I'm using this version of Linux: Raspbian GNU/Linux 9 (stretch)

and I got these results from  ps -ax |grep cit

  472 ?        Ss     0:00 /usr/sbin/citserver -d -x3 -lmail -t/dev/null

  473 ?        Sl     0:00 /usr/sbin/citserver -d -x3 -lmail -t/dev/null

  850 pts/0    S+     0:00 grep --color=auto cit

Mon May 13 2019 11:03:53 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar @ Uncensored Subject: Re: When I try to log in I just get "please wait"

Having set up Citadel using the rapsberry pi guide, when I try to log
into the browser interface I just get a seemingly endless "please
wait" message

What am I doing wrong?

For starters, do a "ps -ax" and see if there are citserver processes running.
If Citadel Server is not running, none of the clients will ever be able to connect to it.

Someone please help me out here. Citadel seems to be staggeringly popular among Raspberry Pi users, so I'm thinking we ought to give it some love to make that type of installation as smooth as possible. What "raspberry pi guide" are you all using, and under what version of Linux? 

I have a first-generation Pi B+ from 2014. If this is sufficient to do what you guys are doing, I can attempt a few builds and we'll try to clean up any ragged edges.

So, my history. I ran The Sanitarium/The Amiga Archives, around 1989. I am from Sacramento and became a member of the active Citadel community in the 916 area code between 1986-1990. Charles and Gary Meadows and Brett Barrett developed Asgard/86 and Novucovitus respectively, and I ran both on a NEC V10 with a 140MB ESDI hard drive at various times. My first attempt at running Citadel was the original CP/M version - forked by Charles and Gary on a C-128. It didn't work very well, so I bought a dedicated CP/M box called a MIC-504... and ran on that for quite a while until I upgraded to Cit86, then later Asgard 86 and Novu, on the V10 8088 clone. 


Later, around 2000-2003 I was running Citadel-UX for a while on a Sparcstation 10. 

I'm not really a Linux guy or a Unix guy. Recently I got a couple FPGA devices, including a MiSTer - and started getting back into Telnet BBSing - then I started getting the bug to throw up my own BBS, and thought a Pi would be the perfect box for it... and in theory it is. It is a lot more convenient than having a Sparc10 with a 17" monitor in the corner just for retro-BBSing that few of my old school friends will bother to log into. 

Well, maybe it isn't true that I'm not a Linux guy. I worked for a Linux consultancy group in NE Ohio for a while, and I've got experience with Debian going back to Sarge and Potato that includes custom compiling my own kernels and adding modules for sound and WiFi NICs. The learning curve is so much easier today that I notice a lot of people who think they know a lot about Linux don't really seem to know that much. Still, people who do know a lot about Linux, quickly realize that I only know a little about it - just a little more than a lot of modern Linux users. 

So anyhow... I did some research going into this and I knew there were some challenges with running Citadel on a Pi - but I decided to give it a shot anyhow. 

I tried this tutorial at some point

https://pimylifeup.com/raspberry-pi-email-server/

And didn't have much luck with it - but there is good information there, anyhow. 

So I ended up just using the Easy Install document at 

http://www.citadel.org/doku.php?id=installation:easyinstall:easyinstall

There is a post several pages earlier in this thread that discusses all of the things that - you know what, I made a copy of it to a text file... here it is (I didn't capture the name to give credit): 

Some do, but some will never ... you can lead a horse to water but sometimes only a pressure washer will do. 

For what it's worth, I'll repeat myself for the benefit of others.

 

I did a reinstall on my RPi recently, from scratch and a new Raspbian image flashed to USB.

 

sudo apt install apache2 db4.8-util javascript-common libjs-prototype libjs-scriptaculous libmarkdown2 libsieve2-1 tinymce libdb-dev build-essential curl g++ gettext shared-mime-info libssl-dev zlib1g-dev libical-dev libldb-dev libldap2-dev expat libexpat1-dev libcurl4-openssl-dev

 

was all of the packages I needed for the easy installer script to complete.

