Over the last week I've implemented rate limiting on clrghouz. I noticed recently quite a few polls coming from the same IP address every minute
- some of them probably script kiddes, some of them BBSes that are on auto-pilot.
Over the last week I've implemented rate limiting on clrghouz. I
noticed recently quite a few polls coming from the same IP
address every minute - some of them probably script kiddes, some
of them BBSes that are on auto-pilot.
did you have any measurable degredation of service with the connection frequency? or did it just bother you?
so many people in the bbs hobby freak out over a few meaningless connections
how large is the entire session in bytes? are you worrying about 100mb
a year? 500mb? starts to feel a bit silly..
did you have any measurable degredation of service with the connection frequency? or did it just bother you?
There is no need what so ever to poll a hub/uplink every minute. If you are that desperate to get mail, then your in the wrong
network (FTN's). Polling a system every 15 minutes is also way to much.
The sweat spot is every half an hour. This is a hobby, not a commercial operation, and all hub's are providing this service for
*free*. If a system is polling a hub system this much, they are pretty much being a dick!
There is no need what so ever to poll a hub/uplink every minute. If youon the contrary, i think that type of polling could be just fine. your
phone wakes up from sleep to ask if you've received messages non stop forever. the design concept is specifically (to borrow fido wording)
day. they need to make phone calls" it doesn't fit modern times.
Re: Re: Hub 3 rate limiting
By: fusion to Vorlon on Mon Mar 23 2026 09:47 pm
There is no need what so ever to poll a hub/uplink every minute. Ifon the contrary, i think that type of polling could be just fine. you
Multiple people have just said this isn't fine. Just because systems are modern and/or on the internet doesn't mean being wasteful is OK.
Being wasteful isn't OK - there's limited resources, and it's wise to manage things accordingly.
where does this connection rate limit data get stored? i'm guessing it
has to be cached somewhere. if it's in the database too we're talking:
Over the last week I've implemented rate limiting on clrghouz.
The rate limiting will impose the following limits:
* Maximum 2 concurrent connections,
* Maximum 5 connections in a 60 min period.
Any questions, please ask.
The sweat spot is every half an hour. This is a hobby, not a
commercial operation, and all hub's are providing this service
for *free*. If a system is polling a hub system this much, they
are pretty much being a dick!
this is irrelevant. you're basically saying the equivalent of "this is
a hobby, you can't expect them to tie up their phone for the bbs
during the day. they need to make phone calls" it doesn't fit modern times.
If on the contrary, i think that type of pollingThere is no need what so ever to poll a hub/uplink every
minute.
could be just fine. you
Multiple people have just said this isn't fine. Just because
systems are modern and/or on the internet doesn't mean being
wasteful is OK.
concensus (especially here) does not equate to reality. while i agree
this might matter on a 486 running some extremely crusty software, the majority of people don't fit in that category anymore.
Being wasteful isn't OK - there's limited resources, and it's
wise to manage things accordingly.
i can't say i agree that there are "limited resources" the way you
think there are.
* Maximum 2 concurrent connections,
* Maximum 5 connections in a 60 min period.
These seem like sane limits.
I have Mystic configured to send messages as I save them (they'll get tossed/sent within ~60 seconds of being saved). About the only way I could see myself making more than 5 connections in a 60 minute period is if I wrote and sent that many messages, which is unlikely.
How is the rate limit implemented? Would the connection attempt be dropped or rejected at the network level (fail2ban style) or would binkp still answer and reply with a rate limit error message?
concensus (especially here) does not equate to reality. while i agree this might matter on a 486 running some extremely crusty software, th majority of people don't fit in that category anymore.
Do you really think that *everyone* here is running a BBS on modern hardware and systems?
There are plenty of bbs systems that are running on older systems and os's.
Polling every minute, means that someone else is missing out.
I *have* seen connections get rejected due to not enough slots on the hub system(s).
Here's a hint for you. Not everyone has a huge upload connection to the internet.
So you like abusing sysops systems that are run from there home internet connection and system.
So you like abusing the other sysops by being a dick.
So you like abusing the freely provided connections from other sysops
and being a dick.
fusion wrote to Vorlon <=-
So you like abusing sysops systems that are run from there home internet connection and system.
So you like abusing the other sysops by being a dick.
So you like abusing the freely provided connections from other sysops
and being a dick.
don't let your emotions get to you man it's kind of weird. we just
don't agree
fusion wrote to Vorlon <=-
<SNIP garbage>
So you like abusing sysops systems that are run from there home inter connection and system.
So you like abusing the other sysops by being a dick.
