? Why would someone not just use Mystic or
something to do the same thing?

For me it was really just a curiosity. I don't need it personally for dos
doors or anything but I was interested to see what other functionality it
might have. I think it's based on sbbsxtrn or something which suggests it should be able to run synchronet javascript doors? But not sure.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A45 2020/02/18 (Linux/64)
* Origin: monterey bbs (21:1/168)

So I am way out of the loop as far as things like DoorParty and GameSrv and stuff.
But I really saw someone talking about GameSrv and I am wondering what
is the purpose of it? Why would someone not just use Mystic or
something to do the same thing?
I understand from a client side why something like DoorParty is awesome, but I guess what I am saying is from the server side what is needed that is "special".

g00r00;

Good Question. I will be happy to answer the GameSrv part. I did have Mystic 32bit setup on my local machine for a long time. I had to switch to a hosted server because of my ISP not letting Inbound ports like 23 etc...

When I did that, I had to setup on a Windows 64 bit server on a VPN provider, so I setup a Mystic 32 under a Virtualbox and ran all of my Doors there. But it kept Crashing (Mystic) so I thought I would try GameSrv.

I continue to use GameSrv (Quazar BBS Door Game Server) because it will
run on Windows 64, it allows me to run 32 Bit doors as well as 16 Bit DOS
Doors as well. The setup is not difficult.

I would MUCH rather be able to run Mystic and have all of my Doors run through that, but it does not work on a 64 Bit machine to run DOS 16 Bit Doors... However, GameSrv somehow allows that because it uses DOSBOX 0.73 for the 16 Bit DOS Doors and it does pretty well.

I don't know how they do it, but they are able to use DOSBox as the DOS Door pathway... I've tried to duplicate doing that under Mystic, but I've failed at getting DOS Doors to run from Mystic in a 64bit operating
environment using DOSBOX..

Thats why I use it myself.... I've never tried to setup DoorParty myself.

I hope that shines some light on the issue.

Gary Crunk - Another F-ing BBS : anotherbbs.dynu.net Port 23
Quazar BBS Door Game Server: quazarbbs.dynu.net Port 2525
300 F-ing Baud BBS: 300baud.dynu.net Port 2524

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A43 2019/03/03 (Windows/32)
* Origin: Another F-ing BBS (21:4/126)

But I really saw someone talking about GameSrv and I am wondering what is

the

purpose of it? Why would someone not just use Mystic or something to do the same thing?

I think the reason it is appealing to some is because they run
multiple BBSes, say you have a mystic bbs, a magicka bbs and and
enigma bbs, you could set up doors on all 3, or you could set up
doors on gameserv and connect to it via all 3.

The thing I don't quiet understand is if "apam" is me on bbs a, but
someone else on bbs b, they're going to have access to all my characters
.

I think from the server side what is needed is the ability to auto
create accounts.

That, and rlogin or something to pass the username from the bbs, to
make it seamless, so you it d for doors, and you're presented with
a list from gameserv rather than the bbs.

Andrew

--- Ghost v0.0.1
* Origin: Ghost BBS - ghostbbs.hopto.org:2626 (21:1/126.1)

Re: GameSrv etc
By: g00r00 to All on Fri Mar 06 2020 11:49:15

I understand from a client side why something like DoorParty is awesome,

but

I guess what I am saying is from the server side what is needed that is "special".

Often there's a seamless transfer of the user from the client BBS to the game server, typically via rlogin. The users don't want to have to remember their DoorParty or BBSLink username and password, so they aren't prompted to enter anything. Ideally there's some form of trust between client BBS and server. Lots of ways to accomplish all of this.

Often a "door code" is optionally passed in the rlogin termtype string, so the user can jump straight into a game on the server without having to go through any login preamble (announcements, oneliners, bulletins, etc.) So the answering
server needs to be able to recognize these cases and handle them accordingly.

rlogin tends to be the protocol because outbound rlogin connections can be made
by most BBS packages either natively or through a door. (TelnetDoor?)

But I really saw someone talking about GameSrv and I am wondering what is

the

I don't remember much about it, but IIRC it's meant to provide the bare minimum
that you need to run this type of service. You wouldn't use it to run a full BBS, and it's a lot simpler to set up.

purpose of it? Why would someone not just use Mystic or something to do

the

same thing?

No reason why they couldn't/shouldn't as long as it does the stuff that's needed. Synchronet does this job very nicely. I'm not really involved in DoorParty's operation, but I did write a bunch of the stuff that makes it do its thing.

