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RBBSMail, the RBBS-PC Echomail Processor
Version 18.2
Featuring CRITMON<tm> and DynaPurge<TM>!
(C) by Jan R. Terpstra
September 17, 1992
Bamestra RBBS
P.O.Box 66
1462 ZH Beemster
The Netherlands
RBBSNet 8:998/1.0
FIDONET 2:512/10.0
phone1 ++31 2998 3602 (v24)
phone2 ++31 2998 3603 (HST)
Document Number RM_920917
RBBSMail v18.2
NOTICE: This is NOT a drop-in replacement of RBBSMAIL.EXE, you need to
change the configuration and batch files before running this version of
RBBSMail!!!!!!!
RBBSMail v18.2
1. WARNING!
Please note that RBBSMail v18.x is *NOT* a drop-in replacement for earlier
versions of RBBSMail. Several configuration phrases and commandline
switches have changed. You *MUST* make changes to RBBSMAIL.CFG and to
your batchfiles before invoking RBBSMail to prevent sending out messages
that may not confirm to current FIDONET echomail distribution standards.
What you should do before installing and running this version of
RBBSMail.
■ Delete all .EID files from your system. RBBSMail v18 uses a new
method of checking for duplicates.
■ In the directory where you run RBBSMail, type the command
ATTRIB RBBSMAIL.NUM -S -H (DOS 5.0) and delete the file RBBSMAIL.NUM.
■ Read this document and make the required changes to your RBBSMAIL.CFG
and AREA.BBS files.
■ Note that the commandline switches of RBBSMail have changed. Earlier
versions used a colon ":" as command delimiter. RBBSMail v18 uses a
space between commandline switch and parameter.
■ Type RBBSMAIL with the appropriate commandline switches and cross you
fingers.
Note: This version of RBBSMail DOES support the CC: feature of RBBS-PC
v17.4 and later.
WARNING! 1
RBBSMail v18.2
2. What is RBBSMail
RBBSMail is a program that allows sysops of RBBS-PC bulletin boards to
hook their bulletin board into the international FIDONET and participate
in Echomail. The combination RBBS-PC + RBBSMail + any of the mail
frontends will process messages entered in designated conferences of the
RBBS-PC system and send those messages to any other system in the
FIDONET. It will put received Echomail in the proper RBBS-PC MESSAGES
file or in to FIDO style message subdirectory.
This way, RBBS-PC conferences can be shared among multiple RBBS-PC and
other systems in the FIDONET. Messages entered on any of the bulletin
boards in an Echomail net will eventually be copied over to all the other
bulletin board systems connected to the net. RBBSMail does handle
reception of directly addressed FIDONET messages but it cannot handle
explicitly addressed messages from users on your system simply because
RBBS-PC does not (yet??) provide a way of addressing network messages.
RBBSMail can only process Echomail.
To accomodate bulletin board systems that run another BBS program next to
RBBS-PC, RBBSMail can also do Import and Export functions on FIDO style
message subdirectories, just like ConfMail, QM and Dutchie's Conference
manager do. This allows a mixed environment where both RBBS-PC and a FIDO
compatible BBS program can participate in Echomail on a single computer.
2.1 Software Requirements
To run RBBSMail, you need (of course) a working RBBS-PC based bulletin
board with a version of RBBS-PC that will run with a frontend mailer
(RBBS-PC v16.1A or later), RBBSMail and suitable batch files. RBBSMail
can handle RBBS-PC MESSAGES files produced by RBBS-PC v16.1A and higher.
RBBSMail will work happily with any FTS-0001 compatible front-end mailer,
like BinkleyTerm, FrontDoor, Dutchie or SEAdog. All programs have strong
and weak points, it is up to you to decide which one to use.
BinkleyTerm is distributed including the C sourcecode, just like RBBS-PC.
This makes the two programs "live with the same spirit". The combination
of BinkleyTerm, RBBSMail and the FIDO compatible message editor MsgEd
(sourcecode also available) is my personal preference.
Dutchie is a FIDO compatible mailer of Dutch origin (hence the name).
Dutchie's older version came with excellent documentation, containing a
very educational section on FIDONET basics. Sadly enough, the current
level of Dutchie's documentation is "less usefull" (pun intended).
FrontDoor is a commercial FIDO compatible mailer of good quality. It has
a been a stable product for quite some time and exploits some interesting
extras.
SEAdog was the first commercial FIDONET compatible mailer. While a bit
What is RBBSMail 2
RBBSMail v18.2
limited in functionality, it has been a reliable and stable product for a
long time.
D'Bridge is a commercial FIDONET mailer including echomail handling,
message editor, maintenance and a handful of other utilities. While
D'Bridge looks like a nice package at first glance, it has had a long
lasting history of being bug-infested, badly supported and not really
compliant with current FIDONET standards.
When using all of RBBSMail's ARCmail abilities, you must have copies of
the programs ARCA.COM, ARJ.EXE, PAK.EXE, LHA.EXE, PKZIP.EXE, PKUNZIP.EXE,
ZOO.EXE and GUS.EXE, either in the current subdirectory or in a
subdirectory listed in your DOS PATH environment variable.
2.2 Hardware Requirements
The minimum hardware requirements to run RBBSMail are the same as those
for RBBS-PC (think about that for a while....)
2.3 Limitations.
I hate to leave people out in the blue as to what they can and cannot do
with this program. To my opinion, if a program has limitations or
restrictions, they should be documented. Here are the most important
limititations of RBBSMail:
■ The main code and data of RBBSMail will eat about 200 KB of memory,
not including the compiled in-memory table of your AREAS.BBS.
■ Depending on the amount of areas you carry and the number of
destination addressesper area, the compiled table of AREAS.BBS may
take 53 to 1516 bytes per individual area.
■ The maximum line length of each line in AREAS.BBS is 1024 characters.
■ The maximum size of processed messages is 32000 bytes.
■ The maximum size of incoming and outgoing mailbundles is 2 Gigabyte.
■ The maximum number of individual areas in AREAS.BBS is 512.
■ The maximum number of destination addresses per area in AREAS.BBS is
50.
■ The maximum number of messages in a RBBS-PC messages file is 999.
■ The maximum number of messages in a FIDO .MSG style subdirectory is
2048.
■ The maximum number of net/node pairs in the SEEN-BY and PATH lines is
256.
■ The maximum length of any AREA: name is 64 characters.
■ The maximum length of any drive:\subdir\filename.ext is 64
characters.
What is RBBSMail 3
RBBSMail v18.2
2.4 Related Documents
I advise you (well, it is sort of mandatory) to read or at least browse
through the following documents:
■ The manual of the frontend mailer you are using.
■ SD-APDX by Kim Wells (how to run SEADOG with RBBS-PC).
■ BT-APDX by Tony Young (how to run BinkleyTerm with RBBS-PC).
■ The Fidonet Standards Committee documents.
■ FIDO newsletters.
And you already read the RBBS-PC documentation, didn't you??? Or did you
just fire up RBBS-PC with your fingers crossed? If you are one of those
who never reads documentation, you'll probably will not read this. But,
in case your eye accidentially catches this: Please read the documentation
before you ask any questions!!! I have had too many questions asked by
people that obviously did not read a scrap of documentation before they
started what they were doing. I have a standard answer for these people:
R.T.F.M.!! This answer will usally solve some 95% of the questions. The
other 5% are 'real' problems that need some sort of action. If, after
reading and rereading the documentation there are still questions
unanswered, feel free to contact the author and elaborate on your
problem.
2.5 Acknowledgements
It is utterly impossible to give credits were credits are due, but here
are the names of some persons that have been of great help and deserve
kudos: Thom Mack, Ken Goosens and Jon Martin, authors of RBBS-PC. Doug
Azzarito and Kim Wells for their many suggestions. Jeff Rush, author of
TOSSMAIL and SCANMAIL, and the inventor of Echomail. The Binkley Trio.
Johan Zwiekhorst for GUS and the ARCA simulator. Bob Hartman for making
the source of ConfMail available. Ron Bemis for his many useful
suggestions and sample C code in the international NET_DEV conference on
FIDONET. Mark Kimes for some refreshing ideas and the wording of the
license agreement. Whitney Software, Inc. for their excellent Disk/EMS
memory swap routines.
And last (but NOT least!) the people that had the courage to beta-test my
code. A special word of thanks to Patty Pickett, sysop of "My Secret
Garden RBBS". Patty asked lots of questions setting my brain in gear,
provided feedback on errors in the program and documentation and she
volunteered to distribute updates to the beta-testers. Kisses, Patty! You
earned yourself an original Dutch Cheese :-)
What is RBBSMail 4
RBBSMail v18.2
3. Legal Stuff
3.1 Copyrights & License
RBBSMail is (C) Copyright 1988...1991 by Jan R. Terpstra.
Disk/EMS swapping code is (C) Copyright 1990 Whitney Software, Inc.
Non-Commercial distribution and/or use is permitted under the following
terms:
1 - You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of RBBSMail source,
documentation, and executable code as you receive it, in any medium,
provided that:
■ you conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy a valid
copyright notice "(C) Copyright 1987, 1992 by Jan R. Terpstra";
■ you keep intact the notices on all files that refer to this License
Agreement and to the absence of any warranty;
■ you provide UNMODIFIED copies of the documentation as provided with
the program;
■ you give any other recipients of the RBBSMail program a copy of this
License Agreement along with the program.
2 - You may not charge a distribution fee for the physical act of
transferring a copy. Under no circumstances is RBBSMail to be distributed
in such a way as to be construed as "value added" in a sales transaction,
such as, but not limited to, software bundled with a modem or CD-ROM
software collections.
3 - You may modify your copy or copies of RBBSMail or any portion of it,
and copy and distribute such modifications under the terms of Paragraph 1
above, provided that you:
■ send a complete copy of the modified source and executables to Jan R.
Terpstra at the address on the title page of this document, for the
purpose of evaluation for inclusion in future releases of RBBSMail.
Should your source code be included in RBBSMail, Jan R. Terpstra
retains all rights for redistribution of the code as part of RBBSMail
and all derivative works, with appropriate credit given to the author
of the modification,
■ cause the modified files to carry prominent notices stating that you
changed the files and the date of any change,
■ cause the executable code of such modified version to clearly identify
itself as such in the course of its normal operation,
■ If the modified version is not a "port", but operates in the same
hardware and/or software environment as the original distribution,
make the original version equally available, clearly identifying same
as the original, unmodified version;
■ cause the whole of any work that you distribute or publish, that in
whole or in part contains or is a derivative of RBBSMail or any part
thereof, to be licensed at no charge to all third parties on terms
identical to those contained in this License Agreement (except that
you may choose to grant more extensive warranty protection to some or
Legal Stuff 5
RBBSMail v18.2
all third parties, at your option),
■ You may not charge a distribution fee for the physical act of
transferring a copy. You may not offer warranty protection in
exchange for a fee.
4 - Mere aggregation of another unrelated program with this program and
documentation (or derivative works) on a volume of a storage or
distribution medium does not bring the other program under the scope of
these terms.
5 - You may copy and distribute RBBSMail and its associated documentation
(or a portion or derivative of it, under Paragraph 2) in object code or
executable form under the terms of Paragraphs 1, 2 and 3 above provided
that you also do one of the following:
accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code,
which must be distributed under the terms of Paragraphs 1, 2 and 3 above,
OR
accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give
any third party free a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding
source code, to be distributed under the terms of Paragraphs 1, 2 and 3
above,
OR
accompany it with the information you received as to where the
corresponding source code may be obtained. (This alternative is allowed
only for noncommercial distribution and only if you received the program
in object code or executable form alone.)
