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MSYS (C) Copyright 1990 By HUB COMPUTERS, INC. INTRODUCTION MSYS is a copyrighted program that I am making available to the amateur radio community free of charge. Source code is not generally available (if you want it you will have to pay dearly for it!). If you happen to see my system on the air don't get excited when you see that I am running the next numbered version of MSYS. It doesn't mean its ready for distribution! I go to the next number on my system as soon as I release a version. KA-NODe is a trademark of Kantronics Inc. The K NODe component of MSYS is compatible with the Kantronics KA-NODe but is completely different code from that used in the Kantronics tncs. NET/ROM is a trademark of SOFTWARE 2000. The network NODe component of MSYS is compatible with NET/ROMs but is completely different code from that sold by SOFTWARE 2000. The network NODe component of MSYS is completely different from that in the net.exe program and g8bpq NODe software. IBM is a trademark of International Business Machines Corp. MSYS is available from the Cleveland Hamnet phone BBS. Numbers are 216-942-6382 and 216-942-7516. Both are 300 to 2400 baud, at least! This is a free bbs (you pay for the call). MSYS may also appear on other phone bbs systems, but this is the only one I put it on directly. You may also obtain MSYS from me directly on disk (this may be the cheapest way really and the fastest when a new version comes out). For US addresses the cost is $5 per version which includes the disk, mailer and postage. You may order several versions at a time, I will hold your request until the versions are released. This way you get to be the first kid on the block with the new toy! When ordering from me, please specify which version you already have or which one you want. Distribu- tion is on 5.25 inch disks. I keep records with the following information for people who order msys, so you may want to give me this info. Also please indicate if you want me to call you (collect) if it would be helpful to answer questions you send me about MSYS. CALL: Your callsign. This is the key I record all the information under NAME: Where to send the disk to! ADDR1: ADDR2: CITY: STATE: ZIP: COUNTRY: TELEPHONE: If you want me to call you back (collect) VERSION: The version you have now OWED: How many you have prepaid COMPUTER: Speed, memory,disk space, cpu chip etc. TNC: Model & rom versions KDOSK: Which version? BBS: BBS callsign to send you msgs at IP: Your IP address, if you have one Mail requests for msys on disk to: Michael Pechura 10809 Beechwood Drive Chesterland, OH 44026 You may call me with questions/comments at 216-256-1588. Canadian stations may want to contact VE3WZL for distribution info in Canada. ADDR: J. B. Weazle McCreath Aerial Acres R.R. No. 4, Goderich, Ontario, Canada N7A3Y1 Ordered from me the cost is $7.50. Other foreign stations: Price is $10 (US) per version which includes Air Mail postage. A Multi-User, Multi-Port, Multi-Function Packet Radio BBS By Mike Pechura, WA8BXN (C) Copyright 1990 By HUB COMPUTERS, INC. All rights reserved. Version 1.08 June 1990 MSYS Documentation Table of Contents SECTION - 1 MSYS Installation Instructions 1 MSYS.OPT 3 SECTION - 2 MSYS Command Summary 9 MSYS SYSOP Commands 14 SECTION - 3 MSYS BBS Commands 34 DATABASE HELP 41 SECTION - 4 Forward File Description 43 SECTION - 5 MSYS Network NODe Introduction 57 MSYS General information file 65 SECTION - 6 MSYS Utility Support Programs (MUTIL.EXE) 74 SECTION - 7 EDITVIEW (ED Command) 105 EDITFILE (EF Command) 106 SECTION - 8 HOUSECLEANING (HC command) 108 MODEM Support 110 Sysop commands related to TCP/IP 111 Samples of MSYS files 115 BIT PATTERN CHART 118 Frequent problems 119 INDEX 121 MSYS Installation Instructions (c) Copyright 1990 by HUB COMPUTERS, INC. Installation of MSYS is not particularly difficult but you should follow the following steps in order. 1. Make a backup copy of the distribution disk. You can copy the entire disk with Diskcopy. 2. Make a default directory on your hard disk. I call mine MSYS. Use the command: md c:\msys 3. Go to the default directory: cd c:\msys 4. Make required subdirectories: md c:\msys\mail md c:\msys\files md c:\msys\help md c:\msys\mail.bak 5. Un-arc the distribution disk. 6. Move the help files to the help sub-directory. NOTE: REQUIRED FILE: HELP\MSYSMSGS.DAT This file contains a number of the seldom used messages produced by MSYS. 8. Edit the file c:\msys\msys.opt with your favorite program editor. See documentation on setup for details. 9. RUN SETUP (MUTIL.EXE Function 9) to create c:\msys\msys.def 10. Make sure you have at least files=20 in your config.sys file in the root directory of your boot disk. 11. Using any ASCII editor, create MSYSFWD.DEF. If you don't know what to put it in now, put the following (to be replaced later): F0 WA8BXN WA8BXN -------- 12. Type MSYS and it should begin to run! 13. Type MERge. You can ignore any messages about MSYSBBSB.DAT at this time. *** Special Note Determining the type of monitor you have: If you have a color monitor, the default is ok. If you have a monochrome monitor that uses an RCA phono pin plug then you also are really using a Color Graphics Adapter interface card and the default should be ok. If you can do the command MODE MONO (this is a DOS command) and 1-1 not get any error messages and the computer continues to work, you probably have a monochrome (TTL) interface card. You will need to specify WINDOW DISPLAY MONOCHROME in your MSYS.OPT file. IF MSYS DOESN'T SEEM TO BE WORKING PROPERLY, REMOVE ALL (EVERY LAST ONE!) RESIDENT PROGRAMS (INCLUDING YOUR ENTIRE CONFIG.SYS AND AUTOEXEC.BAT FILES AND SEE IF IT WORKS THAT WAY. IF IT DOES, PUT THINGS BACK IN ONE AT A TIME TO SEE WHERE THE PROBLEM IS! 1-2 MSYS.OPT (c) Copyright 1990 by HUB COMPUTERS, INC. Before MSYS can be used a configuration file (MSYS.OPT) must be created and the program SETUP (MUTIL.EXE Function 9) must be run to create the file MSYS.DEF. The file MSYS.OPT is a stand- ard ASCII file and may be created with any program editor. The basic format of the file is: PORT number AT number INT number SPEED number [NAME description] PORT number SUBPORT number OF [PORT] number [NAME description] DIGI callsign FROM [PORT] number TO [PORT] number [AS callsign] NUMCHANS number BBS CALL callsign BBS ALIAS callsign KANODE CALL callsign ANSWER CALL callsign FORWARD CALL callsign ID CALL callsign ID EVERY number AX25 FRACK number AX25 MAXFRAMES number AX25 RETRIES number AX25 CHECK number MONITOR IFRAMES on/off MONITOR UFRAMES on/off MONITOR SFRAMES on/off MONITOR BFRAMES on/off MONITOR OUTGOING on/off MONITOR PORTS mask WINDOW number SIZE number number number number WINDOW number BACKGROUND number WINDOW number FOREGROUND number WINDOW number PAGE number WINDOW UNUSED BACKGROUND number WINDOW UNUSED FOREGROUND number WINDOW DISPLAY color/monochrome PROCESS processname [WINDOW] number STACK processname number STACK FORWARD 8000 STACK DECODE 1500 STACK CALL 4000 SYSOP NAME name SYSOP QTH location SYSOP ZIP zip code MAKE Notes: 1. Items enclosed in square brackets ([...]) are optional 2. Numbers assumed in decimal unless prefixed by $ then hex is assumed 3. on/off means the word ON or OFF 4. mask is the numeric representation of a bit string with the rightmost bit corresponding to port 0. 1=to be 1-3 monitored. 5. Where more than 1 space is shown, 1 or more space are ok 6. Callsign can include SSID (-number) 7. Ordering of the statements is generally not important 8. If there is an * at the beginning of a line it is ignored 9. The bbs alias, Kanode, Answer and Forward calls must be different calls or SSID's. Output from the execution of SETUP is the file MSYS.DEF (a binary file) and a listing to the display console (which may be routed to the printer via redirection: SETUP >LPT1:). The listing consists of two parts: the original input statements followed by a complete list of all options generated (including defaults). If any errors are detected, the MSYS.DEF file will not be created. A sample of a MSYS.OPT file is found in MSYS.OPT on the distribution disk. Explanation of each statement type ----------------------------------- PORT number at number INT NUMBER SPEED number [NAME description] PORT number SUBPORT number OF [PORT] number [NAME description] ThePORT statement has the above two variations. The number following the word PORT is the port number. It must be between 0 and 5. The version containing the word AT defines an actual serial interface while the SUBPORT version defines a second logical port for multiport TNCs such as the KPC-4. There must be one PORT statement for each port to be used. Assign port numbers beginning with 0 in increments of 1. Following the word AT is the base I/O address of the 8250 in the serial port, such as $3F8. Following the word INT is the interrupt number for the 8250, such as 4. After SPEED is the baud rate to be used, such as 1200. Optionally the word NAME followed by some description of the port can be given. A good description would be the corresponding radio frequency. For the other form of the PORT statement, the number following the word SUBPORT is the logical channel number, typically 1 for the KPC-4. Next comes the word OF in the statement optionally followed by the word PORT. Next comes the port number of a port statement defining an actual port (ie, contains the word AT in its definition). The optional NAME and description is the same as above. PORT description lines can also have two additional parameters: RADIOSPEED bitrate# TNCTYPE # RADIOSPEED specifies the bitrate used by the TNC to the radio (300 or 1200 probably). If 300 bps is selected, shortened prompts are used in the BBS and perhaps elsewhere. TNCTYPE is a number from 0 to 999. Tnc type 0 is a KPC-x. Any other number causes a file MSYSTNC.# to be read for initializa- tion statements to be sent to the TNC. These parameters would be used for a tnc other than a KPC-X 1-4 NOTE: You must specify RADIOSPEED if you use TNCTYPE. For example: PORT 2 AT $2F8 INT3 SPEED 4800 NAME 145.01 RADIOSPEED 1200 TNCTYPE 1 (Should be all on one line) AND IN THE MSYSTNC.1 FILE YOU WOULD HAVE THE COMMANDS THAT WOULD PUT YOUR TNC INTO KISS MODE.(see note in general info section) DIGI callsign FROM [PORT] number TO [PORT] number [AS callsign] The DIGI statement defines a digipeater callsign. Repeat this statement type up to 25 times as desired. The first callsign is the callsign that would be used in the VIA list by a station trying to use the digipeater. The port number following FROM indicates the port that will be using this call. The TO port number indicated the port on which packets having this the first callsign as digipeater should be output on. For a normal digipeater the two port numbers will be the same; for a gateway they will be different. The optional AS callsign specifies a replacement for the first callsign in the digipeater list when the packet is sent out the TO port. If omitted the first callsign is assumed (ie, no change). Consider the following examples: DIGI MYDIGI FROM 0 TO 0 DIGI MYDIGI FROM 1 TO 1 DIGI W1XX-3 FROM 0 to 0 This would allow the callsign MYDIGI to be used in the via list on either port 0 or 1. The packet is retransmitted on the same port it it heard on. The call W1XX-3 can also be used to digipeat on port 0. DIGI MYGATE FROM 0 TO 1 DIGI MYGATE FROM 1 TO 0 This pair would define a gateway between ports 0 and 1 with the callsign MYGATE used in both directions. DIGI TOF1 FROM 0 TO 1 AS TOF2 DIGI TOF2 FROM 1 TO 0 AS TOF1 This interesting pair allows TOF1 to be used as a gateway digipeater call on port 0 (no effect if used on port 1). When the packet is repeated it will have TOF2 in the digipeater list where TOF1 originally was. The opposite is true on port 1: When TOF2 is used as a digipeater call the packet is repeated on port 0 with TOF1 being substituted for TOF2. The substitution is transparent to the users. NUMCHANS number NUMCHANS is used to specify the number of logical channels that will be allocated. Each connection (while connected) uses one logical channel. When the KA NODe is being used a second logical channel is used for outgoing connects. Each logical channel requires about 7K of memory. They are available for reuse when a station disconnects. 1-5 BBS CALL callsign This statement gives the callsign that can be connected to for the "big" BBS. The callsign can contain an SSID. This statement is also optional; if omitted stations will not be able to connect to the BBS unless a bbs alias is given. BBS ALIAS callsign This statement gives the callsign that can be connected to for the "big" BBS. The callsign can contain an SSID. This statement is also optional; if omitted stations will not be able to connect to the BBS unless a BBS CALL is given. KANODE CALL callsign This statement gives the callsign of the KA NODe which is similar to the KA NODe provided in the Kantronics tncs. The callsign can (and probably should) contain an SSID. This statement is optional; if omitted stations will not be able to connect to the PBBS. ANSWER CALL callsign This statement gives the callsign that can be connected to by stations wanting to talk to the SYSOP. It is also used as the callsign when the Connect command is used. The callsign can (and maybe should) contain an SSID. This statement should not be omitted. FORWARD CALL callsign This statement gives the callsign used when the BBS is forwarding. It can (and probably should) contain and SSID. This statement should not be omitted if the BBS is to be used. ID CALL callsign This statement gives the callsign that will be used for identification purposes. It must be your actual amateur callsign and should NOT have an SSID specified. This statement MUST be used. ID EVERY number This statement specifies the number of minutes between IDs. The list of stations for which there is mail is generated with every ID. AX25 FRACK number Number is the number of seconds to wait before retransmitting a packet. All of the AX25 statement forms are optional. AX25 MAXFRAMES number Number! specifies the maximum number of frames that can be outstanding before waiting for an ACK. Must be between 1 and 7. AX25 RETRIES number This is the number of retries that will be made before abandoning a connection. 1-6 AX25 CHECK number If there is no activity on a logical channel for 10 times this number of seconds there will be an automatic disconnect. MONITOR IFRAMES on/off Turns on or off the displaying of Information frames. All forms of the MONITOR statement are optional. MONITOR UFRAMES on/off Turns on or off the displaying of Un-numbered frames (except beacons, see below). MONITOR SFRAMES on/off Turns on or off the displaying of System frames. MONITOR BFRAMES on/off Turns on or off the displaying of Beacon frames (Un-numbered information). MONITOR OUTGOING on/off Turns on or off the displaying of all outgoing packets. MONITOR PORTS mask Determines which ports will be monitored. The rightmost bit of this number corresponds to port 0, the next bit to the left port 1 and so on. Ports with 1 bits are displayed (as selected above). A value of 13 (decimal, $D in hex) would enable ports 0, 2 and 3, for example. WINDOW number SIZE number number number number This form of the window statement gives the bounds of the window whose number is given after the word WINDOW. The four numbers after the word SIZE are the upper left column (1 to 80), the upper left row (1 to 25), the lower right column, and the lower right row respectively. All of the WINDOW statement forms are optional and should be used with great caution. WINDOW number BACKGROUND number WINDOW number FOREGROUND number These two forms of the WINDOW statement give the background and foreground colors of the window specified after the word WINDOW. The rightmost number is a color number from 0 to 15 for foregrounds and 0 to 7 for backgrounds. The corresponding colors are: Black 0 Blue 1 Green 2 Cyan 3 Red 4 Magenta 5 Brown 6 Lt Gray 7 Gray 8 Lt Blue 9 Lt Green 10 Lt Cyan 11 Lt Red 12 Lt Mag 13 Yellow 14 White 15 WINDOW number PAGE number This statement assigns a window to the specified page (0-3). WINDOW UNUSED BACKGROUND number WINDOW UNUSED FOREGROUND number 1-7 These two statements give background and foreground colors to the places on the screen not assigned to any window. WINDOW DISPLAY color/monochrome This statement selects the kind of display adapter you have, COLOR or MONOCHROME. If you have a CGA card, select COLOR. PROCESS processname [WINDOW] number This statement specifies the window that is to be used for output from the allowable process names. Be extremely careful if you use this statement. STACK processname number This statement specifies the number of bytes to be allocated for the stack for the allowable process names. You probably shouldn't mess with the defaults! SYSOP NAME name You must use this statement to specify your first name. SYSOP QTH location You must use this statement to specify your location. SYSOP ZIP zip code You must use this statement to specify your zip code. MAKE Use this statement if you want to produce the new MSYS.DEF file if there are no errors. Here is a sample MSYS.OPT file for you to figure out! port 1 at $3e8 int 4 speed 1200 name 223.70 port 0 at $2f8 int 3 speed 1200 name 145.01 digi bxng from 0 to 0 as bxng digi bxng from 1 to 1 as bxng digi bxn501 from 0 to 0 as bxn501 digi bxn501 from 1 to 0 as bxn370 digi bxn370 from 0 to 1 as bxn501 digi bxn370 from port 1 to port 1 as bxn370 digi test-4 from port 0 to port 1 as test-5 digi wa8bxn-3 from 0 to 0 bbs call wa8bxn-13 kanode call wa8bxn-1 answer call wa8bxn-14 forward call wa8bxn-12 sysop name Mike sysop qth Kirtland, OH sysop zip 00000 id call wa8bxn window display color make 1-8 MSYS Command Summary (c) Copyright 1990 by HUB COMPUTERS, INC. The following is a summary of the commands available at the local keyboard for MSYS. The commands may be abbreviated to the capital letters. *comment Enables comment line from user to SYSOP #msgs/use Displays total number of active msgs and known users on BBS @home On/Off ABortfwd Aborts forwarding as soon as possible ADDUser Allows sysop to add a user to bbs APpend Used to append a file to a message and other general uses ARChive Puts given @BBS in specified subdirectory ARP Lists the known callsign/IP address ARP add Adds digipeaters to TCP/IP stations ARP DEL Removes TCP/IP stations from arp list ATtended ON/OFF Turn HF forwarding on and off AUTODESt ON/OFF Add new DESts for known neighbors AUTOHold On/Off Hold messages that contain call in R: lines AUTONode ON/OFF Add new neighbors heard AUTOKill Kill all messages after forwarding BACkuptim Specifies time to make backup BADuser ON/OFF BBs Enter the BBS as a local user BDigi Specifies digipeaters for beacons BElloff Turns bells on or off (on turns bell off off turns bell on) BIDall Manipulates bids in the BIDLIST.DAT file. BINterval seconds Nodes Broadcast interval BMaxcon [port#] Max-BBS-connects BOOT Remote sysop only BPorts Used to indicate BBS ports only BText Specifies one line of beacon text BUDCalls Set or display the list of calls with SSID to be monitored BUDList Turn on/off selective call monitoring C# Attempt to connect to station via digi list given on port # CHAnstat Displays status of a logical channel whose number is given CHEck Number of 10 second intervals of no activity to disconnect CL B # Change border color CLrscrn Clear window number given or * for clear all windows CMdwindow Specifies the window number to be used for commands (CM 4) COpy sourcepathname DEStpathname (include drive: if needed) CRetries Sets number of retries for forward connect attempt DEBug Used to display or modify memory DELEfile Specifies file name to delete DELUDays Specifies the number of days after which a user that 2-9 has not connected will automatically be deleted from the system. DELUSer Deletes a user from the user list DESt ADD, REP, DEL DFree Displays amount of disk space free DIGipeats Displays digipeater/gateway list DIRectory Displays directory for path specified Example DIR mail\*.* DISconnec Forces a disconnect on logical channel specified DOcmdfile To execute a command file DPorts Allows sysop to selectively disable digipeater DRoute Callsign port# [digi1...digi8] DTimedate Displays current date and time EDit Screen editor for files EFile Edits the specified file EMsghdr Edits the header of the specified msg number in BBS EUser Edits specified user FBbstimes Allows specification of hours bbs is full function FCall Finds the logical channel(s) in use by given callsign FFile (find file) FF *.DAT C:\ FIle Converts specified msg number into file name given. FOrward Initiates forwarding immediately FRAck Displays or sets time in seconds to retransmit a packet FREE Deallocates the logical channel specified FSize Displays the file size for the pathname specified FTIme Forward time FTPgm File Transfer Protocol FUlldup Used on the specified ports if set to ON. F2 time Number of seconds to continue displaying monitored packets after F2 (function key) was last pressed. GEtmsgotd Reads and displays Message of the day file GRep Will search the given file for the specified pattern HCAll Allows you to properly specify your bbs hierarchical callsign. HCLean This command automatically deletes specified messages. HEard # The J heard list recording is turned off if # > Dispatches Help Lists the names of the commands HOstname Hosts id name TCP/IP HREPlace Selects adding to end of existing hierarchical @BBS field or replace. ID * Forces transmission of an ID immediately (also mail for list) IGnore Calls in budcalls list will not be monitored IPTTL # TCP/IP Time to live JBbs Lists (P)BBSs heard and their paths JDigipeat Lists Digipeaters heard and their paths JGateways Lists Gateways heard and their paths JHeard Lists stations heard and those connected to BBS JKanodes Lists KA Nodes heard and their paths JMsys List other MSYS systems heard JNetrom Lists NET/ROM nodes heard and their paths JTcp/ip Lists TCP/IP stations and their addresses KEyboard Assign keyboard to channel number specified KILLproc Abort specified process number (Can be hazardous!) 2-10 KPorts Allows sysop to selectively disable k NODe LCount Counts number of lines, characters,and words in file. (LC Filename) LOCKkbd Locks the keyboard LUsers List known user calls that have connected to BBS MAKEPriva On/off {sets/resets making messages private by default} MAStersrv Specifies the master WP server MAxFrames Display or change number of frames sent before ACK rcvd MAXRead Specifies maximum size message that can be read or file that can be downloaded MCon Number of connects allowed to sysop keyboard MDir Creates given directory MEMory Display amount of memory free MERge Reads MSYSFWD.DEF and copies it to MSYS.FWD MHclear Clears various J heard lists MINmem Allows specification of the minimum free memory MONBframe Enable/disable monitoring of Beacon (UI) frames MONxx Enable/disable monitoring of PIDs on screen 2 monitoring MONIFrame Enable/disable monitoring of Information frames MONITor Enable/disable monitoring of incoming frames MONOutgoi Enable/disable display of outgoing frames MONPorts Select which ports to monitor (bit string, LSB=port 0) MONSFrame Enable/disable monitoring of Supervisory frames MONSTats Enables/disables recording of channel usage stats MONUFrame Enable/disable monitoring of Un-numbered frames MYAlias Display or change bbs alias callsign MYBbs Display or change bbs primary callsign MYCall Display or change Call/Answer callsign MYKnode Display or change K NODe callsign MYIpaddr Sets IP address that the system will respond to. MYTcpcall Callsign used when sending arp and TCP/IP frames NDWindow # Net default window size (frames) NETBbs ON/OFF Enable BBS cmd in net NODe NETCon ON/OFF Enable connect cmd in net NODe NETNode ON/OFF Enable the Net Node NETTalk ON/OFF Enable Talk cmd in net NODe NEWUser # allows you to set the initial user flags NInfo Gives net NODe status NNode Takes you into the NODe as if you were connected to it. NOBulls On/Off When on, no bulletins will be forwarded during normal forwarding. NODe SEnd, SAve, REStore, ADD, REP, DEL NPorts portmask Ports to which nodes broadcast NRCall callsign Sets net NODe callsign NRid mnemonic Sets net NODe mnemonic identifier NTtl # Network time to live (max hops) OLdbids On/Off OCInit # Initial obsolescence count OCMmin # Minimum obsolescence to broadcast PAClen Specifies maximum number of bytes that are put in a packet PATh Display information about given user callsign PForward Display information about given BBS callsign PMessage Message# prints specified message 2-11 POrts Display information about ports PPersist [port#] value (255 to 0) PQuality [port#] # Quality for nodes hear on port PRInt Prints a file (on printer) PROcesses Display status of processes PRTmsgs Enables/disables printing of messages PWindow Sets window to be used by a process QUIT Terminates execution of MSYS gracefully more or less RDir Removes the given directory REMove DESt callsign Deletes DESt thru all neighbors REName Oldpathname newpathname (must both be on same drive) REPlaces Replaces incoming @BBS calls RESpons # Number of seconds to wait before sending out a response RETries Displays or sets number of retries before disconnecting RUn Allows you a DOS program with many limitations. SEnd Sends a line of text to specified channel: SE 1 The msg SLottime [port#] value (0 to 255) SMTP Simple Mail Transfer Protocol SNow Enables/disables changing screen only during retrace SOrt Will sort up to 200 eighty byte records STatus Displays some status information SUspendtr Number of free bytes in input buffers below which monitoring is turned off. TABs ON/OFF Default is on TACK Transport ACK delay (responsetime) TBdelay Transport busy delay TELnet Used to establish keyboard to keyboard connection TImezone Allows entry of your time zone TFrames Send test frames TNatime Transport no activity timeout time TPorts Enables/disables ports for TCP/IP TRetries Transport retries TTimeout Transport timeout (Net FRACK) TYpe Allows you to type a file TXDelay [port#] value (0 to 255) TXTail [port#] value (0 to 255) Trace25 Enables/disables trace of AX.25 state changes TraceIP Enables/disables trace of TCP/IP state changes Users Writes out all users to file Video Displays or changes video monitor in use WAtch Toggles watching of specified channel number WBackgrnd Sets background color for specified window WColors Gives list of colors and their numbers WForegrnd Sets foreground color for specified window WPAge Sets page number to display specified window WPEvery Specifies the number of days between sending out WP infomation. WQupdate Worst quality DESt route to record WSize Specifies coordinates for specified window Window Displays current window definitions WHo Displays current users/messages W? Displays window number in upper left of each window <Esc> Cancel partially typed command Function key usage: 2-12 F1 through F4 select page to display (0 to 3 respectively) F6 causes the following characters to the next return to be treated as a command even if keyboard currently connected to some other process (such as local bbs, etc.). Ctrl/F2 suspends activity on the monitor screen (F2). Ctrl/F4 terminates MSYS as if QUIT command was used Ctrl/F5 is the same as the PRocesses command Ctrl/F6 assigns keyboard to command processor Most commands give information on their usage if you type the command name followed by a question mark. Example WS ? 