---
echicken
electronic chicken bbs - bbs.electronicchicken.com
* Origin: electronic chicken bbs - bbs.electronicchicken.com (21:1/164)

Re: GameSrv etc
By: apam to g00r00 on Fri Mar 06 2020 16:40:04

The thing I don't quiet understand is if "apam" is me on bbs a, but someone else on bbs b, they're going to have access to all my characters

DoorParty prefixes usernames with a "system tag", so your username depends partly on which BBS you're connecting from. So if I call from BBS 'a', then I'm
[a]echicken, and if I call from BBS 'b', I'm [b]echicken, and those are two different users on the game server.

Other systems might do this differently.

I have a whole bunch of ideas on how I would do things if I were designing one of these services from the ground up today.

---
echicken
electronic chicken bbs - bbs.electronicchicken.com
* Origin: electronic chicken bbs - bbs.electronicchicken.com (21:1/164)

have you eliminated chatx.dat? how is NA and node messaging working then? i ask because i have a mpl that reads and makes a .html for my website from the mystic www server.

|08 .|05·|13∙|15Dr|07e|08am Ma|07st|15er|13∙|05·|08.
|08 °∙|05·|13∙° |13°∙|05·|08∙°
|11 DoRE|03!|11ACiDiC|03!|11Demonic
|08[|15bbs|09.|15dreamlandbbs|09.|15org|08]

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/02/29 (Windows/32)
* Origin: |08--[|15!|07dreamland BBS bbs.dreamlandbbs.org (21:1/163)

I have a whole bunch of ideas on how I would do things if I were designing

one

of these services from the ground up today.

Me too :) I was thinking about doing one in python a few weeks back,
but have too much going on.

Andrew

--- Ghost v0.0.1
* Origin: Ghost BBS - ghostbbs.hopto.org:2626 (21:1/126.1)

might have. I think it's based on sbbsxtrn or something which suggests it should be able to run synchronet javascript doors? But not sure.

SBBSXTRN is just part of the virtual device driver that allows it to trap old DOS fossil interrupt calls in Window 32-bit NTVM. I have a wrapper of it here too in Pascal so technically I could add Synchronet's Win32 FOSSIL stuff to Mystic but I felt that would sort of be a dirty move so I never did.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/03/05 (Windows/64)
* Origin: Sector 7 (21:1/108)

When I did that, I had to setup on a Windows 64 bit server on a VPN provider, so I setup a Mystic 32 under a Virtualbox and ran all of my Doors there. But it kept Crashing (Mystic) so I thought I would try GameSrv.

Curious what version that was? I think while I was gone I had nearly a year of uptime with no ghosts or crashes, my auto IP block had over 10,000 entries in it from the spammers lol. I can't figure out what it is that people have going on that causes issues unless they're sitting on old versions :(

Bit Doors... However, GameSrv somehow allows that because it uses DOSBOX 0.73 for the 16 Bit DOS Doors and it does pretty well.

People have done it with Mystic too. I doubt its doing anything different than anything else but maybe they made a custom version? I saw that it comes preconfigured so could that be way?

As far as I know as soon as you get two people accessing DOSBOX, it will go haywire and lose data between the games anyway, and anything that requires SHARE.EXE will refuse to run.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/03/05 (Windows/64)
* Origin: Sector 7 (21:1/108)

I think the reason it is appealing to some is because they run
multiple BBSes, say you have a mystic bbs, a magicka bbs and and
enigma bbs, you could set up doors on all 3, or you could set up
doors on gameserv and connect to it via all 3.

Right but you could do the same with any of those BBSes too I would assume. Just have BBS 2 and 3 connect to BBS 1.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/03/05 (Windows/64)
* Origin: Sector 7 (21:1/108)

Often there's a seamless transfer of the user from the client BBS to the game server, typically via rlogin. The users don't want to have to remember their DoorParty or BBSLink username and password, so they
aren't prompted to enter anything. Ideally there's some form of trust

Yes I understand all of that stuff Mystic has done it for years. I am curious the point of the server software when existing BBSes can do this stuff already.

Like why someone would set up GameSrv and then use their BBS to connect to it.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/03/05 (Windows/64)
* Origin: Sector 7 (21:1/108)

have you eliminated chatx.dat? how is NA and node messaging working
then? i ask because i have a mpl that reads and makes a .html for my website from the mystic www server.

No I haven't.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/03/05 (Windows/64)
* Origin: Sector 7 (21:1/108)

SBBSXTRN is just part of the virtual device driver that allows it to
trap old DOS fossil interrupt calls in Window 32-bit NTVM. I have a wrapper of it here too in Pascal so technically I could add Synchronet's Win32 FOSSIL stuff to Mystic but I felt that would sort of be a dirty
move so I never did.

