Maximus BBS

Documentation for Maximus BBS — Next Generation

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Running MaxTel

Command-line options and operating modes for MaxTel

MaxTel has three operating modes: interactive (the default), headless, and daemon. Which one you use depends on how you want to manage your BBS.

Command-Line Options

Option Description Default
-p PORT TCP port to listen on 2323
-n NODES Number of nodes to manage (1–32) 4
-d PATH Base directory for the Maximus installation current directory
-m PATH Path to the max binary ./bin/max
-c PATH Path to the TOML config base config/maximus
-s COLSxROWS Request a specific terminal size (e.g., 132x60) auto-detect
-H Headless mode — no UI off
-D Daemon mode — fork to background (implies -H) off
-h Print usage and exit —

Quick Examples

# 8 nodes on the standard telnet port (needs root for port 23)
maxtel -p 23 -n 8

# Point at a specific Maximus installation
maxtel -d /opt/maximus -p 2323

# Force a wide terminal for the dashboard
maxtel -s 132x60

# Run headless on a server
maxtel -H -p 2323 -n 4

# Daemonize for unattended startup
maxtel -D -p 2323 -n 4 -d /opt/maximus

Interactive Mode

This is the default. When you launch MaxTel without -H or -D, it starts the ncurses dashboard and you’re immediately watching your BBS live. This is the mode you want when you’re sitting at a terminal — whether that’s a local console, an SSH session, or a tmux pane.

In interactive mode you can:

Press Q to shut down. MaxTel will terminate all running nodes gracefully before exiting.

For details on the dashboard panels and what they show, see The Dashboard. For the sysop keyboard commands (snoop, kick, restart, config), see Sysop Features.

Headless Mode

If you’re running MaxTel on a headless server, inside a container, or under a process supervisor like systemd, you don’t need the dashboard. Pass -H to skip the ncurses interface entirely:

maxtel -H -p 2323 -n 4

MaxTel prints a one-line confirmation to stderr and then runs silently:

MaxTel Headless Output

It still accepts connections, manages nodes, and writes to maxtel.log — you just don’t get the live UI. To stop it, send SIGTERM or SIGINT:

kill $(pgrep maxtel)

Running Under systemd

A minimal systemd unit file for headless MaxTel:

[Unit]
Description=MaxTel Telnet Supervisor
After=network.target

[Service]
Type=simple
ExecStart=/opt/maximus/bin/maxtel -H -p 2323 -n 4 -d /opt/maximus
WorkingDirectory=/opt/maximus
Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=5

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Save this as /etc/systemd/system/maxtel.service, then:

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable --now maxtel

Use journalctl -u maxtel -f to watch output, or tail -f /opt/maximus/maxtel.log for MaxTel’s own log.

Daemon Mode

Daemon mode (-D) is the classic Unix approach: MaxTel forks to the background, prints the child PID, and the parent exits. This implies headless operation — there’s no dashboard.

maxtel -D -p 2323 -n 4

Output:

maxtel daemon started (PID 12345), port 2323

This is convenient for simple startup scripts where you don’t have systemd:

# In rc.local or a startup script
if ! pgrep -x maxtel > /dev/null; then
    /opt/maximus/bin/maxtel -D -p 2323 -n 4 -d /opt/maximus
fi

To stop the daemon:

kill $(pgrep maxtel)

Tip: If you have systemd available, prefer headless mode (-H) with a systemd unit file instead of daemon mode. systemd handles restarts, logging, and process tracking more reliably than a bare fork.

See Also