2-13 MSYS SYSOP Commands (c) Copyright 1990 by HUB COMPUTERS, INC. *comment Enables comment line from user to SYSOP #msgs/use Displays total number of active msgs and known users on BBS. The number of messages that can be on the bbs is set by the mailsize program and the maximum number of users is 500. @home On/Off If On, causes @bbs field of messages for registered users of the system to be replaced with the home bbs they gave with the NH command (the way it has been done in the past). If Off, the @BBS field is not modified. ABortfwd Aborts forwarding as soon as possible (not always immediately). You may want to DISC the channel forwarding is using (particularly if its trying to connect) to speed things up. ADDUser Format ADDUser callsign This will allow the sysop to add a user callsign to the user file without that station having to connect to the bbs. This can be useful in conjunction with the automatic @BBS generation. After the new user has been added you automatically will EUsers for the callsign at which time you can fill in the desired fields. APpend Sourcefile DEStfile This command causes the source file to be appended to the DEStination file. This command may be used to append a file to a message file, among other more general uses. ARChive @BBS filename This command will concatenate all current msgs with @BBS given to FILES/filename. No compression is done. Example: ar RLIBBS RLINOTES/JUNK (This assumes you have a RLINOTES subdirectory in the FILES directory) ARP Used without an argument lists the known callsign/IP address correspondence determined by TElnet connects. An optional argument, CLEAR, may be used to erase all of the ARP entries. arp add allows you to manually add (or put it in MSYS.DO) a station (and up to eight digipeaters) to the arp list. Syntax: arp add callsign port# ip-address [digi1 [digi2]] Examples: arp add WA8BXN 0 44 70 4 8 K8OZ arp add N8HSP 2 44.70.4.10 WB8CQR-5 WB8APD You can put a / and a number after the IP address. For example, you can say: arp add W3AAA 1 44 80 1 1/24 K8AAA This says that any ip frames going to an IP address with 44 80 1 in the left 24 bits should go to W3AAA (thru K8AAA as a digi). Thus the number after the / is the number of significant bits to 2-14 keep in comparisons. arp delete allows you to remove a single entry from the table. Syntax: arp del callsign Example: arp del N8HSP ATtended When set to ON all forwarding is allowed. If off, ports with radio speed of 300 will forward only those messages in which the from call is the idcall (messages that you originate) or the to station in the message is the station you would directly connect to for forwarding. HF reverse forwarding is also inhibit- ed if ATtended is OFF. Note that the regulations appear to allow you to receive messages unattended. So if you don't have a STA for HF turn AT OFF when you aren't there and remember to turn it ON when you are. To be on the safe side, put ATtended OFF in your MSYS.DO file should the system reboot when you aren't present. AUTODESt ON/OFF Default OFF Add new DESts for known neighbors AUTOHold On/Off This command specifies what should be done with messages that contain in them R: lines with your Hierarchi- cal bbs callsign (see HCA command). This normally indicates that the message has passed your system before and probably is in a routing loop. Currently such messages are held. AUTO- Hold ON means to do this. If AUTOHold is OFF the messages will not be held. AUTOKill Kill all messages after forwarding. AUTONode ON/OFF Default OFF Add new neighbors heard BACkuptim Specifies the time to make backup of the mail file. BADuser Takes an operand of ON or OFF. When ON,the calls in the BUDCall list will be totally ignored by the system. Such stations will not be able to connect to the system in any way(AX.25 or TCPIP) and will not be digipeated. Do NOT use SSIDs in this list so that the listed calls can be used to match any incoming SSID the station may use. Try to avoid using this facility unless really necessary as it does add some overhead in the processing of every packet received. Hopefully stations that misbehave will realize that they can be turned off and not persist in their activity. BBs Enter the BBS as a local user this command gets you into the BBs as if you had connected to the BBS, with a few minor differences. Of course while you are using the BBS other stations can still connect as usual. When in the BBS you use the BBS command set (B,C,D,H,I,J,K,L,M,N,P,R,S,U,V,W,X,?,*). If you use the L command you will see all messages including the private ones. Likewise you can Read and Kill private messages. Message texts can be gotten from files by going through the steps of sending a message: use the S command to give DEStination station and @BBS, then the title, and then simply ^Z for the text. Then do a LL 1 command to see the number assigned to the message. 2-15 Exit the BBS using the B command then use the COPY command to copy a file to replace the empty file in the MAIL directory. For example if the message was assigned a number of 123, then you might use the command CO tempfile mail/msg123.dat. See the COpy command below for more details of its use. In the bbs from the local computer keyboard you can include afile in the text of a message you are sending. After the Enter Text line, before you do the ^Z, a line of the form \+\ filename will include that file at that point in the message. Example: SB ALL @ MSYS My MSYS.DO file Here is my msys.do file as an example: \+\ msys.do Do not use this file directly! 73 - Mike ^Z You can specify a window number as an argument to the BB com- mand. BB 0 will use the top half of the F1 screen for example. If were in the BBS locally and leave it for some reason with it still active and use the BB command you will return to your previous session rather than starting a new one. BDigi - Lets you specify up to 8 digipeaters for beacons (id,mail, btext) Can be different for each port. Examples: bd 4 digi1 digi2 sets digi1 and digi2 as digipeaters for port 4 only bd digia digib sets digia and digib for all ports bd 5 clears digipeaters for port 5 BElloff on/off on makes it quiet, off is default If BElloff is negative, keyboard connects and normal bell still work. If BElloff is positive, no bells will sound. If BElloff is zero, all bells work. BIDall Manipulates bids in the BIDLIST.DAT file. The follow- ing operands may be specified: + bidstring Adds given bidstring to bid file - bidstring Deletes given bidstring = bidstring Tells if given bidstring is present # Tells number of active bids/mids ON Enables bids for non-bulletins OFF Disables bids for non-bulletins BINterval seconds - Default 3600 - Nodes Broadcast interval BMax This command limits the maximum number of connects on a port. BBS connects are exempted from the limit but count for other users. Normal users get a BUSY response when over limit. BM 1 allows 1 user per port. BM [port#] max BBS connects. If a port is marked BBS ONLY (see BPports) the BMax value specified limits the number of bbs connects. For non-bbs only ports, the BMax value does not effect number of bbs con- 2-16 nects. BOOT Boots computer (Remote sysop only) The correct reply to the question asked by the boot command is Yes (case is important). BPorts This command is used to indicate which ports are BBS ONLY connects. A one in the corresponding bit position makes a port BBS ONLY. For example, BP 5 would only allow bbs con- nects on ports 0 and 2. The default is no BBS only ports. If you do use this command to make BBS only ports, you better be sure to mark all the bbs stations with user flag of 2! BText - Lets you specify 1 line of up to 80 characters of your own beacon text. Can be different for each port. BUDCalls Set or display the list of calls with SSID to be monitored This command is used in conjunction with the BUDLIST command below. As operands you give a list of callsigns, with SSIDs, that are to be monitored. The calls should be separated by blanks. To list the current setting of BUDCalls, type the command with no operands. Examples: budc w1xx w2xx-1 w2xx budcalls K9XXX budc Note: their can be up to 10 calls. BUDList To enable only those packets with calls in the BUDCalls list to be monitored use the command BUDL on. To monitor packets for all calls, use the command BUDL off. This is the default setting. C# This command is used to connect to another station. The letter C must be followed by a digit indicating the port number to be used for the connection. This is followed by a space. Next comes an optional window number to be used for the conversation. Next comes the callsign of the station you want to connect to, with SSID if needed. Following this can come Via and a list of digipeaters to use, separated by commas. Examples: c1 w1xxx c0 w2xxx v k2xxx c2 k3xxx-2 v n4xxx-3,a5xxx When you issue this command the screen to be used for the conversation will be cleared and you will see a line "Enter converse for channel # port #". When connection is made you will get a message "*** Connection established to callsign". If the attempt retries out (determined by the RETries value), you will get the message "Quit converse for channel # because no connect!". In this case the default CALL process window may show "*** callsign busy" if this is why the connection could not be made. Pressing any key before getting one of these messages will abort the connect attempt and return you to the current command processor window. When you are connected to a station, you type lines to be sent to the other station and will see lines typed by the other station. Once you begin typing a line it will not be 2-17 interrupted by lines from the other station until you press return. To terminate the connection, type ^C, the letter D (^CD) and press return. If you want to save what you are getting on disk, press the \ key three times and then press return. You will get the message "*** Capture file opened ***". All lines you receive will be displayed as usual as well as being written to the file CAPTURE.DAT. When you turn capture on with the \\\ at the beginning of a line, you can also specify a filename to be used in place of the default CAPTURE.DAT. For example you can type \\\ junk.abc to start capturing your conversation into the file JUNK.ABC. When you have already turned capture on during a connection,if you type something like \\\morejunk.xyz then the current capture file will be closed and now your conversation will be saved in the file MOREJUNK.XYZ. Three \followed by return will alternately suspend and resume the capturing of lines to disk. When you disconnect (or get disconnected) the capture file will be closed. Note: That the default capture file name is always CAPTURE.DAT. These files can be viewed by using the TYpe command or edited with the EFile command You could for example connect to some other BBS, read a message found there after turning on capture and then use the capture file to replace a message text for one of your own messages.This procedure is explained in more detail for the BBs command above . \+\ filename That file will be sent to the station you are connected to as if you typed it. Example: \+\ files\stuff would send the file called stuff from the files subdirectory. CHAnstat Displays status of a logical channel whose number is given. This command requires an active channel number as a parameter. Information about the channel will be displayed in response to this command. The information includes the Port number used, the call of the station connected to and a status byte in hex. CHEck Number of 10 second intervals of no activity to disconnect. This command specifies the number of ten second intervals after which if there has been no activity on a channel a disconnect will automatically be generated. To see what value is currently set, give the command with no parameters. CLrscrn Clear window number given or * for clear all windows. This command clears the window number given. If * is given for the parameter, all windows are cleared. If no parameters are given, then the command processor window is cleared. CL B # Allows you to set the border color (used on all screens). Use the WC command to see the color list. Default color is black for the border. Any of the 16 color # (0-15) may be used. CMdwindow This command is used to change which window is used 2-18 by the command processor. The default command window is number 0 which by default is the upper half of display page 0. This command is useful when you want a larger window (to type a file for example) to be used by some command. The new window is cleared automatically by this command. You will then get the cmd: prompt. (page 0 =F1 page 1 = F2 etc.) COpy Sourcepathname DEStpathname (include drive: if needed) The copy command will return an error message if it isn't able to copy all the records. CRetries - Sets number of retries that there will be for forward connect attempt DEBug Used to display or modify memory Options for debug are: E segadr:disp allows you to modify memory at the given address. D segadr:disp displays memory at the given address. All numbers are in hex. Q gets you out of debug. Any non hex input to E gets you out of E. DELEfile This command is used to delete a file. You must give as a parameter a single file path name without wildcards. The parameter can contain a drive specification and/or directory names for the given file. DELUDays Specifies the number of days after which a user that has not connected will automatically be deleted from the system. Default is 100 days. Locked users (see bit list in EUser cmd), BBS call signs and bad users are not automatically deleted. DELUSer This command removes a user call from the BBS user list. The callsign given as a parameter must match the a call seen on the list produced by LUsers exactly (including case). Use this command to REMove users that haven't been active lately when you are getting near the capacity of the list (currently 500 users). The last time a given station con- nected to the BBS may be obtained by using the P command while in the BBS. DESt ADD [id:]call neighbor obs quality Adds new DEStination " REP callsign neighbor obs quality Changes obs & qual " DEL callsign neighbor Deletes DESt thru given neighbor DFree This command displays the number of bytes free on a disk. If no operands are given the space is for the default disk (normally C). If a letter is given as a parameter, the number of free bytes will be given for that drive. Be sure the drive is ready before using this command. If its not and you get the DOS error message, type I for ignore. DIGipeats This command displays the list of digipeater defini- tions. DIRectory Displays directory for path specified Example DIR 2-19 mail\*.* This command displays a sorted directory listing. Only the names of the files (or directories) are given, not the sizes. To get the size of a file, use the FSize command described below. Names of directories are enclosed in <>. If no argument is given, you will get a directory for the current default directory (normally C:MSYS). To list some other directory, give the path to that directory and a file name of *.*. Other file specifications can be given for a selective directory list. If you include a drive specification in the pathname, be sure the drive is ready before using this command. Examples: dir mail\*.* dir a:*.* dir files\*.c DISconnec This command can be used to force a disconnect on the specified active channel. It will rarely be needed. DOcmdfile This command is used to execute a command file. DPorts mask (see KPorts mask) DRoute callsign port# [digi1 ... digi8] DRoute DELete The first form of this command allows you to specify the TCP/IP station to which IP frames are routed by default (Default Route). You specify as parameters the callsign of that station (with SSID) and the port number used to reach that station. Optionally up to 8 digipeaters can also be specified to be used to reach that station. The second form of this command allows you to turn off default routing of IP frames. If you do have a default route specified, then all incoming IP frames that are not otherwise handled by existing ARP table entries will be sent to the default station. This station will also be used for any server functions you initiate (telnet for example) to IP addresses that are not currently in your ARP table. Care must be taken in deciding if this command is appropriate to use in your particular situation. DTimedate This command displays what the computer thinks the current data and time is. To change it you unfortunately must exit MSYS and use the appropriate DOS commands. Time is(hh:mm:ss) EDit filename - screen editor for files. Escape gets to command mode, do help for command list EFile This command is used to edit an ASCII file with re- cords <= 80 bytes in length. At least one operand is required which is the pathname to the file you want to edit. A second operand may optionally be given that gives the size of the work area in lines to be allocated (default is 200). See the separate documentation for EDITFILE for more information on the editor. EMsghdr This command allows you to edit the fields of a message header. One operand is required which is the message 2-20 number to edit. This command also automatically sets the message length to the actual size of the associated message file. This is useful when you have replaced a message file with some other file as described above. This command is also useful to change the status of messages to ALL (or others) that have not been marked as being read (but actually have been) so that they don't appear in the MAIL FOR list sent out with each ID. If you press Esc when editing you will skip the current and remaining fields and see the header again. This allows you to bypass having to press return for all the fields you don't want to change. If you place a string of characters that begins with a period after the message number, it will be appended to the existing @BBS field of the given message. Thus if the @BBS of msg 123 was WA8BXN then EM 123 .NTSOH would cause the @BBS field of msg 123 to become WA8BXN.NTSOH. If you type a blank for the BID field the Bid is cleared entirely (you still need to get rid of the $ in the type). EUser Edits specified user Display the meanings of the possible flags bits. FBbstimes Port#- Allows specification of hours bbs is full function. Times for full bbs use allowed to all ports is required not optional. FCall This command finds the channel associated with a call- sign. The single required operand is a callsign without SSID. All channels in use by that callsign (with any SSID) will be dis- played giving the Port, process number and name and complete callsign (with SSID). This can be useful when you were in the middle of a conversation with some station (and still connected) but switched the keyboard to some other process (maybe the com- mand processor) and now want to get back to that conversation. Use the KEyboard command with the appropriate process number to do so. FFile (find file) When you give it a file name pattern and optionally starting path location and it will list all files that match the pattern. The following would find all files that have the extension .DAT on your C: disk FF *.DAT C:/ The output from this command gives the date, time, size and complete path names for all files that match the search specification. FIle - converts specified msg number into file name given. (msg# filename.) This command removes the forwarding lines at the beginning of the file it creates. If you really want to keep them, use an appropriate rename command instead. FOrward This command causes forwarding to begin immediately if it is not currently going on. You might want to use this command when you have just entered a new message with an @BBS specifica- tion that you want sent out now. FO [callsign] of a single sta- 2-21 tion to immediately forward to. This must match the callsign (including SSID) found on the F line in the forward file. FRAck This commands allows you to set or display the number of seconds to wait for an acknowledgment to arrive for a packet that is sent out. If it doesn't arrive within the number of seconds specified the packet will be retransmitted. The retry count for the channel will also be incremented. Making this parameter to small will congest the channel and cause unwarranted disconnects. The default is 6 seconds. If in doubt, err on the high side! (port number optional) FREE This command allows you to immediately release an allocated channel. The process using the channel will see this as a disconnect. This command will not be needed very often. Disconnecting which frees the channel will auto- matically occur after the CHEck interval has expired with no activity. FSize This command can be used to determine the size of a disk file. One operand is required which is the pathname to the file you want the size of. It may include a drive specification and directory paths in addition to the file name. Wild cards are not allowed. Be sure the drive containing the file is ready before using this command. FTIme This command sets the time in minutes after the hour that forwarding will start. If time is negative number such as -5 then you will forward every 5 minutes FUllduplex Used on the specified ports if set to ON. This may be useful for satellite operation or with fullduplex repeaters. Examples: FU ON turns full duplex on for all ports FU 2 OFF turns full duplex off for port 2 F2 Time # is the number of seconds to continue displaying monitored packets after F2 (function key) was last pressed. The default is 600 seconds (10 minutes). Thus 10 minutes after you last press F2 monitoring will be turned off until you press F2 again. If you set F2 to 0 this function will be turned off. GEtmsgotd This command causes the Message of the day file (MSYS.OTD) to be read and displayed. The Message of the day is sent to all stations connecting to the BBS. You can create and/or change this file using the EFile command. Keep the con- tents short! GRep (filename pattern) will search the given file for the specified pattern, displaying lines that match. Case is ignored in the search. FTPgm Takes a host-id as an argument (it can be either an IP address in the square brackets or a symbolic IP address). 