ANetBBS

Status: stable (v1.1.67, November 2026)

A modern multi-node BBS for the classic FidoNet world. Web, telnet, SSH, rlogin, FTP, and PETSCII (C64/128) front-ends; FidoNet binkp + DOVE-Net QWK echomail; inter-BBS instant messaging via MSP (RFC 1312); a built-in collaborative wiki and RSS reader; door-game support including stock Synchronet .js doors (LORD ships pre-installed and plays out of the box).

Install — pick your path

All four paths land on the same BBS; pick whichever fits your box.

Your setup	Use
Linux, and sudo is fine	Quick install (Linux) below — the full install.sh wizard
Linux, but no root/sudo access	docs/01b-no-root-install.md — everything (web, telnet, SSH) using only your own account
Docker (any OS)	Quick install (Docker) below
Windows	docs/INSTALL-WINDOWS.md — WSL2 or Docker Desktop, both confirmed working

Quick install (Linux)

You'll want a domain pointed at this box if you want the web admin and public web pages working with HTTPS — modern browsers refuse plain-HTTP logins, so the wizard's production mode pulls a Let's Encrypt cert. Telnet, SSH, rlogin, BinkP, MRC, and MSP work fine without a domain; pick test mode at the prompt if you're behind NAT or just kicking the tires (web admin runs on http://localhost:8080).

tar xzf ANetBBS-v1.1.67.tar.gz
cd ANetBBS-v1.1.67
sudo bash install.sh

The wizard asks for BBS name, sysop, ports, services, and SSL/nginx preferences, then sets up the venv, systemd units, ufw rules, and (if enabled) a Let's Encrypt cert. A random admin password is generated and written to data/admin_password.txt — log in to the web admin and change it on first use.

For details on individual services and post-install configuration see docs/INSTALL.md.

Updating and uninstalling

To upgrade an existing install in place, download the new release tarball and run update.sh from inside it (backs up .env/database/systemd units first, then syncs files and restarts services):

tar xzf ANetBBS-v1.1.67.tar.gz
cd ANetBBS-v1.1.67
sudo bash update.sh

install.sh itself also takes a few flags:

sudo bash install.sh --uninstall  # Stops/disables services, then (after one
                                   # y/N confirmation) deletes the ENTIRE
                                   # install directory -- including data/ (DB,
                                   # uploads, echomail) -- with no separate
                                   # prompt or backup for that. Back up
                                   # data/ first if you want to keep it.
sudo bash install.sh --defaults   # Non-interactive install, all defaults
sudo bash install.sh --force      # Re-run install, overwriting an existing
                                   # .env and database (normally preserved)

Quick install (Docker)

Prefer containers? Two options — a single-container quick start, or a proper multi-container docker-compose deployment (recommended for anything beyond kicking the tires). Pre-built multi-arch images (amd64 + arm64, works on a Raspberry Pi) are published to GHCR on every release — no local build needed:

cp .env.docker.example .env      # fill in SECRET_KEY, BBS_NAME, etc.
cp docker/compose/mrc-bridge-config.json.example mrc-bridge-config.json
docker compose -f docker/compose/docker-compose.yml up -d

.env already points at ghcr.io/anetonline/anetbbs:latest by default — pin a specific version instead with ANETBBS_IMAGE_TAG=v1.1.67 (or whatever release you want). Testing a local change instead of a published image? docker build -f docker/Dockerfile -t anetbbs:local ., then set ANETBBS_IMAGE=anetbbs / ANETBBS_IMAGE_TAG=local in .env.

New to Docker? docs/22-containers.md has a full hand-held walkthrough (including the single-container option, what each command actually does, and troubleshooting).

