Build one

A board of your own, on hardware from about $15.

Nothing here is a kit and nothing is soldered to anything. If you have an ESP32 dev board in a drawer, you already have most of it.

What you need

SSH is here: encrypted connections on every ESP32-S3 board, from 1.1.2. How to connectFor secure calls, an ESP32-S3 board is recommended: S3 boards run SSHAn encrypted way of connecting to a board, beside telnet: what you type is scrambled on the way, so only the board can read it., so everything between a caller's computer and the board is encrypted end to end, and plain telnet stays open on every board for the machines that can't encrypt.

• A compatible ESP32 board. A small computer with Wi-Fi built in, on a circuit board with a USB socket. Not every ESP32 can run the BBS, so choose one of the boards it has been tested on.
• A USB data cable. Some cables only charge, and your computer never sees the board through one of those. A bare ESP32 module, rather than a dev board, needs a little more.
• 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi. The board's radio cannot join a 5 GHz network, and a router that offers both bands under one name is fine.

No camera on your board? Any board can add a camera sat later, from firmware 1.2.0: see Adding to it.

Choose a board

Adding to it

A board is whole the day you install it. Everything here is optional, and all of it can come later.

For developers: build from source

You need PlatformIO and git. For the ESP32 dev board:

git clone https://github.com/rwmech/unleashed_BBS
cd unleashed_BBS
cp data/system.cfg.example data/system.cfg
pio run -t flashall
pio device monitor

data/system.cfg holds the timezone, the limits and the rest of the settings. For the Waveshare S3, add -e ws_s3_lcd147 to both pio commands. If it will not start writing, hold BOOT, tap RESET, let go of BOOT and try again, as the installer page explains.

A new board has no network yet. Give it one from the installer: press Update my board, which never erases anything, and use its Wi-Fi step. Or fill in wifi_ssid and wifi_password in data/system.cfg before you flash.

The console tells you the address it came up on:

online 192.168.0.109  dial in: telnet 192.168.0.109 6400

The activity LED holds on for a second once the board is listening, so you know it is ready without dialling in to find out.

On a normal home network the board also answers to unleashed.local, which is the hostname setting doing double duty as the DHCP and mDNS name.

On a bare module

A bare ESP32 module, without a dev board around it, also wants 3V3, ground, EN pulled up, GPIO0 to ground while you flash it, and a USB-serial adapter on the console pins.

Joining it

Any telnet clientA free app for joining a board: it connects to the board's address and shows its screens., a free app for joining, will do, and SyncTERM is the one worth installing on a computer if you have none; on a phone, TERMinator. So does an Atari 800 through a FujiNet, an Apple II with an Uthernet card, or a VT220 on a serial adapter. Before you connect, read what happens on your first call.

Choose an app for joining

Keeping it

A new version does not cost you the accounts, the settings or the mail: pio run -t flashall rewrites the firmware and the screens and cannot reach them. The one exception is the Waveshare S3 or the Makerfabs going to 1.1.2 for the first time, whose flash is laid out anew: back up first. An update from the browser keeps them too, and the upgrade page says how, and how to take a backup first.

Letting people outside your home join

Port forwardingA router setting that lets people outside your home reach one device inside it, on one numbered port., one setting on your router, is what lets people outside your home reach the board. It opens a door in your network, and what they type over telnet is not encrypted; on an ESP32-S3 board they can call over SSH instead. The port forwarding page starts with what that risks, and the privacy page says what it means for your visitors.

From firmware 1.2.2 the board can ask your router to do it, which on a router that answers means there is no menu to find. The door it opens is the same door either way, which is why the page below still comes first.

Read before you forward a port

Listing it in the directory

Switch on the announce plugin with CONFIG announce, and the board is listed after three hours of heartbeats. The rest is on the getting listed page.

The source

Everything is at github.com/rwmech/unleashed_BBS, GPL v3 or later. The directory at unleashedbbs.net is at github.com/rwmech/unleashed_directory under the same licence, so you can run your own directory and never speak to us again.