2-22 It establishes a connection to the FTP server of the speci- fied system. FTP is the File Transfer Protocol used in TCP/IP. HCAll This command allows you to properly specify your bbs hierarchical callsign. This is the callsign put in the R: lines of messages as they pass thru your system. If you don't give this a value, your ID callsign will be used. Hint: if you run more than one copy of msys for some reason and pass messages between the two systems, make your HCAll slightly different on each. I might use for example WA8BXN.OH.USA on one and WA8BXN.OH.USA.NA on the other. This will prevent unnecessary holding (or deleting, see OLdbids) of messages validly passed from one system to the other. HCLean This command allows you to automatically delete speci fied messages every day at specified time. (see MSYS.HCL) Oper ands are: HC - <no operand> shows time in minutes after 00:00 (midnight) that housecleaning happens. HC? - Gives a short description HC# -Sets the time for housecleaning in minutes after 00:00 (midnight) HC NOW - Manually initiates housecleaning HEard # The J heard list recording is turned off if the number of dispatches per second in the last minute is less than the number given. Default value is 3100 which j heard recording. J Heard list recording takes quite a bit of computation for every packet heard. This command was added to speed things up on slower computers. (you might want to use a value of 10) Help This command lists the names of the available commands with the required part of the command name in capital letters. HOstname TCP/IP HOSTNAME HREPlace This command selects adding to end of existing hierarchical @BBS field info from BBSTONTS.DAT file (if HREP is off) or replacing anything past the first part with the information from the BBSTONTS.DAT file (if HREP is ON). Note that if some msys knows how to forward from some existing part of the @BBS field, no changes are made to it. ID * This command will send out an ID on all the ports immediately. You might use it to see if all your radios go into transmit as they should. It also will send out the MAIL FOR list. The text of the ID is not displayed at this time, but is shown once during initialization. Nothing is displayed by the automatic IDs sent out (on the F1 screen). To see what mail is outstanding for local users, type ID. To really force an ID to be sent, type ID * IGNORE on/off Off is default When on calls in the budcalls list will not be monitored 2-23 IPTTL # Where number is the time to live. Default is 16. JBbs Lists PBBS'S heard and their paths JDigipeat Lists Digipeaters heard and their paths JD command screens out funny callsigns. JD command also lists callsigns with /R in id. JGateways Lists Gateways heard and their paths JHeard Lists stations heard and those connected to BBS or PBBS This command gives a list of the last 10 stations that were heard on the ports or connected to the BBS or PBBS. JKanodes Lists KA Nodes heard and their paths JMsys Lists other MSYS systems heard. JNetrom Lists NET/ROM nodes heard and their paths These commands give the PBBS systems, KA Nodes and others that have been heard on the ports. A BBS is a system that sends out a beacon that contains /B after what looks something like a callsign. A KA NODe is identified by /N in its beacon to ID. For both of these commands the date, time, callsign and path are given. This pair of commands is useful to identify the PBBS that goes with a given KA NODe. The Net nodes are also included. The real call for such nodes are given in []. Real Netroms get the real call in {}. JTcp/ip List TCP/IP stations and their addresses KEyboard The KEyboard command allows you to manually reassign the keyboard. As a parameter you give the channel number of the process you want to have the keyboard. You can get the channel number from the lower right part of the F1 screen. To get the keyboard back to the command processor so you can issue this command either press ^F6 to assign the keyboard to the command processor or press F6 to temporarily send keyboard input to the command process up to and including the next return key. When you press a key, it is placed in the input buffer of the process to which the keyboard is logically connected. Initially this is the command process. When you give certain commands (such as BB, PB, C) the keyboard will be assigned to the new process created for the command. When the process is terminated, the keyboard is automatically assigned back to the command scheduler. KILLproc Abort specified process number (Can be hazardous!) Never use this command to kill a permanent process. Better yet, just don't use this command! KPorts mask see monitor ports DPorts mask These commands allow you to selectively disable the K NODe on any ports or use of the ID call as a digipeater (DPorts) on any 2-24 ports. The mask works just like the port mask for the MONPorts cmd. A 1 bit enables the corresponding port, with the rightmost bit corresponding to port 0. These commands will be most useful for HF operations if you don't want the K NODe to be accessible to or from the HF port, for example. LCount This command counts the number of lines, characters and words in a given file. (LC filename with path) LOCKkbd This command "locks" the keyboard so that any keys pressed are ignored. I put it in for two reasons. First, I am getting RF into my keyboard from HF radios and it generates random characters. Second, my 3 year old son sometimes likes to press the keys. To "unlock" the keyboard, simply type lock again (no CR needed this time). When unlocking the keyboard, "lock" must be all LOWER case. LUsers Use this command to see who has connected and more importantly how many users are in the user file since it can hold only 500 users currently. LU takes an optional argument to list users flagged as BAD, EXPert, LIMited, LOCked, XFAst and BBS system. Example: LU EXP MAKEPriva On/off {sets/resets making messages private by default} MAStersrv Specifies the master WP server (default is AD8I.OH.USA.NA and probably shouldn't be changed). If MAS is set to NONE, no WP messages will be sent. MAXFrames Display or change number of frames sent before ACK rcvd MAXRead - specifies maximum size message that can be read or file that can be downloaded. MCon specifies number of connects allowed to the sysop keyboard at one time if MCon 1, only allows an incoming call to the key board to be answered if there are no other keyboard connections. MCon 0 prevents all incoming keyboard requests. MDir Makes specified directory MEMory Display amount of memory free MERGE (no parameters, except for ? for info). This command reads MSYSFWD.DEF and copies it to MSYS.FWD, expanding any include files ($filename). A new file is also produced,MSYS.BBS that is a sorted list of all possible BBS's that can be forwarded to (including things like ARRL, 44*, etc). This command was added for 2 reasons: previously, if there were any include files in the MSYS.FWD files they did not get read when a pf command was used and secondly, the new file is needed for hierarchical forwarding. The leftmost part of the hierarchical route only is used for forwarding and the contents of the new file were needed for efficient processing. 2-25 So, the bottom line is rename your existing MSYS.FWD file to MSYSFWD.DEF and then use the MERGE command. Any future changes you make to your forward file must be done to MSYSFWD.DEF followed by use of the MERGE command. Its called MERGE be- cause it merges in the include files by the way. MHclear [letter [port or B]] clears the various J heard lists MH clears everything MH D clears all digi's heard MH D 1 clears digi's heard on port 1 letters are HBKDN or G (Heard, Bbs's, K Nodes, Digi's, Netroms) MINmem Allows specification of the minimum free memory as re- ported by the MEM for which a new connect request will be accept- ed. Default is 32000. Values less than 16000 probably will be disasterous. MONBframe Enable/disable monitoring of Beacon (UI) frames MONxx - Replaces MONCC, MONCF etc - now can specify any hex value for PIDs to ignore on screen 2 monitoring MONIFrame Enable/disable monitoring of Information frames MONITor This is the master command for monitoring packets heard. If this is set to OFF then there will be no monitoring. If set to ON then the types of packets selected will be monitored for calls as selected by BUDCalls on the ports set by MONPorts. MONOutgoi Enable/disable display of outgoing frames MONPorts Select which ports to monitor (bit string, LSB=port 0) This command if given no argument displays which ports are to be monitored (all defined ones by default). If an number is given for an argument, its bit pattern determines which ports will be monitored. The rightmost bit corresponds to port 0. A one bit enables a channel for monitoring. MONSframe Enable/disable monitoring of Supervisory frames MONSTats enables/disables recording of channel stats. Defaults to OFF. MONUframe This group of commands determines which kind of frames will be monitored. If no operand is given, then the current setting of the variable will be displayed. If a single parameter is given (either ON or OFF), then the variable will be given that value. MYAlias - display or change bbs alias callsign MYBbs - display or change bbs primary callsign 2-26 MYCall This command displays your keyboard callsign if there is no argument, or sets the keyboard callsign (used to connect and respond to connects) to the call given as an argu- ment (including SSID). MYKnode - display or change K NODe callsign MYIpaddr - Takes four integers in the range 0 to 255. It sets the IP address that the system will respond to. Example: MYI 44 70 4 6 If MYIpaddress is not specified, or set to all zeros, the TCP/IP support will be inactive. MYTcpcall - Display or change a callsign (with SSID) that will be used when sending arp and TCP/IP frames. It can be the same as the ID call in most cases. NDWindow # Default - 4 Net default window size (frames) NETBbs ON/OFF Default ON Enable BBS cmd in net NODe NETCon ON/OFF Default ON Enable connect cmd in net NODe NETNode ON/OFF Enables the Net Node NEWUser # allows you to set the initial user flags for all new users (see EUuser command for the bit position meanings). Thus you can choose to make new users limited (or I suppose for a closed board, "bad users") until they identify them- selves somehow. NETTalk ON/OFF Default ON Enable Talk cmd in net NODe NInfo Gives net NODe status NNode This command takes you into the NODe as if you had connected to it. When in the NODe you can issue sysop commands if you need to by putting \ in front of them as you can in the BBS. Particularly useful are the NODe, DEStination and REMove commands when in the NODe to modify neighbor nodes and DEStina- tion nodes. NOBulls On/Off When on, no bulletins will be forwarded during normal forwarding . Useful in clearing backlog of mes- sages, particularly during earthquakes and hurricanes! NODe SEnd Force known DESt transmission " SAve Write net NODe Database to disk " REStore Read net NODe Database from disk " ADD call port qual [digis] Adds neighbor NODe " REP call port qual [digis] Changes quality of neighbor NODe " DEL call port Deletes neighbor nodes & its DESts NPorts portmask (see monitor ports) Defaults 0 Ports to which nodes broadcast 2-27 NRCall callsign Sets net NODe callsign NRid mnemonic Sets net NODe mnemonic identifier NTtl # Default 64 Network time to live (max hops) OLdbids On/Off. Once a message has been deleted from the system its BID is also forgotten. Stale bulletins that have passed through this system before and have already been deleted can be automatically deleted if they come in again if OLdbids is set to ON. Such stale bulletins coming through a second time are detected by seeing an R: line that contains the hierarchical call of this bbs (see HCAll command). This won't solve all old BID problems but it should catch some very aggravating situations. OCInit # Default 6 Initial obsolescence count OCMmin # Default 10 Minimum obsolescence to broadcast OCM is settable for each port PAClen - specifies maximum number of bytes that are put in a packet before it is sent. Return also sends current packet. PATh - displays information about given user callsign (same as P on BBS) PForward - displays information about given bbs callsign (same as PF on BBS) PMessage message# - This will print the given message. If you have MAIL.BAK as a directory then the file MAIL.BAK/MSG###.DAT will be printed. This will look nice. If you don't, then MAIL/MSG###.DAT will be printed. This will be only the message text. This command just makes it easier to print a message than using the PRInt command. POrts - Various information is given by this command. Interesting to look at but may not be very useful. POrt can have operand on/off. When off a port will not respond to the id callsign (with any SSID) and will no longer digipeat or be usable from the K NODe. BBS will not id unless you use it. Id will be very short if it has to id (no text for the UI frame).If you call a station with the port off this will still work because incoming packets from that station don't include a con nect packet. The POrts command will take a single parameter (ON or OFF) in addition to POrt port# ON/OFF. With just the single parameter, all ports are turned on or off. Useful when you want to shut down the system. PO OFF allows the current users to finish while preventing further connects. PPersist [port#] value (255 to 0) PQuality [port#] # Default 192 Quality for nodes hear on port 2-28 PRInt Prints a file (on printer) The argument is the pathname to the file to print. Make sure the drive is ready before using this command. Make sure the printer is ready (and exists) before using this command. Printing is done to LPT1: via BIOS calls. This command will queue up to 25 print requests. Print with no operands lists the files in the queue. PROcesses This command displays for each active process its number, program running for that process, an integer parameter passed to the process (usually a port or channel number), the least amount of memory left in the stack for the process (la- beled SPmin), and the window used for output by the process. Of particular importance is SPmin if the system does bizarre things. If this number is less than say 100 the stack is too small. If its a negative number, you have problems for sure! PRTmsgs on/off Enables printing of incoming messages as they are received. PWindow If given one parameter this command displays the name and window used by the given process number. If two numbers are given as parameters, the first is the process and the second number is the window number to assign to that process. QUIT After you use QUIT command (or CTRL/F4) the screen is cleared. JK etc information is saved when you do a QUIT and reloaded when bbs is started again. RDir REMove specified directory REMove DESt callsign Deletes DESt thru all neighbors REName Oldpathname newpathname (must be on same drive) REPlaces Reads bbs call/@bbs replace file RESpons # Where # is the number of seconds to wait before sending out a response. This is the T2 timer value in the ax.25 spec. If you set RES to 0 it will work the old way, always sending out a response to each I frame received as soon as possible. With non-zero values for RES, the responses are held, the latest one replacing any one being held, until no I frames have been received for the time given. It then sends out its response. RESponstime can be set for individual ports. REtries Displays or sets number of retries before disconnecting RUn that allows you a DOS program with many limitations. For those of you who have asked for some sort of DOS shell capabil- ity you may recall I have said it can't be done. But some of you said all you needed to do was output 8 bits to some port or something like that. Well if you have something VERY SIMPLE and VERY SMALL and very QUICK here is something that should work for 2-29 you. Note: You must follow all of the rules given here or very strange things might happen for which I claim no responsibili- ty. If you use the RUn command and it doesn't work it is clear- ly you who have made the error! Here are the rules for programs you might consider using with the run command (if you don't understand these rules or aren't sure your program complies with them, don't run it!): 1. Program must be small (I'd say under 10K, if you get a message that says not enough memory, the program is too big 2. Program must be in default msys directory 3. Program must be fast. If runs much over 1 minute the system will reboot. While it is running no packets will be transmitted of any kind. 4. Programs must not use any of the "standard" pre-opened files. Console I/O must be done using ROM BIOS only. If you open any files, you must close them. If you get any memory, you must free it. If you change anything in the computer you must put it back for the most part. 5. You should write your programs in either assembly language or C. Here is an example of a C program that is suitable for framing (I mean execution using the RUn command): #include <stdio.h> #include <stdlib.h> main(int argc, char *argv[]) { int i; char *path; path = getenv("PATH"); for (i=0;i<argc;i++) cprintf("argv[%d] is '%s'\n",i,argv[i]); if (path) cprintf("Path = '%s'\n",path); exit(1);/* You didn't expect this to do anything useful I hope*/ } SEnd Parameters are an active channel number and the text of the message to send. The text is prefixed with "MESSAGE FROM SYSOP AT id-callsign". Use this to give helpful hints to users you see that are in trouble with the commands they are trying to use. SLottime [port#] value (0 to 255) SMTP Allows local access to the SMTP server (mainly for test purposes). The data channel port number for SMTP transfers is not correctly displayed. It does not affect operation and may be fixed in a future release. SNow If you have a CGA adapter and there is a lot of snow during screen changes (particularly when changing display pages with F1-F4) and you don't like it, set SNow to ON. Otherwise leave it off and the display will run faster. SOrt - (filename) Useful to sort your forward include files in 2-30 the /fwd directory so you can find things there more easily. Will sort up to 200 eighty byte records. STatus I put this one in for my own debugging (like some of the other information displays). The current time is in something like seconds since midnight of 1900. If any channels are open you will learn very little by what you see, but state 5 is the normal connected state number. The next to last part of this display is somewhat important. FREE is what is currently free in the buffer used to get characters from the TNC (an interrupt driven routine is used). LEAST is the smallest amount of space that was available. If lease is small (say less than 100) you've got some real problems. I don't think I've ever seen it go below 3000. If it is small it means that characters are coming from the TNC faster than they are being processed. You might try a lower baud rate between the computer and TNC but this probably won't really help the situation much. Dispatches per second is how many times per second each proc- ess was given control of the CPU. If this goes to zero I'd worry a lot!Note: will only display information for real ports. The STatus command may be given the operand RESET which resets the least free values to 4096, the other counters (over- run, framing and discarded) to zero. It also copies the lat minute dispatches to min and max. Also added to the STatus com- mand is display of the average number of disatches per second since msys was started. SUspendtrace # Where # is the number of free bytes in the input buffers below which the monitoring is turned off. There is 1 buffer of 4096 bytes for each serial port (tnc). The amount free at any time is given by the STatus command. When the free space gets less than the SU value, F2 monitoring is turned off to allow things to get processed more quickly. Default value is 2000 bytes. Again, F2 displays take a lot of time and when the system gets behind it is a good idea to turn off the updating of the display. When the free space in all the buffers goes above the SU value tracing is turned back on (unless otherwise suspended). This function can be effectively disabled by setting SU to 0 and then it will work as before. TABs ON/OFF (when on tabs are expanded on local display; when off a tab shows up as ^I). Default is ON. TACK sec Default 3 Transport ACK delay (responsetime) TBdelay seconds Default 180 Transport busy delay TElnet Takes an IP address and optional server number as parameters. Examples: TE [44.70.4.10] te hsp (hsp would have to be defined in MSYSHOST.NET) TFrames - Port# send test frames on a given port 2-31 TImezone - Allows entry of your time zone. Set timezone GMT to all caps to get lower case z on message time R: lines. TNatime seconds Default 600 Transport no activity timeout time TRetries # Default 3 Transport retries TTimeout seconds Default 60 Transport timeout (Net FRACK) TPorts Takes a port mask value as an argument. This number is used the same way as in the other similar commands: each port corresponds to a port (port 0 is the rightmost bit) and when the bit is set to 1 for a given port that port is available for TCP/IP use (particularly ARP broadcasts). TXDelay [port#] value (0 to 255) TXTail [port#] value (0 to 255) This should be used with TNC-2 clone tncs (any tnc that uses hardware switches to set baud rate going to radio) when on HF. Without this parameter the tnc keys up on the transmitter before the complete packet is sent. Try a value of 20 as a starting point. TYpe Allows you to type a file. Use spacebar to stop/start and a control Z or A to abort. Trace25 Here the parameters are on or off and if you set it on you will get more stuff that you can't understand faster than you ever wanted to see it! TraceIP Enables/disables trace of TCP/IP Users filename - writes out all users info to file Video You can change the monitor you want to use while the system is running (using COLOR or MONOCHROME as a parameter). I've got both connected to my systems here (at the same time) so it is meaningful to switch back and forth on rare occasions (like to see if it works). You probably ought to specify the one you want to use in your MSYS.OPT file and not otherwise use this command. WAtch This command allows you to see all that occurs in both directions for the channel you specify. Watching is turned off when the channel is closed or you use the WAtch command a second time for that same channel. The lines that go to the screen are not labeled in any way, they are just sent to the screen. If you WAtch more than one channel at a time it will work but you may wonder which line came from which channel. Using watch may have some side effects like resetting the window being used by the process using the channel you have selected. That's a "feature" of this program and will not be corrected! WBackgrnd This command requires two parameters to set back- 2-32 ground color: Window# and Color#. The color number should be between 0 and 7. WColors Gives list of color names and their numbers WForegrnd This command requires two parameters to set fore- ground color: Window# and Color#. The color number should be between 0 and 15. WPAge This command requires two parameters to set page number: Window# and Page#. The page number must currently be between 0 and 3. WPEvery Specifies the number of days between sending out WP information for users who haven't changed their informa- tion. Default is 60 days. WSize Specifies coordinates for specified window This command requires 5 parameters. The first is the window# being defined. The remaining parameters are two pairs of numbers giving the upper left and lower right corners of the window. The pair is column number (1,80) then row number (1 to 25). Overlapping windows may produce amusing results. To specify window 3 as being the entire screen the following command may be used: WS 3 1 1 80 25 Window Use of this command is a good way to see what numbers mean in the various window definition commands. WHo Displays current users and messages (Remote SYSOP only) WQupdate # Default 1 Worst quality DESt route to record W? Use of this command is the easiest way to find out which window is which! Function key usage: F1 through F4 select page to display (0 to 3 respectively) F6 causes the following characters to the next return to be treated as a command even if keyboard currently connected to some other process (such as local bbs, etc.). Ctrl/F2 suspends activity on the monitor screen. ^F2 restores normal operation. This is probably as close as being able to scroll the F2 screen that I will be implementing. Ctrl/F4 terminates MSYS as if QUIT command was used Ctrl/F5 is the same as the PRocesses command Ctrl/F6 assigns keyboard to command processor Most commands give information on their usage if you type command name followed by a question mark. Example WS ? 2-33 MSYS BBS Commands (c) Copyright 1990 by HUB COMPUTERS, INC. A - Abort N - Enter name/qth B - Bye P - Path to station C - Conference R - Read message D - Download S - Send Message G - Search file T -Talk to sysop H - Help W - What files I - Information V - Version J - Calls heard X - Expert-Mode K - Kill message U - Current users L - List Messages ?x- Info about command M - Message of the day * - Comment line The A (abort) command to the BBS. It can be used to abort output from most bbs commands, like Download, List and Read. The Bye command disconnects you from the BBS. Use it when you are done! The Conference command allows you to see what stations are currently connected in conference mode. You can also enter the conference or start one if none is currently active. When stations are connected in conference mode anything typed by one station is seen by all stations. All of the software to do this is contained in this system. Any TNC can be used by stations connected in conference mode with any computer or terminal. In some respects the overhead is rather high in terms of channel utilization since a packet typed by one station is sent to all of the stations in conference mode individually and acknowledged by each station individually. Another mode of conferencing will be made available in the future to stations with KISS mode compatible TNCs and IBM PCs (and possibly also C-64s). The easiest way to see what conference mode does now is to enter it using the C command. Even if you are the only station in the conference you will get an idea of what you would see if there were others. To terminate conference mode, simply disconnect from the system. Several commands are possible when in Conference mode. All begin with control/Z (^Z). Some have parameters. Here is the list: ^ZA To add a DX station heard to the spotting list (Add) ^ZB To disconnect from the system (Bye) ^ZD To display the DX spotting list (Display) ^ZP channel # To ask a station on BBS to join the conference (Page) ^ZR To go back to BBS (Return) ^ZU To list the current stations on the BBS or Conference Mode (Users) 3-34 The list users command gives output like this: WA8BXN (B/4) which means that WA8BXN is using the BBS and is on channel number 4. The 4 would be used with the Page command that asks WA8BXN to join the conference. The DX spotting list commands (^ZA and ^ZD) allow adding to or displaying the 10 line buffer that may be used to report DX stations heard. The date,time and call of station using the ^ZA command is automatically added to the remaining characters on the ^ZA command line. Thus you might type ^ZA XY0ABC on 14.112 listening up 20 for example. The ^ZA command both adds what you type at the bottom of the list and will also broadcast it to all stations in conference. Note that most of what you get in response to these commands is NOT seen by other stations. The Download command is used to read a file stored on the system. The format of the command is D filename where filename is the name of the file to download. To see what files are available for downloading, use W or WN command. To get a file from a subdirectory type d (directory name\filename) The G command (for GREP, a Unix utility) allows you to search a downloadable file for a specified string of characters, printing all lines that contain the string of characters. Case is ignored in the comparison. No wild cards (like ? or *) are recognized. When you use this command you will be asked for a file name and then a search string. For file name enter the name that you would use if you were downloading the entire file. If you do not give a file name, Database.0 will be assumed. When the command is used the user will be asked for the file name to search and then the search pattern. FILES\ will be prefixed to the file name the user gives; thus downloadable files may be pattern searched. The G command is not available when the BBS is in limited service mode. The H command will give you a short description of the commands. For more information about a particular command, type ?x where x is the letter of the command. The I command by itself gives hardware configuration of this system. (the information displayed comes from HELP\INFO.DAT) For example: This system runs on an IBM PC type computer and is written in C. It uses TNCs running in KISS mode which allows all the fancy stuff it does. Location is Port Huron, Michigan Tnc's KPC-4 PK-232 Frequency Radio Power Antenna 145.03 MOCOM 70 60 W Isopole at 80 ft 145.09 TR-7400A 30 W Isopole at 30 ft If you have any questions please leave a message or call 3-35 ID gives a list of the ports and digipeaters/gateways available. The J command lists stations recently heard on the various ports and stations that recently connected. Use the P command for path to station that have connected at some time. For the following commands the sponsor's callsign is given in {curly brackets}. This is normally NOT the call you would use. This callsign is given to help identify some of the "mystery" callsigns used for nodes and digipeaters such as "MYDIGI". JD command gives a list of the Digipeaters that have been heard along with the date and time they were heard and the path to them. JK command gives a list of the KA nodes that have been heard along with the date and time they were heard and the path to them. JG command gives a list of the Gateways that have been heard along with the date and time they were heard and the path to them. JM command List other MSYS systems that have been heard. JN command gives a list of the NET/ROM nodes that have been heard along with the date and time they were heard, the real callsign of the NODe and the path to them (most are direct).You can specify a port number as an argument to limit the display to just that port. For example, JK 1 would display the KA Nodes heard on port1 only. The K command is used to kill (delete) old messages from the system. You can kill only those messages that are to or from your station. The format of the command is K, a space, and then the number of the message to delete. May use multiple message numbers separated by a space. Example: k 123 6789 1123. KM - To delete all messages TO you. KF - Kill messages that have been forwarded (sysop only) KT - Msg# to kill NTS traffic you are going to deliver. K* - Kill messages marked with type * (sysop only) K@ - kills all messages with given @BBS.