Features

Messaging

• Local boards with categories, sticky/lock, threading, quote-reply, search, voting, ANSI banners, last-read tracking, moderators
• FidoNet netmail (binkp) — full kludge support (MSGID, REPLY, INTL, CHRS, FMPT/TOPT, PID, TZUTC), per-user AKAs, drafts, soft-delete
• FidoNet echomail with AreaFix robot (in/out), bad-area sysop review
• Hub mode — act as a BinkP echomail hub for downstream nodes; per-node echo area subscriptions, outbound hold queue, SEEN-BY aware fan-out tosser. Also a QWK hub: HTTP download/upload endpoints, per-node conference subscriptions with high-water mark tracking. Admin → Echomail → Hub.
• ANotherNetwork (Zone 1200) — ANetBBS's own echomail network, seeded on every fresh install. 26 message areas across 9 categories (General, Technology, BBS Scene, Retro, Hobby, Trading, Data, SysOp, Test) plus 9 TIC file-echo areas (nodelists, infopacks, BBS software, doors, ebooks, Linux, retro, ANSI art). Join via BinkP (1200:1/1) or QWK/FTP (hub ID: ANET). Hub: bbs.a-net.fyi. Apply for a node number. Public nodelist at /admin/echomail/hub/nodelist.
• DOVE-Net QWK — fetch + REP packet upload, CONTROL.DAT-driven area auto-create, conf# mapping, manual quick-add for known confs
• Private messages between local users
• Inter-BBS Instant Messaging (MSP / RFC 1312) — TCP/18, with the Synchronet sbbsimsg.lst directory mirrored daily and a SYSTAT (UDP/11) Active-User responder
• CP437 + ANSI rendering in every message body (proper box-draw, 16-color SGR → HTML spans)

Doors

• Game Center — 21 built-in browser games (puzzle, action, cards/ casino, strategy, RPG) playable with no telnet client or per-game setup: Hangman, Trivia, Number Guesser, Snake, Tic Tac Toe, Memory Match, Typing Speed Test, Minesweeper, 2048, a text adventure, Klondike Solitaire, Video Poker, Texas Hold'em, Blackjack, Slot Machines, Galaga, Tetris, Breakout, ANetDarkForces (a 10-sector raycaster FPS), an Ebook Reader (Project Gutenberg), and Meadowlark Valley — an original town/farm-builder sim with auto-harvesting farmer NPCs and real-time co-op building. 13 of them (Hangman through Breakout) can be played with no account at all — a per-game admin toggle, off for anything using the wallet economy or a persistent save. See docs/24-game-center.md.
• DOSBox-staging / dosbox-x / vanilla DOSBox auto-detect, TCP nullmodem bridge to the user's PTY
• Mystic Pascal Script (.mps) and Mystic Python (.mpy) doors
• Synchronet .js doors — runs via real jsexec when found at $SBBSEXEC/jsexec or /sbbs/exec/jsexec; otherwise falls back to a Node.js + compatibility shim that the alpha 2 work expanded enough to fully run LORD (Legend of the Red Dragon — Synchronet's JS port, pre-installed, no Synchronet required)
• Native binary doors with DOOR.SYS / DOOR32.SYS / DORINFO / CHAIN.TXT / SFDOORS.DAT drop files
• rlogin door bridge (door_rlogin) — connects out to a remote BBS's own door server (Synchronet xtrn, DoorParty, etc.) instead of running a local subprocess. A-Net Online's game server ships pre-installed and active by default, same as LORD.
• Web terminal pinned to 80×25 with the full CGA palette so doors draw the same way as on a 1990s VGA terminal — Violet's portrait in LORD looks like Violet's portrait in LORD

Wiki

• Full collaborative wiki at /wiki/ with markdown bodies, [[Page]] cross-links, per-page revision history, unified-diff compare, revert, full-text search, recent changes, wanted/orphan pages
• 52 seeded pages cover connecting, every messaging subsystem, doors (including a LORD recipe + the DosBridge), echomail/BinkP setup, NodeSpy, backup, full architecture, sysop guide, glossary, FAQ
• Anyone can read; logged-in users can edit (configurable minimum post count + account age); admins can lock/delete/rename

RSS Reader

• Built-in feed aggregator for BBS-scene news + anything else
• Web at /rss/ (river or per-feed), terminal main-menu R
• Background poller on a single shared interval, sanitized HTML via bleach
• Per-user unread state; X-News (x-bit.org) seeded by default

