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  • Re: Crazy BBS connections

    From Tracker1@VERT/TRN to dragon on Mon Apr 4 18:08:39 2022
    On 4/2/22 09:31, dragon wrote:
    I disagree... I tend to prefer the "standard" ports and just
    accept or blacklist the bot stuff.

    i'm with ya on that. using non standard ports when you have users
    is really stupid. its hard enough getting them to call.

    There are hundreds of BBSes on non-standard ports in my database. Are
    all these sysops "really stupid"?

    I wouldn't say stupid... only that discoverability is slightly harder.
    Of course it's much harder if you aren't running http/https on the
    default port(s).

    I would probably just pay for ngrok pro, a similar service, or host on a
    VPS if your residential ISP won't let you use those ports.
    --
    Michael J. Ryan - [email protected]
    ---
    � Synchronet � Roughneck BBS - roughneckbbs.com
  • From poindexter FORTRAN@VERT/REALITY to Tracker1 on Tue Apr 5 08:09:00 2022
    Tracker1 wrote to dragon <=-

    I would probably just pay for ngrok pro, a similar service, or host on
    a VPS if your residential ISP won't let you use those ports.

    Funny you should mention ngrok - I just saved this to my pocket account to read later:

    https://jerrington.me/posts/2019-01-29-self-hosted-ngrok.html

    Roll your own Ngrok with Nginx, Letsencrypt, and SSH reverse tunnelling

    Ngrok is a fantastic tool for creating a secure tunnel from the public web
    to a machine behind NAT or a firewall. Sadly, it costs money and it���s proprietary. If you're a developer, odds are that you're already renting a server in the public cloud, so why not roll your own ngrok?

    It turns out that you can do it using free, off-the-shelf tools, with no sophisticated scripting required!


    ... Humanise something free of error
    --- MultiMail/DOS v0.52
    � Synchronet � .: realitycheckbbs.org :: scientia potentia est :.
  • From Tracker1@VERT/TRN to poindexter FORTRAN on Tue Apr 5 16:32:47 2022
    On 4/5/22 08:09, poindexter FORTRAN wrote:
    I would probably just pay for ngrok pro, a similar service, or host
    on a VPS if your residential ISP won't let you use those ports.

    ...

    https://jerrington.me/posts/2019-01-29-self-hosted-ngrok.html

    Roll your own Ngrok with Nginx, Letsencrypt, and SSH reverse
    tunnelling

    Cool, been thinking of doing the same on a cheap VPS.

    Ngrok is a fantastic tool for creating a secure tunnel from the
    public web to a machine behind NAT or a firewall. Sadly, it costs
    money and it's proprietary. If you're a developer, odds are that
    you're already renting a server in the public cloud, so why not
    roll your own ngrok?

    It turns out that you can do it using free, off-the-shelf tools,
    with no sophisticated scripting required!

    In fairness I did mention a VPS option, though specifically for hosting.
    Was thinking of something similar instead of NGrok myself, just passing
    80, 443, etc to my local system(s) where 80/443 would be a configured reverse-proxy on my local side.

    Probaly Caddy over NginX as it's much easier to configure/use.
    --
    Michael J. Ryan - [email protected]
    ---
    � Synchronet � Roughneck BBS - roughneckbbs.com
  • From Moondog@VERT/CAVEBBS to dragon on Fri Apr 8 10:57:00 2022
    Re: Re: Crazy BBS connections
    By: dragon to Digital Man on Sun Apr 03 2022 10:10 pm

    On 4/3/2022 6:02 PM, Digital Man wrote:
    Re: Re: Crazy BBS connections
    By: Andre to dragon on Sun Apr 03 2022 07:44 am

    > > I've been managing and securing IP networks for nearly 30 years.
    >
    > As they say, there's always a bigger fish.
    >
    > The concept of moving to nonstandard ports is dated and not useful any
    > It accomplishes nothing other than making it more difficult for users
    > connect. For all the people that say otherwise, I'll wait to see all o
    > examples
    > of exploited BBS systems that were using 22/23.

    I think the reason that some sysops use non-standard ports is to cut down

    That's actually what the original poster seemed to be asking about and
    what I thought I was providing an OPTION for him to deal with it.


    When I explain ports to my non-technical friends and co-workers, I explain
    the system being a large factory building with mulitple doors dedicated to specific customer or vendor traffic. If a caterer is bringing in food, you wa nt him to use the dedicated kitchen entrance. That may bring up the
    argument that someone who wants to sneak in the building knows doors 22 or
    23 are the kitchen entrance. You may have to lock those doors down and tell the caterer to use another entrance. Is this an issue? Not really if the caterer knows which door to bring the food in. That information is provided
    by the building manager. If you want to invite a select group of people in, you would have to advertise wherever else these people go and inform them as
    to which non-common door to enter from.

    ---
    � Synchronet � The Cave BBS - Since 1992 - cavebbs.homeip.net
  • From Andre@VERT/RDOMENTR to Moondog on Fri Apr 8 16:34:21 2022
    That may bring up the
    argument that someone who wants to sneak in the building knows doors 22 or
    23 are the kitchen entrance. You may have to lock those doors down and tell the caterer to use another entrance. Is this an issue? Not really if the caterer knows which door to bring the food in. That information is provided by the building manager. If you want to invite a select group of people in, you would have to advertise wherever else these people go and inform them as to which non-common door to enter from.

    To continue with your analogy. You're only keeping out the people who would normally park in the parking lot and only check the front door with the sign on it that says kitchen.

    Any idiot who wants to break in can just walk around the building and see where the other doors are, walk up to them, and rattle each one to see if it's
    locked or not.

    The caterers have a key to the door they're supposed to enter because you
    gave it to them. Doesn't make a difference at all which door you give them a key to. They're all locked doors and they all work the same way.


    - Andre

    ---
    � Synchronet � Radio Mentor BBS - bbs.radiomentor.org