(sysop only) only com pares the leftmost part of the @BSS field (the normally visi- ble part of a hierarchical address) instead of any part which caused unexpected deletions. Example: K@ arrl The L command lists selected message headers. The following format are available: L - List messages since you last used the B command LH - (sysop only) List held messages. A message gets held if any of the R: lines contain the idcall of the receiving BBS. This will catch forwarding 3-36 loops. LM - List messages to or from you (List Mine) LN - List all messages not yet read LT - List NTS Traffic messages LL # - List the last # messages Example: LL 10 - Lists last 10 messages LO - List messages older than date yymmdd given LU - Lists unread messages to you LY - Lists msgs that have been read but not deleted LW - Lists msgs with type W (for weather) L? - List mesgs that will not forward L< callsign - List messages from callsign Example: L< WA8BXN L> callsign - List messages to callsign Example: L> WA8BXN L@ callsign - List messages being sent to BBS callsign Example: L@ WA8BXN L # - List messages >= given number Example: L 827 L # # - List messages from # to # Example: L 50 75 L"string" - Lists messages with given string in title (case insensitive) L'string' - Lists messages with given string in title (case insensitive) Examples: L'Pfb' L"ID's" l"Modem users" L$ - List messages with type $ Example: L$ Note: Messages that are Private are shown only to Sender or Addressee. The M command may be used to display the Message of the day. Normally this message (if not empty) is displayed when you connect if you have selected Expert mode (?X for more info on Expert mode). If you have selected Expert mode, using the M command is the only way to see any Message of the day. If there is no message of the day, you will simply get the next command prompt. The message of the day will advise you of new features and other important information. N command can be used to register your name or QTH. You should enter both of these. To enter your name type N yourname. Example: N Mike To enter your QTH, use the command NQ yourqth. Example: NQ Kirtland, OH 3-37 To enter your ZIP or Postal Code, use NZ code. Example: NZ 44026 To enter the primary BBS that you look for your mail on use NH callsign. Example: NH KB8CI The P command can be used to find the path last used by a station to connect to this system. The format is P callsign. Example: P W1AW The information given comes from the station's use of the N commands and information recorded by the system. Try the P command with your own call to check the information the system has about you. The PF command can be used to find out if this system knows how to forward mail to a particular BBS (what you would enter as @bbs in the S command). The port number and call of the BBS to which the message would be sent is displayed along with the VIA list used for the connect. If Net/Rom or KA Nodes are used to connect to the BBS to which the message would be forwarded to the fact is noted but the details are not given. If this system does not contain the requested BBS in its forward file you get a message that the callsign is unknown. Example: PF WA8BXN The R command is used to read messages that appear when you do a L command. After the letter R and a space you should enter the number of the message to read or multiple message numbers sepa- rated by spaces. Example:r 725 1012 892. RE - (for read export) This causes the given message(s) to be displayed with a S command line, followed by title, message text and then /EX in place of the normal way messages are displayed. If this form of output is saved using the output to file command [< filename] you can easily export messages to an ascii file.L RH - Gives complete forwarding information. RN - msg# list This is like the R command but no headers are printed, just the message text. Good for marginal connections when you otherwise know the message number you want to read. RM - Read unread messages addressed to you. RP - Read Preview. It does a normal read operation but does not mark the message as having been read so it will show up if you do a LU command. RS - Reads all mail for SYSOP. Note that when you read mail for SYSOP it gets changed to mail for Sysop so that it won't continue to show up as a new msg. The S command format: Sx to call @bbs Where x is message type (P=private) To call is DEStination callsign (without - number) @bbs is DEStination BBS (again without any - number) [OPTIONAL] ---> If @BBS part is omitted then if the station has entered a Home BBS (NH command) that BBS will be used. Otherwise the to station callsign will also be used as the @BBS. 3-38 Example: S W1XXX @W0YYY You will next be asked for a title for the message. After this you type the message, keeping all lines less than 80 characters. When you are done with the message type ^Z or /EX on a new line. If you type ^A in place of ^Z when you are done typing a message, the message will not be stored. Use SB to send bulletins, ST to send traffic, etc. All messages sent to a specific callsign will be treated as if you used SP (send private). To make messages to a specific callsign readable by everyone use SB instead of just S! Or make it to a non-callsign (such as all). The T command (talk to sysop). When a bbs user types T you will get the connect music and then have 60 seconds to type something or they will be put back to the bbs. If you do type to them then when you are done with your conversation and do ^Cd then they will go back to the bbs. The keyboard call can still be used for incoming connects; note that it is accessible to all stations, even on closed bbs ports. Outcoing connects are the same as they have always been. When an incoming keyboard connect occurs, you will automatically be taken to the F1 screen The U command gives the current users of the bbs plus the number of active messages and users and what they are doing. The Upload command To use it, the user must be authorized (see user flags ). To do an upload, the user types UP on the BBS. MSYS will then ask for the file name to be uploaded. If no file name is entered, or the file exists (in the FILES directory) the upload is terminated. If the filename is accepted, the user then sends the ASCII file, ending with a line that contains only ^Z. Once the transfer is started, it may be aborted by sending a line with ^A. The V command gives the version of this software and date and time MSYS was started. The W command lists the available files for downloading. The formats: W - Lists all files with dates & sizes W (Directory) - Lists all files in a subdirectory under files. The directory list provided includes the size of the files listed. The X command can be used to set or reset Expert status and also to set the number of lines sent before pausing during an R command. If no argument is given, X simply toggles and displays the new Expert status. When Expert status is set, the initial connect messages are replaced by a compatibility identifier line (currently [MBL313]) and the command prompt is simply >. If a number is given after X, this is the number of lines to display for a R command before asking More? To continue displaying the current message when More? is sent press return. To abort the message, type N and then return. This facility has been added to prevent a long message from scrolling off your 3-39 screen faster than you can read it. Experiment with different values until you find one that pleases you. To not use this facility, set the number of lines to zero. Examples: X 20 (pause after every 20 lines) X 0 (don't pause ever) When you get More? in R cmd output(as a result of using X cmd to set lines between pauses) you can type C for continue without any more stops. Commands: XF and XS. XF sets "fast" mode, XS sets "slow" mode. Fast mode means that multiple lines are placed in packets for some commands (like R and L). Slow mode means one line per packet as it has been (the default). XF is faster for users with good paths. XS is better for users with poor paths (or busy channels!). Putting * at the beginning of a line makes it a comment. It also suppresses the next command prompt (but the system will be waiting for another command). * is useful to answer the SYSOP if you get a MESSAGE FROM SYSOP ... < filename (sysop only) causes the commands found in the given file to be processed as if they were typed from the key- board. This may be used as a message import function if messages are placed in a file. A sample of this is: SB ALL @ ARRL < W1AW $XYZ27 Sample title This is the text of the message. It is short. /EX You can of course have many messages in the file. When end of file is found, input is taken again from the keyboard. > filename and >> filename Both of these commands cause output normally sent to the screen to be also saved in the indicated file. Using just one > causes a new file to be created (replacing any existing file by that name). Use of two > before the filename causes output to be appended to the end of the filename given (if it exists). To terminate writing to the file, use either of these commands without a file name. While output is being saved to a file, there will be NO PROMPT FOR NEXT COMMAND. \ To be used for sysop commands while in the BBS (see remote sysop) 3-40 DATABASE HELP (c) Copyright 1990 by HUB COMPUTERS, INC Commands related to Database manipulation available on MSYS MSYS allows BBS users to input information and search for information in simple data bases. The names of the databases are Database.0 through Database.999. These files are located in the normal FILES directory, which can be accessed by the D command (download) on the BBS. These files can also be searched by the new G command on the BBS. To use this command you enter the command G (with no operands). You will then be asked for the file you want to search. Simply pressing return at this point will select Database.0 by default. You are then asked for the search string. This is a set of characters that when found in lines of the file cause those lines to be displayed. Case is ignored during the search. If a selected line ends with \ then the following line(s) are also selected for display. Data is entered into a data base by sending a message to MSYS with DBADD in the title. The text of the message will be added to the indicated Database (Database.0) by default. A header line is also inserted in the data base telling the station that made the entry, along with the date and time. Here are some examples: SP MSYS {this is a S command issued to the BBS} DBADD 3 {the message title, Database.3 to be used} wind damage mentor Ohio \ large tree down at 615 & 20 \ reported by mentor pd \ no injuries ^Z {normal way to end message} The text of this message would be added to Database.3. Now if you search Database 3 for either wind damage or mentor for example, you would get to see these lines, along with any other lines that have wind damage or mentor in them. Example of using search command: G {BBS command to do search} File search routine {Response from bbs} Enter file name (or just press return for Database.0): Database.3 Enter search argument: Mentor {lines from message above displayed} > {BBS ready for next command} Another example: Assume a file had the following lines: Mary had a little lamb its fleece was white as snow, \ and every where that mary went the lamb was sure to go. 3-41 It followed her to school one day If you searched this for 'snow' you would get the following back: its fleece was white as snow, \ and every where that Mary went That's a brief outline of what can be done. Its simple yet very flexible. Let me know of any applications you can think of for these facilities. Particular Database numbers can be assigned to different uses. Formats for information can be suggested for each different Database. 3-42 Forward File Description (c) Copyright 1990 by HUB COMPUTERS, INC. NOTE: TO FORWARD BULLETINS YOU MUST SET UP MSYSBBS.DAT! The MSYS forward file (MSYSFWD.DEF) is an ASCII file that can be prepared with any program editor. The file consists of groups of lines separated by a line beginning with at least 3 dashes. Each group of lines specifies what should be sent to a given BBS along with other information. The first line has the following format: Position Content -------- ------- 1 The letter F If you substitute R for F (F0 becomes R0 WA8BXN) then it enables reverse forwarding request. P0 Forces a reverse forward poll. 2 The port number to use (a single digit) 3 A blank 4 to N Callsign of BBS (with SSID) optional: N+1 A blank N+2 to ? Via list of digipeaters Examples: F0 W1XX V W2XX,W1XX-1 F2 WA0XYZ-2 When no nodes are being used, this first line is used as if it were a connect command to the desired system. When a NODe is used, the Via digipeater list will have no effect. If a NODe (KA NODe or NET/ROM) is to be used, the next set of lines are a script of how to use the NODe(s). This script may be up to 25 lines long. Its format will be described below. Next comes a list of callsigns of BBS systems that should be forwarded to the system given on the first line (the one beginning with F). There is one call per line. No SSID should be given. The callsign of the system given on the first line should normally be given in this list. Example forward file that doesn't use any nodes: F0 W1XX W1XX W2ABC W2XXX ---------- F0 W1XX V W1XYZ W1XX W2ABC W2XXX --------- 4-43 W1XX V K1XXX,W1XXX W1XX W2ABC W2XXX -------------- F0 W8XXX-12 W8XXX WA8XXX K7XXX ------------ Note: Here we try three different paths to connect to W1XX. If we get the messages forwarded the first way the other connections will not be attempted. F0 W1XX !01-04,12,21-23 This will forward during the times indicated W1XX (Use of this line is optional and must begin W2ABC with !) W2XXX ---------- In the list of callsigns given indicating what BBS's msgs can be forwarded to a particular BBS if a second entry is typed on the line then the second entry must match some part of a message title to allow it to be forwarded. For example, F1 W1XX ARRL DX ---------- @ARRL will be forwarded only if DX appears in their title. Case of letters is ignored in the comparison. You can use * in the forward file. If you have NTS* then all msgs with NTS as the first 3 characters of the @BBS will be forwarded. For example: F1 W1XX NTS* ---------- * used alone is treated specially. Only messages that have been on the BBS for more than about 2 days will be forwarded. This gives time for them to be forwarded by other specified connections. IMPORTANT NOTE: In the forwarding file, use of * for the BBS names cannot be the first call and the first bbs in the list of bbs's that can be forwarded to through the given bbs MUST begin with a letter. 4-44 Example: F0 WA8BXN * won't work WA8BXN ----------- F0 WA8BXN 44* won't work WA8BXN ----------- F0 WA8BXN WA8BXN will work * 44* ----------- Note: That # is a wild card character. If you want to put #XYZ as anentry in your forward file, you will have to use "#XYZ (the " is an escape character that says the character that follows must matchexactly and is not treated as a wildcard character as it normally would be). NODe Scripts: The script consists of several sets of lines. The first line begins with @ followed immediately by the call (and Via digipeater list if needed) of the NODe to initially connect to. The port that will be used is taken from the digit after the F on the first card in the group. If the connection is established to the NODe, the following sets of lines are used to talk to the first NODe and possibly other nodes called through it. Each set of lines for a given NODe begins with a line that has a period in position one. The following characters on the line are sent to the NODe as a command. The next line in the set is optional and if used has # in the first position. Following this is the number of seconds to wait before abandoning use of this NODe. If this line is not given then 60 seconds will be assumed. The next line is required and begins with + in the first position. The following characters are what is looked for in lines that come from the NODe to indicate that connection has been established to the station called (another NODe or the desired BBS). An exact match to the characters given on the line (including case) must be found somewhere in a line received to continue. Next come two lines beginning with ? in the first position. These cards contain strings of characters that if found anywhere in a line that comes from the NODe that the connection was not made. Thus after we issue the connect command (given on the line beginning with .) one of three things can happen: a line from the NODe that matches the +string is found and we continue with the script or talk to the BBS, a line from the NODe matches a ?string which means we give up on making the connection, or a time-out occurs waiting for a match which again means we will give up the 4-45 connection. Example script: @ANOD (issue connect command to ANOD) .C (issue connect to desired call) #25 (time out after 25 seconds if no match) +MADE (if MADE comes from NODe, continue) ?BUSY (if BUSY comes from NODe, abandon attempt) ?RETRIED (if RETRIED comes from NODe, abandon attempt) These strings are useful for KA Nodes. For a NET/ROM NODe the following would be useful: +to ?Failure ?Busy Here is another example of a complete forward file: F1 W8XXX W8XXX W5XYZ --------- F0 W4XYZ @W7XXX +to ?Busy ?Failure .CW9XXX #120 +MADE ?RETRIED ?BUSY W4XYZ W4XXX ------- F1 W9XXX-2 VIA K9XXX-3,KA9XXX W9XXX W1XXX W3XXX K0XXX ---------- NOTE: The forward connect script for a given bbs is limited to 25 lines. The file MSYSBBSB.DAT (YOU MUST HAVE THIS FILE TO FORWARD BULLETINS!) This file contains a set of bit position numbers and corresponding BBS calls to which $ BID messages will be sent. The format of the records is MAX BIT# IS 31 Bit# Callsign (0-31) An example file content is: 4-46 25 WB8JUI 26 KB8CI 27 WA8YWH 28 KQ8M 29 KB3X (MSYSFWD.DEF): If you put a line beginning with $ and followed by a file name (where BBS callsigns normally go) the given file will be read at that point as more BBS calls. Example: F0 WA8BXN WA8BXN $BXN.DAT ARRL -------- In this example, the contents of BXN.DAT will be used for more calls that can be forwarded through WA8BXN. Due to the extra overhead of opening, reading, and closing the file, this should only be used for more than just a few call signs. MERge: (MUST DO THIS IN ORDER TO FORWARD MAIL) This command reads MSYSFWD.DEF and copies it to MSYS.FWD, expanding any include files ($filename). A file is also produced, MSYS.BBS that is a sorted list of all possible BBS's that can be forwarded to (including things like ARRL, 44*, etc). This command is for 2 reasons: if there were any include files in the MSYS.FWD files they did not get read when a pf command was used and secondly, the new file is needed for hierarchical forwarding. The leftmost part of the hierarchical route only is used for forwarding and the contents of the file is needed for efficient processing. Any changes you make to your forward file must be done to MSYSFWD.DEF followed by use of the MERGE command (IN THE BBS). Call/@BBS replacement facility: Create a file called MSYS.REP In it place lines with the following format OLDCALL OLD@BBS NEWCALL NEW@BBS For example: ALL ALLONT ALL NEOH (messages to ALL@ALLONT become ALL@NEOH) 44* NTSOH @1 --- (messages to 44*@NTSOH become original tocall@ ---) NTS* * @2 @1 (messages coming in to NTS anything get tocall and @bbs swapped) *** IMPORTANT *** There can be no more than 100 lines in this file! The algorithm goes like this: When a message comes in, a check is made comparing the to call and @bbs of the msg with the 4-47 first two fields of the records in MSYS.REP. If a match is found (wild cards are allowed in MSYS.REP) then the last 2 fields are used to replace the tocall and @bbs of the message. @1 or @2 in the last two fields in MSYS.REP have a special meaning. @1 means the original to call and @2 means the original @bbs. Note that wildcards are not expanded in these last 2 fields. To support this facility a new command is also added: REPlace. If an argument of L is specified, the current replacement list is displayed. If no argument is given, the current contents of MSYS.REP are read and stored in memory. (This is done when MSYS is started also). Use the REP command after you have edited MSYS.REP to make the changes effective. REVERSE FORWARDING : MSYS can respond with messages to a connected BBS when it gives F>. To use this facility, you must have a directory FWD that contains files of the form callsign.REV. These files contain the @BBS values that can be reverse forwarded to the given station. So you may want to set up your forward file as follows: [file MSYSFWD.DEF]: F0 W8XYZ $fwd/w8xyz.rev -------- F0 K8XXX $fwd/k8xxx.dat -------- [file FWD\W8XYZ.REV]: W8XYZ ARRL [file FWD\K8XXX.DAT] K8XXX K9XYZ ARRL With these example files, reverse forwarding would be enabled for W8XYZ but not K8XXX. Recall that $ lines in the forward file MSYSFWD.DEF cause the given file to be included at that point. Also remember to be sure to use the MERGE command whenever you make any changes to the forward files! Reverse forwarding of a given message is not possible until there has been at least one normal forwarding (either forced manually with the FOrward command or at your forward time). The other half of reverse forwarding (where MSYS would send F> when it is done forwarding messages to a particular station) is enabled with the R in the first line of the forwarding file (F0 becomes R0 WA8BXN). When done forwarding MSYS just disconnects and does not send *** done. Reverse forwarding checks if the bbs is currently connected. If so MSYS will not request reverse forwarding. Reverse forwarding poll (connects and requests reverse forwarding even if you don't have anything yourself to forward) can be 4-48 implemented. Simple place P where you had R or F before. Thus F0 WA8BXN becomes P0 WA8BXN SELECTIVE FORWARDING: Selective forwarding by title contents is limited to ONE selection per route. Thus if you have both ARRL LETTER and ARRL PFB in your forward file for a given bbs, only bulletins addressed @ARRL with LETTER in their titles will be forwarded. No other bulletins with @ARRL (including those with PFB in their titles) will be forwarded. In addition to selective forwarding title comparisons, two additional selection criteria may be specified: number of forward attempts that must be made before using this path or maximum message size to be forwarded using this path. Here some examples: F0 N8XYZ ARRL NEOH DX N8HTG 10 NEOH '15 OKIPN <3000 OKIPN '<I ------- This set of lines will cause the following to happen - All @ARRL messages will be forwarded. Messages with @NEOH will be forwarded if they contain DX (upper and/or lower case) in the title. Messages with @N8HTG will be forwarded if type is PN and there have been at least 10 forwarding cycles with the message present on the BBS. Messages with @NEOH will be forwarded if there is 15 somewhere in the title. The single quote mark is used to indicate that the number following is not the number of attempts that must be made to forward the message by other means. Messages with @OKIPN that are less than 3000 bytes long will be forwarded. And finally messages with @OKIPN and <I in the title (again, case ignored) will be forwarded. The ability to not use a given forwarding possibility until there have been the specified number of forwarding attempts is included so that preference can be given to favored paths while still allowing alternate paths to be automatically used if the favored ones fail. Limits on message size have been implemented for those who may forward to mini-BBS systems with limited storage capacity. TCP/IP FORWARDING: TO forward to VE3GKM-4's TCP/IP mailbox the file would look like the following. F0 VE3GKM-4 @VE3GKM-4 . +NET (may not be needed) VE3GKM (MORE @BBS CALLS) --------------- 4-49 SMTP FORWARDING: Sample entry in MSYSFWD.DEF: T 44 70 4 10 (DO NOT USE DOTS IN THE ADDRESS) N8HSP ----- Note that no port number is specified, it does an arp if needed. Also note no digis (put them in the arp table if you have to have them). No nodes. Just T and the IP address of the DEStination station as shown. This corresponds to the line like F0 N8HSP. Next comes the @BBS values to send to this station. There can be more than one. Then the ------ that ends this entry. The same forward file is used for both normal forwarding and tcpip stuff. I have also made some changes to the SMTP command. After you use it if you type PRompt it will prompt you for To: (enter call@bbs) Reply- to: (just hit return if you like the default given) Subject: (this is in the body of the text, not the title) Then you enter your text and end with . (not ^Z) as instructed. The result is a message that contains all the fancy extra lines often found in tcp/ip messages. Bulletins may be forwarded using SMTP. To do so you must assign the smtp station an entry in the MSYSBBSB.DAT file like you would for normal forwarding (don't use any ssids). Also add the callsign of the station in the T line in the forward file after the IP address. Example: T 44 70 4 15 W8XYZ This should be done in the forwarding file for all SMTP forwarding. Bulletins are accepted from SMTP (a bulletin goes to a non- callsign). Bids are made up based on your msg number and callsign. Heirarichical addresses are added to msgs that come in via SMTP. NOTE: Since Bids are not supported in this implantation of SMTP, bulletins can either be sent to or received from TCP\IP systems but not both ways. *** FORWARDING NOTES Executing commands from within the forwarding file. In the forwarding file at the beginning of a set of forwarding lines (ie, at the beginning of the file or after a ------ line) you can place any sysop command(s) by simply putting \ in front of them. The MSYS.BBS file contains a number after each "BBS" that the system knows how to forward to. This is the ORing of all the BBS Masks that can be used to forward the particular @BBS. This is used to determine when bulletins have been sent to all stations that should be getting them; when such a bulletin is found, it gets its type changed from $ to # so then it is no 4-50 longer considered for forwarding. Within the forward file a !timestring line may be placed before any callsign to limit forwarding hours for that callsign (or bulletin route). The first ! line as used before limits all times for a bbs entry you forward to. The following ! lines remain in effect until changed by another ! line. When you start another bbs forward entry group the forwarding hour defaults to 0-23. At this point I would like a little example of what this means, so here it is (the comments and blank lines would NOT really be in the forward file): F0 WA8BXN {this is the beginning of a forward group} !0-16,19-23 {don't initiate forwarding during hours of 5 or 6 P.M.