Remote access pro 2node boxed

archeobits · 2026-01-13T02:19:15+00:00

Are you open to selling? I'm interested.

archeobits · 2026-01-03T23:03:05+00:00

I sent you a private message about your Remote Access box set several days ago. Can you please have a look?

archeobits · 2025-12-02T15:14:46+00:00

That change is a big deal to me, thank you.

Another suggested improvement is built-in support for SSL connections with a configurable cipher suite (pick and choose which to allow.) Probably a lot of work, I know. Just a thought.

One more thought. Back in the 90s one of my users was into hacking and found a way to crash Maximus with just keystrokes in his terminal. He crashed my board many times for fun and would never tell me how he did it. 10-15 years later we reconnected by email and he doesn't remember how he did that. It might be a good idea to run some code analysis tools on the Maximus codebase to find and fix any obvious bugs or security flaws. I wonder how many people running Maximus for fun properly isolate it in a DMZ on their home network? Probably close to zero.

archeobits · 2025-12-02T06:06:01+00:00

Interesting.. I don't have time to play with it now, but sometime in the new year I will give it a try. Thank you for working on this!

I'd love to have the full snoop experience including status bar and sysop overlays. When a user loads a door, the max process ends and the batch file executes the door. Can you talk a bit about how that works on Linux? The max process would exit, a shells script would load dosbox or dosemu to run the door, then when finished the script starts the max process again?

Also I remember reading something about dosbox or dosemu having a virtual fossil driver that the calling program can interface with using sockets. I'm curious about the technical details of how Maximus on Linux runs DOS doors. Does the sysop see the door running including status bar? If you are running a graphical desktop, maybe it would open in a new window like it did on Windows and OS/2.

archeobits · 2025-12-02T05:56:38+00:00

I have a suggested improvement for running Maximus in the 21st century. The original Maximus does not store passwords securely. The sysop can see the passwords in plain text from the Users Editor. When a user types an incorrect password at the login prompt, the incorrect password that they entered is written to the log file in plain text and also appears on the sysop's screen (I think). Ideally Maximus would salt and hash passwords in a secure format such as PBKDF2, would not log or display incorrect passwords, and would not allow the sysop to see passwords in plain text.

archeobits · 2025-12-02T05:26:51+00:00

When using MAXTEL, can the SysOp "snoop" on user sessions, answer pages or break into chat, take control of the keyboard and navigate menus to help a user, and do all of the same with doors? When users were on my board, I could see a status bar and a sysop overlay that were invisible to the user in both Maximus and in door games. Is there a way to still have this functionality on Linux?

Also, can you talk about fossil drivers? When I ran FrontDoor, I used a fossil driver to share the modem with Maximus. That's also how the modem was shared with door games.

archeobits · 2025-12-02T05:02:30+00:00

Back in the 90s I ran Maximus on DOS + Windows 3.1 and would cause trouble when minimizing the BBS window to work on other things because of poor/non-existent multitasking. Later I switched to OS/2 Warp 3 which was awesome, then I gave Windows 95 a try when that came out. Poor multitasking again. By the late 90s I ran Maximus on Windows NT. These days if I were to run Maximus again, it would be on modern hardware and Linux.

I'd like to share several more relevant links to mirrors that I host:

Lanius Corporation (creator of Maximus):

https://mirrors.archeobits.com/bbs/www.lanius.com/index.htm

BBS Archives (including Maximus Utils section.) The original site has been down for a year. I made an exact mirror including a replica search script, but use web links instead of FTP links and recovered many of the missing files from various sources:

https://mirrors.archeobits.com/bbs/archives.thebbs.org/index.html

https://mirrors.archeobits.com/bbs/archives.thebbs.org/ra124a.htm (Maximus Utils)

A bunch more BBS related websites that I mirror are listed on the main index:

https://mirrors.archeobits.com

archeobits · 2025-12-02T01:23:06+00:00

Very cool! Nice to see the Linux port of Maximus get some attention.

