paul@actrix.co.nz (Paul Gillingwater) (06/29/90)
Hi there, I'm running XBBS under ISC 2.02, with elm as a mailer. I'd like to do the following: 1) all users login as "bbs" (only one login) 2) no users gain access to shells unless permitted (scratch vi, hack elm) 3) elm should read username from environment variable I tried setting up elm with various environment variables, e.g. HOME=/bbs/users/Paul.Gillingwater MAIL=/bbs/mail/Paul.Gillingwater This introduces a few problems. Specifically, 14 character file names mean that there is a namespace collision with the mailbox and its lockfile. ANother related problem is how do I address mail in and out? I'm following the path of using IDA sendmail, and defining the bbs as a sub-domain, e.g. Paul.Gillingwater@bbs.actrix.co.nz We haven't quite got this going yet. Can someone suggest some solutions to the above? I'd rather not give a separate login to all users, because of the admin overhead. Thanks in advance. -- Paul Gillingwater, paul@actrix.co.nz
taylor@limbo.Intuitive.Com (Dave Taylor) (06/30/90)
Paul Gillingwater asks about a few things related to having Elm and
email within a single 'bbs' user account...
My first question, Paul, is does XBBS work where you log in to the
system (as 'bbs') then have to log in separately to the BBS system?
That is, does it have its own "password" style file? If so, does
it assign unique id numbers for each user?
If it does, then what I would recommend is:
- Use the id number as the name of their mailbox & home directory
- Hack into the sendmail to add a special case at the end of all
the regular delivery stuff, just before it's about to bounce the
message, to call your own delivery program.
- That delivery program would then look up the name in the XBBS password
file, and if valid, deliver it to the mailbox based on id number. If
not, it could do some minimal spelling correction checks and such, and
if still not deliverable, bounce the message with a friendly error msg
like "the user you specified isn't known to this BBS system. Please try
using a different name or different spelling of this name. If you
think they should be able to receive mail this way, please forward this
entire message to postmaster@bbs.actrix.co.nz".
By the same token, you could move people into specific subdirectories
as their "home" directory using the same name -> user id mapping.
What kind of system are you running that you're hitting the old System V
14 character limit on filenames? A Xenix-type OS? With HP's HP-UX, at
least, you can reconfigure your disk to have long Berkeley-style names..
Finally, for mail going out, simply define a new program that Elm
drops its outbound mail into (instead of sendmail). That program could
simply grab the users id value, map it into a name, then write an
appropriate From: line and hand the message straight to sendmail!
Good luck!
-- Dave Taylor
Intuitive Systems
Mountain View, California
taylor@limbo.intuitive.com or {uunet!}{decwrl,apple}!limbo!taylorles@chinet.chi.il.us (Leslie Mikesell) (07/01/90)
In article <1990Jun29.074034.12656@actrix.co.nz> paul@actrix.co.nz (Paul Gillingwater) writes: >I'm running XBBS under ISC 2.02, with elm as a mailer. I'd like >to do the following: >1) all users login as "bbs" (only one login) >2) no users gain access to shells unless permitted (scratch vi, hack elm) >3) elm should read username from environment variable >I tried setting up elm with various environment variables, e.g. >HOME=/bbs/users/Paul.Gillingwater >MAIL=/bbs/mail/Paul.Gillingwater >This introduces a few problems. Specifically, 14 character file names >mean that there is a namespace collision with the mailbox and its lockfile. >ANother related problem is how do I address mail in and out? I'm following >the path of using IDA sendmail, and defining the bbs as a sub-domain, e.g. >Can someone suggest some solutions to the above? I'd rather not give >a separate login to all users, because of the admin overhead. This is the first time I've heard anyone suggest that setting up a custom sendmail configuration is easier than maintaining a password file. I'm pretty sure you could do what you want in a variety of ways using smail 3.1 but again, it isn't going to be any easier than just updating the passwd entries. You have to keep track of them somewhere. What could be easier than a single flat file? You can, of course, dump everyone in the same home directory with the bbs as their shell. Les Mikesell les@chinet.chi.il.us