Turns out I was wrong anyway. :)

GameSrv is really just a wrapper for dosemu (as far as linux is concerned)
and the biggest advantage I can see would be if you have multiple boards connected to a single instance and want to use it to launch dos doors.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A45 2020/02/18 (Linux/64)
* Origin: monterey bbs (21:1/168)

Right but you could do the same with any of those BBSes too I would assume. Just have BBS 2 and 3 connect to BBS 1.

Yeah, the benefit here is that if you use RLogin, you don't force users to create accounts. It's really just like...a door menu. Nothing else.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A45 2020/02/18 (Linux/64)
* Origin: monterey bbs (21:1/168)

Right but you could do the same with any of those BBSes too I would assume. Just have BBS 2 and 3 connect to BBS 1.

Yes, but it wouldn't be seamless, ie, if you were on BBS 2, and you hit
'd' for doors you'd then have to log in to BBS 1, navigate to the
doors menu and then run your door.

Maybe you can do all this with mystic, I don't know, I've never set up
a door server. I can see the appeal for something you can connect to
and from the users perspective just be presented with a list of doors
with all the login / account creation happening behind the scenes.

If you can do all this with Mystic, I'd say people just aren't aware
that they can.

Andrew

--- Ghost v0.0.1
* Origin: Ghost BBS - ghostbbs.hopto.org:2626 (21:1/126.1)

Maybe you can do all this with mystic, I don't know, I've never set up
a door server. I can see the appeal for something you can connect to
and from the users perspective just be presented with a list of doors
with all the login / account creation happening behind the scenes.

What would be really slick would be to not only launch into a door server,
but launch a specific door, and quit back to the original BBS upon exit.

For me, a door server isn't useful because I've configured all my dos doors
to run in dosemu and I only have one BBS (not to mention, I don't have doorparty, I paid hundreds of dollars for these games over the years and I
want to run my licensed copies! lol).

The way it /would/ be useful for me is if it was able to run doors dependent
on a specific BBS. MBBSEmu, for example. It's basically almost a shim to an emulated 80286 just for the purpose of running MBBS modules.

If I could get this guy to look at TBBS at some point, that would be awesome. And if there was a way to run synchronet javascript doors...I think that
would cover all the fun random things floating around under one roof.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A45 2020/02/18 (Linux/64)
* Origin: monterey bbs (21:1/168)

If I could get this guy to look at TBBS at some point, that would
be awesome. And if there was a way to run synchronet javascript
doors...I think that would cover all the fun random things floating
around under one roof.

There is a JSDoor program that allows javascript doors to run on any
BBS, but I think they have to be written with JSDoor in mind. I have it
running deuce's Legend of the red dragon clone on ghost.

As for which of the synchronet javascript "doors" use jsdoor, i don't
know.

Andrew

--- MagickaBBS v0.13alpha (Linux/x86_64)
* Origin: HappyLand - telnet://magickabbs.com:2023/ (21:1/126)

GameSrv is really just a wrapper for dosemu (as far as linux is
concerned) and the biggest advantage I can see would be if you have multiple boards connected to a single instance and want to use it to launch dos doors.

Ahh I see, DOSEMU makes more sense.

Someone earlier said DOSBOX which made me a bit confused.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/03/05 (Windows/64)
* Origin: Sector 7 (21:1/108)

Right but you could do the same with any of those BBSes too I would assume. Just have BBS 2 and 3 connect to BBS 1.

Yeah, the benefit here is that if you use RLogin, you don't force users
to create accounts. It's really just like...a door menu. Nothing else.

In thoery with Mystic you don't need anyone to make accounts either. You can have access to the user/password passed by RLOGIN within startup.mps.

So like in theory you could have a BBS that sets up their outbound RLOGIN
like this:

User: [DoorJunkie] LORD
Pass: g00r00@Sector 7 BBS

The Startup.mps would check the User name to see if it has "[DoorJunkie] prefix and then check of the door ID after it is a valid door. If it is, then it runs the door.

If its not then it falls through to the standard BBS login. So you can in theory (I haven't tried it) run a transparent door launcher and BBS on the same system (at least with Mystic).

Now that I think about it though, I may have just broken that in A46 because
I am not sending a 512-bit hash of the password field in RLOGIN across, so
you wouldn't have access to that anymore.

But if this is something that fits the mold (I just don't understand what people are really doing with all the door stuff lately) then I could revert
it back so this could work again.

I remember going back and adding this stuff into MPL specifically so people could build these transparent systems with startup.mps years(?) ago.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/03/05 (Windows/64)
* Origin: Sector 7 (21:1/108)

So I am way out of the loop as far as things like DoorParty and GameSrv and stuff.

