A documentation for using 'bbs' is available online (and in directory 'help').

Some remarks:

usage: bbs [-s seclevel] [-l username] [-c conffile]

'seclevel' overwrites value from 'etc/users/', 'conffile' is a path to a
different 'bbs.conf' configuration file.
A level-0-user cannot change his environment permanently, especially not
his newsgroup subscription (but he can reach any group by entering its name).

'bbsd' should not be started directly, 'bbs-guest' is self-explanatory.

'bbsmail' should be started by sendmail, e.g. by an entry in 'aliases' like
guest:          "|/users/ftp/bbs/bbsmail guest"

The path to bbsmail have to be reachable by everyone to make sendmail work.
General usage: bbsmail [-c conffile] [-f file] recipient1 recipient2 ...
'conffile' is a path to a different 'bbs.conf' configuration file, 'file'
is a path to the e-mail ('-' or nothing means stdin), 'recipient' are the
name of a BBS-User to deliver mail to. 'bbsmail' will put the e-mail in his
messagebox for reading.

Sending SIGINT to bbsd let it dump its status into DUMPDIR (defined in
'local.h').
Sending SIGUSR1 to bbsd let it clean up its internal state if it is scrambeled
by an extraordinarily event (e.g. by SIGKILL killed bbs).

Symlinks to 'external directories':
A bbs-user can only access all files/directories inside 'rootdir',
defined in 'bbs.conf' (with a default asked by 'Configure'). If a symbolic
link points to file autside rootdir, it can be accessed. If a symbolic
link points to a directory, a user can only cd to it, if it is allowed in
'bbs.conf'. For this, 'rootdir' has an extendet semantic like PATH in a
shell:
primary_root:root_2:root_3:...:root_n
'primary_root' is the primary root, used at startup and as 'virtual mountpoint'
for the other.
If a symlink from inside primary_root points to a directory outside 
primary_root but inside root_2...root_n, 'bbs' do cd to the directory.
This appears like a mount for a bbs-user.
This feature is e.g. for CD-ROM's:
My primary_root is '/users/ftp/pub' and I have a CD-ROM mounted on demand
by an automounter (amd) on '/amd-mounts/cdrom0', if I follow a symlink
'/cdrom0'. To make it accessible for 'bbs', I added a symlink
'/users/ftp/pub/cdrom0 -> /cdrom0'
and modified rootdir in 'bbs.conf' to
'Rootdir:	/users/ftp/pub:/cdrom0

Permittions for sending E-Mail, reading/posting and News:
These are defined in 'users', Keyword 'Permittions:'
Syntax: pattern1:pattern2:...:pattern_n
For E-Mail:
Each pattern will be caseless compared to the address, if one pattern match,
the E-Mail can be send. The patterns have shell-pattern syntax by default but
if the pattern starts with an uppercase 'E', the rest are interpreted as an
extended regular expression (or whatever your computer uses). An uppercase
single 'L' will be interpreted for matching any address on your local host
(but no MX-records).
Caution: the patterns are compared to the complete addresses, i.e. including
recipients username (the only exception is the 'L' special).
Examples:
  *			-> any address
  E^[^@!]*$		-> any address without a '@' or '!' -> local addresses
  L			-> any local addresses
  *.de			-> any address in de - domain
For News:
The uppercase letters 'N' and 'P' are reserved for News: a single 'N' allows
reading News, an uppercase 'P' allows reading and posting News.
Example for an complete 'Permittions:'
Permittions: P:*
-> E-Mail to any address (*) and reading/posting any News (P).