Files

• Per-area file bases with users / sysop / none upload permissions
• TIC ingest from FTN peers + outbound TIC hatching to downstream subscribers
• Auto-extract description from FILE_ID.DIZ, README.md/README.txt, DESCRIPT.ION inside zip / tar.{gz,bz2,xz} / 7z / rar / lha archives
• Optional ClamAV virus scan on upload

Image galleries

• Web gallery at /gallery/ — paginated thumbnail grid, full-screen modal viewer, lazy-loaded thumbnails. Browser-native rendering for full image quality (no terminal-art middleman).
• Admin at /admin/galleries/ — add / remove / edit collections (label, slug, filesystem path, sort order, active flag) and per-gallery file management with drag-and-drop multi-file upload, individual file delete, pagination.
• Storage: galleries are listed in gallery-config.json at the BBS install root (auto-seeded on first run). Files live wherever you point the path; the same path can be served by any other tool too.
• Terminal viewer at $INSTALL_DIR/anet-gallery.sh (default /opt/anetbbs/anet-gallery.sh) — bash script using chafa (Unicode blocks, works in any terminal) or img2sixel (sixel-capable terminals like SyncTERM, foot, mlterm). Standalone — not wired into the games menu.

MRC

• WebSocket bridge to the global MRC network (mrc.bottomlessabyss.net) — one BBS-level hub connection shared across all users
• Web MRC chat at /mrc/ (browser tab)
• Terminal MRC chat for telnet/SSH/rlogin — talks through the same local bridge so terminal + web users share rooms and a single trust identity. anetmrc-style stationary status bar at row 1 (room, topic, mention badge, latency), chat scrolls below it, input line pinned to the bottom row. Full slash-command roster (/identify /msg /me /join /list /who /chatters /motd /banners /topic /lastseen /afk /back /status /roomconfig /termsize /trust /broadcast /raw …). Tab-completes usernames seen in chat or via /who. ←/→ arrow keys for outgoing text color, masked password input on bare /identify, @mention highlighting with bell, 140-char outgoing cap with word-boundary auto-split, HH:MM timestamps on every line, ANSI-aware word-wrap with continuation indent

Front-ends

• Web (Flask + SocketIO) on port 5000
• Telnet (port 2233), SSH (2234), rlogin (513) — share the same user database
• FTP (port 21) — serves every active FileArea as a top-level directory. Anonymous read access to public areas; authenticated users upload subject to per-area upload_permission. Optional FTPS via the same Let's Encrypt cert nginx uses. Earns the FTN nodelist IFC flag.
• Terminal UX — single-key hotkey menus (no Enter required), screen cleared between menus, Q logoff confirms Y/N, color rendering across Boards / Echomail / Bulletins / Who's Online / Sysop Tools / Profile / PM compose / Inter-BBS IM compose / inboxes. Paged area picker for long echomail networks. Notification banner at login (*** You have new: 3 PMs, 1 InterBBS IM). Synchronet @CODE@ and Mystic |XX display codes in welcome / goodbye / menu ANSI screens.
• PETSCII (C64/128) — dedicated plain-text rendering path for real Commodore hardware and PETSCII terminal emulators, two opt-in ports (40-col / 80-col, off by default). Boards, echomail (network-first picker), PMs, file browsing + XMODEM download, who's-online, profile, Number Guessing, and sysop-buildable custom menus at /admin/petscii-menus/. See docs/25-petscii.md.
• Live "X just logged in/out" presence alerts — classic multi-node BBS behavior: every other currently-online user sees it in real time, wherever they are (a menu, a board, chat) — terminal and web alike, regardless of which side someone connects from.
• Watch It Live (/watch, off by default) — a public, no-login page showing real-time who's-online activity, styled as a retro terminal display, meant to be shared or embedded off-site. See docs/29-watch-live.md.
• Postcards (/postcards) — any logged-in user composes retro CP437 art with the same grid editor as the admin ANSI Editor, then gets a public share link and a downloadable PNG for sharing off platform. See docs/30-postcards.md.

