• Some oddities with v1.12 A43

    From Zip@21:1/202 to g00r00 on Sat Aug 24 13:24:29 2019
    Hello g00r00!

    Thank you for this nice piece of software!

    I thought I would post the "oddities" I've encountered with v1.12 A43, for possible fixing in future versions.

    I'm running v1.12 A43 Linux 64-bit on Debian 10 ("Buster") on x86_64.

    MUTIL:

    * MUTIL "ExportEchoMail" never removes netmail.out (but should; it *does*
    remove echomail.out for echomails).

    * MUTIL always creates "busylog.txt" in the current directory, not in the
    logs directory specified in the configuration.

    * MUTIL requires mystic.dat to be in the current directory -- it ignores
    setting (e.g.) $mysticbbs=/mnt/bbs/mystic if /mnt/bbs/mystic is the Mystic
    BBS directory.

    * MUTIL "GenerateAllFiles" task always creates file list in current directory,
    even if filename is set to a full path.

    * MUTIL "PurgeUserBase" always complains about:
    + Aug 10 15:03:11 Process: Purge User Base
    + Aug 10 15:03:11 Results: Cannot purge less than 7 days in 0.01s
    ! Aug 10 15:03:11 Status: FATAL
    ...despite setting days = 180 or similar. It doesn't matter what value I set.
    Perhaps someone else has encountered this too?

    NODESPY:

    * NODESPY always creates "nodespy.phn" (the phone book) in the current
    directory (but perhaps this is intended).

    Documentation:

    * Documentation should mention what the current working directory for events
    is (is it always the Mystic BBS directory?).

    * Documentation should mention that on Linux, shell events might need ./mutil
    (or full paths to programs to run) for those events to work.

    * Documentation should mention that MIS needs to be restarted for any event
    changes to take effect. Are there other changes that also call for a
    restart?

    MYSTIC / UI:

    * (-cfg) After editing a DIR TOSS path for an EchoMail node, the field cannot
    be cleared, but always contains "/" if you try to clear it.

    * (-cfg) Trying to insert (/) at the top of a message base listing does not
    work (nothing happens). One has to arrow down some and then insert (/).

    * (-l) Sometimes local connections say that there is no time left immediately
    after "connecting". Not sure what could be causing this. Retrying
    (logging in again with "mystic -l") works fine.Has also happened sometimes
    shortly after logging in (and the user then is my SysOp account with 1000
    minutes left; no BBS events or shell events or other events with warnings
    that could explain this. Perhaps someone else here on the forum has
    encountered the same thing?

    E-mail:

    * SMTP using Microsoft's outlook.com appears not to work. During the SMTP
    session, after negotiating TLS usage, their SMTP server appears to expect
    another HELO:

    2019.08.05 14:11:44 SMTP R:220 HE1PR0102CA0017.outlook.office365.com
    Microsoft ESMTP MAIL Service ready at Mon, 5 Aug 2019 12:11:43 +0000
    2019.08.05 14:11:44 SMTP S:EHLO scbbs.nsupdate.info
    2019.08.05 14:11:44 SMTP R:250-HE1PR0102CA0017.outlook.office365.com Hello
    [83.254.233.176]
    2019.08.05 14:11:44 SMTP R:250-SIZE 157286400
    2019.08.05 14:11:44 SMTP R:250-PIPELINING
    2019.08.05 14:11:44 SMTP R:250-DSN
    2019.08.05 14:11:44 SMTP R:250-ENHANCEDSTATUSCODES
    2019.08.05 14:11:44 SMTP R:250-STARTTLS
    2019.08.05 14:11:44 SMTP R:250-8BITMIME
    2019.08.05 14:11:44 SMTP R:250-BINARYMIME
    2019.08.05 14:11:44 SMTP R:250-CHUNKING
    2019.08.05 14:11:44 SMTP R:250 SMTPUTF8
    2019.08.05 14:11:44 SMTP S:STARTTLS
    2019.08.05 14:11:44 SMTP R:220 2.0.0 SMTP server ready
    2019.08.05 14:11:44 SMTP S:AUTH CRAM-MD5
    2019.08.05 14:11:49 SMTP R:503 5.5.2 Send hello first
    [HE1PR0102CA0017.eurprd01.prod.exchangelabs.com]
    2019.08.05 14:11:49 Could not authenticate to SMTP server
    2019.08.05 14:11:52 Shutting down

    Events:

    * Some of the default events that come with Mystic BBS look for (and kill)
    netmail.in, but netmail.in is never generated by FIDOPOLL? Only echomail.in
    should be monitored (and killed)?

