Teletype BBS Server

Telnet-accessible community BBS server built on the rubbs gem. ANSI-rendered retro terminal interface with a message board, wiki integration, and a game catalog.

Running

Docker Compose (recommended):

docker compose up --build

Directly (requires Ruby 3.x):

bundle install
ruby bbs.rb

Connect with:

telnet localhost 2323

Configuration

Copy env-example to .env and fill in the values:

Variable	Default	Description
WEBAPP_WIKIJS_TOKEN	—	Bearer token for Wiki.js API (optional)
MESSAGES_PATH	data/messages.dat	Path to the messages CSV file

Menu

Option	Description
Message Board	View the last 30 messages
New Message	Post a message (max 200 chars)
Blog Posts	Browse blog entries from Wiki.js
HowTo Guides	Browse how-to articles from Wiki.js
Game Catalog	Browse the Teletype game catalog
Online Users	List of currently connected users
System Info	Server stats

Project structure

bbs.rb              Entry point — BBS configuration and flow definition
lib/
  online_users.rb   Thread-safe connected-users map
  message_board.rb  CSV-backed message store
  wiki.rb           Wiki.js GraphQL client
  catalog.rb        Games API client
  display.rb        ANSI rendering helpers and content handlers
data/
  messages.dat      Message board records (auto-created)

Data

Messages are stored in data/messages.dat (plain CSV, auto-created on first post). The data/ directory is mounted as a Docker volume so records survive container restarts.