Literally just copy that sudo apt install line and execute it before you install the easy-config, and it'll take care of all the necessary library dependencies and save you a lot of time searching them down in Google 1 by 1, installing until you get an error and then searching down the next library you need to install before trying again. 

The problem with the easy install is that it doesn't install the text-client and I wanted that. So, after several aborted attempts including installing the outdated Citadel package in the Raspbian distro (it seems to break the local authentication - I'd install it, and suddenly I could create a user and password, but when I'd try and log in with it, it would say password incorrect, even though previously I had a Webcit version installed and running  with a default user and password defined.) 

So after screwing around with it for a while and denying the inevitable because I didn't want to do it... I downloaded the source for the text client and did some Googling to refresh myself with make and compile and rolled my own. That created a few problems for me.

1 - I had some library dependencies I had to figure out so that the compile of the text-client would work. 
2 - I ran the compile, make and install as a user with sudo -s privileges after uncompiling into that user's home/downloads directory and so it installed all the config files and everything else in that user's home directories, not in /usr/local/Citadel or wherever it is SUPPOSED to be installed. So, when I would try to run citadel it couldn't find citadel.rc and it would throw up an error. I did a find on citadel.rc and that is how I discovered it was living in the users home directory... and I kind of intuited that if I ran citadel from the directory where the citadel.rc file was it would work... and it did... so from there I just copied all the files from the user's /home directory to /usr/local/Citadel 


And everything started working. The web browser was working, the text browser was working. If I upload an image as an attachment it corrupts and won't display inline (and if I download it again, it is corrupted - (but if I make the room a file directory room and upload that way, it can be viewed and downloaded). 

Ultimately, the Easy-Install works GREAT for setting up the web-client - and then if you want the text client, the easiest way is to download the source and compile it yourself. 

I'm planning on buy an additional Pi to set up as a Linux box just to play around with Linux on to get myself feeling a little more up to speed with it again - when I get it, I'll try and download and install the entire thing again and get it running just to document what steps I take a little more clearly. There were some steps I didn't document and I can remember doing them, but I don't remember exactly what I did, unfortunately. At the time - I was really just kind of slam-dancing my way through it... I probably started over by re-imaging Raspbian onto my 32GB card at least 6 times when I felt I had screwed things up so badly that recovering from my bad installs was going to be more trouble than just starting over from scratch. 

And none of this is well documented at all. You've got to figure it all out for yourself, kind of step by step...  and I just jumped in, rather than reading up... so I made a lot of mistakes that made me backtrack and start over from scratch again and again, getting a little further every time. It took me about 3 days of banging my head to get it up and running.... but now it is up and running at 

secure.wallofhate.com (https)
wallofhate.com (http) 

telnet.wallofhate.com (telnet) 

So feel free to check it out, create an account, and look around. It is running on a Raspberry Pi 3+ 

This page is very helpful in helping to figure out where things are getting installed

http://www.citadel.org/doku.php?id=documentation:file_layout




This link was also helpful: 

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/50729443/login-citadel-mail-server-issue-on-raspberry-pi-3-b

 
had this on a Pi. Try using Easy Install. My comments in []

Easy Install requires a working build environment. This is installed by default on many Linux distributions. [But not Pi] Otherwise, to install a build environment use the following commands (as root):

apt-get update apt-get install build-essential curl g++ gettext shared-mime-info libssl-dev zlib1g-dev

Then run Easy Install the normal way:

curl http://easyinstall.citadel.org/install | bash

[from http://www.citadel.org/doku.php?id=installation:easyinstall:easyinstall]

This compiles Citadel so will take some time. If this seems not to work just run again. this time is very fast, and will let you do the setup.