But I really saw someone talking about GameSrv and I am wondering what
is the purpose of it? Why would someone not just use Mystic or
something to do the same thing?

I run other bbs software that for some reason on a windows 10 computer cannot run the dos games. So I setup a gamesrv for that bbs and rlogin to the
gamesrv for users to play the games.

I also run Mystic and have no issues at all. I know I can rlogin from Mystic to gamesrv, can the reverse happen, that is from another bbs rlogin to Mystic just for the games?

Ruben Figueroa aka Zazz
Mystic Prison Board Sysop
telnet://pbmystic.rdfig.net:24
Web: www.rdfig.net

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/02/27 (Windows/32)
* Origin: Mystic Prison Board BBS*Mesquite Tx (21:1/134)

In thoery with Mystic you don't need anyone to make accounts either.
You can have access to the user/password passed by RLOGIN within startup.mps.

I'm probably guilty of sparking this discussion over the last few weeks...
But if there is a way to use Mystic as a door server, to seamlessly create new accounts, shuttle users to a door, then back to the bbs -- I'd be a massive
fan of that.

Also I realize that my use case may be a bit of an edge case. It's very
similar to what others have stated here, but essentially I'm running multiple BBSs (and testing many more) across Linux & Rpi. Setting up doors for each
one is a major time suck, configs are very fickle. Having a door server consolidates all of this, and allows all the BBSs to have a door menu, regardless of OS.

I still use other door server systems like BBSLink and DoorParty -- having
lots of options to play games for all my imaginary users is the goal :)

|08.|07..|15.. |11Alpha |07- |11Card & Claw BBS
|08.|07..|15.. |03fsxNet AgoraNet GameNet SciNet Fidonet
|08.|07..|15.. |05Doorparty! |07/ |05Local Doors |07/ |05Board Game Discussion |08.|07..|15.. |13Join |07@ |13cardandclaw.com|07:|138888

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/02/29 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Card & Claw BBS | Analog Gaming: Board Games, RPGs (21:4/158)

On 06 Mar 2020, g00r00 said the following...

So I am way out of the loop as far as things like DoorParty and GameSrv and stuff.

But I really saw someone talking about GameSrv and I am wondering what
is the purpose of it? Why would someone not just use Mystic or
something to do the same thing?

I understand from a client side why something like DoorParty is awesome, but I guess what I am saying is from the server side what is needed that is "special".

Auto-account creation on RLogin. Makes it easier and seamless for the user instead of having to create two separate accounts for the door server. And RLogin can be repurposed to pass a different variable for the door to run instead of the terminal emulation.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A45 2020/02/12 (Linux/64)
* Origin: throwbackbbs.com -\- meriden, ct -\- (21:1/114)

On 05 Mar 2020, garycrunk said the following...

I don't know how they do it, but they are able to use DOSBox as the DOS Door pathway... I've tried to duplicate doing that under Mystic,
but I've failed at getting DOS Doors to run from Mystic in a 64bit operating environment using DOSBOX..

I actually helped Rick with this, inadvertently. When we were troubleshooting something with DOSBox and old DOS text adventure games, finally got it working and he thought it was a great idea, asked me if he could incorporate the
method into GameSrv. =)

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A45 2020/02/12 (Linux/64)
* Origin: throwbackbbs.com -\- meriden, ct -\- (21:1/114)

On 06 Mar 2020, echicken said the following...

No reason why they couldn't/shouldn't as long as it does the stuff that's needed. Synchronet does this job very nicely. I'm not really involved in DoorParty's operation, but I did write a bunch of the stuff that makes
it do its thing.

Yes, yes you did, and the BBS gaming world is much richer for it. Have I thanked you again, lately? =)

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A45 2020/02/12 (Linux/64)
* Origin: throwbackbbs.com -\- meriden, ct -\- (21:1/114)

I also run Mystic and have no issues at all. I know I can rlogin from Mystic to gamesrv, can the reverse happen, that is from another bbs
rlogin to Mystic just for the games?

Yes. You can either make them a user account and they login straight to their start menu which is a list of doors they have access to, or you could do a little scripting and make it all transparent based on a door ID passed via RLOGIN.

Now the second option I might have just broke in the test versions of A46 though. But its been available for years and no one has used it so I am not sure anyone ever would anyway.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/03/05 (Windows/64)
* Origin: Sector 7 (21:1/108)

I'm probably guilty of sparking this discussion over the last few
weeks... But if there is a way to use Mystic as a door server, to seamlessly create new accounts, shuttle users to a door, then back to
the bbs -- I'd be a massive fan of that.