For an executable file, complete source code means all the source code for
all modules it contains. As exception, it need not include source code
for modules which are standard libraries that accompany the compiler used
to generate the object code or libraries that are part of the operating
system on which the executable file runs.
6 - You may not copy, sublicense, distribute or transfer RBBSMail and its
associated documentation except as expressly provided under this License
Agreement. Any attempt otherwise to copy, sublicense, distribute or
transfer RBBSMail is void and your rights to use the program under this
License agreement shall be automatically terminated. However, parties who
have received computer software programs from you with this License
Agreement will not have their licenses terminated so long as such parties
remain in full compliance, and notify Jan R. Terpstra of their intention
to comply with this Agreement.
7 - If you wish to incorporate parts of RBBSMail into other free programs
whose distribution conditions are different, please contact Jan R.
Terpstra at the address listed below. There's not yet a simple rule that
can be stated here, but it will usually be permitted this. Such decision
is guided by the two goals of preserving the free status of all
derivatives of this free software (as it pertains to Non-Commercial use as
Legal Stuff 6
RBBSMail v18.2
provided by this Agreement) and of promoting the sharing and reuse of
software.
8 - For the purposes of this document, "COMMERCIAL USE" is defined as
operation of the software with the intent of generating financial revenue,
where the revenue excesses the true costs of running the organisation
(i.e. profit). The term "COMMERCIAL USE" includes use by religious
organisations, government agencies and organisation raising funds for
third parties.
NON-PROFIT non-religious organization or individuals may operate this
software under the terms of this Non-Commercial Agreement.
9 - You may terminate this license at any time by simply destroying all
copies of the RBBSMail executables, sourcecode and documentation you have
in your posession.
3.2 NO WARRANTY
BECAUSE RBBSMAIL IS LICENSED FREE OF CHARGE, I PROVIDE ABSOLUTELY NO
WARRANTY. EXCEPT WHEN OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING, JAN R. TERPSTRA
AND/OR OTHER PARTIES PROVIDE RBBSMAIL "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY
KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR
PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF RBBSMail,
AND THE ACCURACY OF ITS ASSOCIATED DOCUMENTATION, IS WITH YOU. SHOULD
RBBSMail OR ITS ASSOCIATED DOCUMENTATION PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE
COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR OR CORRECTION.
IN NO EVENT WILL JAN R. TERPSTRA BE RESPONSIBLE IN ANY WAY FOR THE
BEHAVIOR OF MODIFIED VERSIONS OF RBBSMAIL. IN NO EVENT WILL JAN R.
TERPSTRA AND/OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MAY MODIFY AND REDISTRIBUTE RBBSMail
AS PERMITTED ABOVE, BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR DAMAGES, INCLUDING ANY LOST
PROFITS, LOST MONIES, OR OTHER SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL
DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE (INCLUDING BUT NOT
LIMITED TO LOSS OF DATA OR DATA BEING RENDERED INACCURATE OR LOSSES
SUSTAINED BY THIRD PARTIES OR A FAILURE OF THE PROGRAM TO OPERATE WITH ANY
OTHER PROGRAMS) RBBSMail, EVEN IF YOU HAVE BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY
OF SUCH DAMAGES, OR FOR ANY CLAIM BY ANY OTHER PARTY.
You can contact the author at address listed on the titlepage of this
document. Feel free to contact me at any time to share your comments
about my software and/or licensing policies. I don't always listen,
though.
For your info: RBBSMail was developed and compiled with Microsoft C 6.00
and Microsoft MASM 5.10 on an IBM PS/2 mod70 with 12MB memory and a 160MB
fixed disk, running IBM OS/2 2.0.
This version was tested with RBBS-PC 17.3C, ConfMail v3.3, BinkleyTerm
v2.55beta, FrontDoor 2.02, oMMM v1.70, AMAX v2.20 and Maximus CBCS
v2.01wb, on a machine running IBM OS/2 v2.0 and a machine running IBM PC
DOS v5.00 plus DESQview 2.26.
Legal Stuff 7
RBBSMail v18.2
3.3 NO MONEY
Non-Commercial users may us this software free of charge. If you
absolutely insist on spending money for RBBSMail, DO NOT put a check in
the mail to me. Instead, take your wife or girlfriend (not both!) out to
dinner, to make up for the many, many hours you left her alone while you
were playing around with your BBS.......
Therefore, it is understood that RBBSMail is distributed as DINNERWARE.
There's one absolute requirement for using this code: Send the author of
RBBSMail a nice postcard of a local scenery or from your next vacation.
No windmills please :-)
3.4 The RBBS commitment
A quote from the RBBS docs: "Most Bulletin Board Software is dedicated to
making money for its authors. No matter how much the authors love the
work, it endures only so long as the hope of income continues.
RBBS is given away for free, and depends not on the flow of money, but on
the continuing dedication and generosity of people who volunteer to help
support and enhance it as a public service, and share their labor of love
with others for the benefit of all."
This statement fully applies to RBBSMail as well.
Legal Stuff 8
RBBSMail v18.2
4. Installation
4.1 Configuring RBBSMail
Installation of RBBSMail is pretty straightforward. The installation
procedure assumes that you have installed RBBS-PC and your frontend
mailer, with all the conferences, the RBBS-PC control files and suitable
batch files. You should already have obtained all the stuff you need to
run as a FIDONET node, things like NET/NODE number, the NODELIST and some
programs to maintain all the files. Please read the documentation of your
frontend mailer about this. Talk to the Sysop of your host-node about
setting up your mail schedules and mailrouting.
Now, copy RBBSMail.EXE to the directory where you keep your RBBS-PC
MESSAGE files. Find out the EXACT filenames of all the conferences you
are going to hook up in the Echomail and find out by what AREA:names they
are known in the network you are participating in. You also need the
NET/NODE number(s) of the system(s) you are going exchange echomail with.
You can send any AREA: to a large number of different systems. This is
usually not the case, you will probably exchange mail with a small number
of neigbouring nodes or only with your Echomail HOST, HUB or backbone.
Most local FIDONET nets have a single hostnode with some 5 to 20 nodes
connected. Ask the sysop of your local or regional HOST/HUB for the EXACT
AREA: names used in your net.
RBBSMail can run your system as Echomail host so you can set up your own
local or regional net.
If you have all info needed, you must build two control files for
RBBSMail. One is RBBSMAIL.CFG, containing the information RBBSMail needs
to make your system talks to the rest of the net. The other is AREAS.BBS,
the control file that lists all echomail areas you exchange with other
nodes. We'll talk about AREAS.BBS later on.
The format of RBBSMAIL.CFG file has a layout similar to the configuration
files used by BinkleyTerm, MsgEd and other FIDONET utilities. In fact you
can run RBBSMail, MsgEd and BinkleyTerm using only a single configuration
file by writing "application rbbsmail" in front of the RBBSMail specific
configuration phrases in BINKLEY.CFG. Refer to section "Reading
BINKLEY.CFG" in this manual or the BinkleyTerm documentation for more
info.
4.2 Valid phrases for RBBSMAIL.CFG
4.2.1 Address
Up to 10 of your addresses, these must be full fidonet compatible
5-dimensional adresses in the format:
ZONE:NET/NODE.POINT@domain
Installation 9
RBBSMail v18.2
The first address listed is your primary address. You may specify up to 9
additional addresses (i.e. AKA, Also Known As addresses). The FIRST
address listed in the configration file will be used as your primary
address.
See also configuration phrase PrivateNet and the -OrgAddress embedded
command in AREAS.BBS.
4.2.2 ARCto, ARJto, PAKto, LHAto, ZIPto, ZOOto.
RBBSMail can use different compression methods for outgoing ARCmail to
different addresses. You can tell RBBSMail what compression method to use
for a certain address by using the PAKto, ARJto, LHAto, ZIPto or ZOOto
configuration phrases in the format:
XXXto <address> <address> <address> <address>
This is perhaps best illustrated with an excerpt from a RBBSMAIL.CFG file:
ARJto 8:900/1 ; this one gets ARJ mail
LHAto 1:1/1 ; he prefers LHA (LHARC)
PAKto 2:512/8 ; this node gets PAK format ARCmail
ZIPto 2:555/666 2:789/789 ; but these guys can only handle ZIP mail
ZOOto 2:1010/2 2:1010/3 ; and finally a 2 ZOO lovers
If an address is not listed for one of the preferred compression methods,
RBBSMail will default to old style ARCmail compatible mailbundles by
calling the program ARCA.
For this option to work properly, the executable files ARJ.EXE PAK.EXE,
LHA.EXE, PKZIP.EXE and ZOO.EXE must be in the current subdirectory or in a
subdirectory listed in your DOS PATH.
These ARCmail options have only effect when using the commandline switches
-OF or -FA.
When using commandline switches -OB or -OP, an external mailpacker (see
PACK configuration phrase) will be invoked and RBBSMail will not use the
internal ARCmail routines.
Warning to ARCmail users:
If you run Binkley as frontend mailer and oMMM as mailpacker, BE SURE that
both RBBSMail's ARCmail options and oMMM's Stuffer<tm> options invoke
compression methods for the individual destination nodes! Otherwise the
destination node may receive a single ARCmail bundle containing
mailbundles that where compressed by different compression programs.
If you use RBBSMail's internal ARCmail routines (either the -FA or -OF
commandline switch) and ALSO run oMMM to compress and route ARCmailed
mailbundles, you may want to employ Johan Zwiekhorst's ARCA simulator. If
you do not configure any of RBBSMail's ARCmail options or oMMM's
stuffer<tm> options, both programs will happily use Johan's ARCA simulator
as a drop-in replacement for ARCA.
Johan's ARCA simulator has an external configuration file that allows you
Installation 10
RBBSMail v18.2
to set different compression methods for different destination addresses.
Using the ARCA simulator will ensure that the same compression program is
used for each individual destination node, both by RBBSMail and OMMM.
Plus you only need to change ARCA's config file if your distribution
changes and you don't have to bother with either RBBSMail's ARCmail
options or oMMM's stuffer<tm> option.
4.2.3 StdARCmail
The default ARCmail packing method is always Vernon Buerg's ARCA. If you
want a different default, configure one of the following the StdARCmail
phrases:
StdARCmail ARJ
StdARCmail LHA
StdARCmail PAK
StdARCmail ZIP
StdARCmail ZOO
4.2.4 Domain
This phrase has become obsolete, you should specify full 5-dimensional
addresses with the ADDRESS config phrase.
4.2.5 Elastic
Per default, RBBSMail will attempt to keep RBBS-PC style message bases at
a fixed size. If you have told RBBS-PC's CONFIG program to let the
message files' sizes grow as messages are added, set the Elastic phrase to
make optimum use of your disk space.
4.2.6 DupSize
Tells RBBSMail how many message identifications of processed messages (per
conference) it should store to check for duplicate messages. The value
can be 0... 3200, default is 512. A value of 0 disables the duplicate
checking entirely.
A higher value for DupSize makes RBBSMail perform slightly slower when
importing messages.
For systems with a low load of echomail, DupSize 200 will do. On systems
with an average load of echomail, the default is probably a good enough.
If you often find duplicate messages not caught by RBBSMail, increase the
value of DupSize.
Installation 11
RBBSMail v18.2
4.2.7 DynaPurge
This tells RBBSMail to use dynamically purge (DynaPurge<tm>) any messages
file in case it fills up beyond the maximum number of messages specified
for that conference via RBBS-PC's CONFIG option 166.
The DynaPurge<tm> feature requires RBBSMNT version 2.10 or later and this
program may also be used stand-alone for messages and users file
maintenance.
WARNING: Do NOT use DynaPurge or RBBSMNT by itself in a multi-node setup
without bringing ALL your nodes off-line!! If a user is on-line using a
RBBS-PC conference while RBBSMNT is rebuilding that conference at the same
time, the user will see unpredictable results on his screen.