    MIS:

    * From experimenting with systemd, when creating a systemd service for MIS,
    it appears that when MIS forks, the PID file is not created by the initial
    MIS, but rather by one of the forked processes, could this be so?

    In my systemd service file, I had to add:

    ExecStartPost=/usr/bin/timeout -k 1 5 /bin/bash -c "while :; do [ -e
    /mystic/semaphore/mis.bsy ] && break; /bin/sleep 1; done; exit 0"

    ...to allow some extra time (here: max 5 seconds) for the PID file
    (e.g. PIDFile=/mystic/semaphore/mis.bsy) to be created. As systemd
    postpones PID file checking (or at least re-checks for PID file presence)
    until after finishing all ExecStartPost commands.

    With this addition, my systemd service for MIS works as intended.

    Just thought I would mention these before I forget about them. :)

    Thanks again!

    Best regards
    Zip

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A43 2019/03/02 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Star Collision BBS, Uppsala, Sweden (21:1/202)
  • From Zip@21:1/202 to g00r00 on Sat Sep 7 21:44:00 2019
    Hello g00r00 and everyone else!

    On 24 Aug 2019, Zip said the following...
    * SMTP using Microsoft's outlook.com appears not to work. During the SMTP
    session, after negotiating TLS usage, their SMTP server appears to expect another HELO:
    2019.08.05 14:11:44 SMTP S:STARTTLS
    2019.08.05 14:11:44 SMTP R:220 2.0.0 SMTP server ready
    2019.08.05 14:11:44 SMTP S:AUTH CRAM-MD5
    2019.08.05 14:11:49 SMTP R:503 5.5.2 Send hello first

    It appears that outlook.com has more "problems" -- they require at least the SMTP Envelope From (MAIL FROM) to match the outlook.com account name, and possibly also the mail From: header to match the outlook.com account name as well.

    As Mystic BBS sends out e-mails with SMTP Envelope From, Return-Path: and
    From: all set to "sysop@<Domain Name>", this effectively renders outlook.com accounts unusable with Mystic BBS.

    However -- if you send the e-mails through your local SMTP server (in my case Exim 4 on Debian), it might be possible to re-write the sysop@ e-mail address and replace it with the desired e-mail address (the e-mail address of the outlook.com account).

    I managed to do this by adding the following to my Exim 4 (split)
    rewrite configuration:

    [/etc/exim4/conf.d/rewrite/99_local]
    .ifndef NO_EAA_REWRITE_REWRITE
    # CUSTOM: Rewrite ALL envelope fields and headers (see /usr/local/etc/exim4/custom-email-addresses for more information)
    *@* "${lookup{$1@$2}lsearch{/usr/local/etc/exim4/custom-email-addresses}\
    {$value}fail}" Eh
    .endif

    [/usr/local/etc/exim4/custom-email-addresses]
    # CUSTOM: Rewriting of sender addresses (see
    /etc/exim4/conf.d/rewrite/99_local for more information)
    #
    # Format:
    # <sender address>: <replacement sender address>

    sysop@scbbs.nsupdate.info: scbbs-NO-REPLY@outlook.com

    Followed by running:

    update-exim4.conf
    systemctl restart exim4

    And of course configuring Mystic BBS to use the local SMTP server, e.g.:

    Domain Name │ scbbs.nsupdate.info
    Enable SMTP Send │ Yes
    SMTP Host │ 127.0.0.1
    SMTP IP Type │ IPV4 Only
    SMTP Login │
    SMTP Password │
    SMTP Auth Type │ None
    SMTP Use SSL/TLS │ No

    Seems to be working fine!

    (I also have some custom Exim 4 configuration for choosing different
    smarthosts and/or accounts/credentials for mail sent From: different e-mail addresses, but that has nothing to do with the actual rewriting of the "from" addresses described here.)

    Hope this helps if anyone else is experiencing problems using outlook.com e-mail accounts with Mystic BBS.

    It would of course be great if the "from" addresses were configurable in
    future versions of Mystic BBS; this would allow the e-mail feature to be used directly with more e-mail providers.

    Best regards
    Zip

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A43 2019/03/02 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Star Collision BBS, Uppsala, Sweden (21:1/202)