I guess the part of this I am missing is why do you need to make them automatically create new user accounts? If you want them to have accounts make them sign up, and thats how they create an account on your door service. The experience is seamless after you validate their application. Not doign that just allows people to cheat in games.

If you want them to have a seamless experience withou having to have an account then just execute the door from startup.mps, the RLOGIN parameters are available as MPL variables at that point and you can do whatever you want.

The part that confuses me is why someone would want another BBS to connect to your BBS via RLOGIN, load a door, and then have an account and end up on your BBS menu? That just doesn't make sense to me and I feel like I am misunderstaing! Is the idea that they don't select the door on their own BBS but they get into your BBS and are presented with a menu?

If I can better understand what is going on I can certainly try to expand Mystic to make it easier but for whatever reason I haven't been able to wrap
my head around it.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/03/05 (Windows/64)
* Origin: Sector 7 (21:1/108)

Re: Re: GameSrv etc
By: g00r00 to echicken on Fri Mar 06 2020 15:07:53

Like why someone would set up GameSrv and then use their BBS to connect to

it.

Not for any technical reason I can think of. Probably just for "organizational"
purposes.

If I run three BBSs and want to point all of them at the same pool of door games, I could point all of them at my one gaming server rather than designating one of the three as the "gaming" BBS. I won't gain much from this apart from some user account management stuff, but I guess it's ... tidier?

Some people change their BBS software regularly, trying Synchronet then Mystic and so on. Maybe they don't want to have to set up all of their doors over and over again, so this is a way of letting them persist.

Apart from that, I dunno.

---
echicken
electronic chicken bbs - bbs.electronicchicken.com
* Origin: electronic chicken bbs - bbs.electronicchicken.com (21:1/164)

Re: Re: GameSrv etc
By: apam to ryan on Fri Mar 06 2020 21:04:58

There is a JSDoor program that allows javascript doors to run on any
BBS, but I think they have to be written with JSDoor in mind. I have it

As for which of the synchronet javascript "doors" use jsdoor, i don't know.

Only LORD.

In theory, porting other games over should be easy. In practice, those of us who wrote them would need to dig through the JSDoor code and figure out how to use it (no docs) and then spend a bunch of time refactoring our old games. Probably not going to happen any time soon.

---
echicken
electronic chicken bbs - bbs.electronicchicken.com
* Origin: electronic chicken bbs - bbs.electronicchicken.com (21:1/164)

I guess the part of this I am missing is why do you need to make them automatically create new user accounts? If you want them to have
accounts make them sign up, and thats how they create an account on your door service. The experience is seamless after you validate their application. Not doign that just allows people to cheat in games.

My goal was to eliminate the friction of a second login/signup. No one else
but my users will be accessing my door server--it's restricted at a
VM/firewall level to the main BBS--but without a solve like Doorpaty's [tag]
to user name you are absolutely right, it's a flaw.

If you want them to have a seamless experience withou having to have an account then just execute the door from startup.mps, the RLOGIN
parameters are available as MPL variables at that point and you can do whatever you want.

Hmmm. That *could* work in my case.

The part that confuses me is why someone would want another BBS to
connect to your BBS via RLOGIN, load a door, and then have an account
and end up on your BBS menu? That just doesn't make sense to me and I feel like I am misunderstaing! Is the idea that they don't select the door on their own BBS but they get into your BBS and are presented with
a menu?

Yeah, that's how I'm doing in now with DoorSrv. Hitting "D" from my any of my BBS' menu essentially takes them via Rlogin to the doorserver game menu. Of course, when it's just 1 BBS + 1 doorserver it seems to work fine--there will never be username conflicts.

Going to try and dig into the Mystic prelogin MPL and see if I can make that work. Trying this stuff out is half the fun. More than half for me :)

|08.|07..|15.. |11Alpha |07- |11Card & Claw BBS
|08.|07..|15.. |03fsxNet AgoraNet GameNet SciNet Fidonet
|08.|07..|15.. |05Doorparty! |07/ |05Local Doors |07/ |05Board Game Discussion |08.|07..|15.. |13Join |07@ |13cardandclaw.com|07:|138888

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/02/29 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Card & Claw BBS | Analog Gaming: Board Games, RPGs (21:4/158)

Re: Re: GameSrv etc
By: g00r00 to Alpha on Fri Mar 06 2020 22:56:29

I guess the part of this I am missing is why do you need to make them automatically create new user accounts? If you want them to have accounts

make

them sign up, and thats how they create an account on your door service.