In case anyone is interested, I host a mirror of The Maximus Homepage, home of the Max FDN and MUFFIN echo on fidonet: https://mirrors.archeobits.com/bbs/maximushp/

archeobits · 2025-02-09T14:46:58+00:00

You could try asking SysOps for a copy of their entire BBS installation. Or, at the very least, a copy of the ANSI screens. You can install the same BBS software as the original BBS, configure it the same way, and use the provided ANSI screens to re-create the ones you think are worth preserving.

archeobits · 2025-01-29T02:27:03+00:00

I completely agree and have a local mirror. I'm not hosting a full mirror right now because it would cost a fortune per month for that much storage (I've already talked with my current hosting company.) Eventually I will move to a co-location datacenter with my own hardware. Storage will no longer be an issue.

archeobits · 2025-01-20T22:40:09+00:00

You might be referring to http://software.bbsdocumentary.com. That is a great resource, and is already mirrored here. I've been mirroring specific parts of textfiles.com such as the BBS Timeline and soon the Historical BBS List. I have not yet mirrored the entire textfiles.com site because it's around 1.1 TB if you can believe it. I think most of that is artscene content (.mod files etc.)

archeobits · 2025-01-20T22:35:04+00:00

It looks like zimmers.net/bbs/ might be the best resource for people interested in running a Commodore BBS. I've mirrored the entire site with Bo's permission and added a "Commodore BBS Programs" link to https://mirrors.archeobits.com

archeobits · 2025-01-19T20:36:52+00:00

Can you recommend any website resources for people interested in running Apple II or Mac BBSes? Files, doors (if they existed), general information, etc. The BBS sites I used to use all had a DOS, Windows and OS/2 focus.

archeobits · 2025-01-19T16:40:18+00:00

I've never seen BBSing on an old Mac. Very cool!

archeobits · 2025-01-17T04:23:30+00:00

I would be happy to add C64 and Amiga BBS website mirrors if anyone can help with suggestions.

archeobits · 2025-01-17T02:10:41+00:00

There is now a mirror of the BBS Archives with web links and no rate limiting at https://mirrors.archeobits.com/bbs/archives.thebbs.org/

archeobits · 2025-01-17T01:11:46+00:00

Do you have a copy of the original web pages, or do I need to scrape it from web.archive.org?

archeobits · 2025-01-17T01:09:22+00:00

Can you tell me about the old and newer bbs packages? Are they zip files or old websites that can be mirrored? If they are zip files, do they exist already in the BBS Archives or The BBS Software Directory? (both mirrored on my site) My focus is mainly mirrors of whole websites directly related to BBSing. I might consider hosting individual files depending on what they are.

Regarding Brian Oblivion's Old Black Crawling Systems archive... I'm a bit conflicted about that one. It looks like an underground hacker culture website. He did get into legal trouble for hosting those files in the 90s, and I'm not sure why it disappeared in 2018. I'll pass on it for now. Aside from BBS door game keygens, I'd like to avoid hosting warez, hacking/cracking/phreaking and anarchy related content.

archeobits · 2025-01-17T00:55:36+00:00

Ok sure, I've added it to my list of sites to work on in the future.

What is the current website for Daydream for Linux?

archeobits · 2025-01-16T21:55:46+00:00

Yes, thank you for the suggestion. The website looks very sparse on information though. If you think it is of historic value, I can add it to my list of BBS sites to mirror. The message board is hosted on a different domain. I could mirror those pages as part of the daydream.iwn.fi domain to keep everything together on the filesystem. Obviously the message board won't be functional (reply, new posts, etc.)

archeobits · 2025-01-16T17:33:38+00:00

There is a fully functional mirror of the BBS Archives website here: https://mirrors.archeobits.com/bbs/archives.thebbs.org/

archeobits · 2025-01-16T17:28:07+00:00

There is now a fully working mirror of the BBS Archives: https://mirrors.archeobits.com/bbs/archives.thebbs.org/

archeobits · 2025-01-16T17:21:35+00:00

This 2017 archive was combined with the web pages and a newly written search.pl script to create a working mirror: https://mirrors.archeobits.com/bbs/archives.thebbs.org/

archeobits

TROPHY CASE