Here's why: RBBS-PC builds an internal list of messages when a user enters
a conference. This list of messages is only updated when the user scans
for personal mail. RBBS-PC has no way of figuring out that the conference
file it is currently using was rebuild by an external program, and that it
needs to rebuild the internal message list.
RBBSMNT has no way of figuring out if the conference it is about to
rebuild is in use by one or more nodes of RBBS-PC and that it should leave
that conference alone. This problem is not caused by RBBSMail or
RBBSMNT. It is just plain impossible to rebuild a messages file if
RBBS-PC is using the file at the same time. Period.
See also the -Slack and -MsgAge embedded commands.
4.2.8 ExportComments
Whether or not to export comments from a conference is now configurable
per separate conference via embedded commands in AREAS.BBS. The
ExportComments configuration phrase in RBBSMAIL.CFG is now obsolete.
4.2.9 Gate
ZONE:NET/NODE address of a ZONEgate or ECHOgate (HUB), followed by the
NET/NODE number that should appear in the SEEN-BY lines in messages
addressed to that gateway node.
Normally, a SEEN-BY line to an ECHOgate or ZONEgate only contains the
gate's NET/NODE and the NET/NODE (and applicable AKA addresses) of your
own system. You may define up to 10 gates. Ignored for 2D point
operation.
If you are serving as Echomail hostsystem and also send echoes to the host
of another net, you and the other hosts are only concerned about the
SEEN-BY info for your respective nets only and there is no need to carry
all SEEN-BY info over to the other net. The two host systems only have to
tell each other the fact that they have seen the message. All other info
about what happened to the message in the one net is of no interest to the
other net. Having a short SEEN-BY line keeps down the mailcost for ZONE
and ECHO gates.
Installation 12
RBBSMail v18.2
4.2.10 Hold
This is the subdirectory where RBBSMail writes outgoing mailbundles,
ARCmailed bundles and Binkley compatible FLO files.
If you run BinkleyTerm and send echomail to other zones than your primary
zone, you also need the proper subdirectories for outbound mail to those
zones. If "HOLD C:\BINKLEY\HOLD" is specified as outbound subdirectory
and you send mail to Zone 8, the subdirectory "C:\BINKLEY\HOLD.008" must
also be present. on your disk.
4.2.11 IBMFLAGS
If you are using multiple RBBS-PC nodes sharing the same messages files
under NETBIOS file locking via RBBS-PC's "semaphore" file, you need to
tell RBBSMail where it can find the semaphore file IBMFLAGS. This is
usually located the same subdir as your RBBS-PC messages files.
See also the UseNETBIOS configuration phrase.
4.2.12 ImportDate
This phrase tells RBBSMail to stamp local messages with the CURRENT date,
not with the date the message was originally entered. All imported
messages will carry the date/time stamp of the moment the message was
imported to your system. If you kill messages by age, then the message
age will be calculated from the moment the message arrived on your
system. In echomail conferences with a high amount of traffic you may
wish to kill messages after a short time. Thus there's a chances that
your message maintenance utility will kill a message right after RBBSMail
imported it.
Note: This option works for RBBS-PC style messages files only.
4.2.13 Indomain
See section "CrossZone Echomail" for information about setting up a
Network Gateway system. This phrase is ignored for 2D point operation.
4.2.14 KeepDups
Normally, RBBSMAil discards duplicate messages. However, you may wish to
keep duplicate messages for manual inspection. With the KeepDups config
phrase, you can tell RBBSMail to dump a copy of duplicate messages in the
BAD_MSGS directory.
A line stating "** DUPLICATE MESSAGE **" will be added to the top of the
message text. This will move the AREA: tag from the first line, with
prevents the message being tossed if using the -BM commandline switch.
See also the -BM commandline switch.
Installation 13
RBBSMail v18.2
4.2.15 KillNull
This phrase tells RBBSMail to discard all messages without human readable
contents. Control information (i.e. any text "hidden" by a Ctrl-A
kludges) is not treated as human readable text. This option is especially
usefull to automatically kill FileAttach, FileRequest or empty messages.
This option can also be switched on with the -KN commandline switch.
4.2.16 LogLevel
This phrase tell RBBSMail which error messages, progress messages and
reports should be written to the logfile. Loglevel can be any value
between 0 and 4, which has the following effect
0 Do not write to the log at all.
1 Only log critical errors.
2 Log critical and non-critical errors.
3 Log critical errors, non-critical errors and progress messages.
4 Log critical errors, non-critical errors, progress messages and
statistics.
See also configuration phrase StatusLog.
4.2.17 MaxOut
This tells RBBSMail after how many exported messages it should invoke the
mailpacking routine. When the -OB or -OP commandline switch is given,
RBBSMail will invoke the external mailpacker. See also the PACK phrase
below.
If the -FA or -OF comandline switch is given, RBBSMail will run the
internal ARCmail routines each time after MaxOut messages are exported.
By packing outgoing mail each time a certain number of messages is
exported, your outgoing mailbundles will be relatively small in size.
Some other echomail processors, like ConfMail, work more effectively with
small mailbundles. The number behind MaxOut can be between 1 and 32676.
A value between 25 and 250 is recommended, Setting MaxOut to zero disables
the on-the-fly packing and the final ARCmail bundles plus the FLO files
(or FileAttach messages) will be build when RBBSMail has processed all
message areas.
4.2.18 NetFile
Subdirectory where RBBSMail can find incoming FTS-0001 compatible
mailbundles. and ARCmail bundles. In other words, this is the
subdirectory where your mailer saves files it receives.
Installation 14
RBBSMail v18.2
4.2.19 UseNETBIOS
RBBSMail can optionally do file/record locking via standard NETBIOS calls
for all *.MSG files and do RBBS-PC compatible "semaphore" locking for
RBBS-PC messages and user files. NETBIOS filelocking can be switched on
with this configuration phrase.
For this to work properly, you also need to tell RBBSMail where it can
find the RBBS-PC semaphore file.
See also configuration phrase IBMFLAGS.
4.2.20 UseDV
RBBSMail can optionally do file locking when running under DESQview. This
option can be switched on with the UseDV configuration phrase.
If UseDV is configured, RBBSMail will check for DESQview being loaded and
use the DESQview semaphore mailbox interface to lock files.
File locking via DESQview is automatically switched off if DESQview isn't
loaded. This allows you to run under plain DOS or under DESQview at will
without changing the RBBSMAIL.CFG file.
4.2.21 NoRts
Normally, RBBSMail returns all incorrect echomail messages to the
orignator and tosses a copy to the BAD_MSGS area for later inspection. If
the phrase NoRts is present, RBBSMail will not return incorrect messages
to the sender.
See also the -S commandline option and the SecureMail configuration
phrase.
4.2.22 NetBrick
If RBBSMail finds a defect in an incoming message, it will send a
complaining message to the originator of the message. The complaining
messages are commonly known as NetBricks<tm>. The "grunts" depend on the
level setting of the NetBrick config phrase:
0 - disable sending NetBricks.
1 - Complain about Incorrect date/time fields (caused by braindead
mailpackers).
2 - Complain about #1 and Missing Origin lines (caused by braindead
sysops).
3 - Complain abour #1, #2 and if "SysOp" in the to/from field of
messages was not changed to the SysOp's real name (caused by braindead
echomail processors).
4 - Complain about #1, #2, #3 and redundant kludge lines (caused by
Fidonet utility writers with a big ego). Level 4 also requires the
phrase NoStinkingKludgeLines to be configured.
Installation 15
RBBSMail v18.2
To prevent yourself from becoming too annoying about these things,
RBBSMail will keep track of who it sends a NetBrick<tm> and will send only
one such message to an offending node during a RBBSMail run.
However, if you have no intention to earn yourself the title
Fidonet's-Pain-In-The-Behind-Of-The-Month
set the NetBrick value to 0, thus disabling the NetBrick<tm> thrower.
4.2.23 NoStinkingKludgeLines
This option causes RBBSMail to strip all redundant "kludge lines" from all
incoming echomail messages. Only AREA, MSGID, REPLY, SEEN-BY and PATH
kludges will be left intact. All other tags, including common idiocy like
PID, OSE, TCL and Via lines will be removed from the echomail messages.
This option, in combination with the NetBrick<tm> thrower, will usually
bring the offending SysOps and/or software authors to their right sense of
mind.
4.2.24 OpusDate
This phrase tells RBBSMail to write all FIDO style (*.MSG) messages with
Opus/Maximus compatible date/time stamps in the message header. This
allows you to do maintenance on those message bases using Opus or Maximus
utilities like Renum and ReplyLink. Note: Messages stored in the
OVERFLOW, BAD_MSGS and NETMAIL subdirs will NEVER carry an Opus date/time
stamp. Messages in these directories will always carry a FTS-0001 rev 15
compliant message header.
4.2.25 Pack
The name of the external packer program to be invoked by RBBSMail to
packup your outgoing mail. This normally calls oMMM or a similar mail
packing program to bundle and route outgoing mail. See also the MaxOut
phrase above.
The program listed after PACK can be either the name and optional
parameters of your mail packer OR the full drive/path/filename of
COMMAND.COM, followed by /C, followed by the name of the batchfile
invoking your mailpacker.
For instance, the PACK phrase can list oMMM with all parameters:
PACK oMMM -i\BINKLEY.PRM -m\BT\MAIL -h\BT\HOLD -c\BT\OMMM.CTL -sA -z2
If you run your mailpacker via a batchfile, you MUST specify COMMAND.COM
/C followed by the name of the batchfile. This may seem odd, but the
Disk/EMS swapping mechanism used by RBBSMail requires that you invoke
batchfiles via a secondary copy of COMMAND.COM:
Installation 16
RBBSMail v18.2
PACK C:\DOS\COMMAND.COM /C PACKMAIL.BAT
The batch file (named PACKMAIL.BAT) can look something like this if you
run ReMapper and oMMM:
@ECHO OFF
CD\BINKLEY
REMAPPER 9999 -fpi
oMMM -iBINKLEY.PRM -m\BT\MAIL -h\BT\HOLD -c\BT\OMMM.CTL -sA -z2
CD\RBBS
Today, it is very common to compress mailbundles before they are sent to
another system. This will, in some cases, save over 50% of connect time.
For INcoming mailbundles, RBBSMail recognizes most popular compression
format internally and will invoke the proper decompression program.
Mailbundles compressed by ARC/PAK/PKARC, ARJ, LHA (formerly known as
LHARC), PKZIP and ZOO will be detected automatically. If the compression
method of a mailbundle cannot be determnined, RBBSMail will try to invoke
GUS, a General Unpack Shell written by Johan Zwiekhorst.
For this to work properly, the executable files PAK.EXE, LHA.EXE,
PKUNZIP.EXE, ZOO.EXE and GUS.EXE must be in the current subdirectory or in
a subdirectory listed in your DOS PATH environment variable.
Note: Whatever is listed at the PACK phrase will be executed just before
RBBSMail finishes the current run.
4.2.26 PrivateNet
Is the NETnumber of your private network for points. This phrase has two
functions:
For BOSSnodes:
If your system services points as a BOSS node, you MUST specify
PrivateNet, no matter if your points are addresses as 2-dimenional points
in your PrivateNet or as full 4-dimensional points.
To accomodate frontend mailers like FrontDoor and Intermail, RBBSMail can
exchange echomail with your points using 4-dimensional addressing. When
receiving echomail, RBBSMail will automatically detect what type of
mailbundle it is processing:
1. FTS-0001 compliant bundles with 2-dimensional addressing (also known
as StoneAge mailbundles). This type of bundle only contains Net and
Node addresses.