The

experience is seamless after you validate their application. Not doign

that

just allows people to cheat in games.

User impersonation is a bit of a risk, but apart from that I'm not sure where cheating enters into it.

It's a bit clunky to call into one BBS, create an account, then create another account on another thing through that BBS. So people want it to be seamless from account creation onward. In some ways, without this, the user might as well just call the game server directly.

The part that confuses me is why someone would want another BBS to connect

to

your BBS via RLOGIN, load a door, and then have an account and end up on

your

BBS menu? That just doesn't make sense to me and I feel like I am misunderstaing! Is the idea that they don't select the door on their own

BBS

but they get into your BBS and are presented with a menu?

Yes. They can either connect to the service in a general sense and then pick which door(s) to play, or they can jump straight into a particular one and be disconnected right after. In the latter case, from the user's perspective, it doesn't look any different than if the game were hosted on the board they called.

---
echicken
electronic chicken bbs - bbs.electronicchicken.com
* Origin: electronic chicken bbs - bbs.electronicchicken.com (21:1/164)

Yeah, that's how I'm doing in now with DoorSrv. Hitting "D" from my any
of my BBS' menu essentially takes them via Rlogin to the doorserver game menu. Of course, when it's just 1 BBS + 1 doorserver it seems to work fine--there will never be username conflicts.

Hey Alpha,

The more I dug into what GameSrv is actually doing, the more I realized it's basically (for linux, anyway) just a wrapper for dosemu.

If you are able to get one door working with "plain old dosemu" and linux,
you can basically get them all working. This would eliminate a dependency on gamesrv and you could just fire up the doors directly from mystic. Just
figured I'd throw that out there.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A45 2020/02/18 (Linux/64)
* Origin: monterey bbs (21:1/168)

Curious what version that was? I think while I was gone I had nearly a

I believe it was A12 or something like that. It was the 32 bit windows version. I do not know if it was that or the Windows XP I was using.

People have done it with Mystic too. I doubt its doing anything
different than anything else but maybe they made a custom version? I
saw that it comes preconfigured so could that be way?

I do not know. I've tried getting DOS 16 Bit doors to run through Dosbox
from Mystic, I was probably doing it wrong because I could not get it to work.

As far as I know as soon as you get two people accessing DOSBOX, it will go haywire and lose data between the games anyway, and anything that requires SHARE.EXE will refuse to run.

I do not know. I know that if 2 people are on at the same time, it does run
2 separate instances of DosBox. As well, GameSrv tells us that Dosbox 0.73 should be used and not 0.74. I've not had any issues with 2 or more people
on GameSrv at the same time running doors because it loads a totally separate instance of Dosbox.

Gary Crunk - Another F-ing BBS : anotherbbs.dynu.net Port 23
Quazar BBS Door Game Server: quazarbbs.dynu.net Port 2525
300 F-ing Baud BBS: 300baud.dynu.net Port 2524

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A43 2019/03/03 (Windows/32)
* Origin: Another F-ing BBS (21:4/126)

I do not know. I know that if 2 people are on at the same time, it does run 2 separate instances of DosBox. As well, GameSrv tells us that
Dosbox 0.73 should be used and not 0.74. I've not had any issues with 2 or more people on GameSrv at the same time running doors because it
loads a totally separate instance of Dosbox.

I think the problem would be something to do with file locking (or lack thereof). This would manifest most strongly if two people were playing the
same doors at the same time. Think of a four way intersection with traffic lights...without locking this correctly, launching multiple instances of
dosbox just makes all the lights green at the same time, and you're waiting
for a collision.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A45 2020/02/18 (Linux/64)
* Origin: monterey bbs (21:1/168)

On 06 Mar 2020, g00r00 said the following...

have you eliminated chatx.dat? how is NA and node messaging working then? i ask because i have a mpl that reads and makes a .html for my website from the mystic www server.

No I haven't.

or is it the short msg file that updates the node info?

|08 .|05·|13∙|15Dr|07e|08am Ma|07st|15er|13∙|05·|08.
|08 °∙|05·|13∙° |13°∙|05·|08∙°
|11 DoRE|03!|11ACiDiC|03!|11Demonic
|08[|15bbs|09.|15dreamlandbbs|09.|15org|08]

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/02/29 (Windows/32)
* Origin: |08--[|15!|07dreamland BBS bbs.dreamlandbbs.org (21:1/163)

I think the problem would be something to do with file locking (or lack

I understand. And I know that the normal DOS 5 SHARE.EXE will load in
Dosbox but it does not really "Work"... I have a file on my BBS called FAKESHAR.ZIP with is a Share.exe Emulator that does work within Dosbox.