So you like abusing the freely provided connections from other sysops and being a dick.
don't let your emotions get to you man it's kind of weird. we just don't agree
Nobody else agrees with you either. You see anyone here agreeing with you? Take the hint.
Multiple people have just said this isn't fine. Just because systems areconcensus (especially here) does not equate to reality. while i agree this
modern and/or on the internet doesn't mean being wasteful is OK.
concensus (especially here) does not equate to reality. while i agree
Your perceived reality = the way things are everywhere for all software, hardware and network scenarios?
Do you hear yourself? You've taken what people have said are actually going on and said "Well akshully"
The arguments sound very much like someone who would have no idea how a DoS works. Resource starvation is very much a real thing, there are absolute limits on all computing platforms new and old, and being
wasteful exacerbates performance problems and resource starvation.
Working to protect against these kinds of issues well in advance is actually a smart thing to do. It has no relevance to your ability to
watch Yootoob.
i didn't have much of an opinion of it originally (my first post wasn't very long either) but now i think i'd personally optimize for allowing that connection per minute user. strive for excellence.
fusion wrote to The Wanderer <=-
users connecting *once a minute* to poll - there's a maximum of what,
56 people possible in this group? i take it back, that 486 could
probably handle this amount of connections once a minute.
GRiM wrote to fusion <=-
On 26 Mar 2026, fusion said the following...
i didn't have much of an opinion of it originally (my first post wasn't very long either) but now i think i'd personally optimize for allowing that connection per minute user. strive for excellence.
Or maybe just respect the limits requested by the man who provides a
FREE service for a very niche and dying technology to a small group of users. You're expecting him to do more work because of your *opinion*? It's easier and cheaper to block these bad actors entirely. Deon is
being overly gracious with these limits in my opinion.
These echos do not get enough traffic to warrant polling once per
minute - hard stop. Crash delivery reduces the need to poll unless
you've been offline for awhile. There's no reason to poll more than
once per hour.
Even the most scalable APIs have rate limits. If you exceed the limits too frequently, you get blocked and eventually banned.
On 26 Mar 2026, fusion said the following...
i didn't have much of an opinion of it originally (my first post wasn very long either) but now i think i'd personally optimize for allowin that connection per minute user. strive for excellence.
Or maybe just respect the limits requested by the man who provides a FREE service for a very niche and dying technology to a small group of users. You're expecting him to do more work because of your *opinion*? It's easier and cheaper to block these bad actors entirely. Deon is being overly gracious with these limits in my opinion.
fusion wrote to The Wanderer <=-
users connecting *once a minute* to poll - there's a maximum of what, 56 people possible in this group? i take it back, that 486 could probably handle this amount of connections once a minute.
Any user or linked node that polled here once a minute would be immediately banned forever. End of conversation.
Your claim that that is "OK" shows how little you know about the "real world" of BBSing.
How about you just stop your trolling.
Do you hear yourself? You've taken what people have said are actually"what people have said" .. who? you? Vorlon? are you two the two man team that dictates reality? what did you say is "going on" ?
going on and said "Well akshully"
i'm acutely aware of how they work. my suggestion was that the mitigation proposed isn't any different from letting the user poll every minute. using resources to block vs using resources to just fulfil the request. they're both equivalent at this point. meaningless. some cycles on the cpu. we're taling about using a nuke to kill ants here.
that connection per minute user. strive for excellence.
eh there's a reason i'm not messaging him directly. his response was to
everyone else, well, they got butthurt and responded to me first.
It might be helpful to familiarize yourself with the reading functions
of your BBS so you can go to the beginning of the topic to find out exactly what was meant. Deon would be the first that you're "Well akshully"ing
It's not just CPU bound - if you don't think there's memory involved and drive activity due to logging (if nothing else) and network time
(however small), then I don't see how you're 'acutely aware' of what's being said.
Re: Re: Hub 3 rate limiting
By: fusion to GRiM on Thu Mar 26 2026 11:58 am
eh there's a reason i'm not messaging him directly. his response was
So all the "just asking questions" bit wasn't in response to him? Must
be a bug on my system here where it says it was from fusion to Deon.
I'll get that looked at.
everyone else, well, they got butthurt and responded to me first.
Criticism of the disrespect and justifications for how you *think* the resource issues aren't actually a thing isn't being 'butthurt'.
| Sysop: | Tetrazocine |
|---|---|
| Location: | Melbourne, VIC, Australia |
| Users: | 16 |
| Nodes: | 8 (0 / 8) |
| Uptime: | 237:34:38 |
| Calls: | 210 |
| Files: | 21,502 |
| Messages: | 82,991 |