LORD Setup

LORD — Legend of the Red Dragon by Seth Robinson, 1989 — is the
canonical door game. ANetBBS ships two ways to run it:

1. Bundled JS port (recommended, no DOS required) — Synchronet's
   pure-JavaScript LORD rewrite, pre-installed at
   anetbbs/games/sbbs_doors/lord/. Needs the Synchronet jsexec
   runtime on the host.
2. Original DOS under DOSBox + TCP nullmodem bridge — for
   purists. Detailed below; see also DOS Door Recipe.

Path 1 — Bundled JavaScript LORD (works out of the box)

ANetBBS pre-seeds an active Game row for LORD on first install.
The game runs under Node.js via the Synchronet compat shim
(anetbbs/games/synchronet_compat.py) — no Synchronet install
required. The shim provides:

• server/client/bbs/user/console globals so dorkit picks
  its sbbs-mode console driver
• Queue, strftime, scope-form require(), js.load_path_list,
  js.on_exit(), js.exec(), etc.
• A Node-friendly sbbs_input.js replacement that drives stdin
  reads through dk.console.input_queue_callback instead of a
  forked input thread
• Full console.* API (clear, cleartoeol, gotoxy, right/left/up/down,
  ctrlkey_passthru, …) wired to ANSI escape writes on stdout
• Resolver priority that prefers <stubs_dir>/dorkit/ over the flat
  <stubs_dir>/ so the dorkit-internal screen.js / graphic.js
  win over older bare copies

Just play from /games/.

Path 1 fallback — install real Synchronet jsexec (optional)

If you want bit-perfect upstream behaviour or you're running another
door the compat shim doesn't cover, install Synchronet's jsexec.
The door_runner auto-detects it at standard paths
(/sbbs/exec/jsexec, /opt/synchronet/exec/jsexec,
/usr/local/sbbs/exec/jsexec, $PATH) and prefers it over the
Node shim when present.

git clone --depth 1 https://gitlab.synchro.net/main/sbbs.git /tmp/sbbs
# Synchronet's build needs siblings — start at the top:
cd /tmp/sbbs/src/sbbs3
make USE_DOSEMU=0 jsexec  || make CFLAGS_EXTRA="-I../conio" jsexec
sudo cp jsexec /usr/local/bin/

Or set SBBS_JSEXEC=/path/to/your/jsexec in the systemd unit's
environment.

Path 2 — Original DOS LORD under DOSBox

Prerequisites

• DOSBox-staging built with --enable-nullmodem (default in 0.81+)
• Xvfb if you want to run headless
• The LORD binaries (LORD.EXE, LORDCFG.EXE, LORD.DAT, etc.)
  in a directory you own — /var/lib/anetbbs/doors/lord/

DOSBox config

lord.conf next to the binaries. Key sections:

[serial]
serial1 = nullmodem server:9001
serial2 = disabled

[autoexec]
mount c .
c:
LORDCFG -nodes 1
LORD /N1 /B19200

COM1 is the bridge port (matched on the BBS side); LORDCFG runs
once to write NODE1.DAT; then LORD launches in "single-node, COM1
at 19200" mode.

Bridge wiring

The BBS process opens a TCP connection to localhost:9001 and
ferries bytes between the user's terminal writer and the socket.
That's the DosBridge class — see DosBridge.

LORDCFG gotchas

• LORDCFG writes NODE1.DAT (or NODE<n>.DAT) into the working
  dir. It's a binary config blob — leave it alone between runs.
• The dropfile path inside LORDCFG should be .\ (current dir),
  not absolute, because DOSBox-staging's path mounting confuses
  some doors otherwise.
• DOOR.SYS COM0 means "carrier present"; set to COM1 for the
  bridge to think it's on a real port. ANetBBS writes this
  correctly out of the box.

Exit hangs

If LORD's exit doesn't release Xvfb cleanly, the watchdog needs
a waitpid on DOSBox plus an idle timeout. ANetBBS does both —
xvfb-run will hang past door exit if not babysat. The fallback
is Ctrl+]q which the bridge translates to DOSBox's "kill
emulator" sequence.

See also

• DOS Door Recipe
• DosBridge
• Door Setup