You can run it instead of Share.exe with the same types of Parameters... and
it will work as Share.exe should do but in Dosbox.

Gary Crunk - Another F-ing BBS : anotherbbs.dynu.net Port 23
Quazar BBS Door Game Server: quazarbbs.dynu.net Port 2525
300 F-ing Baud BBS: 300baud.dynu.net Port 2524

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A43 2019/03/03 (Windows/32)
* Origin: Another F-ing BBS (21:4/126)

On 06 Mar 2020, g00r00 said the following...

So I am way out of the loop as far as things like DoorParty and GameSrv and stuff.

But I really saw someone talking about GameSrv and I am wondering what
is the purpose of it? Why would someone not just use Mystic or
something to do the same thing?

I setup a Game Server so I can share the doors between my 2 BBS' I also have
a C-Net Amiga board which I run and once it gets RLOGIN support it will share the PC Doors on it. I originally had set it up because I shared it between my Mysic, Synchro, and CNet boards. Works great and if you run more then 1 board like I do it makes it easier ot just setup the game once and users on both of my boards can play against each other...

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A45 2020/02/18 (Windows/32)
* Origin: The Wrong Number Family Of BBS' - Wrong Number ][ (21:4/131)

On 06 Mar 2020, apam said the following...

The thing I don't quiet understand is if "apam" is me on bbs a, but someone else on bbs b, they're going to have access to all my characters
.

The thing that I do is I stole the idea from DoorParty and CombatNet, I
append a [WN2] to the handle in the RLOGIN signin. So when the user is on the server their name is [WN2]Bucko and if I log in from my CNet BBS it will be [WN3]Bucko same handle different BBS.. Now I just have to wait till RLOGIN capabilities come to C-Net! LOL

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A45 2020/02/18 (Windows/32)
* Origin: The Wrong Number Family Of BBS' - Wrong Number ][ (21:4/131)

I understand. And I know that the normal DOS 5 SHARE.EXE will load in Dosbox but it does not really "Work"... I have a file on my BBS called FAKESHAR.ZIP with is a Share.exe Emulator that does work within Dosbox.

Yeah, I think what FAKESHAR.ZIP does is not really emulate what share.exe actually does behind the scenes, I believe it just makes programs think share.exe is loaded so that they run. In other words, kind of a hack for
dosbox programs. But yeah, if it works it works :)

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A45 2020/02/18 (Linux/64)
* Origin: monterey bbs (21:1/168)

On 06 Mar 2020, Alpha said the following...

I'm probably guilty of sparking this discussion over the last few
weeks... But if there is a way to use Mystic as a door server, to seamlessly create new accounts, shuttle users to a door, then back to
the bbs -- I'd be a massive fan of that.

Add me to the list...

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A45 2020/02/18 (Windows/32)
* Origin: The Wrong Number Family Of BBS' - Wrong Number ][ (21:4/131)

my error log is full of error cannot write to chat.dat or something like
that, is that what is happening to you?

Rick

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A45 2020/02/18 (Windows/64)
* Origin: Abacus BBS (21:1/190)

Some people change their BBS software regularly, trying Synchronet then Mystic and so on. Maybe they don't want to have to set up all of their doors over and over again, so this is a way of letting them persist.

Yeah I guess that is a good point!

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/03/05 (Windows/64)
* Origin: Sector 7 (21:1/108)

Going to try and dig into the Mystic prelogin MPL and see if I can make that work. Trying this stuff out is half the fun. More than half for me
:)

Well as of A46 it probably won't work because the RLOGIN details being passed into those variables are now 512-bit hashed. But if I can better understand what people are really trying to accomplish maybe I can whip something up.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/03/05 (Windows/64)
* Origin: Sector 7 (21:1/108)

User impersonation is a bit of a risk, but apart from that I'm not sure where cheating enters into it.

It allows users to make multiple accounts and play the game on multiple accounts is what I was saying. The BBS should handle the user accounts, and the trust should be between the BBS server and the door server.

It's a bit clunky to call into one BBS, create an account, then create another account on another thing through that BBS. So people want it to
be seamless from account creation onward. In some ways, without this,
the user might as well just call the game server directly.

Yes that would be clunky, but why would someone set it up to work that way?

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/03/05 (Windows/64)
* Origin: Sector 7 (21:1/108)

Curious what version that was? I think while I was gone I had nearly

I believe it was A12 or something like that. It was the 32 bit windows version. I do not know if it was that or the Windows XP I was using.

Gotcha, okay that makes sense since it was such an early alpha probably even before the new MIS. I am sure that was unstable :)

I do not know. I've tried getting DOS 16 Bit doors to run through Dosbox from Mystic, I was probably doing it wrong because I could not get it to work.

