On 2018 Apr 04 17:11:44, you wrote to All:

 JD> Appreciate any comments or direction, and sorry if this is well-trod
 JD> ground in this echo.

actually, it hasn't really been trod on enough anywhere... it is also much
simplier than you're thinking...

older systems that still want to talk to analogue modems simply use a shim
to convert to telnet and a virtual modem...

in the windows world, the best and pretty inexpensive package is Mike
Ehlert's netserial and netfoss packages... netfoss handles the FOSSIL type
stuff... i don't recall if netserial is also needed or if they work
independently... they can be found on many BBSes as well as Mike's PCMicro
site...

in the OS/2 world, the best is still the SIO package from x00 guru Ray Gwinn...

in the linux world, most of the mailers and BBSes talk directly to the
whatever port they are configured on... there's no virtual modem or shim
needed... if you're running DOS doors on your native linux BBS, use DOSEMU
and set all doors to talk to COM1... there's a setting in DOSEMU, command
line i think, that handles the tying together of the fake comm port and the
telnet, ssh, or rlogin ports... native synchronet and mystic both operate
this way... synchronet, i know, offers telnet, ssh, rlogin, http, https,
ftp and ftps access to it...

in today's world, the mailers operate, mostly, on their own port (24554
default for binkp) and so there's no real need for the old style front end
mailer sharing the same port as the BBS... it can still be done, though...
i do it here with my frontdoor/remoteaccess setup running on OS/2... there
are not very many systems out there doing this so there's not much mail
being transferred over telnet mailer connections... the majority of today's
systems are using binkd or have a mailer that offers the binkp protocol...

i don't know if that answers your question(s) or not... hopefully it does
help some...

)\/(ark

Always Mount a Scratch Monkey
Do you manage your own servers? If you are not running an IDS/IPS yer doin'
it wrong...
... You folks telling me that intolerance is a Traditional Family Value?
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