2. FTS-0001 revision 015 compliant bundles with 3D addressing. This type
of mailbundle only contains Zone, Net and Node addressing, but no
point addressing.
3. FSC-0039/FSC-0048 compliant bundles with 4D addressing. This type of
mail bundle is commonly known as "Type 2+" and is supported by
programs like GEcho, XGROUP, FrontDoor, InterMail and (of course)
RBBSMail.
Installation 17
RBBSMail v18.2
4. FSC-0045 compliant mailbundles with 5D addressing. This type of mail
bundle is commonly known as "Type 2.2" and carries Zone, Net, Node,
Point and domain information and is supported by programs like SEAdog,
SEAmail and Groupmail. RBBSMail will recognize this type of
mailbundle, but doesn't currently do anything with the Domain part of
the addresses. RBBSMail just does 4 dimensional addressing.
BinkleyTerm does not use any of the above 4-dimensional methods to address
points. Binkley uses separate subdirectories to store mail addressed to
point systems.
If you run RBBSMail with either the -OB, -OF, -OP or -FA commandline
switch AND you have 4D points in your AREAS.BBS, RBBSMail will use the
same subdir scheme. POINT subdirs, as well as outbound subdirs for other
zones, are dynamically created whenever RBBSMail needs them. RBBSMail can
be configured to write outbound mailbundles in either FSC-0039 or FSC-0045
format. See configuration phrase FSC-0045 for details.
For POINTS:
If you are running as a point (i.e. the point part of you primary address
is not zero), the behaviour of your point is affected by the PrivateNet
setting in the following way:
■ If your primary address is a point and you do NOT specify PrivateNet,
your point will appear to your boss with the full 4-dimensional
primary address.
■ If your primary address is a point and you DO specify PrivateNet, your
point will appear to your boss with a 2-dimensional address, i.e.
point 2:512/10.7 will show up as <PrivateNet>/7.
4.2.27 Force2D
If you address points with their 2-dimensional FakeNet address, it may be
possible that your points send messages with their 4-dimensional address.
This causes the mail from the 4D points to be send back to their 2D
address, which is not what we want. The Force2D configuration phrase tell
RBBSMail to always treat any mail from a 4D point as if it originated from
a point with a 2D FakeNet address.
This is especially usefull if you feed points from a system not capable of
addressing mailbundles to 4D points (Dutchie) or systems that do recognize
4D addresses for incoming calls but don't do anything special with the 4D
address (like BinkleyTerm without *.PNT subdirs). Your points can take
advantage of processing their mail with a 4D capable echomail processor
(TossSCan, GEcho) and present themself to your system with a 4D frontend
mailer (FrontDoor, Intermail) with appropriate AKAs, while your setup can
remain completely ignorant of anything but FakeNet addresses
Note: This works FOR YOUR OWN POINTS ONLY. Other points using 4D
addresses will still be handled as 4D points.
Installation 18
RBBSMail v18.2
4.2.28 FSC-0045
By default, RBBSMail writes outbound mailbundles according to the FSC-0039
specification. By setting the FSC-0045 configuration phrase, RBBSMail
will be told to write outbound mailbundles according to the FSC-0045
specs.
Note: RBBSMail does currently NOT support domain addressing and thus the
domain fields in the FSC-0045 mailbundle header will be empty.
4.2.29 Size
Maximum size (in BYTES) of incoming messages. All messages larger than
this will be ignored. RBBSMail's internal limit is 32000 bytes for all
messages, but you may want to set this to a lower value.
Note: Most sysops pay the bill for Echomail out of their own pocket, so
messages in the Echomail should be kept small to keep down the cost of
mail distribution. Sending large Echomail messages (say, over 10KB in
size) may be considered anti-social.....
4.2.30 Security
The security all imported messages are set to. A user has to have at
least this access level to read any imported Echomail. Ignored for
messages in FIDO style message subdirectories.
See also the -Security embedded command.
4.2.31 SecureMail
This phrase tells RBBSMail to always handle echomail in secure mode.
Effectively this tells RBBSMail to always assume that the -S comand switch
was given.
See the -S commandline option for details.
4.2.32 StatusLog
The name of the logfile to use. If no StatusLog is specified, filename
RBBSMAIL.LOG is used.
See also the LogLevel configuration prhase.
4.2.33 StripSeen
If this phrase is configured, RBBSMail will strip the SEEN-BY and PATH
lines from all messages imported to RBBS-PC style message bases. Since
messages in RBBS-PC conferences are never exported once they're imported,
the SEEN-BY and PATH lines have no purpose once the message has been
written to a RBBS-PC conference file. The echomail control lines can be
Installation 19
RBBSMail v18.2
stripped to save some diskspace.
If you have the urge to manually inspect the flow of echomail
distribution, for instance if your systems receives lots of duplicate
messages or just because you're curious, you do need the echomail control
lines. If so, do not configure StripSeen in RBBSMAIL.CFG.
4.2.34 SwapPath
The drive and subdirectory of the swapper file. When RBBSMail calls
external programs, the entire RBBSMail executable is swapped out of memory
to give the external program as much free memory as possible.
Only about 1800 bytes of RBBSMail will remain in memory while the external
program runs. Swapping will be done to EMS memory, if available
available. If insufficient EMS memory is available, RBBSMail will swap to
disk.
The drive and directory you set SwapPath to must have a minimum of 256 KB
free space. Or more depending on how many areas you have configured in
AREAS.BBS. It is recommended to set SwapPath to a VDISK. If SwapPath is
not configured, swapping will be done to the rootdirectory of the current
drive.
Note: RBBSMail proudly uses Disk/EMS swapping code written by Whitney
Software, Inc.
4.2.35 NoSwap.
If, for any reason, you do not want RBBSMail to swap itself out of memory
as described above, set the NoSwap configuration phrase.
4.2.36 SysAlias
The alias name sysop uses to logon remotely to RBBS-PC. Beginning with
RBBS-PC v16.1A, the sysop's alias name is listed in the USERS file.
RBBSMail needs to know this alias to find the sysop entry in the USERS
file to be able to flip the 'messages waiting' indicator for the sysop.
4.2.37 Sysop
The name you are using as sysop of your system. Whatever you specify here
will be overridden if you specify a SYSOP name after the Origin line in
AREAS.BBS.
4.2.38 YabomFA
Some BinkleyTerm utilities (Yabom et al) expect a slightly different
notation for ARCmail with a file-attach message. For some curious reason,
Yabom needs a "#" in the attach message's subject field, right in front
Installation 20
RBBSMail v18.2
filename of the attached ARCmail bundle. By configuring the phrase below,
RBBSMail will put the "#" where Yabom expects it.
Note: Use this *ONLY* if you build ARCmail file-attaches (the -FA
commandline switch) on a Binkley system and use a Yabom-like utility to
convert the fileAttach messages to something your mailpacker/router can
deal with. Please remember that the -OF commandline switch is the
recommended way to build ARCmail on a Binkley system.
4.2.39 Reading BINKLEY.CFG
As noted before, RBBSMail is capable of using the configuration file of
other programs like BinkleyTerm. The configuration phrases Address,
Netfile, Hold, Sysop and PrivateNet are then read directly from
Binkleyterm's configuration file.
RBBSMail configuration phrases can be added to BINKLEY.CFG by putting
APPLICATION RBBSMAIL in front of the configuration phrase.
For example, to enter the SECURITY phrase in BINKLEY.CFG, add the line:
Application RBBSMail Security 4
Please refer to the BinkleyTerm documentation for more info.
Note: As RBBSMAIL cannot read nested configuration files, you cannot use
the INCLUDE statement in your BINKLEY.CFG file.
Installation 21
RBBSMail v18.2
4.2.40 Example of a RBBSMAIL.CFG file
; Lines starting with a ';' are comment lines. BLANK lines are ignored.
;
Address 2:512/10.0@fidonet
Address 2:512/101.0@fidonet
Address 8:998/1.0@rbbsnet
Address 8:998/0.0@rbbsnet
NetFile C:\BT\NETFILES
Hold C:\BT\HOLD
PrivateNet 9999
SysAlias Buck Rogers
Sysop John Software
Size 9000
Security 4
Gate 1:1/0.0 1/0 512/10 101
Gate 2:2/0.0 2/0 512/10 101
Gate 3:3/0.0 3/0 512/10 101
Gate 8:8/0.0 8/0 512/10 926/0 1
Pack COMMAND.COM /C C:\BINKLEY\PACKMAIL.BAT
ZIPto 2:512/0.0 2:512/101.0
PAKto 8:926/1.0
NoStinkingKludgeLines
SecureMail
DupSize 1024
ImportDate
KeepDups
NoRts
SwapPath D:\TMP
(another example is included in this package, see file EXAMPLE.CFG).
Put the config file RBBSMAIL.CFG in your RBBS-PC directory, edit the
entries to reflect your specific system setup and remove all comments for
speed.
Installation 22
RBBSMail v18.2
The second file you need is named AREAS.BBS (for historic reasons). This
file lists all the conferences you want to hook up to Echomail, the AREA:
tag for that conference and the systems you want to send the Echomail to.
Addresses must be specified in 3D (zone:net/node). If addressing a point,
it must be specified in 4D (zone:net/node.point) fashion.
The addresses are "sticky", i.e. if you must address a string of nodes in
the same network or a number of nodes under the smae boss, you can use the
shorthand notation. Example:
2:500/1.0 2:512/2.0 2:512/3.0 2:512/10.1 2:512/10.2 8:914/1.0 8:914/3.0
can be written in shorthand as:
2:500/1 512/2 3 10.1 .2 8:914/1 3
4.2.41 Example of an AREAS.BBS file
For embedded commands, please refer to the section "Embedded commands in
AREAS.BBS" in this document.
; Lines starting with ';' or '-' are comment lines, so are BLANK lines
; First non-commented line has the Origin line ! optional SYSOP name
The Tennis Court, Herejezusveen, The Netherlands ! John Software
; all subsequent lines have either
; RbbsFileName AreaName SendToList
; or
; MsgSubdir AreaName SendToList
;
; You MUST at least have the areas NETMAIL and BAD_MSGS in your AREAS.BBS file
; Per conference, you can have up to 50 destination zone:net/node numbers.
; Addresses must be specified in 3D (zone:net/node), if addressing a point,
; it must be specified in 4D (zone:net/node.point) fashion.
; The ZONE and NET part are sticky.
C:\BINK\NETMAIL\ NETMAIL
C:\BINK\BAD_MSGS\ BAD_MSGS
;
; Some Embedded Commands:
-Security 5
-Margin 66
-MaxLines 35
C:\RBBS\TENNISM.DEF +TENNIS 2:512/1 512/10.2 2 9999/1 8:926/1
C:\RBBS\IBMPCM.DEF -IBM-PC 2:512/1 2 3 12 8:926/1
-OrgAddress 8:998/1.0@rbbsnet
C:\RBBS\RBBSMM.DEF RBBSMAIL 8:926/1
;orgaddress resets after each area!!!!
-OrgAddress 8:998/1.0@rbbsnet
C:\RBBS\RBBSM.DEF RBBS-PC 2:512/1 6 8:926/1
C:\BINK\SYSOPS\ SYSOP 2:512/1
C:\BINK\PASSTHRU\ !WINDOWS 2:512/1
C:\BINK\PASSTHRU\ XMODEM 2:512/1
Installation 23
RBBSMail v18.2
(see also EXAMPLE.BBS in this package).
This AREAS.BBS example will have the following result:
■ The string "The Tenniscourt, Herejezusveen, The Netherlands" will be
used as the * Origin: line in all outgoing Echomail originating from
your system. This way, anybody on any other system will know where
the message was originally entered.
■ If an outgoing message has SYSOP in the address field, it will be
replaced by the name John Software. This way, other sysops will not
find that message addressed to themselves, avoiding confusion.
