Hi there,

I've been playing around with various BBS software packages recently, and it seems Mystic is by far the best comprise between features and ease of use (from
a user's as well as a SysOp's perspective) these days.

However, I'm seeing a strange problem I have no explanation for: Incoming telnet connections get terminated immediately after they've been established. On a client, it looks like this:

(13:41:51) root@Roanoke:/usr/local/mystic # telnet -K BBS 2323
Trying 178.32.212.121...
Connected to BBS.NetWorkXXIII.de.
Escape character is '^]'.
Connection closed by foreign host.
(13:42:03) root@Roanoke:/usr/local/mystic #

The server itself sees the connection but drops it immediately. This is what the log has to say about it:

(13:42:03) root@Roanoke:/usr/local/mystic # grep -i telnet logs/mis.log
+ 2019.01.06 13:41:42 TELNET Listening on IPV4 port 2323 using interface "178.32.212.121"
+ 2019.01.06 13:42:03 TELNET > Connect on slot 1/1000 (178.32.212.121)
+ 2019.01.06 13:42:03 TELNET 1-HostName bbs.networkxxiii.de
+ 2019.01.06 13:42:03 TELNET 1-Creating terminal process
+ 2019.01.06 13:42:03 TELNET 1-Closing terminal process
+ 2019.01.06 13:42:09 MANAGER Shutdown: TELNET
(13:51:01) root@Roanoke:/usr/local/mystic #

No error messages whatsoever are being logged. Since I'm running Mystic under GNU/Linux binary emulation on NetBSD 8.0_STABLE amd64 x86_64, I would usually be willing to blame it on incompatibilities on some low-level device handling stuff and just call
it a day although establishing a telnet session through a regular TTY is not actually a very exotic thing, and MBSE for instance seems to be doing that just
fine (though through a standalone program being launched by inetd).

So I did a ktrace of a failed connection attempt which can be found here https://pastebin.com/Nb5nmTVK - the telnet session begins at line 5287 - to see
if there are any uncaught (and thus untranslated by the emulation layer) GNU/Linux system calls, but
the only calls that are actually not implemented are at the very bottom when I manually shut down MIS.

However, all the other networking stuff in MIS I've tried so far seems to work,
i. e. I can connect to the builtin FTP, NNTP, SMTP, POP3, and BINKP severs just
fine. It is really just the telnet server that gives me headaches.

Okay, that's not entirely true - SSH fails in pretty much the same manner. I can, however, connect and enter my password (and if I enter an incorrect password it refuses to log me on altogether):

(14:07:42) root@Roanoke:/usr/local/mystic # ssh BBS -c aes128-cbc -l thiesi thiesi@bbs's password:
Connection to bbs closed by remote host.
Connection to bbs closed.

I'm assuming both telnet and SSH share some code as in how the session is being
established and handled internally, although I don't understand why it would be
that much different from, say, FTP which is apparently working for me.

Long story short, I don't have any clue where else to look. I did notice MIS is
running with "loglevel 3", but I don't know if that's hardocded or if there is any way for me to increase that to get maybe some more insight.

Also, for the record: "mystic -l" works just fine (even via a telnet session if
run by inetd) so I am quite sure it has something to do with the networking code in MIS. Also, as you can see, I've the configured telnet server to listen on port 2323, but
as I'm currently running MIS as root that should not even be required (and doesn't seem to be an issue as FTP and NNTP and POP3 and SMTP all seem to work on their respective standard ports and the telnet behavior does not change when
using the standard
port of 23).

Oh, and one last remark: I also tried "downgrading" to older versions (as in I just did a quick vanilla install and fired up MIS) but to no avail. I think I went as far back as to 112a31.

Any help or pointers would be greatly appreciated.

--Mirko

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)

On 01/06/19, Mirko Thiesen said the following...

Any help or pointers would be greatly appreciated.

Take a look at your blacklist.txt file to make sure that your IP is not
listed there.

If you get your password wrong too many times, your IP can be listed there...

You might want to put your subnet in the whitelist.txt so that it doesnt
happen again...

...deon

_--_|\ | Deon George
/ \ | Chinwag BBS - A BBS on a PI in Docker!
\_.__.*/ |
V | Coming from the 'burbs of Melbourne, Australia

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A39 2018/04/21 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: Chinwag | MysticBBS in Docker on a Pi! (3:633/509.1)

On 06 Jan 2019, Mirko Thiesen pondered and said...

Any help or pointers would be greatly appreciated.

I agree with Dion...