In fact, looking at it... I think this is the order: 

sudo apt install apache2 db4.8-util javascript-common libjs-prototype libjs-scriptaculous libmarkdown2 libsieve2-1 tinymce libdb-dev build-essential curl g++ gettext shared-mime-info libssl-dev zlib1g-dev libical-dev libldb-dev libldap2-dev expat libexpat1-dev libcurl4-openssl-dev

to prepare 

then 

Easy Install requires a working build environment. This is installed by default on many Linux distributions. [But not Pi] Otherwise, to install a build environment use the following commands (as root):

apt-get update apt-get install build-essential curl g++ gettext shared-mime-info libssl-dev zlib1g-dev

Then run Easy Install the normal way:

curl http://easyinstall.citadel.org/install | bash (Although I think I was using curl http://easyinstall.citadel.org/install | sh instead of bash shell... although I don't know if piping it through one shell or the other makes a difference.) 

[from http://www.citadel.org/doku.php?id=installation:easyinstall:easyinstall]

This compiles Citadel so will take some time. If this seems not to work just run again. this time is very fast, and will let you do the setup.


Using the configuration described here: 

https://pimylifeup.com/raspberry-pi-email-server/

And then downloading and compiling, making and installing the cit-text client as described above, then copying it to usr/local/citadel from the /home directory it got installed in because I'm a n00b. 


I'll pick up another Pi 3B and try and make a more comprehensive doc soon. 

Hello, I know it is a silly question but testing notes I pasted a large text into a note. Now I'm not able anymore to delete it because dragging it is not working. I attached an image of my problem.

Thank you
Antonio

Sun May 12 2019 11:44:25 EDT from "Robert J. Clay" <rjclay@gmail.com> Subject: Re: [Citadel Support]

On Sun, May 12, 2019 at 8:30 AM Citadel Support
<room_Citadel_Support@citadel.org> wrote:

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Paul28 <paul28@uncensored.citadel.org>
Subject: Install Citadel on Raspberry Pi 3 B+ using Easy Install

I'm also wondering why, if that subject was what the post actualy
had, why that did subject did not make it into the email that made it
to me.



--
Robert J. Clay
rjclay@gmail.com

Hello Robert,

Thanks for your reaction !

In the meantime I solved the problem of the "libical/ical.h " by installing apt-get install libical-dev

So I could go on with the installation.......thought so...solved another 2 problems being :

-openLdap dev. header not found : sollution : apt-get install libldb-dev libldap2-dev

-curl/curl.h was not found : sollution : apt-get install libcurl4-gnutls-dev

-recipe for target "install-locale" failed : problem keeps being unsolved !

I understand very little of programming, just wanted a one program solution for my Pi-mailserver.

Thanks anyway !

Best regards,

Paul

Mon May 13 2019 23:00:51 EDT from ParanoidDelusions @ Uncensored

In fact, looking at it... I think this is the order: 

sudo apt install apache2 db4.8-util javascript-common libjs-prototype libjs-scriptaculous libmarkdown2 libsieve2-1 tinymce libdb-dev build-essential curl g++ gettext shared-mime-info libssl-dev zlib1g-dev libical-dev libldb-dev libldap2-dev expat libexpat1-dev libcurl4-openssl-dev

to prepare 

then 

Easy Install requires a working build environment. This is installed by default on many Linux distributions. [But not Pi] Otherwise, to install a build environment use the following commands (as root):

apt-get update apt-get install build-essential curl g++ gettext shared-mime-info libssl-dev zlib1g-dev

Then run Easy Install the normal way:

curl http://easyinstall.citadel.org/install | bash (Although I think I was using curl http://easyinstall.citadel.org/install | sh instead of bash shell... although I don't know if piping it through one shell or the other makes a difference.) 

[from http://www.citadel.org/doku.php?id=installation:easyinstall:easyinstall]

This compiles Citadel so will take some time. If this seems not to work just run again. this time is very fast, and will let you do the setup.


