Wed Jun 11 13:47:53 EDT 2003

This is a rough summary how to build and install Maximus and Squish 
under ideal conditions.

It is unlikely that these directions will work for you, but they should
give you an idea of what needs to be done.

Feedback is welcome, particularly in the form of new-style context diffs.

1. You need the Maximus source distribution, presumably you
   have it, because that's where this file is. It will have
   a name like max-unix-3.03b.tar.gz. Once we are building
   under non-UNIX platforms again, we will drop the '-unix'
   from the archive name.

   If you don't have a Maximus source distribution, you can
   get it from maximus.sourceforge.net, in the file releases
   area.

   If you would like the latest-and-greatest (bleeding edge)
   versions of Maximus and Squish for UNIX, you can check them
   out from the CVS on SourceForge.

   # wget http://wes.zapto.org/~wes/maximus/max-unix-stable.tar.gz

   or

   # cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.maximus.sourceforget.net:/cvsroot/maximus co maximus

2. Untar the max-3.03-etc.tar.gz from the same directory as
   as the source distribution, or from the same directory
   you issued your CVS checkout. This will unpack the
   install_tree in maximus/, which contains all the config
   files Maximus needs (*.mec, *.ctl, etc).

   # wget http://wes.zapto.org/~wes/maximus/max-3.03-etc.tar.gz
   # tar -zxvf max-3.03-etc.tar.gz
   # cd maximus

3. Edit install_tree/etc/max.ctl, and customize it to suit your
   needs. At the very least, put in your own name and pick a
   pick a name for your BBS.

   # vi install_tree/etc/max.ctl

4. Run the configure program. The default installation path is
   /var/max -- to change this, run ./configure --prefix=/new/path

   # ./configure

5. If it said "Configuration Complete", all is well. Now you need to
   build Maximus and Squish

   # make build

6. Hopefully everything built. Now you should make a bbs user and group.
   Syntax will vary slightly from one UNIX variant to another. After
   that, create the installation directory (PREFIX) so that you can
   actually install the software.

   # su
   # groupadd bbs
   # useradd -g bbs -d /var/max bbs
   # passwd bbs
   # mkdir -p /var/max
   # chown bbs:bbs /var/max
   # su bbs

7. Install Maximus

   # make install
   # exit

8. If that worked properly, your Maximus control files will be installed,
   and you'll be prompted with "Your Name [Y,n]". Follow the prompts
   until you hit the main menu. This step sets you up as the Sysop in 
   etc/user.bbs.

9. Choose G)oodbye to exit Maximus. Or maybe hit V)ersion first, just
   to see something few have seen before. :)

10. You need to find a way to make your BBS start automatically, and
    restart when it crashes. One way to do this is as follows:

   # vi /etc/inittab
   
   Add this to the end of the file:

   mx:234:respawn:/bin/su - bbs -c "cd /var/max && bin/runbbs.sh"

   # init q

11. You now need to configure your archivers. These are controlled by
    the file PREFIX/etc/compress.cfg. I have supplied dist/arj-3.10g.tar.gz
    and dist/arc521e.tar.gz to get you going. These packages are not
    part of Maximus, so they are not build automatically for you.

12. If you need to shut down max, change 'respawn' to 'off' in your
    inittab line, touch the file PREFIX/die.now, and re-issue init q.

    # vi /etc/inittab

    mx:234:respawn:/bin/su - bbs -c "cd /var/max && bin/runbbs.sh"

    # touch /var/max/die.now; chown bbs /var/max/die.now
    # init q

13. If you've been following my directions verbatim, you're still root.

    # exit

