Last update 03-Sep-2005

How to setup an FTP server to work with MBSE BBS.

In order to let MBSE BBS and your FTP server to both function together you must organize a special file structure. Note that even if you don't setup an FTP server you must still create a structure like this for the fidonet mailer, if you don't, mail and files will get lost! This description is written for ProFTPD, on your distribution there may be another ftpd installed. Read the section for the webserver as well.

The filestructure I used is as follows:

/opt/mbse/ftp/pub/dos_util/dos_4dos	- Public download areas
         |   |   |        /dos_disk
         |   |   |        /dos_file
         |   |   /virnet/mcafee
         |   |   |      /win16
         |   |   |      /win32
	 |   |   /css/files.css         - Stylesheet for http download
         |   /incoming			- FTP public upload.
         /var/bso/outbound		- Your default outbound
             |   /outbound.009		- Outbound Zone 9
             /inbound		        - Inbound directory
             /private/upload		- Non-public download areas
             |       /sysop
             |       /logfiles
             /tic_queue			- Queue for .tic files.
To let this work you need to change the default anonymous directory of the ftp server to /opt/mbse/pub. As root, edit /etc/passwd with the vipw command. Look for the entry of the ftp user and change his homedirectory to /opt/mbse/ftp. You may also use the command usermod -d /opt/mbse/ftp ftp to do the same. For a start the default configuration file for ProFTPD will do fine. If you want to let users upload into the incoming directory, you need to change /etc/proftpd.conf file to allow that.

If another DOS/Windows style mailer has access to your MBSE outbound you must set the DOS path and Unix path in mbsetup (1.4.12 and 1.4.13) to "m:" and "/opt/mbse". Note that to get forwarding of .tic files to work the tic_queue must be a subdirectory of "/opt/mbse" too. You could actually use any drive letter for the DOS path.
This means that a fidonet file attach from the dos_4dos public download directory shall get the subject "M:\FTP\PUB\DOS_UTIL\DOS_4DOS\COMMAND.ZIP". Only use this if you need it!

As you can see, anonymous ftp users can't get to the mail, non-public downloads etc. Normally, your BBS users have unix accounts and will be able to do a ftp login and access any directory on your system. Because the bbs users have mbsebbs as their shell and this shell is not in the file /etc/shells the ftp daemon will not let the bbs users in. So even your own bbs users must login as anonymous to get files from the ftp server.

The following is a list of file permissions when using ProFTPD: 

Directory               	owner group mode perms
------------------------------- ----- ----- ---- ----------
/opt/mbse			mbse  bbs   0775 drwxrxxr-x
/opt/mbse/ftp			root  root  0755 drxxr-xr-x
/opt/mbse/ftp/pub		mbse  bbs   0755 drwxr-xr-x
/opt/mbse/ftp/incoming   	ftp   ftp   0755 drwxr-xr-x
Note that all subdirectories under ../pub also must be owned by mbse and group bbs and have at least mode 755 as long as it are real bbs subdirectories. The bbs will maintain these directories automatic and must have the rights to do so.

In the /opt/mbse/ftp/etc/group file, add the group bbs so that your directory listings give the proper groupname instead of a number.

If you want to increase the download counters when files are downloaded via ftp you must make sure that the ftp daemon logs the downloads to a xferlog file, for example /var/log/xferlog. This logfile must be readable by user mbse. Then in mbsetup menu 1.13.5 enter full filename and path to this logfile. The mball program will parse this file and increase the download counters for the files that are downloaded from the bbs.

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