I suggest stick to the latest Alpha which at the time of writing this is 1.12 A41 It's the best way to ensure you are using a version with the most bugs sorted :) Going back to something many iterations ago will just add layers of confusion to any problem that may have been fixed subsequently.

Here's how I have my telnet server configured

Active ³ Yes
ID ³ TELNET
Adapter Type ³ IPV4+IPV6
IPV4 Adapter ³ 0.0.0.0
IPV6 Adapter ³ ::
Port ³ 23
Max Allowed ³ 8
Auto IP Ban ³ 4 in 120 secs
Country Block ³ Yes
Send Blocked ³ No
Dupe IP Limit ³ 0


Hope that helps :)


ÄÄÄÄ Eùavon@bbs.nz ÄÄÄÄÄÄ Wùbbs.nz ÄÄÄ ÄÄÄÄ Kùkeybase.io/avon ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A42 2018/12/30 (Windows/32)
* Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (3:770/100)

(13:41:51) root@Roanoke:/usr/local/mystic # telnet -K BBS 2323
Trying 178.32.212.121...
Connected to BBS.NetWorkXXIII.de.
Escape character is '^]'.
Connection closed by foreign host.

No error messages whatsoever are being logged. Since I'm running Mystic under GNU/Linux binary emulation on NetBSD 8.0_STABLE amd64 x86_64, I would usually be willing to blame it on incompatibilities on some low-level device handling stuff and just call it a day.

first, what is the -K option ?? in linux mint, there is no "-K" option in telnet???
I would open up a terminal go to /usr/local/mystic and type ./nodespy
from there, hit space, and edit (alt-E) just the port #, can you login via localhost??? if so, check to be sure that port 2323 is open both in the firewalls (router & os)

Michael2

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A41 2018/12/27 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Mike's Mansion - Pdx,Or (1:340/201)

On Tuesday, January 8, 2019 at 5:23:23 PM UTC+1, Michael Pierce wrote:

(13:41:51) root@Roanoke:/usr/local/mystic # telnet -K BBS 2323
Trying 178.32.212.121...
Connected to BBS.NetWorkXXIII.de.
Escape character is '^]'.
Connection closed by foreign host.

No error messages whatsoever are being logged. Since I'm running Mystic under GNU/Linux binary emulation on NetBSD 8.0_STABLE amd64 x86_64, I would usually be willing to blame it on incompatibilities on some low-level device handling stuff and just call it a day.

first, what is the -K option ?? in linux mint, there is no "-K" option in telnet???

From the man page:

-K Specifies no automatic login to the remote system.

I have to do that so that the telnet client doesn't try to log me in automatically with my current credentials.

I would open up a terminal go to /usr/local/mystic and type ./nodespy
from there, hit space, and edit (alt-E) just the port #, can you login via localhost??? if so, check to be sure that port 2323 is open both in the firewalls (router & os)

Forgot to mention: The machine I'm trying to telnet from is actually the same the BBS is running on so the results when trying to connect through nodespy are
unfortunately the same as when I'm manually using telnet.

I've basically given up now - it seems to be indeed just some very weird incompatibility between the way telnet connections are being handled by MIS and
the emulation layer so it would have to "fixed" - if that's even possible - in the MIS source code. :'
(

--Mirko

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)

MIS and the emulation layer so it would have to "fixed" - if that's even possible - in the MIS source code. :'

so netbsd version of telnet is different than linux mint.

you mention "emulation layer"
are you running a VM ??
on the netbsd "machine" does netstat -ln list 2323 as a port?? are you
running as user or root?

if you run ./mis server, when it starts up, does it show the ports being opened??

if running Windows Subsystem for Linux, you will probably have to turn off
the windows firewall (completely) as the last time I tried, windows would not reconize ports being accessed.

Michael2

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A41 2018/12/27 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Mike's Mansion - Pdx,Or (1:340/201)

first, what is the -K option ?? in linux mint, there is no "-K" option i telnet???

There isn't really any sort of auto login function that I know for the telnet protocol.

Anyway, as far as connecting. Are you starting Mystic as root? Are you sure there is not anything else running on the same port? What does the mis.log
say when you start up the server, does it show it properly initializing the telnet server?

I've not tried to use Mystic in NetBSD so you are right that maybe its just some weird compatibility, but there are also many reasons that such a thing could happen.

Have you tried connecting using nodespy and not the command line telnet
client?

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A42 2018/12/31 (Windows/32)
* Origin: Sector 7 [Mystic BBS WHQ] (1:129/215)