If you specify the OPTIONAL sysop name this way, it will overrride the
SYSOP entry of RBBSMAIL.CFG.
■ If an incoming message has John Software in the address field, it will
be replaced by SYSOP. This way, the message scan function of RBBS-PC
will identify those messages as being addressed to SYSOP.
■ All messages in the file TENNISM.DEF will be sent to nodes 512/1 and
512/2 in ZONE 2, to node 926/1 in zone 8, and they will to node 9999/1
in the private network (using the 2-dimensional FakeNet address for
point 2:512/10.1)) network and to point 2:512/10.2))
Wen messages are send out, an AREA: tag TENNIS will be put in the
first line of the message. This way the receiving system on the other
end knows what to do with the message. When importing incoming mail,
messages with an AREA: tag TENNIS will be put in the TENNISM.DEF
file.
■ The area SYSOPS does not refer to an RBBS-PC MESSAGES file, but to a
subirectory that holds FIDO style messages. If a message with
AREA:SYSOPS is received, it will be moved to the subdirectory
C:\BINK\SYSOPS\, where it can be read by an appropriate message editor
like MsgEd or Dutchie's Editor. RBBSMail sees the difference between
RBBS-PC MESSAGES files and FIDO subdirectories by itself. If RBBSMail
finds that a message base is a real file, a RBBS-PC MESSAGES file is
assumed. If the message base is a subdirectory, RBBSMail will treat
the conference as a FIDO style message subdirectory.
■ You can probably figure out by yourself what happens to the other two
conference files RBBS-PC and IBM-PC? Well, sort of......
There are two special cases in this example of AREAS.BBS, the WINDOWS and
the XMODEM area. They are listed using the same message subdirectory
C:\BINK\PASSTHRU\. This may look like mixing up two entirely different
echomail conferences, but it isn't. If RBBSMail finds that an echomail
uses the special subdirectory PASSTHRU, it will normally process all
messages for that area. All checking for proper control echomail lines
will be performed, but a local copy of the message will never be written.
The echomail is just "passing through" and does not actually exist on the
local system. An empty subdirectory \PASSTHRU is needed for this
feature.
This comes in quite handy if a system is forwarding echomail for others
because it has a cheap phone line or has cheap calls to two or more
Installation 24
RBBSMail v18.2
neighbouring telephone districts.
By default, RBBSMail will force all incoming and outgoing messages in all
conferences to be PUBLIC messages, except for private messages and
comments to sysop. However, you may add a '+', a '-' or a '!' directly in
front of the area name, to change this default behaviour.
The line defining the TENNIS conference includes a '+' telling RBBSMail to
allow import and export of private messages.
The line defining the IBM-PC conference includes a '-' in front of the
area name, which tells RBBSMail to discard all messages that have a
message attribute of Private.
The '!' in front of the area name WINDOWS tells RBBSMAil that this is a
read only area. This means that incoming messages will be imported so
users on your system can read them. They can even enter replies, but
their messages will never be exported to other systems. This is
especially useful in case one or more areas on your system are troubled by
misbehaving users or when you decide to take a new echomail area for just
a trial period.
This example has all your Echomail information in one file. You may have
different AREAS.BBS-type files with different names and different Origin
lines. For instance, you could have a TENNIS.BBS file like:
The Tennis Court, Herejezusveen, The Netherlands ! John Software
C:\RBBS\TENNISM.DEF +TENNIS 2:512/1 2 512/10.2 8:926/1 2:9999/1
Or an IBMPC.BBS file with:
The Tennis Court, IBM PC Tech support, The Netherlands ! John Software
C:\RBBS\IBMPCM.DEF -IBM-PC 2:512/1 2 3 12 8:926/1
When you invoke RBBSMail SCAN explicitly giving TENNIS.BBS or IBMPC.BBS
(see next chapter) it will take the sysop name, Origin line and
distribution info from that file. This way, you can put different things
in your Origin line and process Echomail conferences separately and at
different times.
4.3 Special AREA: names
4.3.1 The OVERFLOW area
RBBSMail normally dumps messages it can't toss to the NETMAIL
subdirectory. This, for instance, happens if one of the RBBS-PC style
conferences fills up. If so, additional messages for that conference will
clutter the NETMAIL subdir. If the special area name OVERFLOW is defined
in AREAS.BBS, RBBSMail will dump messages for overflowed conferences in
that subdir. This keeps your NETMAIL subdir clean.
When RBBSMail fires up, the overflow area is always processed first, thus
ensuring that any leftovers are tossed before newly arrived messages are
processed.
To define the OVERFLOW special area, simply add a line describing it to
Installation 25
RBBSMail v18.2
your AREAS.BBS file:
C:\BINK\OVERFLOW OVERFLOW
Note: The OVERFLOW area MUST be a subdir, it cannot be a RBBS-PC style
message base.
4.3.2 The XNETMAIL area
Optionally you can have one RBBS-PC style conference assigned to hold
copies of all incoming netmail that isn't addressed to Sysop. While this
still doesn't allow the users of your BBS to communicate via netmail from
within RBBS-PC, your users will at least be able to receive netmail
addressed to them. This conference may either be your MAIN message base
or a separate conference.
To have all incoming netmail copied to a RBBS-PC style conference, simply
add a line describing the conference to your AREAS.BBS file:
C:\RBBS\NETMAILM.DEF XNETMAIL
Note: The NETMAIL area MUST be a subdir, it cannot be a RBBS-PC style
message base.
4.4 Embedded commands in AREAS.BBS
The AREAS.BBS file may contain embedded commands to perform special
functions on one or more echomail areas listed in AREAS.BBS.
Remember that some Embedded commands are "sticky", which means that THEY
WILL REMAIN VALID FOR ALL AREA DEFINITIONS LISTED AFTER THE EMBEDDED
COMMAND OR UNTILL A NEXT EMBEDDED COMMAND OVERRIDES/RESETS THE LAST
SETTING.
Embedded commands that are NOT sticky are ONLY VALID FOR THE FIRST AREA
DEFINITION FOLLOWING THE NON STICKY EMBEDDED COMMAND.
All embedded commands consist of a dash ('-'), immeditely followed by the
command and optionally followed by one or more arguments.
4.4.1 -Margin
(Sticky) Set right hand message margin. This tells RBBSMail at what line
length it should wrap messages imported to all RBBS-PC style conferences
listed after this embedded command. Valid margin is any value from 30 to
72. If not specified, margin defaults to 72 characters. Example:
The Tennis Court, Herejezusveen, The Netherlands ! John Software
Installation 26
RBBSMail v18.2
-Margin 72
C:\RBBS\TENNISM.DEF +TENNIS 2:512/1 2 9999/1 2 8:926/1
C:\RBBS\IBMPCM.DEF -IBM-PC 2:512/1 2 3 12 8:926/1
-Margin 40
C:\RBBS\RBBSM.DEF RBBS-PC 2:512/1 6 8:926/1
This example will set a right hand margin of 72 for all messages imported
to the TENNISM.DEF and IBMPCM.DEF conferences, while messages in the
RBSM.DEF conference will have a right hand margin of 40.
If you set a margin valueof less than 72, it is advised to also configure
StripSeen in RBBSMAIL.CFG. SEEN-BY lines in incoming messages will also
be wordwrapped and this may interfere with the setting of RBBS-PC's CONFIG
option 158.
Note: This embedded command does not affect FIDO style message bases.
4.4.2 -MaxLines
(Sticky) The maximum number of lines a message may contain when it is
imported to a RBBS-PC style message base. If a message contains more
lines than -MaxLines, RBBSMail will split the original message and store
it as two or more separate messages. The value of -MaxLines can be set
from 5 to 99. If not specified, a default value of 70 is used. Example::
The Tennis Court, Herejezusveen, The Netherlands ! John Software
-MaxLines 20
C:\RBBS\TENNISM.DEF +TENNIS 2:512/1 2 512/10.2 9999/1 8:926/1
C:\RBBS\IBMPCM.DEF -IBM-PC 2:512/1 2 3 12 8:926/1
-MaxLines 55
C:\RBBS\RBBSM.DEF RBBS-PC 2:512/1 6 8:926/1
This example will cut all messages imported to the TENNISM.DEF and
IBMPCM.DEF conferences to messages of 20 lines maximum. All messages
written to the RBSM.DEF conference will have a maximum length of 55
lines.
Note: This embedded command does not affect FIDO style message bases.
4.4.3 -Notify
(Sticky) Notify users of unread mail. If an imported message is addressed
to a name that is in the conference's USERS file, then this person's
mail_waiting flag will be set. The user will then be notified of new mail
next time he/she logs on to the system.
Default is to always notify users of new mail.
Note: This embedded command does not affect FIDO style message bases.
Installation 27
RBBSMail v18.2
4.4.4 -NoNotify
(Sticky) Do not scan USERS files and do not set the mail_waiting flag.
Note: This embedded command does not affect FIDO style message bases.
4.4.5 -ExportComments
(Sticky) Normally, Comments and Private messages to Sysop aren't
exported. In case you have a co-sysop running as one of your points, he
may wish to see comments and private messages to sysop as well. You can
tell RBBSMail to export comments and private messages to sysop with this
embedded command.
The Tennis Court, Herejezusveen, The Netherlands ! John Software
-ExportComments
C:\RBBS\TENNISM.DEF +TENNIS 2:512/1 2 10.2 9999/1 8:926/1
C:\RBBS\IBMPCM.DEF -IBM-PC 2:512/1 2 3 12 8:926/1
-NoExportComments
C:\RBBS\RBBSM.DEF RBBS-PC 2:512/1 6 8:926/1
The example above tells RBBSMail to export comments to sysop from the
TENNIS and IBM-PC conferences, but not from the RBBS-PC conference.
Note: Be warned that potentially ANYONE can read whatever confidential
info in messages and comments to sysop once the message has left your
system!!
4.4.6 -NoExportComments
(Sticky) This embedded command tells RBBSMail NOT to export comments to
sysop from conferences. This setting is the default.
4.4.7 -Security
(Sticky) The security level imported messages are set to. A user has to
have at least this access level to read any imported Echomail. Ignored
for messages in FIDO style message subdirectories.
If no embedded -Security command is listed, the value will be set to
whatevet value was given with the Security configuration phrease in
RBBSMAIL.CFG. If neither the -Security embedded command not the Security
configuration phrase is given, message security will default to 5.
Example:
The Tennis Court, Herejezusveen, The Netherlands ! John Software
-Security 3
C:\RBBS\TENNISM.DEF +TENNIS 2:512/1 2 10/2 9999/1 8:926/1
-Security 5
C:\RBBS\IBMPCM.DEF -IBM-PC 2:512/1 2 3 12 8:926/1
C:\RBBS\RBBSM.DEF RBBS-PC 2:512/1 6 8:926/1
Installation 28
RBBSMail v18.2
This example causes RBBSMail to set the message security to 3 for all
messages imported to the TENNISM.DEF conference. Messages imported to the
IBMPCM.DEF and RBBSM.DEF conferences will be set to a security level of
5.
See also the Security configuration phrase.
Note: This embedded command does not affect FIDO style message bases.
4.4.8 -Slack & -MsgAge
(Sticky) If, during mail import, RBBSMail finds that a RBBS-PC messages
file contains more messages than the number of messages set with CONFIG's
option 166, RBBSMail will automatically invoke RBBSMNT to purge messages
from that messages file.
If a messages file fills up, purging it down to the exact amount of
maximum messages would cause RBBSMail to call RBBSMNT every time a new
message is imported to that the messages file. To prevent this, you may
specify a Slack value to make extra room in he messages file.
