restricting user logins over telnet

[Herbert Ho <hoherbe@charlie.cns.iit.edu>]

I've tried to look for this information over the net and through the
archives of this list, but haven't found anything relavent.  forgive me if
this is redudant. =)

I'm currently trying to setup a machine i admin for a bbs--namely citadel.
i want use the telnet port only for bbs access (so when you telnet to the
box, it would immediately bring up the bbs client). i've created a user
(bbs) that has citadel as the shell. and i modified /etc/inetd.conf to
immediately login user bbs for anyone connecting through telnet.  the
changes i made to this file worked previously, but after a recent update
to potato i was unable to make it work.  this is the change i made:

original:
telnet (...) telnetd.telnetd (...) /usr/sbin/in.telnetd

modified:
telnet (...) telnetd.telnetd (...) /usr/sbin/in.telnetd -L /bin/login bbs

this would use the default login program (login) and pass it the argument
for the user.  the problem arises that telnetd thinks that "bbs" (the
argument i pass to login) is a parameter to it.  it then stop and doesn't
allow continued login.  i've tried adding quotations (single and double)
around the login program and the parameters for it.  but this didn't work.

i've also tried using citadel as the login program itself.  this doesn't
work fully for some reason: any input typed in would be echoed as a second
input to the system.  therefore if you type in the username and pressed
<enter> it would take the username as both the user name (the first
prompt) and the password (the second prompt).

is there a more elegant or correct way to do what i'm trying to do?

i'm running a current potato with kernel 2.2.12.

thanks in advance for you help.


Herbert Ho