} WA8BXN {forward the @BBS any time we connect} !0-16,22-23 {don't forward the following during early evening hours} NTSOH OH !1-4 {forward following only in early morning} ARRL ALLOH ----- BID: When a msg comes in to non-callsign without a bid a check is made with generated BIDS of msg#_callsign and callsign_msg# to eliminate duplicates. Messages addressed to other than a what looks like a callsign automatically get a BID generated for them. Mail forwarded to BBSs identifying with either [MBL or [... - $] get BID included in S command. If a message is sent to MSYS @ idcall then the text is scanned for a line with: ;;; forward thru callsign. If one is found, then all unread mail for the originating station that is on the bbs gets its @BBS changed to the specified callsign. This includes the msg to MSYS which gets changed to be to the originating station @ specified callsign. The title of the msg is changed to indicate the number of msgs that were changed. All changed are forced to be private. This command allows you or your users to get any traffic for them on your bbs when the msg is received routed to another bbs (assuming your system knows how to forward it there). Additional features in msgs to MSYS will be added later. EXAMPLE: S MSYS @ WA8BXN title doesn't matter ;;; forward thru N8HTG ^Z Now any unread mail for me (since i sent the message) sitting on WA8BXN BBS will get @BBS changed to N8HTG and thus forwarded to 4-51 N8HTG. This works for type N (unread) messages at the time this message is received. Thus you would probably want to send a message periodically. FORWARDING DISPLAY: As each of the BBS's to which msgs can be forwarded is scanned for a given bbs you will see it. When a msg is being forwarded you will see a line that gives its number and the to station and @bbs of the message. In parenthesis you will see the entry in the forward file that is being used. Thus if the forwarding file contained. F0 WA8BXN WA8BXN 44* --------- and there was a message for K8ZZZ@44123 being forwarded you would see something like Fwding msg # 123 K8ZZZ@44123(44*). DROPING @BBS: Messages that arrive with @BBS of IDCALL get the @BBS field changed to ---. This makes them distinctive Messages sent to REQQTH, REQDIR and REQFIL are left private if they arrive that way. *** There can only be up to 300 different bbs names in the forwarding file. To check this do a LCount on the file MSYS.BBS. Wildcards (where you can use *) have been enhanced to allow more than just using *. Based upon the recommendations of AA4RE and others, the following have been implemented: * Matches 0 or more occurances of anything @ a..z, A..Z # 0..9 + a..z, A..Z, 0..9 ? a..f, A..F, 0..9 (hex digits) < a..z > A..Z $ =@#+?<>$ (any one of those characters, but I don't have any guesses as to why this group was included) = any one character " the escape character: the next character must match exactly ( beginning of group. (abc) matches a b or c. Examples: 9v1A2q matches #@#@#@ 95=== matches anything 5 characters long beginning with 95 (WK)6 matches anything starting with W6 or K6 (case is important) 95### matches any 5 digi number beginning with 95 *** HF Forwarding regulations do not allow transmitting 3rd party traffic unless there is a control operator present, the station 4-52 is under remote control, or a STA has been isssued. To aid in compliance with the regulations, the ATtended command has been added. When set to ON all forwarding is allowed. If off, ports with radio speed of 300 will forward only those messages in which the from call is the idcall (messages that you originate) or the to station in the message is the station you would directly connect to for forwarding. HF reverse forwarding is also inhibit- ed if ATtended is OFF. Note that the regulations appear to allow you to receive messages unattended. So if you don't have a STA for HF turn AT OFF when you aren't there and remember to turn it ON when you are. To be on the safe side, put ATtended OFF in your MSYS.DO file should the system reboot when you aren't present. **** BE SURE TO INCLUDE MSYS in your forward files for all other stations you forward to so I can send bulletins about MSYS to all of you. The list of MSYS operators keeps growing! **** 4-53 Hierarchical Forwarding and MSYS There are several (new) features in MSYS that combined with hierarchical forwarding should almost completely automate routing of incoming messages. These features act at two separate times: first when a message comes in and second during forwarding. First let's review the way hierarchical forwarding works. With hierarchical forwarding the @BBS field can contain more than just the callsign of the BBS that is the DEStination of the message. Routing information can also be placed in this field. The @BBS field thus has the syntax of part1.part2.part3. ... . When it is time to forward a message, the @BBS field is inspected and the leftmost part that is found in the forwarding file is used to forward the message. Consider as an example @N8HTG.MI. If N8HTG is found in the forwarding file then it is forwarded that way and the MI part is ignored. On the other hand, if N8HTG is not found in the forwarding file, then if MI is found in the forward file then it is forwarded that way. If neither part is found in the forwarding file, then the message will not go anywhere. Such messages will show up (after at least one forwarding attempt after the last time MSYS was started) if you do a L? command. If all messages had both the actual callsign of the DEStination BBS and the appropriate xx part in the @BBS field then the forwarding file could be greatly shortened. You would need to have the calls of the BBS stations in your state in the forward file, along with each of the xx designators for the remaining states. If there were say 50 BBS systems in your state then perhaps 99 different entries would be sufficient in your forward file (ignoring for the moment bulletin routes like ARRL). Remember that I have often said that the limit of 300 different calls in the forward file is more than sufficient! Messages that are going to a BBS in your state get routed as specified in your forwarding file; those going to another state get routed to the BBS you have set up in the forwarding file to get stuff for that state. What could be simpler? You could include a few explicit calls for BBS systems in nearby states that you route directly to, if you want to override the normal path for messages going to that state if you so desire. Now for the second part, the action taken by MSYS when a new message arrives. When a message comes in, MSYS looks at the @BBS field. If it is absent, then if the to callsign field contains something that MSYS knows the routing for, the to field is copied to the @BBS field. Otherwise the @BBS field is set to ===== and the message won't go anywhere. It will show up as noted above in a L? command. How does MSYS determine if it knows the routing to a particular callsign? It uses a file called BBSTONTS.BIN (new beginning with version 1.04). This file contains BBS callsigns and the states they belong in (this information comes from several sources, more on this later). Next MSYS inspects the @BBS field to determine if if knows how to forward what is in the given @BBS field. If some part of the possibly hierarchical specification is found in the 4-54 forwarding file, it is left alone and will be forwarded by that matching specification. If no match is found in the forwarding file, then the BBSTONTS.BIN file is searched to find some part of the given @BBS field. If a match is found, the corresponding NTSxx is appended to the existing @BBS field. Thus MSYS will attempt to lookup the right state to send the message to. Assuming the state is found, then forwarding will take place as described above (see the N8HTG.MI example). If no part of the @BBS field can be recognized, then the message will not be sent out, but will show up when you do a L? command as described above. The BBSTONTS.BIN look up will also handle zip codes given in the @BBS field, making @12345 into @12345.xx as is appropriate. Thus far we have examined what happens when to automate forwarding. In the event the proper routing cannot be determined by MSYS then you will have to use the sysop EM (edit message) command to manually add the appropriate .xx designation, assuming you can guess it somehow. If you are lucky, the originator put useful information in the title of the message or may have hidden it in the text of the message. Maybe the callbook will be of some use to you. Or maybe you can just force it in the opposite direction from which it arrived. The next question that should be in your mind is how to create the BBSTONTS.BIN file. This file contains binary data and cannot easily be created with a text editor. A utility function called INDEXNTS (function 14 in MUTIL.EXE) has been provided to create this file. INDEXNTS takes as its input a file called BBSTONTS.DAT and produces as output BBSTONTS.BIN. How do you create BBSTONTS.DAT? You run a function called BBSTONTS (function 13 in MUTIL) which takes as its input BBSLIST.DAT. BBSLIST.DAT is created and/or updated using data from message headers that have passed through your system and/or W9ZRX bbs lists. Function 10 of MUTIL is used to use messages as input; function 11 uses W9ZRX lists as input. 4-55 Lets look at a picture of these files and programs: +---------------+ | Message files | | from MAIL.BAK | +---------------+ | | | V MUTIL function 10 | | | +-------------+ | BBSLIST.DAT | | file | +-------------+ | | MUTIL function 13 <--- Other standard files: | STATES.DAT | ZIPCODES.DAT V ROUTES.DAT | | +-------------+ | BBSTONTS.DAT| | file | +-------------+ | | MUTIL function 14 | | V | | +-------------+ | BBSTONTS.BIN| | file | +-------------+ 4-56 MSYS Network NODe Introduction (c) Copyright 1990 by HUB COMPUTERS, INC. With version 1.06 is the ability to interface a variety of the functions previously found in MSYS into networks built using any combination of other MSYS systems, TheNet nodes, G8BPQ Nodes and Net/Rom nodes. This is last "major" enhancement planned for MSYS at this time. The following few releases are expected to come at about one or two month intervals and will add small new capabilities, correct errors and improve efficiency. The network NODe support in MSYS is by no means complete or perfect at this time but it does seem to be usable. Some basic information concerning the implementation of the MSYS NODe interface will help in making decisions related to configuration. Two terms must be understood by the system administrator (SYSOP). These terms are neighbor NODe and DEStination NODe. A neighbor NODe is a compatible NODe to which there is a direct connection path. Currently MSYS does not support use of digipeaters in the path to neighbor nodes. Normal AX.25 connections are made to neighbor nodes. The data exchanged by these connections consists of a mixture of supervisory and data frames that together support the network operation. DEStination nodes are also network nodes and are the nodes listed when one does a Nodes command. DEStination nodes are nodes that can be reached through the network either directly if they are also neighbor nodes, or indirectly through some neighbor NODe. Routing of frames in the network is conceptually fairly simple, handling all the details is not! Each NODe does a "Nodes Broadcast" periodically (usually once an hour) which is a list of nodes that it know how to route data to. This may be due to directly hearing a neighbor NODe or by hearing the nodes list from neighbor NODe that claims to have a route to each NODe it lists in its NODe broadcast. Information from the nodes broadcast is maintained by MSYS. When it receives a frame that is not for itself, MSYS looks to see which neighbor NODe can handle the DEStination indicated in the frame and simply passes the frame on to some neighbor NODe. Data frames while they are inside the network as handled as what are termed "datagrams". What this means is that during a conversation between two end users there is no guarantee by the network that the data frames will always go by the same path or that they will make it through the network. Depending on conditions in the network the path taken by frames can change and at times frames will be arbitrarily discarded. This does not lead to chaos because the end nodes (the ones the users connect to) are responsible for error free end to end services. While the AX.25 protocol makes sure that transmission of frame between any two nodes is error free the network protocol establishes error free operation between users. MSYS network NODe functions include both the routing of frames within the network as well as the uplink/link logic to support the error free end to end services. Additionally, the TCP/IP servers can make use of the network as an alternative to the existing IP routing facilities. 5-57 Connections from the network may be made directly to the BBS through the enhanced NODe command set. At this time forwarding directly into the network is not supported but should be added in a future release. An attempt has been made to make the MSYS network NODe user friendly while still retaining compatibility with other network nodes. To this end there is a help command and headings on output generated by various information listing commands. Since MSYS is generally run at an attended site, a Talk command is available to allow users to talk to the sysop directly from the network. To add all these enhancements, MSYS has grown a bit. It is now suggested that you have 640K ram available (more won't be of any use). There are also several new commands/options. To not further delay distribution of version 1.06, the documentation for all the changes is contained in this update file rather than being integrated into the existing documentation; the integration should be done in the next release. Basic Decisions About the Network NODe The really big question is should you enable the network NODe functions of MSYS? Fortunately, you have more options than just yes or no! So perhaps the question should be reworded as should you run the NODe in full feature, fully automated mode? The answer for most stations will be NO. The answer in your particular case will depend on the capabilities of your station and the locations of other compatible nodes. If you run a high profile station already (wide coverage as a digi/K-NODe) and have compatible network nodes at reasonable distances from you (maybe at least 30 miles away), then you may fill a need by running with everything enabled. On the other hand, if the only way you can talk to anything is through a digipeater (even when the batteries in your ht are fully charged) and on a hazy day you can still see the antennas of at least five network nodes, all still forwarding the same frame they received 2 years ago, then may I suggest you run in a very controlled minimal mode. Make friends, not enemies through these latest enhancements to MSYS! 5-58 Network NODe Quickstart This section tells the minimal things you must do to get the NODe up and running in some (probably not optimal) fashion. You MUST define your network NODe callsign using the NRC command. If you are also active in TCP/IP you should set NRCall and MYTcpcall to be the same thing. You MUST use the NPorts command to enable the ports that you want to be able to access the NODe. For example, NP 3 would allow access to the NODe on ports 0 and 1 but no others. You SHOULD define your network NODe mnemonic identifier using the NRI command. You MUST enable the NODe using the NETNODE ON command. You should probably turn AUTONode and AUTODESt ON and set OCM to 3. This should put your system into full service automatic mode as far as the network NODe is concerned. The probably will not be the way you will want to run but its a starting point. 5-59 Manual Operations on the Network NODe Database To REMove a DEStination NODe completely, use REMove DEStination nodecall To REMove a DEStination for a given neighbor NODe, use DESt DELete DEStcall neighborcall To REMove a neighbor NODe (and all the DEStination routes through this neighbor NODe), use NODe DELete nodecall port# To add a new neighbor NODe, use NODe ADD nodecall port# quality [digicall1 ... digicall8] Note: The mnemonic identifier for the neighbor NODe will be obtained from the first nodes broadcast heard from the NODe. Use of the digipeater calls is optional. Although you can specify up to 8 digipeaters, rarely will more than 1 or 2 be practical to use. To add a new DEStination for a given neighbor NODe, use DESt ADD [mnemonic:]DESt-call neighbor-call obs# quality# Notes: The neighbor NODe callsign must be defined before any DEStinations can be added for it. mnemonic for the DEStination is optional. obs# is the obsolescence count, 0 locks the DESt in for the NODe. To change the quality of an existing neighbor NODe, use NODe REPlace callsign port# new-quality [digi1 ... digi8] To change the obsolescence count and quality of a DEStination through some neighbor NODe, use DESt REPlace DEStcall neighborcall newobs# newquality 5-60 How I Run My Network NODe I run my netnode in a moderate mode here that is somewhere between fully automatic and low profile. Here is some basic info that should help you understand my configuration: Computer is an old original IBM PC 4.77 MHz clock 640 K ram, two 10 M hard drives, 4 serial cards and a printer card. Port Freq 0 223.7 High profile (150 W, beam at 80 ft. aimed west) 1 145.01 Quite high profile (200 W omni ant at 90 ft.) 2 145.05 Low profile (10 W omni ant at 60 ft.) 3 80 M 4 40 M 5 20 M 6 serial connection to another computer Nearby existing netrom nodes: Port Call Distance 0 K8EIW-9 15 (Miles) 1 K8EIW-7 15 1 K8EIW-1 45 1 W8QLY 75 1 W3LIF 80 2 KB8AST-1 25 Nearby NET.EXE stations using netrom interface: Port Call Distance 1 N8HSP-4 10 1 WB8LYJ-4 15 All of these stations are usually reliable connections. Other netrom nodes are usually heard but are not always reliable. During band openings many more are heard, some are reliable during the band opening. Here are the network NODe related parameters I have in my MSYS.DO file: OCM 3 Transmit DESt nodes heard that have obsolescence counts 3 to 6 NRI 460406 Right 3 bytes of my IP address [44.70.4.6] expressed in hex (quite useful this way) NRC WA8BXN-2 Callsign net NODe responds to, should be the same as TCP/IP callsign (MYTcpcall) NPorts $47 Network NODe uses ports 0,1,2 and 6 only PQuality 100 Default port quality 100. A low value assigned to nodes not manually entered that connect to mine NODe REStore Read saved NODe file when MSYS starts AUTONode OFF Do NOT record NODe broadcasts from nodes not already in neighbor lists. This means that new nodes heard (during band openings for example) will not be automatically added, unless they do actually connect to my NODe. 5-61 AUTODESt ON DEStination NODe broadcasts (from nodes already in my neighbor table) will be recorded. NETNODE ON Enable network NODe Here is the output I get from the JN sysop command (or R command in the NODe): Port Neighbor NODe Call Quality DESts Heard Digipeater(s) 1 AKR:K8EIW-1 179 66 23:43 1 CLE1:K8EIW-7 180 67 23:41 0 CLE220:K8EIW-9 180 67 23:34 2 PRYTWP:KB8AST-1 192 2 23:25 1 CLEIP:N8HSP-4 192 1 23:42 1 MERCER:W3LIF 180 6 23:44 1 YNG:W8QLY 180 7 23:36 1 PVLIP:WB8LYJ-4 192 1 22:46 The general philosophy I am using is that I only want to attempt to connect to network nodes that I have a good path to. These are also the nodes that I broadcast myself (and the DEStinations they claim they can handle). I have manually entered these nodes into my neighbor NODe table (using NODe ADD). I see little sense in saying that I can really connect to a NODe I hear once because a meteor hit at the right time! This method does not particularly limit the number of DEStination nodes my NODe knows about because the nearby nodes claim they can handle everything they hear. I just let the nearby nodes worry about finding routes to everything they claim to hear. My system serves as a link from the one isolated NODe on 145.05 LAN frequency to the nodes on 145.01 which give access to the Ohio 4800 Baud UHF backbone frequency. I also serve as an IP switch to and from the network. I have adjusted the neighbor NODe qualities to favor nodes (primarily TCP/IP stations) to which I am a good route. I have set most of the normal netrom nodes to a lower quality value so that they will talk directly to each other most of the time rather than trying to go thru my NODe. Should they be unable to connect directly to each other, they will still be able to go thru my system. If you want to run very low profile in terms of getting used as a network NODe, leave the default of 10 set for OCMin. This means that your NODe broadcasts will only send out your own call. This will get the network to recognize you but not make it think you are a good relay to anything. Keep AUTOD ON so that your system will know how to reach nodes in the network. Its probably a good idea to set AUTON OFF and manually add the calls of the best nearby nodes you can connect to (one is all you need). If you are totally confused about the network operations, try to consult with who ever runs your local NODe(s). Most of the parameters you have they have (with some changes in their names). 5-62 Miscellaneous Comments on Network NODe If you are low on SSIDs, you might consider the following. Set the IDCALL to your callsign without any SSID. Do not define a BBS, Keyboard, or K NODe callsign. Pick an SSID and use you callsign with it and set as the value for MYTcpcall, NRCall and FORWARD call. To get to your BBS the network NODe BBS command can be used. To talk to your keyboard the BBS T command or network NODe T command can be used. If you want to make outgoing calls you will have to define a keyboard callsign. Should you use the network NODe to route TCP/IP frames? I would say only if you have to! The normal IP routing is better than using the network NODe but in those cases where using the network is the only way to reach some distant IP station then do use the network. Network node connects are allowed only on those ports enabled by NP command. 5-63 NET NODe Parameters Summary Default PQuality [port#] # 192 Quality for nodes hear on port BInterval seconds 3600 Nodes Broadcast interval OCMmin # 10 Minimum obsolescence to broadcast OCInit # 6 Initial obsolescence count WQupdate # 1 Worst quality DESt route to record NTtl # 64 Network time to live (max hops) TTimeout seconds 60 Transport timeout (Net FRACK) TRetries # 3 Transport retries TACK sec 3 Transport ACK delay (responsetime) TBdelay seconds 180 Transport busy delay NDWindow # 4 Net default window size (frames) NETCon ON/OFF ON Enable connect cmd in net NODe NETBbs ON/OFF ON Enable BBS cmd in net NODe NETTalk ON/OFF ON Enable Talk cmd in net NODe AUTODESt ON/OFF OFF Add new DESts for known neighbors AUTONode ON/OFF OFF Add new neighbors heard NODe SEnd Force known DESt transmission " SAve Write net NODe Database to disk " REStore Read net NODe Database from disk " ADD call port qual [digis] Adds neighbor NODe " REP call port qual [digis] Changes quality of neighbor NODe " DEL call port Deletes neighbor nodes & its DESts DESt ADD [id:]call neighbor obs quality Adds new DEStination " REP callsign neighbor obs quality Changes obs & qual " DEL callsign neighbor Deletes DESt thru given neighbor REMove DESt callsign Deletes DESt thru all neighbors NInfo Gives net NODe status NRCall callsign Sets net NODe callsign NRid mnemonic Sets net NODe mnemonic identifier NPorts portmask 0 Ports to which nodes broadcast TNatime seconds 600 Transport no activity timeout time C BBS or C bbscallsign act like BBS command taking you to the bbs. You also now get a connected to message when any of these commands. 