If you specify Slack 50, RBBSMail will tell RBBSMNT to purge 50 messages
from a conference file in case it fills up. Importing to that conference
means that RBBSMNT may be invoked after every 50 imported messages.
Messages older than MsgAge (in days) will be purged first. If that
doesn't cut the amount of active messages down enough, additional messages
will be purged untill the total amount of messages is down to a value of
calculated by the formula "Maximum_Messages minus Slack".
The default values are 50 for Slack and 30 for MsgAge.
Example of Slack and MsgAge usage:
The Tennis Court, Herejezusveen, The Netherlands ! John Software
-Slack 50
-MsgAge 21
C:\RBBS\TENNISM.DEF +TENNIS 2:512/1 2 10/2 9999/1 8:926/1
-Slack 300
-MsgAge 10
C:\RBBS\IBMPCM.DEF -IBM-PC 2:512/1 2 3 12 8:926/1
C:\RBBS\RBBSM.DEF RBBS-PC 2:512/1 6 8:926/1
This tells RBBSMail to call RBBSMNT and purge all messages older than 21
days from the TENNISM.DEF file in case it fills up. If there isn't enough
room left after purging by age, RBBSMNT will continue purging untill the
proper amount of active messages (i.e. Maximum_Messages minus 50) is
reached.
If the IBMPCM.DEF or RBBSM.DEF file fills up, messages will first be
deleted by age (10 days) and, if needed, additional messages will be
purged untill the proper amount (i.e. Maximum_Messages minus 300) is
reached.
Ideally, the value for Slack should be a little above the number of
messages you expect to import to each conference during a single run of
RBBSMail. This is hard to guess, so review your RBBSMail logfile
Installation 29
RBBSMail v18.2
periodically to figure out how often RBBSMail invokes RBBSMNT. If RBBSMNT
is called too often for a particular conference, use RBBS-PC's CONFIG
program to increase the maximum number of messages for that conference and
either increase the Slack value or decrease the value for MsgAge in your
AREA.BBS file.
See also the DynaPurge configuration phrase.
Note: You must have a copy of RBBSMNT.EXE, in the current subdirectory or
in a subdirectory that is listed in your PATH environment variable.
RBBSMail requires RBBSMNT v2.10 or later.
Note: This embedded command does not affect FIDO style message bases.
4.4.9 -OrgAddress
(NOT sticky) This embedded command overrides the originating address for
the next area definition. This allows you to export "Zone/Domain
specific" echomail areas.
Assuming your primary address is 2:512/10.0@fiodonet, all messages
exported from system will carry a MSGID in the form of
"2:512/10.0@fiodonet <serialnum>" and the address in the "* Origin:" will
be "2:512/10.0".
In other words, messages exported from your system will appear to the
outside world as being sent from node 2:512/10.0@fiodonet
If your system paticipates in multiple networks and you carry an echomail
conference for one specific network only, you probably wnat your node
address for THAT network to appear in the MSGID and " * Origin:" lines.
Let's say your address in the other network is 8:998/1.0@rbbsnet and you
have an AREA:RBBSMAIL that is only exchanged with systems on Zone 8. By
defining the area in your AREAS.BBS as:
-OrgAddress 8:998/1.0@rbbsnet
C:\RBBS\RBBSMM.DEF RBBSMAIL 8:926/1
all messages exported from this area will appear to the outside world as
if they were sent by node 8:998/1.0@rbbsnet.
The -OrgAddress embedded command provides complete logical isolation
between echomail areas on your system.
Note: You must also have "Address 8:998/1.0@rbbsnet" listed as one of your
secondary addresses in RBBSMAIL.CFG.
Note: The -OrgAddress enmbedded command is NOT sticky.
4.4.10 -Password
This is a special embedded command that has nothing to do with the way
RBBSMail handles message areas. Th -Password embedded command is a
security feature which allows you to password-protect the exchange of
Installation 30
RBBSMail v18.2
mailbundles between your system and others.
The proper format of the -Password embedded command is:
-Password 2:512/10.0 phunny
Configuring a password for a destination address will cause RBBSMail to
write a password in all outgoing mailbundles to that address. RBBSMail
will also check for a password match on all mailbundles arriving from that
address. If the password in an incoming mailbunlde is missing or doesn't
match, RBBSMail refuses to process that mailbundle.
This password scheme, together with RBBSMail's securemail option and a
session password for your frontend mailer, allows for secure exchange of
echomail. For this to work properly, both sides need to use the same
password for their mail exchange session and/or mailbundle protection.
The mailbundle password need not be the same as the session password used
by your frontend mailer.
The mailbundle password has a maximum length of 8 characters and is
case-insensitive.
Installation 31
RBBSMail v18.2
5. Running RBBSMail
Beginning with version 18.0, a number of safeguards have been build in
RBBSMail to ensure RBBS-PC MESSAGES file integrity while TOSSing mail into
RBBS-PC style conferences. You do not need to bring down all your nodes
when running RBBSMail. You can have users reading and writing messages
on-line while at the same have RBBSMail handle incoming and outgoing
echomail.
There is one requirement to maintain message base integrity. Configure
the config phrase "Elastic". Then, using RBBS-PC's CONFIG program, set
the option "Message file grows as messages are added" to YES and the
"Maximum number of messages per conference" must be set to 999.
OR
Comment out the config phrase "Elastic" and use RBBS-PC's config program
to set "Message file grows as messages are added" to NO and set the
"Maximum number of messages per conference" to a value less than 999.
Unlike previous versions of RBBSMail, version 18.x imports and exports all
echomail in ONE single sweep. There's no need to specifically run
RBBSMail TOSS or RBBSMail SCAN. Also, the MAINT mode of RBBSMail has been
removed, there is now a separate program RBBSMNT to do maintenance on
RBBS-PC's messages files.
5.1 Commandline options
5.1.1 -A <areasbbsfile>
Use an alternate areas listing. RBBSMail defaults to AREAS.BBS (i.e. -A
AREAS.BBS).
5.1.2 -AKA #
Use # of AKA addresses (# is a number from 1 to 10). This tells RBBSMail
to put '#' of your AKA addresses in the SEEN-BY: lines. Addresses are
counted from top to bottom in your RBBSMAIL.CFG file. The first address
is used as your primary address, subsequent ADDRESS phrases are treated as
AKA addresses. RBBSMail uses no AKA addresses by default.
5.1.3 -BM
This switch tells RBBSMail to import messages from the BAD_MSGS area. If
you connected a new echomail area but did not create that area on your
system or list it in your AREAS.BBS file, then RBBSMail will toss messages
for that area to your BAD_MSGS subdirectory.
Instead of manually moving these messages to your netmail directory and
importing them after you've created the appropriate area, just create the
area, list it in your AREAS.BBS and run RBBSMail -BM to import the failed
messages. Copies of duplicates messages in your BAD_MSGS directory
Running RBBSMail 32
RBBSMail v18.2
(stored there for later inspection) will NOT be tossed if using this
commandline switch. If you DO want to toss duplicate messages, you need
to edit them manually. THIS IS NOT AT ALL RECOMMENDED!!!.
See also the KeepDups configuration phrase.
5.1.4 -C <configfile>
The -C: switch allows you to use <configfile> as alternate configuration
file. Default is RBBSMAIL.CFG (i.e. -C RBBSMAIL.CFG)
5.1.5 -FA
Send outgoing echomail as FileAttached ARCmail. This switch forces
RBBSMail to build compressed mailbundles and a FilAttach message. Use
this option if your frontend mailer does NOT use oMMM as message
packer/router.
The FileAttach messages can then be processed by the frontend's own
message router. This method is recommended if RBBSMail is used in
combination with Dutchie, SEAdog, Frontdoor or Intermail and allows points
to be addressed by their 4-dimensional address.
This option disregards the external mailpacker and uses RBBSMail's
internal ARcmail handler.
See also the MaxOut, PACK and ARCmail configuration phrases.
Note: NEVER change the status of the FileAttach messages RBBSMail writes
in your netmail subdirectory. These messages are used by RBBSMail to keep
track of sent and unsent ARCmail bundles and should not be changed or
deleted, except by your frontedn mailer when has actually sent the ARCmail
bundle.
Note: The -FA, -OB, -OF and -OP switches are mutually exclusive.
5.1.6 -H
Use the FTS-0001 approved Ctrl-A kludge to hide the SEEN-BY lines. For
compatability only, NOT AT ALL recommended for real life use.
5.1.7 -I
Process INBOUND mail only. This commandline switch tells RBBSMail that it
should only process the incoming mailbundles for import/export, but not to
export messages that were entered locally. This option especially useful
on echomail backbones and passthru nodes that receive echomail all through
the day, but have little or no messages entered locally.
Running RBBSMail 33
RBBSMail v18.2
5.1.8 -KN
Kill all messages without human readable contents.
See also the KillNull configuration phrase.
5.1.9 -OB
Build Outbound Bundles. This forces RBBSmail to write outgoing echomail
in the HOLD subdirectory as oMMM/Binkley/Opus compatbile .OUT type
mailbundles. A suitable mailpacker like oMMM can be used at a later time
to pack and route the outgoing mail. This method is suitable for use with
BinkleyTerm, and will properly address points by their 4-dimensional
addressing.
See also the MaxOut and PACK configuration phrases.
Note: The -FA, -OB, -OF and -OP switches are mutually exclusive.
5.1.10 -OF
Build outbound FLO files like oMMM does. After writing the outgoing
echomail as .OUT mailbundles, RBBSMail compresses the bundles and writes
oMMM/Binkley compatible FLO files to the outbound subdirectory. The FLO
files are used by Binkley to determine where to send the mailbundles. The
status of FLO files can be handled manually or automatically by oMMM or
AMAX.
This method is suitable for use with BinkleyTerm, and will properly
address points by their 4-dimensional addressing.
See also the MaxOut, PACK and ARCmail configuration phrases.
Note: The -FA, -OB, -OF and -OP switches are mutually exclusive.
5.1.11 -OP
Build Outbound Packets. This commandline switch causes RBBSMail to write
outgoing echomail as SEAdog compatible .PKT files in the Hold
subdirectory. The bundles may then be processed at a later time by a
suitable packer/router. With a suitable mailer supporting FSC-00039, this
method can be used to address points by their 4-dimensional address.
Note: The -FA, -OB, -OF and -OP switches are mutually exclusive.
5.1.12 -P
Protect bundles. Normally, after RBBSMail uncompresses and unpacks
incoming mailbundles, the bundles are deleted. In some cases, other
programs may wish to do something with the incoming mailbundles too. The
-P commandline option causes RBBSmail uncompress and unpack the
mailbundles normally, but it leaves all processed bundles intact.
Running RBBSMail 34
RBBSMail v18.2
The program processing the bundles left by RBBSMail should be run
IMMEDITATELY after RBBSMail is done. If not, there may be old bundles
left at the next run of RBBSMail, causing the same bundles to be unpacked
againwhich causes detection of a massive bulk of duplicate messages.
5.1.13 -S
Operate in secure mode. This forces RBBSMail to check that all incoming
echomail is originating from an addess that is listed in AREAS.BBS. If an
echomail message is received from an address that is NOT listed in the
distribution list for that area, the message is tossed in the BAD_MSGS
subdirectory. Optionally, a copy of the offending message is returned to
the originator, with a short explanation. message
See also the SecureMail and NoRts configuration phrases.
5.1.14 -T
Use Tiny SEEN-BY lines. This will force RBBSMail to put only the
addresses from the AREAS.BBS distribution list in the SEEN-BY lines. Use
with extreme care, tiny SEEN-BY lines have been known to cause duplicate
messages in networks that suffer from circular distribution of echomail.
5.1.15 -X
Exclude processing of the netmail subdirectory. This forces RBBSMail to
look for incoming echomail as mailbundles or ARCmail bundles only.
