This is the server implementation of ANSIWAVE BBS, along with the client networking / database code so they can be tested together. To build an executable ready for running on a server, do:

nimble build -d:release

To set up your first board, you'll need to create the sysop key for it. Using the ansiwave terminal client, run ansiwave --gen-login-key=~/.ansiwave/login-key.png on your local machine (you do not need to do this on the server you're running wavecore). It will create the filename specified, and will also print out your public key.

On the server, you now should create a directory called bbs, and inside of it, a directory called boards. Finally, create a diretory named after your public key inside of that. For example, if your public key is Q8BTY324cY7nl5kce6ctEfk8IRIrtsM8NfKL29B-3UE, you could do:

mkdir -p ~/bbs/boards/Q8BTY324cY7nl5kce6ctEfk8IRIrtsM8NfKL29B-3UE

Now run the wavecore server in the same working directory as bbs with no arguments. If it can't find the bbs directory, it will quit with an error. This directory will contain all the public files that must be served to users.

Never expose the wavecore server directly to external connections. Instead, put it behind a proxy server like nginx. Make your proxy server serve the bbs directory as static files, and additionally forward the /ansiwave endpoint to the wavecore server. For example, if you're using nginx, edit the config at /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default and somewhere in the server block add:

server {
        ...

        location /ansiwave {
                proxy_pass  http://127.0.0.1:3000/ansiwave;
        }

        root /path/to/bbs;

        ...
}

Assuming nginx is serving on port 80, you should then be able to connect to it with the ansiwave terminal client like this:

ansiwave http://localhost:80/#board:Q8BTY324cY7nl5kce6ctEfk8IRIrtsM8NfKL29B-3UE

Replace localhost with your public IP or hostname to connect to it remotely.

Assuming your ansiwave terminal client is using the sysop key you generated (i.e., it is located at ~/.ansiwave/login-key.png), you should see a create banner and create new subboard button. If these don't appear, the board in the URL you gave to ansiwave doesn't match your login key. Once you've made the subboards, other users can begin making posts there.

Unless you run with the --disable-limbo flag, all new users besides the sysop will start off in "limbo". This is a separate database, so incoming spam will not touch the main database. You can find these users by searching for "modlimbo" and selecting "tags". These users won't appear in the subboards yet. You can bring them out of limbo by going to their user page and hitting ctrl x (you must wait for the page to finish loading completely). A small edit field will appear, where you can delete the "modlimbo" tag and hit enter to complete.

You can tag users with "modhide" to hide their posts, or "modban" to prevent them from posting anymore. To give a user mod power, you can tag them with "modleader" or "moderator" (the former has the power to create other moderators, while the latter can only ban/hide people but cannot change anyone's moderator status). Lastly, you can tag a user with "modpurge" to completely delete their posts (only a modleader can do this).