5-64 MSYS General information file # (c) Copyright 1990 by HUB COMPUTERS, INC. *** MEMORY MANAGEMENT: Buffer space for logical channels is allocated when the channel is allocated (and released when the channel is released) This will cause the MEM command to show more available memory. Its is little deceptive though because when all the channels are in use the same amount of memory will be used as before. *** Remote SYSOP: \Sysop command: It gets you into remote sysop mode which allows you to use most of the sysop commands through the bbs. The command must be typed exactly as shown: backslash, Capital S and lower case ysop and then return.You will then get a line like Usage stats: Users=4 Msgs rcvd=10 Msgs sent=5 Max=8 To this you must reply (there will be no prompt) four characters corresponding to the numbers typed in order of characters found in the file MSYS.RMT (case is important). For example, if your MSYS.RMT file contained MSYS is the greatest! then you would type <space> e i t which are the corresponding characters (the first character is numbered 0). Thus you would type eit (Don't forget to count the spaces) You should now get a prompt cmd: If you are connected via radio, you issue \Sysop command on bbs to verify sysop authority (enter 4 letters) You then get the next bbs prompt (if you give correct letters or not). If you have given the correct reply then you may issue any sysop command by starting the line with \ (while still in the bbs). So when on the bbs from the local keyboard, you can now type something like \em 1234 and you will be able to edit message 1234 without having to leave the bbs. As a remote sysop, you retain sysop status until you disconnect once you give the right 4 letters. To get a list of available commands, type h. Most of the commands available duplicate those found normally as sysop commands. An added command, who, gives a list of who is on the system and is the same as the new U command in the bbs. NOTE: \Sysop is not requried from local keboard. Make sure you mark yourself a remote susop, even if you won't be one.(User flag $10) *** MSYS.DO: A command file may contain the same things you could normally type as commands. To execute a command file, type DO followed by the command file name. Example: DO cmds.dat 5-65 When the system starts it automatically tries to DO a command. *** MONxx: MONCC ON/OFF - enables/disables monitoring of TCP/IP packets MONCF ON/OFF - enables/disables monitoring of NETROM packets *** LINKED: A line of the form *** LINKED to callsign now recognized as a connection by the given callsign. This occurs with some versions of RLI systems when a user uses the C command on the RLI system to connect to the MSYS BBS. *** LINKED to callsign requires sysop verification if sysop call is used. *** KEYBOARD: When someone connects to your keyboard answer call you will get two musical tune to alert you to the connect. Any stations connecting to your keyboard call when you are already connected to another station will get a busy. The actual number of connects allowed before busy is given by the new sysop command MCon. MCon 1, for example, only allows an incoming call to the keyboard to be answered if there are no other keyboard connections. MCon 0 prevents all incoming keyboard requests (they get busy). MCon N will allow N connections to the keyboard until busy is returned. When you type past column 72 you will get a beep for each character. Keep those lines less than 80 characters! When a station attempts to connect to your keyboard via the several ways possible but is sent a busy the bell will also beep to alert you to this. *** Packet size: Data in packets is limited to 256 bytes. Larger amounts of data in a single packet will be discarded without causing the system to crash. *** STACK requirement: The stack space needed by the forward process has increased. The following line can be put in MSYS.OPT (This may not be necessary): STACK FORWARD 8000 A smaller value (maybe 7000) might work. Try it if you want. If the system randomly crashed, make it 8000. Modifications have been made to the R command to list path information with R: lines using either @:bbscall or msg#@bbs format. 5-66 *** BBS Commands: ST Command will not add bid to messages. Download requires that the first character of the file name be alphanumeric (no more ..) *** @BBS: Automatic generation of @BBS field for S command in BBS: If the S command contains an @BBS entry it is left untouched. If there is no @BBS as a parameter for the S command, the following happens. If the to station is found in the user file then the home bbs of that station is substituted for the given @BBS. If the to station is not a known user then the to station callsign is placed in the @BBS field. Any messages entered into the system with no @BBS that don't get a @BBS from the user file will have ==== for the @BBS. Only messages with second type character of N will cause the user file to be searched for @BBS. Thus bulletins will never get their to call sign (typically ALL) looked up in the user file. In the bbs, if a S command has an ssid in the @BBS filed it is removed in the leftmost part of the hierarchical address. Thus S W1XYZ @ K1XXX-5 is taken as S W1XYZ @ K1XXX. *** MSYSTNC.#: If you use any tnc set up files be warned that the program waits 1 sec after each line from the file is sent to the tnc to give it time to think about it. NOTE: AEA tncs made after Jan 89 can probably be treated like KPC-x tncs to get them into kiss mode. It should no longer be necessary to have a special tnc file for them (but if it doesn't work without it,it is suggested that the tnc file be used). *** MAIL BEACON: Messages to your IDCALL and to SYSOP are not displayed in the MAIL FOR beacon. You will see them on the screen. *** LOG: Msgs sent, forwarded, and killed get logged to MSYS.LOG. A new log file record is being generated. It is identical to the BBS record except it has BYE in place of BBS. It is generated when a user exits the bbs by any means (disconnect, timeout, B cmd). *** LOCKUPS: If the system hangs an attempt is made to reboot. Thus you should 5-67 make sure you don't have a diskette in A: and that you have an appropriate autoexec file set up. *** CHANNEL NUMBERS: The channel numbers use a rotational assignment rather than always starting from 0 *** USER BIT SETTINGS: $01 - Expert user $02 - BBS $04 - Disconnect immediately $08 - Limited BBS $10 - Remote sysop status $80 - Prevents use of the S command. Users so marked can only read messages. $200 - Authorizes use of the Upload command in the bbs. NOTE: These settings may be added togeather. When the BBS is in limited mode and the H cmd is used, the file printed is HELP/HLIMITED.HLP in place of HELP/HELP.HLP When a user logs on to the bbs for the first time (or after a long while (see DELUDays), the file HELP/NEWUser.HLP will be sent to that new user (if it exists) on the first connect (only). *** #: Command lines beginning with # on the BBS are ignored (they sometimes come from KA Nodes). *** MAX channels AND PORTS: Maximum for MAXCHANS is 50 (MSYS.OPT) Maximum number of ports is 7 (numbered 0 to 6) MSYS supports all ints (0-7) for serial ports. I suggest the use of ints 2,3,4 & 7 on pc class computers and 3,4,5 & 7 on at class and above computers. Use of 01 & 6 are not recommended but are supported in the code. Due to the use of these interrupts by other hardware devices/functions results will generally be bad! I really think that the MS-400 (and similar) shared inter- rupt serial interface boards should work properly. Thanks to WB8CQV for loaning me one to test with! *** END OF LINE BELLS: When you type past column 72 you will get a beep for each character. Keep those lines less than 80 characters! *** WP SERVER: 5-68 Generation of messages to the white pages master server is included in MSYS. This sends the information users give in the N, NH, NZ and NQ commands to the WP server when it is changed (or initially given) as well as periodically. Note that MSYS does not respond to messages to WP but merely passes them on without modification. WP messages are NOT generated for users with any of the following characteristics: locked, homebbs of ?, bbs system, and/or baduser. *** FRACK All IP (and IP thru netrom) frame retry timing uses a dynamic FRACK value now. *** TESTING: You can connect two MSYS systems together through their serial ports by the use of a NULL MODEM. You can also connect a loopback by connecting pins 2 and 3 on the same serial port. This will allow you to see what the system is doing without being on the air. *** Automatic back-up of msys.msg and msys.usr has been removed. If you still want to do these backups once a day, put appropriate copy statements in your msyshcl.do file. *** TCP/IP connects are rejected if not enough memory or MCON exceeded. *** SMTP The \+\ filename include capability that is currently in the BBS S command to also be usable in SMTP with the PRompt command. Both of these are available only from the local keyboard. Typing other than Y N C A or RETURN in response to More? in the BBS is taken as a new command. Title of messages truncated after 37 characters. *** MAIL.BAK To reduce disk read/write delays when a message is received and copied to the MAIL.BAK directory, subdirectories are automatical- ly created in the MAIL.BAK directory. 100 messages are backed up in each directory. This can substantially reduce the time it takes to make the backup copy of incoming messages because much smaller number of file names must be looked at to add the new file name to the directory. The created subdirectory names are of the form MSGxxx where xxx is the message number divided by 100. Thus in MSG025 messages 2500 to 2599 would be found. The MUTIL msg restore function has been modified to understand these changes and ask for the main mail.bak directory name. This addition was needed for those times the mail.bak directory name is changed by the set command. 5-69 *** RS-232 connection to tncs running Net/Rom and TheNet. Ports connected to such tncs should use > as the first character in the name given in the port statement in MSYS.OPT. To connect the computer to a single tnc per computer port, a straight thru cable is used (with a minimum of pins 2,3 and 7). At the tnc end, pins 10 and 23 must be jumpered. DO NOT CONNECT PINS 10 or 23 at the computer end! In a multiple tnc connection using the standard diode matrix interconnect, the computer may be connected if you reverse pins 2&3 and pins 5&20 at the computer connection. Using MSYS with a Net/Rom or TheNet equipped tnc can have great advantages on a backbone system. The tnc handles traffic on the backbone not going to/from the MSYS system without any load being placed on the MSYS computer. Forwarding may be accomplished by connecting to the RS-232 con- nected tnc using normal script files. You can also beacon thru the tnc using it as a digipeater. Many other interesting possi- bilities also exist. Have fun! *** Type of a message (the "TR" field) The algorithm uses 3 pieces of information to determine the appropriate TR to assign: the destination "callsign", the @"bbs", and the character after the S in the Send command. The to "callsign" is classified as one of the following: 0 - Looks like a real callsign 1 - A zipcode (5 digits) 2 - something else (like ALL, for example) The @"bbs" is classified as one of the following: 0 - Looks like a real callsign 1 - none specified 2 - call of this bbs 3 - something else The character after the S in the s command is classified as: 0 - B (as in SB for send bulletin) 1 - P (as in SP for send private) 2 - T (as in ST for send traffic) 3 - none (as in just plain S) 4 - something else (SW for send weather bulletin, for example) The following message types are generated: BN For bulletins going to a specific bbs - these are forwarded to a single station that handles that bbs. PN For private messages TN For NTS traffic xN For Sx where x is an "something else" 5-70 N For individual non-private messages. B$ For bulletins going with @route (like ARRL) x$ For bulletins sent with Sx (x is "something else") P$ For private bulletins going with @route Note: [P]N below means that the type will be N is MAKEPRIVATE is off,PN if MAKEPRIVATE is ON (default). TR Values Assigned to Messages For messages going to Callsigns: Character after S -> B P T None x (Other) @BBS type: --- --- --- ---- --------- callsign BN PN TN [P]N xN no bbs given B$ PN TN [P]N x$ this bbs B$ PN TN [P]N x$ something else B$ PN TN [P]N x$ For messages going to ZIP Codes: Character after S -> B P T None x (Other) @BBS type: --- --- --- ---- --------- callsign BN PN TN TN xN no bbs given B$ P$ TN TN x$ this bbs B$ P$ TN TN x$ something else B$ P$ TN TN x$ For messages going to SOMETHING ELSE: Character after S -> B P T None x (Other) @BBS type: --- --- --- ---- --------- callsign BN PN TN BN xN no bbs given B$ P$ TN B$ x$ this bbs B$ BN TN B$ x$ something else B$ P$ TN B$ x$ Messages with second character of type N are forwarded to one place (and then killed if AUTOKill is ON, the N is changed to F otherwise). Messages with second character of type $ are flooded to all stations that get the specified @BBS. When sent to all such BBS's, the second character gets changed to #. Messages that come in with an R: line that contains the call (actually HCALL) of this bbs are automatically held. The R: line scan is terminated by the first non-R: line found in the message. Bulletins that arrive with a bid on the S command line are re- jected if their bid already exists in the bid file. Bulletins are identified as those messages that arrived via the SB command or S non-call. All messages other than bulletins are always received (never 5-71 rejected). If a message identifier ($string) exists on the S command line AND ACceptmid is ON, it is used. In all other cases, a message identifier is generated internally for all non-bulle- tins using the bbs call and message number from the last R: line scanned. If the message identifier is found in the bid file and the message was not held as noted above, the message is not saved (but it is acknowleged as being recieved entirely by sending the > prompt when the ^Z is received). The processing of internal message identifiers is not indicated in the system identification line [MSYS-XXXX-H$]. If you set MIDchar to something, then the character will appear between the H and the $. For example, if you set MIDchar to M, then the SID line will be [MSYS-XXXX-HM$]. This will be sent to all stations that connect to the BBS. Setting MIDchar to a non-null character will also cause the MID to be sent during forwarding if the system to which you are forwarding has MIDchar in its SID. Here are some combinations of the parameters to do selected processing: For no bid (mid) processing on non-bulletins, set BIDall OFF ACceptmid OFF don't set MIDchar To emulate AA4RE MID processing (I think), set BIDallON ACceptmid OFF MIDchar M To use a MID if provided, or generate one otherwise, set BIDall ON ACceptmid ON MIDchar M Currently there is still a lot of discussion going on over MIDS. Hopefully I have give enough parameters so that MSYS can be used with whatever standard wins out. *** Automatic message holding If you create a file called MSYSHOLD.DAT you can specify characteristics of messages to hold automatically using parame- ters similar to those used in the house cleaning file. The available parameters are: TO= wildcard representation of To callsign FROM= wildcard representation of From callsign AT= wildcard representation of @BBS SIZE= number that is size of msg CONNECTED= exact callsign of sending station (less ssid) PORT= port number msg is coming in on 5-72 Examples: SIZE=2500 would hold any messages bigger than 2500 bytes FROM=WA8BXN PORT=2 would hold any messages from WA8BXN that come in on port 2 CONNECTED=W8XYZ would hold all messages sent by station W8XYZ (connected to the bbs) AT=MSYS would hold all messages with @MSYS Note the difference between FROM= and CONNECTED=; FROM is the from call for the message (often supplied after < in the S com- mand) while CONNECTED is the call of the station connected to the bbs sending the message. There is one other parameter that can be specified, a line con- taining only the letters BBS. The lines following such a line in the file would not apply to messages that are forwarded to you from another bbs. For this use, a bbs is defined as a station that transmitted a [...$] line. NOTE: Held messages are visible only to the SYSOP and sender. They are killable only by SYSOP. *** DOS If you are using DOS 3.3, you may need to put STACKS=0,0 in your config.sys file. *** HEADERS The HDRS command has been removed. To create an ASCII file con- taining all the active message headers, use the following sequence of commands on the bbs: X 0 (turn off the More? message temporarily) >msghdrs (this is the name of the file to be created) l$ 0 (or l 0 if you don't want to see the bids) > (close the file) X 20 (restore the More? message) 5-73 MSYS Utility Support Programs (c) Copyright 1990 by HUB COMPUTERS, INC MUTIL.EXE Originally many of the functions found in MUTIL were separate programs. When the amount of space on a single diskette was found to be scarce to include everything needed to distribute MSYS a decision was made to combine these programs into a single menu driven utility program. This saves considerable space since each of these programs share many common routines. Now there are just two executable programs distributed, MSYS.EXE and MUTIL.EXE. References in the documentation for MSYS that say to run a particular utility program should be interpreted as the corresponding function found in MUTIL. When you run MUTIL you will get a screen that is similar to: ================================================================= MSYS Utilities 1.04 by WA8BXN (C) 1989 Hub Computers, Inc. 1 Change maximum number of messages 2 Restore messages from backup directory MAIL.BAK 3 Print remote sysop phrase number table 4 Check Mail index file integrity 5 Test serial ports 6 Print forwarding tree 7 Set number of attempts at forwarding to 0 for all messages 8 Run log file analyzer 9 Run SETUP program 10 Scan message headers to create/add to BBSLIST.DAT 11 Deletes old entries from BBSLIST.DAT and BBSTONTS.DAT files. 12 Fix mail index file (can be hazardous to use!) 13 Process BBSLIST.DAT into BBSTONTS.DAT file 14 Scan BBSTONTS.DAT to build BBSTONTS.BIN (indexed) 15 Build list of archived messages 16 Printer status 17 merge BBSLIST.DAT files 18 Check MSYSNODE.DAT integrity 19 Convert user files 1.05 & before <===> 1.06 and later 20 Sort calls in the BBSLIST.DAT file 21 Delete Old BIDS (and MIDS) 99 Quit Enter number of selection: _ 6-74 MUTIL Function 1 - Change maximum number of messages Input file(s): MSYS.MSG Output files(s): MSYS.MSG The maximum number of messages that can be stored in MSYS is determined by the MSYS.MSG mail index file. When MSYS starts running it checks to see if there is an existing MSYS.MSG file. If there is one, it is used (and contains the header lines of the messages that existed when MSYS was last stopped). If there is no existing MSYS.MSG file, then an empty one is created, with a capacity of 100 messages. This utility function can be used to change the size of an existing MSYS.MSG file. You can increase or decrease the size of the file. You can't make it smaller than the number of active messages. NOTES: There is a cost in memory requirements for each message possible. Each message slot cost 138 bytes of memory; 100 messages (default maximum) thus takes 13800 bytes. A limit of 500 messages would take 69,000 bytes (even if there weren't that many messages active). VALUES I USE: I run with a 300 message maximum size. Normally I have around 200 active messages. DIALOG WITH FUNCTION: You are first asked for the name of the MSYS.MSG file to modify: Enter path to MSYS Mail Index file or just press return to use MSYS.MSG: _ Normally you will want to just press the return key. If the current directory from which you are running MUTIL does not contain the MSYS.MSG file that you want to modify, you can specify a different path (or even a different file name if you have renamed MSYS.MSG for some reason). This function will next copy the specified MSYS.MSG file to a file called MSYS$$$.MSG which can be used to restore MSYS.MSG if for some reason this function fails. Next you are asked if you have run the Check Mail function (function 4). You should run Check Mail just before this function since attempting to change the maximum number of message slots can produce very interesting (and usually bad) results if the original MSYS.MSG file is corrupt. If you respond N then this function terminates and you can then do the Check Mail function. If you have just run Check Mail, then press Y to continue. Note that you do NOT press return after either of these letters! If you responded Y, then the function continues, telling the current maximum number of messages, the current number of active messages, and some other information. You are then asked for the 6-75 new maximum number of messages you want. This number must be greater or equal to the number of active messages. It must also be less than or equal to 1000. If the value you ask for is acceptable, the file will be changed to accommodate the new number. Next you will be asked to press a key to continue (try the return key). This pause is put in the function so that you can see any additional messages that were produced before the screen is cleared. 6-76 MUTIL Function 2 - Restore Messages from backup mail directory INPUT FILE(S): MSYS.MSG MAIL.BAK\MSG*.DAT OUTPUT FILES(S): MSYS.MSG MAIL\MSG*.DAT This function allows you to restore messages that have been deleted or otherwise lost from the normal MSYS.MSG index file and/or MAIL directory. This restoration is possible only if the directory MAIL.BAK exists (and has existed since before the messages of interest arrived), and the messages have not yet been removed from it. The function allows you to look at the messages in the MAIL.BAK directory and restore as active those you select. NOTE: The format of the messages in the MAIL.BAK directory includes additional information not found in the messages in the MAIL directory. This includes the normal message header information normally found in MSYS.MSG and the BID for the message (if any). NOTE: You are strongly advised to run the check mail function (MUTIL function 4) BEFORE attempting to restore any messages! NOTE: Restored messages will NOT reflect which stations a bulletin has been sent to. Generally a restored message looks a lot like it did when it first arrived. It may or may not have the substitutions done to the @BBS or other fields done yet. EXAMINE each restored message with the EMsg command when you get MSYS up again! DIALOG WITH FUNCTION: You are first asked for the name of the MSYS.MSG file to modify: Enter path to MSYS Mail Index file or just press return to use MSYS.MSG: _ Normally you will want to just press the return key. If the current directory from which you are running MUTIL does not contain the MSYS.MSG file that you want to modify, you can specify a different path (or even a different file name if you have renamed MSYS.MSG for some reason). Next you will get a menu with 5 functions: F1 - Display a given message number F2 - Restore a single message F3 - Restore a range of messages F4 - Display a range of message headers F10 - Quit F1 will ask you for a message number to display. If the message 6-77 exists in the MAIL.BAK directory, its header and text will be displayed. F2 will ask you for a message number to restore. If the message already exists in the normal index file, or the message does not exist in the MAIL.BAK directory, the restore will not be done. F3 will ask you for a starting message number and ending message number to restore. After this it acts much as if each possible message in the given range was specified for F2. F4 asks for a starting message number and ending message number. Messages that exist in the MAIL.BAK directory will get their headers displayed. If no messages exist in the given range (or the MAIL.BAK directory is absent) you will simply get the Press Esc to continue message. F10 terminates the restore operation. The MSYS.MSG file specified at the beginning is sorted to get any restored messages in their proper place and then the file is written to disk. COMMENTS: You will probably want to do F4 first to see what messages are available to be restored unless you otherwise know which one(s) you want to restore or look at. 6-78 MUTIL Function 3 - Print remote sysop phrase number table INPUT FILE(S): MSYS.RMT OUTPUT FILE(S): Hardcopy printer output (optional) This function prints the contents of the MSYS.RMT file (used for remote sysop verification). The output of this function can to to just the screen or also to the printer. The output consists of printing the content of remote sysop phrase followed by a table that gives the character at each position in the phrase. DIALOG WITH FUNCTION: You are asked if you want hard copy output (on the printer). Respond Y or N as desired. SAMPLE OUTPUT: Sample phrase. 