Greatly speeds up the import of incoming mail.
Running RBBSMail 35
RBBSMail v18.2
6. A word on echomail distribution
When RBBSMail is invoked, it will read the lines of RBBSMAIL.CFG and
AREAS.BBS. If there are distribution lists in the AREAS.BBS file,
RBBSMail first searches all echomail conferences (RBBS-PC MESSAGES files
and FIDO style message bases) for new messages and sends copies of these
messages to their destionations.
RBBSMail does a few checks before it exports a message. If the TO or FROM
field of a message contains "SYSOP", it is replaced by the sysops's real
name. This hopefully prevents confusion about "what sysop the message is
addressed to?" when the message arrives on other systems.
RBBS-PC allows users of the BBS to enter comments to SYSOP in
conferences. If the SUBJECT filed of a message contains the word
"COMMENT", the message is not exported.
Depending on the setting of '+' and '-' in AREAS.BBS, RBBSMail wil ignore
private messages, send them as-is or force them to be public messages.
If a message contains NOECHO (just one word, in UPPER case) as the first
line of the message text, RBBSMail will NOT send that message out on the
network. So, if there's anything to be said in a conference that only
concerns users on YOUR system, put NOECHO as first line of the message and
that message will not be send to other systems. Inform your users about
this feature!
During the process of exporting messages, new messages will be tagged with
an MSGID: (Message Identification) tag at the top of all outgoing
messages. The MSGID: tag is a unique message identifier in the format
MSGID: Z:N/N/P yyyyyyyy
where:
Z:N/N.P is your full Zone:Net/Node.Point address
yyyyyyyy = a DOS style date&time marker.
The date/time stamp plus the 16 bit CRC of the From, To and Subject fields
of the message are used to generate an identifier that can be used to
check for duplicate messages. Another identifier is stored in a file
named xxxx.DUP (where xxxx is the name of the current conference). This
is a wrap around file, holding the IDs of the last incoming and outgoing
echo messages for each area.
The number of message IDs (and thus the size of the dups file) can be set
with the configuration phrase DupSize in RBBSMAIL.CFG.
Next, RBBSMAil looks for incoming mail in the MAIL and NETFILE
directories. After checking for proper addressing and duplicate messages,
RBBSMail will send a copy of the incoming messages to the destination list
and then toss it to either the appropriate RBBS-PC conference or to the
proper FIDO style message subdirectory listed in AREAS.BBS.
If there is no RBBS-PC conference file or FIDO message subdirectory
related to the AREA:tag, the message is tossed to the BAD_MSGS area.
When importing mail, RBBSMail will look for a USERS file belonging to the
conference it writes any message to. This USERS file is scanned for the
A word on echomail distribution 36
RBBSMail v18.2
name the message is addressed to. If the name is found, the 'mail
waiting' bit for this user will be flipped ON. If you use the new mail
notification or the [V]iew conferences feature of RBBS-PC (i.e. you have
a CONFMAIL.DEF type file), users can quickly check for new mail in the
conferences, without having to access each conference separately.
Note: USERS file update only works for RBBS-PC MESSAGES files, not for
FIDO style message subdirectories.
Echomail messages addressed to net/node numbers other than your net/node
number(s) are tossed to the BAD_MSGS directory. NETmail messages (i.e.
messages without an AREA:tag) are ignored and left intact in the NETMAIL
directory.
A word on echomail distribution 37
RBBSMail v18.2
7. A word on RBBS-PC MESSAGES files
7.1 Filesizes
When you installed RBBS-PC, it required you to tell it what the size (in
128 byte records) of your MESSAGES files should be, how many lines per
message you allow and what the maximum amount of active messages in a
particular MESSAGE file should be. RBBSMail has its own ideas about the
size of a message, so you should take a few precautions.
Configure RBBS-PC to use MESSAGES files that grow as messages are added,
and set the maximum amount of messages to 999. RBBSMail will then
automatically manage the size of the MESSAGES files for you. RBBSMail
will always check the number of free records in any MESSAGES file before
it starts processing that file. If there is not sufficient room left to
process the newly entered message in a MESSAGES file, RBBSMail will not
process the file. If, for some reason, the MESSAGES file is full before
the RBBSMail is done, the MESSAGES file will be expanded to ensure that no
messages are lost.
As there are no restrictions to the size of FIDONET messages, it is
possible that you receive mail with more lines per message than you have
pre-set in RBBS-PC's CONFIG program.
You should periodically review the behaviour of your MESSAGES files. Kim
Wells' MU-PURGE program shows statistics about the amount of used and free
space in your MESSAGES files.
Sometimes RBBSMail just hangs up in the middle of a SCAN or TOSS run.
This is usually caused by a broken link in the MESSAGES file. A possible
reason for having your MESSAGES files messed up is that MU-PURGE choked on
a message that was too big to process. If you run MU-PURGE on a MESSAGES
file with a lot of *big* messages, MU-PURGE will sometimes run out of
memory and abort, leaving a broken chain in the MESSAGES file.
It is therefore HIGHLY advised to set the SIZE parameter in RBBSMAIL.CFG
to a value of 12000 or less.
If the above happens, the most elegant way to recover is:
- Use RBBS-PC's CONFIG program to repair the broken MESSAGES file.
- Use RBBS-PC's CONFIG program to pack the MESSAGES file.
- Start RBBS-PC and kill the first message in the MESSAGES file you
just repaired.
- Decrease the value of the SIZE parameter in RBBSMAIL.CFG.
7.2 Filenames for CONFERENCES
Let's take the TENNIS conference from the above examples. You have a
TENNISM.DEF file that holds all the messages and a TENNISU.DEF file that
holds all users of the TENNIS conference. If you create a file TENNIS.ORG
A word on RBBS-PC MESSAGES files 38
RBBSMail v18.2
in the same directory your TENNISM.DEF and TENNISU.DEF files are in,
RBBSMail will take the FIRST line from this file and use it as the text in
your Origin line.
So, for all conferences or subboards on your system, the naming
conventions should be:
xxxxM.def the Messages file of conference with name 'xxxx'
xxxxU.def the Users file of conference with name 'xxxx'
xxxx.DUP the file containing the IDs of messages already imported in this
conference. You shouldn't bother with this file, RBBSMail
handles it for you.
xxxx.ORG the file containing the text of the Origin line for the
conference with filename 'xxxxM.DEF'
For FIDO style message subdirectory, a file named DUPDATA.DAT in the
subdirectory holds the IDs.
7.3 Filenames for SUBBOARDS
RBBS-PC allows any valid DOS filename for MESSAGE and USERS files in
subboards. By not using the standard RBBS-PC xxxxM.DEF naming convention,
MESSAGES files are not accessible by the [J]oin conference command, which
is exactly what you want for a subboard.
This poses a bit of a problem for RBBSMail, for it has no way of figuring
out the names of MESSAGE and USERS files in subboards, execept maybe
reading the RBBSxPC.DEF files for each conference and/or subboard. Due to
the many changes of the RBBS-PC.DEF file in every new version of RBBS-PC,
this is highly unreliable.
Therefore, RBBSMail uses the following convention for MESSAGE and USERS
files that are not named according to the standard RBBS-PC xxxxM.DEF and
xxxxU.DEF method:
ABCXYZ the MESSAGES file of a subboard (NO extension!)
ABCXYZ.USRthe USERS file of the subboard with ABCXYZ as MESSAGE file (.USR
extension is mandatory!)
ABCXYZ.DUPthe file containing the IDs of messages imported in this
conference. You shouldn't bother with this file, RBBSMail
handles it for you.
ABCXYZ.ORGthe file containing the text for the Origin line for this
subboard.
In short:
If your RBBS-PC MESSAGE and USERS files are named in the form of xxxxM.DEF
with an accompanying xxxxU.DEF file, RBBSMail will strip off the M.DEF,
and ONLY the significant part of the MESSAGES file's filename (i.e. the
conference name) will be used to identify the xxxx.ORG and xxxx.DUP
files.
If your RBBS-PC MESSAGE and USERS files (for subboards) only consist of a
filename with no extension, the whole name of the files will be used to
identify xxxx.ORG and xxxx.DUP files.
A word on RBBS-PC MESSAGES files 39
RBBSMail v18.2
7.4 Filenames for FIDO style subdirs
In a FIDO style message subirectory, all messages are in separate files
with the extension '.MSG" (i.e. message 1 will be 1.MSG). The naming
convention for FIDO style message bases differs somewhat from the above
method of naming files for RBBS-PC conferences and subboards.
To have a separate text for the Origin lines in a FIDO style message
subirectory, simply put a file with the name ORIGIN (no extension) in that
particular subdirectory. This is the equivalent of the xxxx.ORG files
mentioned avbove.
The IDs of imported messages are stored in the subdirectory in a file
named DUPDATA.DAT. It is the equivalent of the xxxx.DUP files mentioned
above.
A word on RBBS-PC MESSAGES files 40
RBBSMail v18.2
8. How to set up your mail
8.1 What you need
To get your mail in and out on the FIDONET, you need a number of other
programs and files. (Assuming you already have RBBS-PC running):
■ Frontend mailer (BinkleyTerm, Dutchie or d'Bridge)
■ oMMM, mOOO or Packer, to pack up outgoing mailbundles
■ ARCA and ARCE or PKARC and PKXARC
■ If you don't want RBBSMail to unpack incoming mailbundles, use
Confmail, QM or whatever appropriate program to unpack incoming
mailbundles.
■ A recent nodelist
■ PARSELST, a program to compile and update your nodelist
■ A mail-editor (Dutched or MSGED) to inspect incoming/outgoing mail is
strongly suggested. It will be a great help getting started.
First, you need to set up the frontend mailer and the schedules. Your
local or regional HOST or HUB has to supply the times when you should call
him to deliver and pick up your mail. There is an extensive chapter about
setting up schedules (or events) and routing in the documentation of your
frontend mailer.
If you want to have control over your schedules from within your batch
files (i.e. outside the scheduler of your mail frontend), you may want to
look at the program WDATIME that is included in this package. WDATIME
enables you to test Month, Date, Time and Day of the Week from within your
batch files.
It is STRONGLY recommended to make arrangements with your HOST or HUB to
have him forward the weekly NODELIST or NODEDIFF files, so your nodelist
will always be up to date. See PARSELST.DOC how to set up an automatic
update of your nodelist.
If your HOST or HUB carries the weekly FIDO newsletter or other
newsletters of interest, ask him to forward it to you. There is a lot of
useful information in some of these regular newsletters.
After you set up your frontend mailer and your schedules, you are ready to
run.
Well, sort of..... While setting up the events and the bulky batch file
you need to run your system plus mailer, you should also stick in some
lines containing the proper RBBSMail commands at the proper places. I'm
afraid you are on your own on this, there is no boilerplate for it. You
should at least run RBBSMail shortly BEFORE your main mail event (usually
the National Mail Hour) and AFTER the NMH. If you run mail outside the
NMH, you can run RBBSMail as often as you may need for other events.
Again, you have to decide on this in agreement with whatever other systems
you exchange mail with.
How to set up your mail 41
RBBSMail v18.2
8.2 A quick overview
1. Run RBBSMail to export new messges from your system.
2. Run your mailpacker (oMMM, MOOO or whatever) with the appropriate
schedules and routings (contact your host for the routing). Your
outgoing mail is now ready to be sent.
3. Have your frontend mailer call all other systems you exchange mail
with, or sit and wait for them to call you.