Using the configuration described here: 

https://pimylifeup.com/raspberry-pi-email-server/

And then downloading and compiling, making and installing the cit-text client as described above, then copying it to usr/local/citadel from the /home directory it got installed in because I'm a n00b. 


I'll pick up another Pi 3B and try and make a more comprehensive doc soon. 

 

Thank you so much, this really did it for me !!! I hope to configure the mailserver as safe as possible. Any suggestions ?

I did think about to try Certbot, but I'm not sure this will work with either my Apache2 or Webcit webservers wich both are installed on my system.

Thanks again !

Best regards,

Paul

Well, I have mine set up really as a BBS, with all the mail features disabled in the configuration. But that is a basic BKM for security - disable everything you don't need or intend to use, and only expose those ports which are required. 

If you're not familiar with enterprise security - do some research on exposing ports through your firewall. The less open ports visible from the outside, the better. The more secure/encrypted the ports (HTTPS/SSL/SSH versus HTTP/Telnet, for example) the better. Don't run anything under the default account - in fact, disable that account and create a new account to run the BBS, and use strong passwords. Don't just dump it into the DMZ with every service running. Also, try to isolate it from your regular LAN using vlans or other segmenting/subnet solutions so that if it gets compromised, it isn't necessarily a single hop from there back onto your internal network. 

It looks like there are a couple of additional things, ClamAV and SpamAssassin 

That are described here - that you should set up if you're running a mail server. 

https://pimylifeup.com/raspberry-pi-email-server/

But even then - the guy who is determined to get in is probably better at breaking through system vulnerabilities than you are at defending yourself from them. 

So for example, if you have Raspbian installed - you probably have Apache installed and running by default, and it should be either disabled or completely removed - because even if it isn't exposed externally, having it up and running could present a compromise to your security that wouldn't be there if you had disabled it. And basically, it is very difficult to know what to do unless you're an expert in the platform - and if you're asking, you're not... 

Me either - though. I am no expert in Linux, Cit-Server for *nix, or Raspbian for Raspberry Pi. 

Hi,

I have been trying to install citadel in alpine linux (a musl libc distribution, using either version 3.8, with gcc 6.X, or version 3.9 with gcc 8.X). Installation fails linking webcit with the following error:

LD: webcit
webcit.o: In function `authorization_required':
/tmp/citadel-build.21003/webcit/webcit.c:357: undefined reference to `libintl_gettext'
/tmp/citadel-build.21003/webcit/webcit.c:365: undefined reference to `libintl_gettext'
webcit.o: In function `session_loop':
/tmp/citadel-build.21003/webcit/webcit.c:692: undefined reference to `libintl_gettext'
/tmp/citadel-build.21003/webcit/webcit.c:697: undefined reference to `libintl_gettext'
auth.o: In function `initialize_axdefs':
/tmp/citadel-build.21003/webcit/auth.c:30: undefined reference to `libintl_gettext'
auth.o:/tmp/citadel-build.21003/webcit/auth.c:33: more undefined references to `libintl_gettext' follow
gettext.o: In function `go_selected_language':
/tmp/citadel-build.21003/webcit/gettext.c:274: undefined reference to `libintl_textdomain'
/tmp/citadel-build.21003/webcit/gettext.c:274: undefined reference to `libintl_textdomain'
gettext.o: In function `stop_selected_language':
/tmp/citadel-build.21003/webcit/gettext.c:289: undefined reference to `libintl_textdomain'
/tmp/citadel-build.21003/webcit/gettext.c:289: undefined reference to `libintl_textdomain'
gettext.o: In function `initialize_locales':
/tmp/citadel-build.21003/webcit/gettext.c:381: undefined reference to `libintl_textdomain'
/tmp/citadel-build.21003/webcit/gettext.c:382: undefined reference to `libintl_bind_textdomain_codeset'
/tmp/citadel-build.21003/webcit/gettext.c:383: undefined reference to `libintl_textdomain'
/tmp/citadel-build.21003/webcit/gettext.c:383: undefined reference to `libintl_bindtextdomain'
gettext.o: In function `TmplGettext':
/tmp/citadel-build.21003/webcit/gettext.c:442: undefined reference to `libintl_gettext'
downloads.o: In function `download_file':
/tmp/citadel-build.21003/webcit/downloads.c:287: undefined reference to `libintl_gettext'
ical_subst.o: In function `render_MIME_ICS_TPL':
/tmp/citadel-build.21003/webcit/ical_subst.c:231: undefined reference to `libintl_gettext'
collect2: error: ld returned 1 exit status
make: *** [Makefile:74: webcit] Error 1