0 S 1 a 2 m 3 p 4 l 5 e 6 7 p 8 h 9 r 10 a 11 s 12 e 13 . USAGE EXAMPLE: If you did the \Sysop command as a remote user to get sysop privileges and got the following reply: Usage stats: Users=7 Msgs rcvd=3 Msgs sent=6 Max=12 you would type the following response: pp e 6-79 MUTIL Function 4 - Check Mail index file integrity (CHKMAIL) INPUT FILE(S): MSYS.MSG MAIL\MSG*.DAT OUTPUT FILE(S): MSYS.MSG This function checks the integrity of the Mail index file MSYS.MSG. It checks for such things as message slots on both the free and active lists, loops in either of these lists and active message numbers that do not have text files in the MAIL directory (and vice-versa). It attempts to fix any errors if it can (and its generally pretty good at doing it). NOTE: It will not delete any message text files in the MAIL directory if they don't have active headers. They will be reported but you will have to delete them yourself if you really don't want them. You probably won't really want them, but you decide! NOTE: This function may be run in a batch file through MUTIL (without having to give its function number interactively) by running: MUTIL 4 SAMPLE NORMAL OUTPUT: CHKMAIL - An MSYS Utility to verify mail index integrity MSYS Mail Index Checker head=0 free=1 next=2 Reading Index file: There are 100 total message headers Pass 1: No cycles detected No headers on both lists All headers accounted for No message files without headers All active headers have files Press a key to continue_ COMMENTS: I would strongly suggest you run this function every time MSYS crashes for any reason (it should not crash often, if at all). To be on the safe side, many MSYS sysops always run it when they start MSYS. 6-80 MUTIL Function 5 - Test serial ports INPUT FILE(S): None OUTPUT FILE(S): None This function provides a very basic test of serial interfaces. It is designed mostly to see if you got the addresses/int numbers right for your machine. It is not intended to be a brutal test of their operation! DIALOG WITH FUNCTION: After a table is displayed that lists the normal addresses for serial cards and corresponding interrupts, you will be asked if your machine has an 8086/8088 CPU chip in it. If its a basic PC/XT compatible system, respond Y. If you have an AT (80286) or higher level machine, respond with N. If you have an 8088/8086 based system (PC class) then it will look for ints from 2,3,4, and 7. If you say not 8088/8086 (AT class and above) it will look for ints from 3,4,5, and 7. Depending on your response, certain interrupt handlers will be installed. You will then be asked for the address of the serial card you wish to check. The answer you give must be in HEXADECIMAL. A valid response might be 3F8, for example. A simple check is made to see if there might be a serial port at the address you specify. It is easily fooled if you specify the address of some other kind of I/O interface. If there seems to be a device at the address you gave, a quick check will be made to see if it looks like an 8250 UART chip is used in your serial interface. Internal loop back tests cannot be done with the newer UART chips. If the test fails when you select internal loopback, try the external loopback option. This requires a connector that will connect pins 2 & 3 together in place of the tnc you would normally connect. External loopback can be used to test all types of UART chips. Next you will next be asked for a baud rate to test at. Here you give a decimal number as an answer. It probably doesn't make much difference what you give. (Don't try 0!). I usually test at 1200 baud. Now its your turn to type characters. As indicated, press Esc to terminate the test. Normal response should be something like Had IRQ 4 1 time(s), A received if you press the letter a key. If interrupts aren't working you would see Received A without interrupt. NOTE: This is not a performance test, just an address test. 6-81 MUTIL Function 6 - Print forwarding tree INPUT FILE(S): MSYS.FWD OUTPUT FILE(S): Printer hard copy (optional) This function displays your forwarding file in two ways to tell you what callsigns you forward to each bbs you forward to and also to which bbs you forward each callsign. DIALOG WITH FUNCTION: You are asked if you want hard copy output (on the printer). Respond Y or N as desired. The first part of the output consists of lines like AD8I ---> KA8Z KD8GC which means that messages with @AD8I are sent to either KA8Z or KD8GC (which ever one you can connect to first). The second part of the output consists of lines like KA3NVP <--- KA3NVP NTSNJ NTSNY NTSPA which means that you forward messages with KA3NVP NTSNJ NTSNY and NTSPA in some part of the @BBS field to KA3NVP. NOTE: To pause the display, you must use ^NumLock (^S won't work). To resume scrolling, press any other key. 6-82 MUTIL Function 7 - Set number of attempts at forwarding to 0 for all messages INPUT FILE(S): MSYS.MSG OUTPUT FILE(S): MSYS.MSG This function does what it says. Its original purpose was to convert old format (versions 1.02* and before) index files (MSYS.MSG) to the newer format that supports selective forwarding based on number of forward attempts. It may be used any time you want to set this counter to zero for all active messages (probably not too often). NOTE: It is probably a good idea to run CHKMAIL (MUTIL Function 4) before using this function. DIALOG WITH FUNCTION: When you start this function, it will ask: Set number of forward attempts for all messages to zero? _ Respond Y or N (no return is needed). If you respond Y for yes, it will show a progress report on the screen which is replaced by Done when the update is completed. 6-83 MUTIL Function 8 - Run log file analyzer INPUT FILE(S): MSYS.LOG MSYS.MSG OUTPUT FILE(S): Printer hard copy (optional) This program produces a listing of BBS usage. DIALOG WITH FUNCTION: You are asked if you want hard copy output (on the printer). Respond Y or N as desired. SAMPLE OUTPUT: ================================================================= From Wed Mar 01 15:23:48 1989 to Mon May 229 00:57:03 1989 Station Connects Sends Reads Kills Forwards HClean 0 0 0 27 0 N8HTG 3 1 1 0 12 NT8V 0 1 1 0 0 WA8BXN 4 0 0 1 9 WB8ZZS 168 82 31 24 0 LAST READ MSG# TO @BBS Count Title May 18 1 TEST 1 test Mar 23 7 TEST 2 test May 28 2 TEST 3 test Mar 02 8073 TEST 7 no title MSGINs 84 MSGKILLs 97 MSGFWDs 21 MSGREADs 33 RESTARTs 331 QUITs 311 CONNECTS 175 The following messages were received but not killed: 1 2 3 20 21 8073 (These should be active messages on your BBS!) ================================================================= NOTES: This data is taken from my test system which uses WB8ZZS as its call (Thanks to my wife Ruth!) Many strange things happen on this system as I am testing new software changes. The first line of the report gives the period of time covered by the contents of the MSYS.LOG file that was read. The next section of the report lists stations that were active on the BBS and what they did. The headings mean the following: Station - Callsign of the station Connects- Number of times the station connected (or the SYSOP used the BB command). Sends - Number of messages sent by this station Reads - Number of messages read by this station Kills - Number of messages killed by this station Forwards- Number of messages forwarded to this station NOTE: The callsign HClean indicates activity by the House Cleaning routine. 6-84 The next section lists messages that were read during the period, sorted in increasing order of number of reads. The meaning of the headings is: LAST READ - Date the message was last read MSG# - The number of the msg on the bbs TO - The "TO" station callsign of the message @BBS - The "@" field of the message. Count - The number of times the message was read Title - The title of the message NOTE: Private messages are not shown, only bulletins. This section is useful to see what interest there is in the various types of messages. The next section provides overall counts of various activities: MSGINs - The number of messages that were sent to the BBS MSGKILLs - The number of messages that were killed MSGFWDS - The number of messages forwarded by the BBS to other systems. Note: If a bulletin is forwarded to 4 different systems, it counts as 4 forwards MSGREADs - Total number of Read commands used on BBS RESTARTs - Number of times MSYS was started QUITs - Number of times MSYS was gracefully shut down using ^F4 or Quit command. Restarts - quits is the number of crashes for whatever reason. CONNECTS - Number of user connects to BBS + SYSOP BB cmds The final section of the report gives a list of message numbers that were assigned to messages sent to the system but not killed. Normally these message numbers should be active messages on the BBS. If they aren't, they may be messages to restore since they got lost somehow. 6-85 MUTIL Function 9 - Run setup program INPUT FILE(S): MSYS.OPT OUTPUT FILE(S): MSYS.DEF This function sets default initialization parameters. It must be run before you can use MSYS and any time you change MSYS.OPT. It is documented elsewhere in this document. DIALOG WITH FUNCTION: You are asked if you want hard copy output (on the printer). Respond Y or N as desired. 6-86 MUTIL Function 10 - Scan message headers to create/add to BBSLIST.DAT INPUT FILE(S): MAIL.BAK\MSG*.DAT (or specified directory) BBSLIST.DAT (if it exists) OUTPUT FILE(S): BBSLIST.DAT This program scans backup mail message files that are (or were originally found) in the MAIL.BAK directory to determine what BBS stations have been "seen" (using the R: lines added by each BBS as it forwards a message). DIALOG WITH FUNCTION: You will be asked to give the name of the directory that contains the messages to be scanned or to press return to use the MAIL.BAK directory directly. NOTE: This function may be run from a batch file by using either MUTIL 10 --- or --- MUTIL 10 dirname In the first form (MUTIL 10) it will be assumed that the input files are in the MAIL.BAK directory. In the second form (MUTIL 10 dirname) the files are assumed to be in the given directory name. OUTPUT FILE FORMAT: The first line of BBSLIST.DAT gives the date this function was run to create or add to the file. The remaining lines in the file consist of the following fields: callsign of bbs location of bbs postal code of bbs number of times this call has been seen Note: If you choose to edit this file, be sure to keep things in the same columns. Also note that the callsigns are lined up using the digit of the callsign. The list is sorted by digit in callsign, letters after the digit, and then letters before the digit (pretty much callbook order). Calls that do not begin with A, K, N, or W are grouped together at the end of the list, with an * in the first position in the record (non-US calls). 6-87 MUTIL Function 11 - deletes old entries from BBSLIST.DAT and BBSTONTS.DAT files. 6-88 MUTIL Function 12 - Fix mail index file ***** WARNING ***** This function can DEStroy the mail index file INPUT FILE(S): MSYS.MSG MAIL\MSG*.DAT OUTPUT FILE(S): MSYS.MSG This function allows manual inspection, checking and modification of the mail index file. It is a utility I wrote to see what DEStroyed a mail file and perhaps fix it. There is one function that may be useful to most sysops, that allows you to specify the next message number to be assigned to incoming messages. You may want to do this if you were running some other bbs and want to continue using message numbers from where you left off. Personally I would suggest that you don't do this but rather start with the default value 1. But its up to you! NOTE: Make a copy of your existing MSYS.MSG file before using this function! NOTE: Most of the checking and repair functions have been automated in the CHKMAIL function (MUTIL Function 4). DIALOG WITH FUNCTION: You are first asked for the name of the MSYS.MSG file to modify: Enter MSYS message header file name or simply press return for MSYS.MSG: _ Normally you will want to just press the return key. If the current directory from which you are running MUTIL does not contain the MSYS.MSG file that you want to modify, you can specify a different path (or even a different file name if you have renamed MSYS.MSG for some reason). To change the number that will be assigned to the next message, use the following procedure: Select F8 (Manual changes) Select F5 (Change Next) Enter new value for next message number to be used. Select F10 (Return to previous menu) Select F9 (Save changes and quit) Renumbering Messages All active messages may be renumbered using MUTIL function 12. You should renumber your messages when you reach about message number 64000. As message numbers increase above this they will wrap around back to 0 if you don't use this function. Some of the L command options will not work properly if newer messages have numbers smaller than older ones. To renumber the messages, go through the following steps: 1 - Start the MUTIL program 2 - Type 12 and return 6-89 3 - Press return to accept use of MSYS.MSG 4 - Press F8 for manual changes 5 - Press F6 for Renumber messages 6 - Type new starting message number (1 is good) then press return 7 - Press F10 to return to previous menu 8 - Press F9 to save changes 9 - Press return to go back to main menu 10 - Type 99 and return to exit 6-90 MSYS.MSG FILE FORMAT: (For the adventuresome only!) (If you know what you are doing, this will make some sense to you) int head; /* slot number of head of active list */ int free; /* slot number of head of free list */ int next; /* next message number to be assigned */ /* Each slot has the following definition: */ struct msghdrdef { unsigned mmsgnr; unsigned char mmsgtype[3]; int mmsgsize; unsigned char mmsgto[7]; unsigned char mmsgfrom[7]; unsigned char mmsgatbbs[39]; unsigned char mmsgdate[7]; unsigned char mmsgtitle[40]; long mmsgbits; unsigned char mmhbbs[8]; unsigned char mmsgtries; unsigned char mmsgbid[15]; int mmsglink; }; /* Note: word alignment is forced for all ints & longs */ 6-91 MUTIL Function 13 - Process BBSLIST.DAT into BBSTONTS.DAT INPUT FILE(S): BBSLIST.DAT ZIPCODES.DAT STATES.DAT ROUTES.DAT OUTPUT FILE(S): BBSTONTS.DAT This function builds a list of BBS calls (and optionally zip codes) and the corresponding xx designator to which they should be forwarded. If you select processing US BBS calls by state the data found in BBSLIST.DAT is scanned for state and zip code. The state is identified as being something after a comma in the location field that matches the list of state two letter codes found in the STATES.DAT file. If only one state is found and it corresponds to the zip code found, then the BBS call is automatically assigned to xx where xx is the state abbreviation. If either of these pieces of information is missing, or they do not match the test fails and you are asked to decide what state the bbs belongs in. DIALOG WITH FUNCTION: You will be asked if you want to include state routings for ZIPCODES. You should reply Y the first time you are creating the BBSTONTS.DAT file. Otherwise reply N. If you delete BBSTONTS.DAT for some reason, you should reply Y the first time you create a new one. If the state of the BBS cannot be automatically determined, you will get a screen that looks like this: ================================================================= WB8ZZS KIRTLAND OH 44026 (4) State/ZIP check failed - Zipstate OH Enter two letter state code then <Return key> or press <Escape key> then <Return key> to ignore or just press <Return key> to use OH ================================================================= The first line of this screen is the line from BBSLIST.DAT that is being considered. The next line gives the state that corresponds to the zip code (if available). The third line gives the guess that can be accepted if you just press return. If the guess is good, hit return. If you want to use a different state, type the two letter code for that state and then press return. If you want to omit this call from the output file, press some non- letter key before pressing return. Space bar, return works well. In this example, the state could not be identified because there is no comma between the city and the state. (It would be nice if 6-92 everyone used standardized R: lines!) The guess of OH was made from the zip code alone. When the US calls have been processed, you will be asked if you want to process non-US calls. If you have earlier choosen not to process US calls by states/zipcodes, the US calls will be processed with all the other calls if you choose to process non- US calls. This feature is useful for non-US hams that handle all US messages as just going to the US. If you choose to process the calls at this point, you will be presented with screens that list an entire entry from the BBSLIST.DAT file. Following this line will be the callsign of the BBS identified from the line. Using the call prefixes found in the ROUTES.DAT file, a guess will be made as to what routing should be used for the given call. You may then choose to ignore the call, to use the routing obtained from the call prefix (if any) or to type the complete route you desire. A sample screen might look like this: ================================================================= * WB8ZZS KIRTLAND OH 44026 (4) Callsign: WB8ZZS Possible route: USA.NA Press <Escape key> <Return key> to ignore Type desired routing then press <Return key> or just press <Return key> to use USA.NA ================================================================= BBSTONTS.DAT FILE FORMAT: This is an ASCII file containing in bytes 1 to 9 a BBS call or zipcode (left justified, possibly with wildcard * indicator), and the corresponding designator to which messages for that BBS call or zip code should be forwarded beginning in position 10. Example lines: 89* NV WB8ZZS OH VK1XX AUS.AS NOTE: Bulletin routing designator (like ARRL) should NOT appear in this file. NOTE: The file is sorted in ascending order using the entire record as key. NOTE: There should be no duplicates of calls/zip codes found in the first 9 bytes of the records. 6-93 ROUTES.DAT FILE FORMAT: This is an ASCII file that contains callsign prefixes and routings. The callsign prefix begins in the first byte. Comparisons are made with the BBS call for the length of the prefix from this file. The routing field begins in byte 9 (a tab character can be used to get here). Here are some sample entries: 4X ISR.AS 9M2 MYS.AS A USA.NA The idea here is that incoming messages for a given bbs will get the routing appended to the @BBS field. Thus if someone sent a message to 4X1ABC @ 4X1XYZ the @ field would become @4X1XYZ.ISR.AS It is expected in your forward file you would either have provisions to route the country part (ISR) to some bbs, or the continent part (AS) to some bbs. Thus to route foreign messages, you might just have all the continent designators (like EU, AS, NA etc) in your forwarding file or you can be more selective. Remember that you can have some countries along with the continent routings in your forward file. The part of the @BBS from left to right that is found in the forwarding file is the one that is used. If you do a lot of direct forwarding to various countries that can be accomodated; if you just dump all foreign stuff on a single station that is easy too. Feel free to modify the contents of ROUTES.DAT as you see fit; I have just included country prefixes for countries for which I seen message headers pass through my system. 6-94 MUTIL Function 14- Scan BBSTONTS.DAT to build BBSTONTS.BIN INPUT FILE(S): BBSTONTS.DAT OUTPUT FILE(S): BBSTONTS.BIN This function builds an index of the calls in the BBSTONTS.DAT file, placing the index at the beginning of the BBSTONTS.BIN file. After the index, the contents of BBSTONTS.DAT is copied to BBSTONTS.BIN. DIALOG WITH FUNCTION: This function does not require any keyboard input. NOTE: The format of the resulting file is such that no attempt should be made to edit it. With care, BBSTONTS.DAT may be edited and the result then processed by this function. NOTE: The file BBSTONTS.BIN is used by MSYS. The files BBSTONTS.DAT and BBSLIST.DAT are NOT used directly used by MSYS and may be stored on a diskette, if desired, when MSYS is running. I just keep them in the normal MSYS directory. 6-95 MUTIL Function 15 - Build list of archived messages This newly documented function will look at messages found in a given directory (in MAIL.BAK format) and construct a file of the message headers. The result is a file of all your messages like doing a L command on the BBS for every message that has passed thru your system. You can use the grep function on it to find messages with some particular string of characters in their header line. I use it to find a message when I think to myself "I remember there was a message about ... one time". Then knowing the message number you can go back to your archive diskettes and extract the complete text. 6-96 MUTIL Function 16 - Printer status This function provides a very simple printer test to see if its connected and can be initialized. 6-97 MUTIL Function 17 - merge BBSLIST.DAT files This function takes as its input your current BBSLIST.DAT file (which it first renames to BBSLIST.BAK) and another file you specify (in the same format as BBSLIST.DAT) and merges the two files into one called BBSLIST.DAT. I use this function to merge the BBSLIST.DAT file that some of the users of MSYS have sent me. This allows me to include in my file some bbs calls that normally would not have been seen in messages passing thru my system. 6-98 18 Check MSYSNODE.DAT integrity 6-99 19 Convert user files 1.05 & before <===> 1.06 and later 6-100 20 Sort calls in the BBSLIST.DAT file 6-101 MUTIL Function 21 - Delete Old BIDS (and MIDS) This function deletes old bids/mids from the file BID- LIST.DAT. It asks for the number of days worth of bids that should be kept. Run it periodically (maybe once a month). The bid file can hold up to 6500 entries; the more it has the slower it works. 6-102 Information for Advanced Users I. Replaceable directory names Beginning in MSYS 1.04 you can specify alternate directory names to be used by MSYS in place of the standard ones by using appropriate DOS set commands. The directory names that can be replaced and their default values are: Default Set DOS variable Dir Name to replace -------- ---------------- FILES MSYS:FILES FWD MSYS:FWD HELP MSYS:HELP MAIL MSYS:MAIL MAIL.BAK MSYS:MAIL.BAK As an example, assume you have a RAM disk at drive E: and have set up a directory called HELP on E: and copied the normal help files to this directory. You can then issue the following DOS command before starting MSYS: set MSYS:HELP=E:HELP and now MSYS will get the help files from the E:HELP directory. NOTE: You must be very careful in using a RAMDISK since its contents are easily lost. Also, you should probably not use a RAMDISK that takes space out of the normal 640K address space. NOTE: You are not limited to using RAMDISKS in specifying the disk and/or directory to be used for the above directories. You could specify floppy and/or hard disks as well. II. Replacable file names. You can also replace the following file names of files normally found in the "MSYS" (default) directory. Judicious choices can speed up operation and/or let you make use of multiple disk drives. Poor choices can be a disaster! Default File Set This DOS Name Parameter to replace: Notes ------------- --------------------- ----- BBSTONTS.BIN MSYS:BBSTONTS.BIN (1) MSYS.FWD MSYS:MSYS.FWD (2) MSYS.HRD MSYS:MSYS.HRD (3) MSYS.LOG MSYS:MSYS.LOG (3) MSYS.MSG MSYS:MSYS.MSG (4) MSYS.USR MSYS:MSYS.USR (4) MSYSHOST.NET MSYS:MSYSHOST.NET (5) MSYSBBSB.DAT MSYS:MSYSBBSB.DAT (2) MSYSPASS.DAT MSYS:MSYSPASS.DAT (5) 6-103 Notes: 1 - Very good candidate for ram disk (read only) 2 - Good to put on ram disk if you are careful (changed by MER) 3 - These can be made NUL if you don't want them 4 - If you like to live very dangerously, consider putting them on ram disk. Otherwise keep them on hard disk. Updated frequently during normal operation, they are very important files. 