What's new in v4

ProBoard v4 keeps what made ProBoard the board you know (its menus, security model, message and file areas and data formats) and adds a great deal around it. This page lists what is new or different compared with ProBoard 2.x. Each item will link to its own section of this wiki as those sections are published.

Status: ProBoard v4 is in active development. This page describes the November 2026 source tree.

Every program is built for both x64 and Win32, so ProBoard v4 runs on current 64-bit Windows without NTVDMx64, otvdm or any other DOS compatibility layer. Callers connect over TCP/IP; the engine uses Winsock rather than a modem or COM port.

Plug-ins use a new DLL-based interface (files ending in .P3X) in place of the old DOS-era PEX overlay mechanism. Win32 and x64 plug-ins cannot be mixed in one plug-in folder.

Real production data carries over unchanged: CONFIG.PRO, USERS.BBS, MESSAGES.PB and JAM, Squish and Hudson message bases keep their on-disk layouts.

PBDispatch is the one program you leave running. It accepts connections on every service port, starts one program per caller or session, and shows what is happening.

Figure 1. The PBDispatch dashboard (dark mode).

• Dashboard. A dark or light dashboard of tiles: system overview, live activity over the last hour, who is logged in and where from, service status, system status, recent log entries and quick actions. You can drag and resize tiles, choose a preset (Overview, Operator or Compact) and reset the layout. The older window remains available as the Classic view.
• Service management. Start, stop and restart individual services from the dashboard, and see each one's status.
• Log viewer and reporting. Filter the log by level, search it, keep several tabs and export it; reports and history charts are built from a stored statistics file.
• Mailer Monitor. Live progress bars for each mail line, the log of the selected line, a history of finished calls and the outbound queue, with a pop-out window in the classic mailer layout.
• Per-session details. For every caller: user, service, address, connect time and idle time, across Telnet, SSH, RLogin, FTP, NNTP and web.
• Network System Status. Whether the Internet is reachable, connections and failed logins over the last hour and day, the state of each FTN link, the outbound mail queue, the addresses and ports in use, and gauges for CPU, memory, disk and network load.
• Program updates. Optional, signed updates that PBDispatch checks, downloads, verifies and installs with a backup you can roll back (see Protecting your board below).

Figure 2. The Mailer Monitor: one row per mail line, the log of the selected line, and the totals for today.

PBConfig is a graphical sysop tool with a sidebar of screens. It replaces the console PROCFG, which was retired on 2 November 2026, and adds screens for subsystems that never had an editor before.

Figure 3. PBConfig with its sidebar of screens.

• Familiar screens: system options, paths, new-user settings, message and file areas and groups, protocols, limits, the user editor, the menu editor, events and the language editor.
• Bulk editing for message areas and file areas.
• Network pages for services, the Telnet and SSH servers, Login Guard, QWK networks and the PBLink hub.
• Door configuration, AKA and domain settings, and the Matrix logon settings.
• A Tools menu with Upgrade Data: scan an old installation, back it up and convert 16-bit data files, repair user dates, and move configuration files into the Configs folder.

• Telnet, with a port you can set in PBConfig.
• RLogin, with auto-login for hosts you trust.
• SSH, native to PBDispatch. Callers sign in with their own BBS user name and password; no Windows account and no OpenSSH are needed. The older SSH bridge is superseded by this.
• Web portal (PBWeb). Browse and download files, read and post messages in every supported message-base format, register an account, sign in with your BBS account and use an in-browser terminal.
• FTPS downloads (PBFtp). Callers download with any FTP client and see one folder per file area their level and flags allow. TLS is required by default; plain FTP is an opt-in.
• NNTP news (PBNntp). Message areas appear as newsgroups, so a newsreader such as Thunderbird, or the desktop reader PBMessages, can read and post.
• PBTerm. A terminal program of your own for calling any BBS, with Telnet, RLogin and SSH, ANSI and RIPscrip graphics, sixel images, file transfers, and PETSCII, ATASCII and VT52 emulation.

Figure 4. PBTerm connected to a board.

• Login Guard. Failed logins slow an address down and, after enough of them, ban it for a while. It covers Telnet, RLogin, SSH, FTP and NNTP and is on by default.
• Host Filter. Refuses connections from addresses that are already known to be bad before they reach the login screen. It uses the Spamhaus DROP and DShield lists and your own blacklist, plus two built-in checks: AntiHammer for addresses that open too many connections, and AntiScanner for bots that send their own protocol to the Telnet port.
• AntiBot plug-in for the login sequence.
• Encrypted services. FTPS and NNTP over TLS, and SSH for logins.
• Signed updates. PBDispatch installs a program update only if its signature verifies against a public key you configure and every file matches the signed size and checksum. Only program files can be replaced, never your data or configuration.

Xmodem, Ymodem, Ymodem-G, Zmodem and Kermit are built into ProBoard.exe and PBTerm. The old arrangement of shelling out to an external driver is no longer required, and you can enable or disable each protocol in PBConfig.

ProBoard 2.x shipped without FidoNet tools. ProBoard v4 includes a full set:

• PBMailer. BinkP and EMSI sessions with CRAM-MD5 authentication, a BSO outbound queue and crash handling.
• PBToss. Echomail and netmail tossing and scanning for JAM, Squish and Hudson bases, with AreaFix, nodelist support and built-in unpackers.
• PBTic. File-echo (TIC) processing.
• PBqwk, PBLink and PBQwkHub. QWK networking, including PBLink: a QWK network for ProBoard boards with a hub that also distributes a signed list of member BBSes.
• Inter-BBS messaging. Instant messages and a who-is-online view between boards, compatible with Synchronet.
• BBS List plug-in and sync server.

• Native doors. 32-bit and 64-bit Windows doors start directly and receive the caller's connection through DOOR32.SYS. Each node gets its own drop-file folder under NODEDIR.
• DOS doors. PBLegacy runs 16-bit DOS door games under DOSBox-X and supplies the drop files.
• Door networks. BBSLink, DoorParty and Skull Crash relays are plug-ins that need no door program.
• Included games. Backgammon and other plug-in games ship as reference plug-ins.

• “/” commands. At any menu prompt a caller can press / and type a word, such as /who, /chat or /page. Every command is an ordinary menu item, so you add, change or remove them in PBConfig.
• Full-screen ANSI message editor, built in.
• PBMatrix. An optional “elite BBS” front door with a lightbar menu, logon box and system status.
• RIPscrip graphics, with RIP menu screens and a message reader that draws buttons which PBTerm can click.
• IRC and MRC chat plug-ins.
• Split-screen sysop chat and multi-node chat.
• Four-digit years in user dates.

• PBInstall installs a complete, ready-to-run package and organizes it into folders for programs, plug-ins, documentation, configuration samples, menus and screens.
• Upgrade Data (in PBConfig's Tools menu) backs up an existing installation and converts its 16-bit data files to the v4 formats.
• PBMigrate imports FastEcho and InternetRex settings into the PBToss and PBMailer configuration.
• Signed updates from PBDispatch keep a running system current.

• ProBoard v4 has no modem or COM-port support.
• PBTerm does not yet support RIP icons and block text, RIPscrip v2 or v3, or IEMSI auto-login.
• PBNntp serves JAM Local and Echo areas; other message-base formats and private areas are not offered as newsgroups.