It shouldn't work well. DOSBOX is almost useless for doors from my experience, like it will create a file in one instance but it won't show up on the actual disk and the second instance can't see the file at all.

I know people have set it up with Mystic a long time ago and would run into issues like this. But maybe if doors were restricted to single-node that would work well?

There is also something called vDOS too which I never really looked into yet and may just be a DOSBOX hack.

I do not know. I know that if 2 people are on at the same time, it does run 2 separate instances of DosBox. As well, GameSrv tells us that
Dosbox 0.73 should be used and not 0.74. I've not had any issues with 2

It really doesn't sound like GameSrv is actually doing anything besides running the same command lines that Mystic can. Its a shame the DOSBOX authors don't do more to help with BBS doors though.

Maybe 0.73 doesn't have the issues I described above? I'll have to try it sometime.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/03/05 (Windows/64)
* Origin: Sector 7 (21:1/108)

On 06 Mar 2020, g00r00 said the following...

have you eliminated chatx.dat? how is NA and node messaging wor then? i ask because i have a mpl that reads and makes a .html fo website from the mystic www server.

No I haven't.

or is it the short msg file that updates the node info?

CHATX.DAT is the information about the user logged into that node.

It would have been NODEx.DAT but that was used back in the day for modem specific configuration for each node.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/03/05 (Windows/64)
* Origin: Sector 7 (21:1/108)

Re: Re: GameSrv etc
By: g00r00 to echicken on Sat Mar 07 2020 09:39:48

It allows users to make multiple accounts and play the game on multiple

This isn't a new problem that's been introduced by door servers. On most BBSs a
user can create multiple accounts if they wish, and play games as many times per day as they have accounts. Hard to prevent. At best, the only limit is how many email addresses the user has access to for verification purposes.

Letting users access one account on the door server from multiple BBSs doesn't solve the problem but might lessen it. This introduces other challenges.

accounts is what I was saying. The BBS should handle the user accounts,

and

the trust should be between the BBS server and the door server.

With the setup(s) that I'm familiar with, there is a trust relationship between
client BBS and door server, and accounts are handled by the client BBS. The BBS asserts user identity, the door server accepts it, and whatever trust mechanism is used makes this okay. Past that point you're getting into internals of how the door server does its business re: keeping track of users.

---
echicken
electronic chicken bbs - bbs.electronicchicken.com
* Origin: electronic chicken bbs - bbs.electronicchicken.com (21:1/164)

On 06 Mar 2020, Nitro said the following...

my error log is full of error cannot write to chat.dat or something like that, is that what is happening to you?

Are you using anything other than Mystic (third party scripts, mods, etc)

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/03/05 (Windows/64)
* Origin: Sector 7 (21:1/108)

No im not its a stock install, I think the exact error is chat2.dat.. I would cut and paste here but I have not figured out how to do that yet.

Regards,
Nitro

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A45 2020/02/18 (Windows/64)
* Origin: Abacus BBS (21:1/190)

|10On 06 Mar 2020, g00r00 said the following...|10

I also run Mystic and have no issues at all. I know I can rlogin fro Mystic to gamesrv, can the reverse happen, that is from another bbs rlogin to Mystic just for the games?

Yes. You can either make them a user account and they login straight to their start menu which is a list of doors they have access to, or you could do a little scripting and make it all transparent based on a door
ID passed via RLOGIN.

Now the second option I might have just broke in the test versions of A46 though. But its been available for years and no one has used it so I am not sure anyone ever would anyway.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/03/05 (Windows/64)

Thanks for feed back, unfortunately I was not aware of that capability of
the second option that was "broke" in latest alpha.

Ruben Figueroa aka Zazz
Mystic Prison Board Sysop
telnet://pbmystic.rdfig.net:24
Web: www.rdfig.net

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/02/27 (Windows/32)
* Origin: Mystic Prison Board BBS*Mesquite Tx (21:1/134)

On 06 Mar 2020, Nitro said the following...

my error log is full of error cannot write to chat.dat or something like that, is that what is happening to you?

yes

|08 .|05·|13∙|15Dr|07e|08am Ma|07st|15er|13∙|05·|08.
|08 °∙|05·|13∙° |13°∙|05·|08∙°
|11 DoRE|03!|11ACiDiC|03!|11Demonic
|08[|15bbs|09.|15dreamlandbbs|09.|15org|08]

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/02/29 (Windows/32)
* Origin: |08--[|15!|07dreamland BBS bbs.dreamlandbbs.org (21:1/163)