I have found a simple fix in the Makefile of webcit, which amounts to move "-lintl" from LDFLAGS to LIBS.

It would be great to have this change added upstream, as this will enable easy_install to work in alpine. The great feature of alpine linux is that a minimal installation with citadel installed occupies less than 10MB. This is particularly interesting when used for building lxd containers (my use case). The steps to reproduce this error in an ubuntu 18.04 host are:

# Create and start a minimal alpine lxd container

sudo lxc launch images:alpine/3.9/amd64 citadel

# Open a shell within alpine container enviroment

sudo lxc exec citadel-alpine sh

# Install citadel build dependencies

apk add alpine-sdk zlib-dev shared-mime-info gettext gettext-dev openssl-dev openldap-dev expat-dev curl-dev libical-dev

# Build and install citadel: this step fails on webcit linkage

wget -q -O - http://easyinstall.citadel.org/install | sh

Sorry, there was a typo, where it says:

sudo lxc exec citadel-alpine sh

it should be

sudo lxc exec citadel sh

Here, citadel only stands for the name given to the container

Hi again,

after installation in alpine container, citadel server is running correctly, but webcit segfaults on launch with this message in syslog

webcit[1869]: segfault at 0 ip 00007fa1ea2e85d0 sp 00007ffd6bef4cd0 error 4 in ld-musl-x86_64.so.1[7fa1ea2dc000+45000]

When launched interactively in the command line. When launched demonize it will keep respawining but would never be able to acquire a network port

I will try an ubuntu easyinstall and an alpine git install to try to diagnose the origin. Any pointers would be wellcome.

Regards,

Jorge

I've just installed spamassassin after using citadel for a number of years. When the spam score exceeds the spam level i set in spamassassin, the mail is just rejected. Is there a way citadel will file it to another folder (or a way to configure spamassassin to do this) rather than just reject? I'm also trying to get the spam score added to the subject / mail headers but haven't been able to do so despite changes to the local.cf file.

• Can multi-language support be presented at the login page instead of after?
• Can we eliminate self-registration?
• Can we hide some features we don't wish to support - calendar, notes, tasks, view users currently logged in, self-configuration of visible features?
• Can we have a system-wide address book managed by an "administrator"?

Please let me know if any of these are possible.

TIA.

Got another Pi. Have it set up with Raspian. Learned how to make screenshots. Going to try installing Citadel - hopefully this weekend, and make an install doc. It won't be complete, accurate, or very smart from a Linux expert's view - but it'll be a start and should work. Hopefully someone more experienced than me will take it and make it something really useful. 

Can any of you tell me why attachments don't show inline on my BBS, why I can't upload a picture and make it a link - but I can insert an image posted somewhere else and it shows inline on my BBS? 

Is there a way I can set up the same RSS feeds you have here on my Citadel to increase the content for my callers? Is there a document or howto you can point me towards, and - how do I find out the info for your specific RSS feeds... 

Happened again this morning. All my mail filters are gonzo this morning.

That's twice so it's not a random thing. Anyone else seeing this?

Tue Apr 23 2019 07:55:39 EDT from jdw @ Uncensored Subject: Lost all my mail filters

I woke up this morning to an insane inbox. Looked at my mail filters and they were all gone. No indication of what could have happened in the logs - system works great otherwise.

Anyone else seen anything like this?