5 - Good for ram disk if you run tcp/ip much. Read mostly. Example: Assume you still have a ram disk at E: and have copied the normal contents of BBSTONTS.BIN to that disk. You could do the following DOS command set msys:bbstonts.bin=e:bbstonts.bin to cause MSYS to read the file from your ramdisk. NOTE: With all these changes you can make you can configure a lot in terms of files now. Be careful of file sizes (MSYS.LOG grows endlessly) when thinking about where to put things. NOTE: The programs in MUTIL assume the files are where they should be and totally ignore any replacements you may have made of file names and/or directory names. NOTE: If you are not absolutely sure of what you are doing, don't (do anything with these facilities). NOTE: If you crash your system, don't blame it on me! If you think one of these replacements doesn't work right let me know. NOTE: Before you try any of this, MAKE BACKUPS OF EVERYTHING! NOTE: Good luck! NOTE: This function hasn't exhaustively tested yet! 6-104 EDITVIEW (ED Command) (c) Copyright 1990 by HUB COMPUTERS, INC. The ED command used from the MSYS command mode can be used to edit small text files. The file is limited to records each 80 bytes or less in length. By default up to 200 records may be in the file. This can be modified by giving the maximum number of lines after the file name. The intent of this editor is to do little things without having to take down the system to run a more powerful editor. These might include editing message texts, the forward file, etc. ED is a full window editor (it adjusts its operation to fill the window it is run in). It must be run in a window that is 80 characters wide. Thus using the default window definitions it can be run in the normal command window (0) or you can use the CMdwindow command to first go to window 4 (the one you get when you press F4) and then use the ED command. You will then be using the entire screen for your editing. ED is pretty much a what you see is what you get editor. There are two modes of operation. When you start the editor you are in full screen or edit mode in which changes you make to the screen are also made to the file. In this mode you get a line at the bottom of the window that gives such information as the current line number and the name of the file being edited. The other mode is command mode in which you give commands to be done by the editor. To enter command mode press the Escape key. The bottom line will change to Edit Cmd: and await your command. The command you type will appear on this bottom line. To get a list of available commands type Help. You should see something that looks like the following: Commands Find - locates given string. Example: F wa8bxn Notes: Not case sensitive. F10 from edit mode is find same string again. Insert - puts blank line at beginning of file QUIT - Abandons edit SAVE - Saves file and exits DELete - Delete specified # of lines from file beginning with current line Return key in edit mode with insert on inserts blank lines Press a key to return to edit Use of the keypad to move around in the file is what is expected of the labeled keys, with the following enhancements. If you are somewhere in a line and you press the Home key you go to the beginning of the current line. If you are the beginning of the current line and press Home you go to the beginning of the screen. If you are at the beginning of the screen, pressing Home takes you to the beginning of the file. 7-105 EDITFILE (EF Command) (c) Copyright 1990 by HUB COMPUTERS, INC. The EF command used from the MSYS command mode can be used to edit small text files. The file is limited to records each 80 bytes or less in length. By default up to 200 records may be in the file. This can be modified by giving the maximum number of lines after the file name. The intent of this editor is to do little things without having to take down the system to run a more powerful editor. These might include editing message texts, the forward file, etc. This isn't a full screen editor but rather a line editor that was influenced in its design by the UNIX editor. Plain and simple, nothing fancy is found in it. To begin editing, use the command EF filename when you have the cmd: prompt. The filename can contain drive and path information. If the file does not exist you will be given the option to create one by that name. To create a new file this way, use the Append command. Type the lines of the new file and then a line with a period at the beginning to exit append mode. Then use the commands Write and Quit (each followed by the return key) and you have created a new file. All of the commands can be shortened to the first letter of the command, except for the DElete command which requires at least the first two letters. Here is information about the commands: # (i.e., a line number) makes that line the current line and also displays it + # Makes the current line # more than it is now. If # is omitted then the current line is incremented by one. - # Same as + # except current line number is decremented. <ESCAPE> Using the Escape key followed by the Return key abandons edit with no changes made to the file (unless you used the Write command yourself). <RETURN> Pressing the Return key alone displays the next line and makes it the current line. Append enters input mode, placing the following lines of input AFTER the current line. A line beginning with a period terminates append mode. Bottom makes the last line the current line and displays it. Change can be used to replace part of the current line. The first non-blank character after the command is the quote character. The operands are quote-character string-to-replace quote- character replacement-string quote-character. For example, C /YXZ/abc/ would replace XYZ in the current line with abc. The line is 7-106 printed after it is displayed. DElete can be used to delete the current line. If a number is specified as an operand, it is the number of lines to delete beginning with the current line. Down moves the current line down the number of lines specified (or 1 if none is specified). Find uses the first non-blank character after the command word as the beginning of the search string. The search is from the current line on in the file. Case is NOT important. If a match is found the line is displayed and that line becomes the current line. If no match is found the current line remains unchanged. Help displays the list of commands. Insert is like Append except that the new lines are placed BEFORE the current line. Near displays the contents of the file 5 lines before and 4 lines after the current line which remains unchanged. Print with no operands displays the current line. Give 1 operand it displays the line with that number. Given 2 operands (separated with a blank or comma) it displays from the first to the second line number. The current line number remains unchanged. Quit is used to exit the editor after the file has been written. Top makes the first line (numbered 0) the current line and displays it. Up decrements the current line number by the number given or 1. View displays the current line and the 9 lines that follow it. The current line remains unchanged. Write causes the file to be written to disk with any changes that have been made. ^F is used to search again for the same search string give with last use of Find. To start the editor, type EFile filepathname [# of lines max]. Examples: ef msys.fwd 250 ef mail/msg25.dat efile a:f1.c 7-107 HOUSECLEANING (HC command) (c) Copyright 1990 By HUB COMPUTERS, INC MSYS.HCL You create a file called msys.hcl. In it you put lines describing classes of messages you want to eradicate. Each line should contain one or more of the following keywords: AT= TO= FROM= AGE= TITLE= TYPE= KEEP= SYSOP= So for example: AT=ARRL AGE=30 would delete all messages with @BBS of ARRL that are over 30 days old. If specified, the values of AT TO and FROM must match exactly for a message to be deleted. TITLE and TYPE if specified must match some part of their corresponding message header fields; case is ignored. KEEP can be used to specify a number of msgs that match the other values given that should be saved anyway. Example: TO=ALL AT=ARRL TITLE=PFB KEEP=2 Would keep the newest two messages to ALL@ARRL with PFB somewhere in their title. The value of title given cannot contain blanks. SYSOP=Y has to be specified in any line that you want to delete messages that are to the idcall of the bbs. Thus to delete all read messages (including one to you) you could have a line: TYPE=PY SYSOP=Y The following line deletes read messages, except those to you: TYPE=PY The effects of these lines can be far reaching. For example, if you put in the line: KEEP=5 Then it will delete all but the 5 newest messages! All this action takes place when you type HClean NOW or at a time specified as a numeric parameter to HClean. HC 120 would cause it to happen at 02:00 (number given is minutes after 00:00 [midnight] to begin housecleaning). msys.hcl file as an example: at=arrl age=21 at=okipn age=10 at=panet age=3 type=# at=alloh age=10 type=# at=neoh age=10 type=# at=allbbs age=7 type=# at=rlibbs age=7 type=# at=amsat age=7 type=# at=midnet age=3 type=# at=usnet age=3 type=# at=wpab age=3 type=# at=arrl title=pfb keep=1 type=# 8-108 at=arrl title=dx keep=1 type=# at=arrl title=keplerian keep=1 type=# type=# title=sale age=2 type=# title=need age=3 type=# age=35 type=py keep=1 type=pf keep=2 type=tn age=21 type=pn age=60 to=sysop age=7 type=# At the end of housecleaning, the file MSYSHCL.DO is done (as a DO file) if it exists. 8-109 MODEM Support (c) Copyright 1990 by HUB COMPUTERS, INC. One or more modems may now be connected to MSYS. Each re- quires its own port. In the port command in MSYS.OPT for each modem, the speed value is the rate at which the modem is to be operated on the phone line. Note that only one speed is possible for each port. You should set radio speed to 1200 baud independent of phone line speed and also select a tnc file. Here is a sample MSYSTNC.9 file I used for testing with comments (not actually in the file) that begin with : ATZ : reset modem ATS0=1 : answer on one ring ATQ1 : don't send any result codes ATM1 : turn on speaker during call setup When the computer answers the caller will have to give two values, one for what is called "call" and another for "password". These values, in the case typed, must be found on a line in a file called MSYSPASS.MOD. A third entry in each line of this file is required and is the callsign that the caller will appear to have connected with on the bbs. Thus the first response doesn't have to actually be a callsign. All functions normally available on the bbs from a radio connection are available via the modem including remote sysop if so authorized. If the correct informa- tion is not provided in two attempts the modem hangs up, as it does when the Bye command is used by the caller or the channel is disconnected by the sysop. There is no timeout timer on the modem. In the PORT statement in the MSYS.OPT file mentioned above, a modem is identified by giving a port the name MODEM. Carrier Detect must reflect real CD. That is be true when someone is connected and false otherwise. DTR must also be connected. 8-110 Sysop commands related to TCP/IP (c) Copyright 1990 by HUB COMPUTERS, INC. MYIpaddr takes four integers in the range 0 to 255. It sets the IP address that the system will respond to. Example: MYI 44 70 4 6 If MYIpaddress is not specified, or set to all zeros, the TCP/IP support will be inactive. MYTcpip takes a callsign (with SSID) that will be used when sending arp and TCP/IP frames. It can be the same as the ID call in most cases. TElnet takes an IP address and optional server number as parameters. A symbolic IP address may given to be looked up in the file MSYSHOST.NET. Default server is 23. This command is used to establish keyboard to keyboard connection with a TCP/IP station. Examples: TE [44.70.4.10] te hsp (hsp would have to be defined in MSYSHOST.NET) TElnet operates much like C# normally used to connect to AX.25 stations. ^Cd is used to disconnect. TPorts takes a port mask value as an argument. This number is used the same way as in the other similar commands: each port corresponds to a port (port 0 is the rightmost bit) and when the bit is set to 1 for a given port that port is available for TCP/IP use (particularly ARP broadcasts). ARP used without an argument lists the known callsign/IP address correspondence determined by TElnet connects. An optional argument, CLEAR, may be used to erase all of the ARP entries. FTP takes a host-id as an argument (it can be either an IP address in the square brackets or a symbolic IP address). It establishes a connection to the FTP server of the specified system. FTP is the File Transfer Protocol used in TCP/IP. SMTP allows local access to the SMTP server (mainly for test purposes). Note: The following servers are currently implemented in MSYS: 7 Echo 9 Discard 21 File Transfer Protocol 23 Telnet 25 Simple Mail Transfer Protocol *** Files related to TCP/IP: MSYSHOST.NET This is an Ascii file you create with an editor (such as the MSYS ef command). Each line in the file begins with 8-111 an IP address that includes the periods but not the square brackets around it. Following this there is at least one space and/or tab character, then the list of symbolic names (or aliases, or nicknames, what ever you want to call them). You may place comments on the line by beginning the comments with a pound sign (#). Example entry line for this file: 77.70.4.6 bxn mike wa8bxn # kirtland, oh This line would allow "bxn" "mike" or "wa8bxn" to be used as arguments in the TElnet and FTP commands. Note that WA8BXN here just happens to look like a callsign. The actual callsign (and SSID) associated with a particular IP address is determined by ARP (address resolution protocol) broadcasts. These symbolic names you define in this file simply relieve you of having to remember (and type) complete IP addresses. Nothing more, nothing less! MSYSPASS.DAT This file contains the user names and passwords for FTP users. Each line contains 3 or 4 items: username password access directory Username is the name the user will use to log in. It can be anything for a given user. It could be their callsign or something else. The password can also be anything. If you put * as the password in the file for a particular, any password given by the user will be accepted. The third entry on each line, access, is a number that says how much access the user will have to your system: 1 means can only read files, 3 means read and write (but not replace or delete) and 7 means read, write, replace and delete. You shouldn't set 7 for any user since the passwords given by a user can be monitored by others. The last item which should always be given is the root directory that the user will have. They may never go closer to the real root than what you give here. Here are some examples: anonymous * 1 files --- this allows user anonymous to read any files in MSYS/FILES and any of its subdirectories. Any password can be given for this user. Anonymous with * for the password is an expected "standard" entry for TCP/IP systems to give access to totally public files. Include it in your system. apple runtime 3 --- This allows user apple (who must give password runtime) read/write access to your entire disk (DEFAULT DIRECTORY IS THE REAL ROOT DIRECTORY!) *** USER ACCESS NOTE Access level chart Level 1: CD DIR GET PWD QUIT Level 3: PUT MKDIR Level 7: PUT (to replace existing file) DELE RMDIR 8-112 If you are going to allow level 7 access (ie, can do everything) I would suggest you also assign a directory that doesn't allow access to any needed files. For example, you might set up the following entry in the MSYSPASS.DAT file: WA8BXN MIKE 7 /MSYS/FILES/WA8BXN You will have to create a directory WA8BXN in the files directory. Now stations can log in with WA8BXN MIKE and do anything in /MSYS/FILES/WA8BXN and any directories found in this directory. If you set up ANONYMOUS * 1 /MSYS/FILES then the user ANONYMOUS can read anything put in the WA8BXN subdirectory of FILES (as well as in FILES itself) but not write or otherwise change anything. The rest of your files should be pretty well protected. *** FTP COMMANDS: When you use the FTP command to connect to another system you can type HELP to get a list of the supported commands. They currently include: CD dirname To move around in the directory structure CD with no arguments gives the current directory DELE filename To delete given file DIR filespec gives a directory listing GET filename downloads a the given file MKDIR makes a directory PUT filename uploads the given file syntax is put [localfilename] remotefilename If the optional localfile name is omitted it is assumed to be the same as the remote file name. PWD gives the current directory QUIT disconnects RMDIR dirname removes the given directory *** IP Routing: What does this mean? Its sort of like digipeaters for the TCP/IP world. If a TCP/IP user sets you up as a route for IP frames going to a particular IP address MSYS will now repeat them if it has (or can get thru an ARP request boadcast) a known route to the DEStination IP address. Consider the following fictitious example: W9AAA [44.60.1.1] is in Indiana and wishes to connect to W3AAA [44.80.1.1] in Pennsylvania but can't do it directly. W9AAA can reach W8AAA [44.70.1.1] in Ohio who can in turn reach W3AAA. W9AAA will set up the route to [44.80.1.1] to be W8AAA (an MSYS system). When attempting to connect to W3AAA (using Telnet, for example) will send out a SYN IP frame (connect request) to callsign W8AAA but with an IP address of [44.80.1.1], the IP address of W3AAA. W8AAA upon hearing this will check its ARP table to see if it knows how to get to [44.80.1.1]. If the entry is not there, W8AAA will do an ARP broadcast on all the ports 8-113 enabled for TCP/IP. W3AAA will respond on one of them and this will put an entry in the ARP table. Now when a SYN is heard from W9AAA it will be repeated by W8AAA and thus heard by W3AAA. To use IP ROUTING yourself in MSYS you use the arp add command. When adding a given IP address you would put the call of the TCP/IP station you want to use as an IP repeater in place of the call that belongs with the IP address. You can still use normal ax.25 digipeaters (up to 8) to reach the TCP/IP station. If the path from W8AAA to W3AAA in the above example was not direct, then the following arp entry could be done at W8AAA, assuming that K8AAA is a normal ax.25 digipeater: arp add W3AAA port# 44 80 1 1 K8AAA NOTE: For more on TCP/IP refer to The KA9Q Internet Software Package. In the TCP/IP related ARP command, use -2 as the port number for routing thru the network interface. 8-114 Samples of MSYS files (c) Copyright 1990 by HUB COMPUTERS, INC. *** MSYS.OPT: PORT 0 AT $3F8 INT 4 SPEED 4800 NAME 145.090 PORT 1 SUBPORT 1 OF PORT 0 NAME 220.52 PORT 2 AT $2f8 INT 3 SPEED 4800 NAME 145.030 RADIOSPEED 300 TNCTYPE 1 NUMCHANS 10 DIGI N8HTG-1 FROM 0 TO 1 DIGI NT8V-1 FROM 0 TO 1 DIGI N8HTG-1 FROM 1 TO 0 DIGI NT8V-1 FROM 1 TO 0 DIGI N8HTG-3 FROM 1 TO 2 DIGI NT8V-3 FROM 1 TO 2 DIGI N8HTG-3 FROM 2 TO 1 DIGI NT8V-3 FROM 2 TO 1 DIGI N8HTG-6 FROM 0 TO 2 DIGI NT8V-6 FROM 0 TO 2 DIGI N8HTG-6 FROM 2 TO 0 DIGI NT8V-6 FROM 2 TO 0 bbs alias NT8V BBS CALL N8HTG ANSWER CALL N8HTG-13 KANODE CALL N8HTG-8 SYSOP NAME Lee SYSOP QTH PORT HURON, MI. SYSOP ZIP 48060 ID CALL N8HTG FORWARD CALL N8HTG-15 STACK FORWARD 8000 STACK DECODE 1500 STACK CALL 4000 FORWARD TIME 10 ID EVERY 45 MONITOR OUTGOING ON MONITOR IFRAMES ON MONITOR UFRAMES ON MONITOR BFRAMES ON AX25 RETRIES 10 WINDOW 0 BACKGROUND 0 WINDOW 5 BACKGROUND 0 WINDOW 6 BACKGROUND 0 WINDOW 2 BACKGROUND 0 WINDOW 3 BACKGROUND 0 WINDOW 5 FOREGROUND 10 WINDOW 6 FOREGROUND 9 WINDOW 2 FOREGROUND 12 MAKE *** MSYS.DO: WS 0 1 1 80 17 8-115 WS 5 50 19 80 25 WS 2 1 19 48 21 WS 6 1 22 51 24 retries 5 5 5 maxframes 4 4 4 frack 15 15 15 paclen 128 128 128 BD 0 NM8X BT 0 N8HTG PBBS -- PORT HURON MI. BD 1 KV8G-3 BT 1 N8HTG PBBS -- PORT HURON MI. MAKEP OFF TIMEZONE UTC MONST OFF MYI 44 102 0 75 MYT N8HTG-4 TP 2 host xt.n8htg.ampr BELL ON *** MSYS.OTD: <<< K-NODe = N8HTG-8 #### GATEWAY = N8HTG-1 145.03 <-> 145.09 >>> *** MSYSK.OTD: < Please try N8HTG PBBS ### N8HTG-1 Gateway 145.030 <-> 145.090 > *** MSYS.REP: 48060 NTSMI 48060 N8HTG 48040 NTSMI 48040 N8HTG 48001 NTSMI 48001 N8HTG 48002 NTSMI 48002 N8HTG *** MSYS.RMT: TEST PHRASE *** MSYSBBSB.DAT: 25 VE3WZL 26 WA8BXN 27 WB8I 28 N8HTG 29 VE3GYQ 30 WA8OOH *** MSYSFWD.DEF: F1 WA8BXN WA8BXN ---------- F0 WB8I V NM8X-1 8-116 WB8I ---------- *** MSYSHOST.NET: # IP address host name alias # comments # 44.102.0.74 xt.nt8v.ampr nt8v #roy 44.102.0.75 xt.n8htg.ampr n8htg #lee *** MSYSPASS.DAT: guest * 3 public nt8v roy 3 n8htg lee 3 k8dd hank 3 public *** MSYSTNC.1 (AEA PK-232): VHF OFF HB 300 AWLEN 8 PARITY 0 CONMODE TRAN TRACE OFF HID OFF BE 0 passall off RAWHDLC ON HP OFF PP ON KISS ON HOST ON host on 8-117 BIT PATTERN CHART (c) Copyright 1990 by HUB COMPUTERS, INC. To be used for DPorts, KPorts, MONPorts and TPorts [ PORT 3 2 1 0 ] 1=ON 0=OFF 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 0-ON 2 0 0 1 0 1-ON 3 0 0 1 1 1,0-ON 4 0 1 0 0 2-ON 5 0 1 0 1 0,2-ON 6 0 1 1 0 2,1-ON 7 0 1 1 1 0,1,2-ON 8 1 0 0 0 3-ON 9 1 0 0 1 3,0-ON A 1 0 1 0 3,1-ON B 1 0 1 1 0,1,3-ON C 1 1 0 0 3,2-ON D 1 1 0 1 0,2,3-ON E 1 1 1 0 1,2,3-ON F 1 1 1 1 ALL ON 8-118 Frequent problems (c) Copyright 1990 by HUB COMPUTERS, INC. --- The system will not forward. Make sure you executed the MERGE command. Without doing this the system will never forward. --- The system appears to work but nothing is on the screen. Make sure you set the display type correctly in the msys.opt file. The command is WINDOW DISPLAY COLOR for color monitors and WINDOW DISPLAY MONOCHROME for monochrome monitors. --- The system comes up and appears to hang. This may be caused by a non-existent com port, check the lines in your msys.opt to make sure the port addresses are correct. --- The system boots after forwarding This may be caused by having too many entries in your forwarding file remember you may only have up to 300 different bbs names in your file. --- Performance hint: Don't let too many messages pile up in mail.bak <DIR> before you delete them (after archiving if you wish). Having too many files there makes S cmd on bbs very slow to respond with next >. "I Haven't tried it, but maybe you will want to" Section Here are some suggestions from users of msys that they claim work. Use at your own risk! To cure the problem of certain tncs that don't transmit properly on HF use radiospeed of 1200 in place of 300 in msys.opt. I can't imagine how this could help, but someone says it did for them (they weren't using MFJ tncs which seem to have this kind of problem). One thing you might want to try if you are having problems with a tnc on HF is to get a copy of KA9Q's net.exe program and see if you can use its ax.25 connect command with your tnc on hf. If that fails as well the problem definitely is in the tnc. To run msys under dv on a 386 machine, try these values in the "performance" section: foreground 9 background 6 common memory 15 dos buffer for ems 5 optimize communications Y 8-119 allow swapping of programs N manage printer contention N To put a MFJ Tnc in kiss mode, try this in your msystnc.# file ax off parity 0 awlen 8 conmode trans kiss on restart Paccom rom version 1.1.5 may work better than 1.1.662 8-120 INDEX A (abort), 34 ABortfwd, 9, 14 ADDUser, 9, 14 ANSWER CALL, 6 APpend, 9, 14 ARChive, 9, 14 ARP, 9, 14 ARP add, 9, 14, 114 ARP DEL, 9, 15 AT number, 3, 4 Atabase, 27 ATtended, 9, 15 AUTODESt, 9, 15, 59, 62, 64 AUTOHold, 9, 15 AUTOKill, 9, 15 Automatic back-up, 69 Automatic generation of @BBS field, 67 AUTONode, 9, 15, 59, 61, 64 AX25 CHECK, 7 AX25 FRACK, 6 AX25 MAXFRAMES, 6 AX25 RETRIES, 6 BACkuptim, 9, 15 BADuser, 9, 15 BBs, 9, 15 Bbs alias, 4, 6, 11, 26, 115 BBS CALL, 6 BBSLIST.DAT, 55, 56, 74, 87, 92, 93, 95, 98 BBSTONTS.BIN, 54, 55, 56, 74, 95, 103, 104 BBSTONTS.DAT, 55, 56, 74, 92, 93, 95 BDigi, 9, 16 BElloff, 9 BElloff on/off, 16 BIDall, 9, 16 BINterval, 9, 16, 64 BMax, 16 BMaxcon, 9 BOOT, 9, 17 BPorts, 9, 17 BText, 9, 17 BUDCalls, 9, 17 BUDList, 9, 17 Bye command, 34 C BBS or C bbscallsign, 64 CAPTURE.DAT, 18 CHANNEL NUMBERS, 68 CHAnstat, 9, 18 CHEck, 9, 18 CL B #, 9, 18 CLrscrn, 9, 18 CMdwindow, 9, 18 8-121 Conference command, 34 COpy, 9, 16, 19 CRetries, 9, 19 Ctrl/F2, 33 Ctrl/F4, 33 Ctrl/F5, 33 Ctrl/F6, 33 C#, 9, 17 Database, 35, 41, 42, 64 DEBug, 9, 19 Default directory, 1 DELEfile, 9, 19 DELUDays, 9, 19, 68 DELUSer, 10, 19 DESt, 10, 12, 19, 27, 29, 33, 60, 61, 64 DESt ADD, 60 DESt DELete, 60 DESt REPlace, 60 DEStination, 14, 15, 19, 27, 38, 50, 54, 57, 60, 62, 64, 113 DEStination NODe, 57 DFree, 10, 19 DIGI statement, 5 DIGipeats, 10, 19 DIRectory, 10, 19 DISconnec, 10, 20 DOcmdfile, 10, 20 DOS, 12, 19, 20, 29, 103, 104 Download command, 35 DPorts, 10, 20, 24 DROPING @BBS, 52 DRoute, 10, 20 DRoute DELete, 20 DTimedate, 10, 20 EDit, 10, 20 EFile, 10, 20 EMsghdr, 10, 20 END OF LINE BELLS, 68 EUser, 10, 21 Executing commands from within the forwarding file, 50 F2 time, 10, 22 FBbstimes, 10, 21 FCall, 10, 21 FFile, 10, 21 FIle, 10, 21 Files related to TCP/IP, 111 FOrward, 10, 21 FORWARD CALL, 6 FORWARDING DISPLAY, 52 FORWARDING NOTES, 50 FRAck, 10, 22, 69 FREE, 10, 22 FSize, 10, 22 8-122 FTIme, 10, 22 FTP COMMANDS, 113 FTPgm, 10, 22 FUlldup, 10 FUllduplex, 22 Function key usage:, 12, 33 G command, 35 GEtmsgotd, 10, 22 GRep, 10, 22 H command, 35 HCAll, 10, 23, 28 HCLean, 10, 23 HDRS command has been removed, 73 HEard, 10, 23 Help, 10, 23 HELP\MSYSMSGS.DAT, 1 HF Forwarding, 52 HOstname, 10, 23 How I Run My Network NODe, 61 HREPlace, 10, 23 I command, 35 ID, 10, 23 ID CALL, 6 ID EVERY, 6 IGnore, 10, 23 Information for Advanced Users, 103 INT number, 3, 4 IP Routing, 113, 114 IPTTL #, 24 IPTTL # TCP/IP Time to live, 10 J command, 36 JBbs, 10, 24 JDigipeat, 10, 24 JGateways, 10, 24 JHeard, 10, 24 JKanodes, 10, 24 JMsys, 10, 24 JNetrom, 10, 24 JTcp/ip, 10, 24 K command, 36 KANODE CALL, 6 KEyboard, 10, 24, 66 KILLproc, 10, 24 KPorts, 11, 24 L command, 36 LCount, 11, 25 LINKED, 66 LOCKkbd, 11, 25 LOCKUPS, 67 8-123 LOG, 67 LUsers, 11, 25 M command, 37 MAIL BEACON, 67 MAIL.BAK, 28, 56, 69, 74, 77, 78, 87, 96, 103, 119 MAKEPriva, 11, 25 Manual Operations on the Network NODe Database, 60 MAStersrv, 11, 25 MAX channels AND PORTS, 68 MAxFrames, 11, 25 MAXRead, 11, 25 MCon, 11, 25 MDir, 11, 25 MEMory, 11, 25 MEMORY MANAGEMENT, 65 MERge, 1, 11, 25, 26, 47, 48, 74, 98, 119 Message of the day, 10, 22, 34, 37 MHclear, 11, 26 MINmem, 11 Miscellaneous Comments on Network NODe, 63 MODEM Support, 110 MONBframe, 11, 26 MONIFrame, 11, 26 MONITor, 11, 26 MONITOR BFRAMES, 7 MONITOR IFRAMES, 7 MONITOR OUTGOING, 7 MONITOR PORTS, 7 MONITOR SFRAMES, 7 MONITOR UFRAMES, 7 MONOutgoi, 11, 26 MONPorts, 11, 25, 26 MONSFrame, 11, 26 MONSTats, 11, 26 MONUFrame, 11, 26 MONxx, 11, 26, 66 MSYSBBSB.DAT, 1, 46, 103, 116 MSYSFWD.DEF, 1, 11, 25, 26, 47, 48, 50 MSYSHOST.NET, 31, 103, 111, 117 MSYSK.OTD, 116 MSYSPASS.DAT, 103, 112, 113, 117 MSYSTNC.1, 117 MSYSTNC.#, 4, 67 MSYS.BBS, 25, 47, 50, 52 Msys.def, 1, 3, 4, 8, 86 MSYS.DO, 14, 65, 115 MSYS.FWD, 11, 25, 26, 47, 82, 103, 107 MSYS.HCL, 23, 108 Msys.opt, 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 32, 66, 68, 86, 115, 119 MSYS.OTD, 22, 116 MSYS.REP, 47, 48, 116 MSYS.RMT, 65, 79, 116 MUTIL.EXE, 55, 74 MUTIL.EXE Function 9, 3 8-124 MYAlias, 11, 26 MYBbs, 11, 26 MYCall, 11, 27 MYIpaddr, 11, 27 MYKnode, 11, 27 MYTcpcall, 11, 27 N command, 37 NAME description, 3 NDWindow, 11, 27, 64 Neighbor NODe, 57 NET NODe Parameters Summary, 64 NETBbs, 11, 27, 64 NETCon, 11, 27, 64 NETNode, 11, 27, 59, 61, 62 NETTalk, 11, 27, 64 Network NODe Quickstart, 59 NEWUser, 11, 27, 68 NInfo, 11, 27, 64 NNode, 11, 27 NOBulls, 11, 27 NODe, 1, 5, 6, 11, 24, 25, 27, 28, 36, 43, 45, 46, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 116 NODe ADD, 60 NODe DELete, 60 NODe REPlace, 60 Nodes Broadcast, 57 NPorts, 11, 27, 59, 61, 64 NRCall, 11, 28, 59, 63, 64 NRid, 11, 28, 64 NTtl, 11, 28, 64 NUMCHANS number, 5 OCInit, 11, 28, 64 OCMmin, 11, 28, 64 OLdbids, 11, 28 P command, 38 Packet size, 66 PAClen, 11, 28 PATh, 11, 28 Performance hint, 119 PF command, 38 PForward, 11, 28 PMessage, 11, 28 PORT number, 3 PORT statement, 4 POrts, 12, 28 PPersist, 12, 28 PQuality, 12, 28, 61, 64 PRInt, 12, 29 PROCESS processname, 8 PROcesses, 12, 29 PRompt, 50 PRTmsgs, 12, 29 8-125 PWindow, 12, 29 QUIT, 12, 29 R command, 38 RDir, 12, 29 Remote SYSOP, 65 REMove, 2, 12, 15, 19, 27, 29, 64 REMove a DEStination NODe, 60 REName, 12, 29 REPlaces, 12, 29 Required subdirectories:, 1 RESpons #, 12, 29 RETries, 12, 29 REVERSE FORWARDING, 48 Routing, 57 RS-232 connection to tncs running Net/Rom and TheN, 70 RUn, 12, 29 S command, 38 Scripts, 45 SELECTIVE FORWARDING, 49 SEnd, 12, 30 SLottime, 12, 30 SMTP, 12, 30, 69 SMTP FORWARDING, 50 SNow, 12, 30 SOrt, 12, 30 SPEED number, 3 STACK processname, 8 STACK requirement, 66 STatus, 12, 31 SUBPORT number, 3 SUspendtr, 12 SUspendtrace, 31 SYSOP NAME, 8 SYSOP QTH, 8 SYSOP ZIP zip code, 8 T command, 39 TABs, 12, 31 TACK, 12, 31, 64 TBdelay, 12, 31, 64 TCP/IP FORWARDING, 49 TELnet, 12, 31 Terminate the connection, 18 TESTING, 69 TFrames, 12, 31 TImezone, 12, 32 TNatime, 12, 32, 64 To renumber the messages, 89 TPorts, 12, 32 Trace25, 12, 32 TraceIP, 12, 32 TRetries, 12, 32, 64 8-126 TTimeout, 12, 32, 64 TXDelay, 12, 32 TXTail, 12, 32 TYpe, 12, 32 Type of a message (the "TR" field, 70 Type of monitor, 1 U command, 39 Upload command, 39 USER ACCESS, 112 USER BIT SETTINGS, 68 Users, 12 Users filename, 32 V command, 39 Video, 12, 32 W command, 39 WAtch, 12, 32 WBackgrnd, 12, 32 WColors, 12, 33 WForegrnd, 12, 33 WHo, 12, 33 Window, 12, 33 WINDOW DISPLAY, 8 WINDOW number, 7 WP SERVER, 68 WPAge, 12, 33 WPEvery, 12, 33 WQupdate, 12, 33, 64 WSize, 12, 33 W?, 12, 33 X command, 39 #msgs/use, 9, 14 (MUTIL.EXE Function 9), 1 * at the beginning, 40 *comment, 9, 14 ***, 73 *** HEADERS, 73 < filename, 40 > filename and >> filename, 40 @BBS, 67 @home, 9, 14 \Sysop command, 65 \+\ filename, 16, 18, 69 8-127