Achievements

• 18 built-in badges (First Login, 30-Day Caller, First Post, Frequent Poster, Centurion Poster, PM Sent, Echomail Hatchling, Netmail Pioneer, Town Crier, Veteran, High Scorer, Game Explorer, Door Diver, Wiki Editor, Wiki Scribe, File Uploader, Librarian, Town Legend) — checked and awarded automatically on login (or the next board post/PM/shoutbox post after qualifying), with a flash notice on new unlocks
• Shown on each user's Profile page and rolled up into a site-wide count on the public Stats page
• Sysop-extensible — new rules are plain Python functions in anetbbs/features/achievements.py

Sysop tools

• ANetBBS Pulse — read-only, mobile-first status dashboard at /admin/pulse/, installable to a phone's home screen (Android + iOS). Live callers, service health, disk/uptime, 24-hour activity — no service-control actions, no shell, nothing writable.
• Auto-social-posting queue (/admin/social/, off by default) — a new #1 leaderboard score or a round-number BBS milestone queues a draft Bluesky/Mastodon post (rendered image + editable caption) for a sysop to review, plus a manual compose option for anything else (a version bump, a new feature); nothing posts automatically, and queuing a draft notifies every admin. See docs/31-social-posting.md.
• Echomail dashboard with poll logs, AreaFix log, bad-areas review
• File-area admin
• Manual +TAG/-TAG AreaFix-to-hub form
• BBS directory browser with live who's online queries
• anetbbs-cfg — standalone full-screen terminal admin tool (SCFG / mystic -cfg style), run directly on the server console, near-full parity with the web admin: boards & message areas, echomail networks/ areas/hub (AreaFix log, poll log, QWK node requests), file areas & bulletins, users & security (access levels, password reset, IP bans, word filters, login auto-ban, registration log), games (door games, categories, active sessions), image galleries, BBS/PETSCII menu editors, scheduled events, graffiti wall moderation, login modules, last-callers log, backup browsing, translations, and .env system settings — no browser required. python -m anetbbs.cfg from a checkout, or anetbbs-cfg once installed.
• anetbbs-monitor — a console-only sysop dashboard (uMonitor / nodespy style): a live, auto-refreshing node list (who's connected, on what protocol, from where, doing what, with a kick action), a Today/Total activity stats panel, a scrollable bbs.log viewer, one-key access to anetbbs-cfg, a light/dark theme toggle, and mouse support — no browser required. python -m anetbbs.monitor.app from a checkout, or anetbbs-monitor once installed.

Documentation

• docs/00-overview.md — architecture + table of contents
• docs/INSTALL.md — full install
• docs/INSTALL-PI.md — Raspberry Pi install guide (hardware, DDNS, SSD, troubleshooting)
• docs/INSTALL-WINDOWS.md — Windows install guide (WSL2, Docker Desktop)
• docs/PORTS.md — every port the BBS uses
• docs/SECURITY.md — security defaults + production hardening
• docs/CHANGELOG.md — version history
• docs/MSP_LOOPBACK_TEST.md — verify MSP works
• docs/06-echomail.md — echomail config
• docs/07-file-areas.md — file area config
• docs/13-image-galleries.md — image galleries
• docs/25-petscii.md — PETSCII (C64/128) terminal support

License

See LICENSE. ANetBBS bundles some third-party components (fonts, a Synchronet JS compatibility layer used to run Synchronet door games, and the LORD door game) under their own separate terms — see NOTICE for the full breakdown.

Status / Caveats

Known rough edges:

• MSP/SYSTAT need privileged ports (11/18) — see docs/INSTALL.md for setcap / systemd / iptables-redirect options.
• Synchronet stock .js doors: LORD is verified end-to-end under the Node shim. Other Synchronet doors mostly work but each one tends to exercise a different corner of the API — file an issue if a door dies with a ReferenceError and the missing stub will get added.
• Single-process rate limits — fine for one gunicorn worker; needs an external store for multi-worker setups.

Issues and patches welcome. Chat/discussion: IRC at irc.a-net.online (port 6667 plain, 6697 SSL), room #ANetBBS.