`anetbbs-monitor` — the sysop console dashboard

A live, auto-refreshing terminal dashboard for the server console (or
SSH) — think Synchronet's uMonitor or Mystic's nodespy/mis server: a live node list, Today/Total activity stats, a bbs.log
viewer, one-key access to anetbbs-cfg, a light/dark theme toggle,
and mouse support, all in one screen.

It's a new front end, not new tracking: the node list's data is the
same NodeActivity data the web admin's Control Center → NodeSpy
panel and the in-BBS Sysop Tools → Node Monitor already show and can
kick from. All three read and write the identical database rows, so a
kick from any one of them looks the same to the other two.

Launching it

anetbbs-monitor
# or, if the console-script entry point isn't on PATH for some reason:
python -m anetbbs.monitor.app

Same startup shape as anetbbs-cfg: a lightweight, DB-only app
context, not the full web server — fast even on a Raspberry Pi. No
login prompt of its own, for the same reason anetbbs-cfg has none:
whoever can already run a command on the box has at least as much
access as this tool could grant them.

What you're looking at

 ANetBBS Node Monitor :: 2/8 online :: 21:04:35
  Slot  User            Proto  Peer             Doing                     Since   Idle
     1  sysop           ssh    10.0.0.5         reading Fido/GENERAL      14:02    0:02
     2  guest42         telnet 203.0.113.9      door: LORD2               13:58    0:41
     3  -- waiting for call --
     4  -- waiting for call --
 ...
 Today:  Logons 2   Time 0:05:39   New Users 0   Posts 6   E-mail 0
 Total:  Logons 1096 Time 1412:37:08 New Users 136 Posts 1385 E-mail 99
 Uploads today:   0 files, 0 bytes
 Downloads today: 0 files
 [C]Cfg  [L]Logs  [T]Theme  [K]Kick  [R]Refresh  [Q]Quit

Slot is the fixed node number (1..BBS_NODES, default 8 — set
the BBS_NODES environment variable to change the pool size). The
screen always shows every slot, live or empty, matching the
multinode roster real terminal callers see.
Doing shows real detail where the game/menu code reports it
(current board, which door is running, MRC room, AFK state) — not
just the protocol name.
Since / Idle are how long the connection has been up, and
how long since its last heartbeat.
The screen redraws every second on its own; no key needed. The
stats panel recomputes roughly every 5 seconds, not every redraw.
Stats panel: Today/Total logons, connect time, new users, posts
(board posts + echomail), e-mail (private messages + instant
messages), and today's upload/download counts — all read from
existing data (CallerLog, User.created_at, Post/
EchomailMessage, PrivateMessage/InstantMessage, FileUpload,
and UserActivity(activity_type='file_download')), nothing new to
configure.

One honest limitation, not something this tool regresses: a
connection is invisible here until login succeeds — there's no
guest/anonymous browsing path in ANetBBS's tracking, so "waiting for
call" means the slot is genuinely unallocated, not "someone's sitting
at the login prompt." The web NodeSpy panel and the in-BBS Node
Monitor have this exact same limitation today.

Kicking a node

Select a live row and press K. You'll be prompted for a reason
(defaults to "Disconnected by sysop" if left blank); confirming sets
the same kick_requested/kick_reason flag the web NodeSpy panel's
kick button sets. The target session's own watchdog polls that flag
every 5 seconds and disconnects itself — same mechanism, same ~5
second delay, regardless of which of the three tools requested it.

Launching `anetbbs-cfg` from here

Press C to hand the terminal off to anetbbs-cfg without leaving
this tool or opening a second session — it runs in the same process
(no subprocess spawned), and this screen redraws cleanly the moment
you quit back out of it.

Viewing `bbs.log`

Press L to open a scrollable pager over the live bbs.log. It seeks
from the end of the file in chunks rather than loading the whole
thing into memory, so it opens instantly on the most recent entries
even against a multi-gigabyte log. Up/Down/PgUp/PgDn/Home
scroll; G jumps to the end; Q/Esc returns to the dashboard.

Theme

Press T to toggle between the dark (default) and a light color
palette. The choice is saved to a small local state file and shared
with anetbbs-cfg — switch it in either tool and the other picks up
the same choice next time it starts.

Mouse support

On a terminal that reports xterm-style mouse events (most modern
terminals, including SyncTerm), clicking a node row selects it the
same as arrowing to it, and clicking a hotkey label in the footer
([C]Cfg, [L]Logs, etc.) presses that hotkey. On a terminal that
doesn't support it, the keyboard shortcuts work exactly as before —
this is a pure addition, not a required control scheme.

See 09 — Multinode + NodeSpy for how the
node slot pool and NodeActivity tracking work underneath all three
surfaces (this tool, the web NodeSpy panel, and the in-BBS Node
Monitor).

anetbbs-monitor — the sysop console dashboard