4. Run RBBSMail import/export the received Echomail.
5. You have now succesfully exchanged Echomail. Congratulations!
Note: If you have both FIDO/OPUS style messages directories AND RBBS-PC
MESSAGES files for your Echomail, you need TWO AREAS.BBS files IF you want
the FIDO style conferences to be processed by another program. For
instance, you need an AREAS.BBS for ConfMail to process mail to/from the
FIDO style subdirectories and an AREAS.BBS for RBBSMail to process mail
to/from the RBBS-PC MESSAGES files. The two files may have different
names or may be located in different subdirectories. You can NOT use the
same AREAS.BBS file for both ConfMail and RBBSMail.
8.3 Enhanced Setup / CRITMON<tm>
Either by using the -OrgAddress embedded command or by using different
RBBSMAIL.CFG, AREAS.BBS and xxxx.ORG files, you can do CRITMON<tm>. That
is Creative Renaming In The Middle Of The Nigth. You can appear to the
net as two or more completely different systems. Or run as one system in
several different networks. Or both. Or send all your outbound Echomail
to yourself every night. Or cross-link two of your echomail sources with
a circular feed. Or receive Echomail as 123/1 and send the whole bunch
back to your host as 789/2, thus making a lot of "friends".
Don't rush to your keyboard to do CRITMON<tm> right away. Remember,
Personal Computers can be used Personally, programmed Personally and you
can Personally screw the thing up beyond belief. Like me, you are likely
to do the latter.....
Sit down with a big sheet of paper, a pencil and a pencil eraser. Setup
an overview of what you want your system to do and where you send mail
to. Figure out the setup of your config files and your schedule(s) of
events. Then, make ONE setup and test it. up your system for ONE of the
alternatives and test it. With another sheet of paper, setup the other
alternatives, and test them one by one. In any case, don't change more
than one thing at a time in your setup. FUBAR is the word!
RBBSMail will (in most cases) do faithfully what you want, even with the
craziest setup. If it doesn't do what you want, (or it DOES what you
want) you have yourself to thank for it.
Since most of the address translation is done completely transparent by
RBBSMail, you usually need just ONE setup.
How to set up your mail 42
RBBSMail v18.2
8.4 Cross-zone echomail / CRITMON<tm>
If you are a node in more than one Zone, RBBSMAIL will be quite creative
when CRITMONning. For instance, you run as 2:512/10 in FIDONET Zone 2 and
as 8:998/1 in RBBSNet. You have will have addresses in RBBSMAIL.CFG
listed as:
Address 2:512/10
Address 2:2/508
Address 8:998/1
and a line in your AREAS.BBS lik this one:
C:\RBBS\CHATM.DEF CHATTER 2:512/1 2:9999/1 8:998/10
Now, RBBSMail will export messages to 2:512/1 (your FIDONET host), to
2:9999/1 (one of your 2D points) and to 8:998/1 (your RBBSNet host).
RBBSMail's CRITMON will cause messages sent to 2:512/1.0 and 2:9999/1.0 to
appear as if they were sent from 2:512/10.0, and the messages to 8:998/10
will have sender address 8:998/1.0 in the message header and in the PATH
line. In other words, RBBSMail adjusts the originating address and PATH
line of outgoing echomail messages so they match the address you use in
the destination zone. This way, secure echomail distribution accross
zones will be possible and you don't have to bother with running different
setups for sending echomail to different zones.
The addresses listed in the * Origin line and the MSGID tag will carry
your primary, unless you have specifically changed the origin address via
the -OrgAddress embedded command in your AREAS.BBS file.
Please note that RBBSMail will, by default, put either your PRIMARY
address or the address specified at the -OrgAddress embedded command in
the SEEN-BY lines. If you exchange mail with other systems using one of
your alternate adresses, you must either use the -AKA commandline switch
to tell RBBSMail to put one or more of your alternate addresses in the
SEEN-BY line or configure a GATE phrase for those destination addresses.
RBBSMail uses the same naming convention for outbound subdirectories as
BinkleyTerm and oMMM does. If you have set your HOLD subdir like in the
examples above, RBBSMail will write outbound echomail bundles addressed to
any node in your own zone (in this case, zone 2) to the subdirectory
C:\BT\HOLD.
For each additional destination zone, RBBSMail needs a separate
directory. The additional directories simply get an extension (Yeah, I
know, subdirectory names aren't supposed to have extensions).
The 3-digit hexadecimal representation of the destination zone number is
used as extension. Following the above exapmles, all outbound mail
addressed to Zone 4 is written to the subdirectory C:\BT\HOLD.004,
outbound stuff for zone 30 ends up in a subdirectory named C:\BT\HOLD.01E
and mail for zone 69 will be written the C:\BT\HOLD.045 subdirectory.
If you run RBBSMail in combination with BinkleyTerm and/or oMMM, you
already have these additional subdirectories and they will automatically
be used by RBBSMail. If they aren't there, RBBSMail will create
How to set up your mail 43
RBBSMail v18.2
additional subdirectories for outbound zones whenever it needs them.
If you run RBBSMail with another frontend mailer than BinkleyTerm, you
probably need to tell your mailer and/or mailpacker that it should look in
the additional subdirectories for outbound mail to other zones. There's
no need to bother about this if you use the -FA commandline switch in
combination with FrontDoor, SEADog or Dutchie. The FileAttach messages
created by RBBSMail will alwys end up in your NETmail directory, with the
proper drive, path and filename for the attached mailbundle.
8.5 Network Gateway Systems
The Public Amateur Computer Network, commonly known as FIDONET, used to be
the only system of linked bulletin boards in the world. For the last few
years, new FIDO compatible networks have popped up. There now are
AlterNet, Turbo Data Net and RBBSNet, to name a few.
These networks are completely independent structures, but lately people
started exchanging Echomail between these networks. This poses some
political and operational problems. Politics should be left to
politicians, so I will only deal with the operational stuff.
Let me give an example to clarify the problems. Suppose a system in
FIDONET Zone 2 wants to exchange Echomail with a system in the RBBSNet
(which uses zone 8 for practical purposes) and pass it on to other systems
in the FIDONET. All Echomail received from the RBBSNet systems will list
an address in the Origin line that is not a valid FIDONET address.
Just passing this netmail through will probably get a FIDONET coordinator
up the wall, for FIDONET does not like to carry around messages with
invalid (non-FIDONET) addresses. As the RBBSNet system will not be in the
FIDONET NODELIST with his RBBSNet node number, his RBBSNet nodenumber will
be invalid in FIDONET, so we need to do something about that.
For instance, FIDO 2:2/508.0 serves as the inbound Network Gateway for
Echomail from RBBSNet (which uses zone number 8) to FIDO zone 2. All (or
most) Echomail received from RBBSNet will list zone 8 addresses in the
Origin lines. To fullfill the above FIDONET requirements, all messages
that are send out by 2:2/508.0 to other FIDONET systems should have a
valid Origin address in the Origin line. RBBSMail will take care of this
in a simple manner.
The INDOMAIN phrase in RBBSMAIL.CFG should list the (fake) ZONE number of
the other network for which your system is the Network Gateway, plus the
Origin line to be added to messages from the other network. On 2:2/508.0,
the INDOMAIN statement would look like this:
INDOMAIN 8 RBBSNetwork Gateway to Europe (2:2/508.0)
A practical example: A message entered on RBBSNet 8:926/1.0 will have that
address listed in the Origin line. When 2:2/508.0 receives this messages
and sends it out to a system in a zone OTHER than zone 8, the Origin line
will be zapped and an extra Origin line "RBBSNetwork Gateway to Europe
(2:2/508.0)" will be added to the messages. This fullfills the FIDONET
requirement of valid addresses.
How to set up your mail 44
RBBSMail v18.2
The conversion will ONLY take place for messages that originate from a
system in the zone listed in the "INDOMAIN" phrase AND if those messages
are sent to a system that is not in that zone. Messages that stay within
the same zone or messages that originate from other zones will be left
untouched.
Only one INDOMAIN network gateway can be defined (there ain't no such
thing as an outdomain). One should exercise great care in setting up
systems like this. Contact your network or zone coordinator, agree on
terms and conditions for operating the Network Gateway. Be sure to inform
other systems about the proper routing for mail that has to pass through
the network gateway.
The above method is rather simple and somewhat crude, but it has been in
operation at 2:2/508 since September 1988 without problems.
8.6 Error determination
Sometimes it looks as if you just can't get it right. If you encounter
problems with RBBSMail, step thru the following procedure to diagnose the
situation.
1. RTFM.
2. Check the configuration files for typos, incorrect drive, path or
filenames. Check contents of AREAS.BBS. Change if needed.
3. RTFM again.
4. Check the commandline for proper switches. Change if needed.
5. Relax, have a cup of coffee and let the situation soak in for a while
6. Run the program again.
7. If the symptoms change, repeat the above steps till the error
'magically' disappears.
8. If the above steps fail, erase RBBSMail.LOG.
9. Run RBBSMail in the failing situation.
10. Send me a CRASHmail message with the problem properly described.
File-attach a copy of your setup files and a LOG file that shows the
problem. Feel free to include any other relevant information, like
type and version number of hardware and software you use, filesizes,
AREAS.BBS and BINKLEY.CFG. You may wish to include examples of
failing messages or mailbundles.
11. Poll my system after a few days to see if there's a reply for you. If
you have a real problem, and I'm not on vacation, there will be a
reply (and hopefully a fix) waiting.
12. If there's no reply and I'm not on vacation, RTFM and repeat the above
steps.
13. Flames will never be dignified with an answer.
How to set up your mail 45
RBBSMail v18.2
8.7 Other stuff
I'm sure you will have a lot of questions about Echomail. It is a strange
sort of animal to RBBS-PC sysops. But, don't fear! Echomail can be fun
and can be a great enhancement to your system. If, at first, you don't
understand what Echomail is all about, talk to a local OPUS or FIDO sysop
or to the sysop of the host in your local network. Sysops are strange
birds, but very helpful and usually eager to show you around. The moment
you have your Echomail running you'll see the benefits of it.
If you decide to hook up your RBBS-PC system to the world of FIDONET, you
also may wish to take part in several RBBS-PC related Echomail
conferences. In the USA, contact your local host system. In Europe,
contact me by sending me a netmail message, and start polling for mail a
few days later.
And there are several Echomail conferences about the frontend mailers
BINKLEY (for BinkleyTerm), WINDMILL (for Dutchie) and FD (for FrontDoor).
If a local or regional HOST or HUB carries a conference on the mail
frontend you use, make arrangements to get the echo. It will be of great
help to you.
How to set up your mail 46
RBBSMail v18.2
9. The RBBSNet
Several RBBS-PC sysops have started a RBBSNet, separate from FIDONET.
Currently, there are a bunch of FIDO compatible networks in operation:
FIDONET, EggNet, The People's Net, AlterNet, TuboDatanet and GT-Net. I'm
part of both FIDONET and RBBSNet, and my system is the European gateway
for RBBSNet (node 8:998/1.0 in the RBBSNet). For more info on the
RBBSNet, Contact Rod Bowman of the PC-Spectrum RBBS in Alta Loma, CA at
(714) 945-2612. Rod has put an enormous amount of work in setting up the
RBBSNet. I sure hope it will all work out.
The RBBSNet 47
RBBSMail v18.2
10. Future enhancements
10.1 Planned for new releases
In order of priority:
1. Addition of NetBrick<tm> feature.
2. Addition of zone-aware netmail subdirectories.
3. Addition of Binkley compatible 5D point addressing.
4. Addition of Smart Zone and Point remapping
5. Addition of AutoEcho/AreaFix capabilities.
6. Addition of mailpacker/router (currently being written).
7. Full NETmail capability, but this is waiting for some major changes in
RBBS-PC.
If you have any comments, suggestions for enhancements or you have found
something in RBBSMail that doesn't work the way it should, feel free to
contact me via Bamestra RBBS. See the title page of this document for the
node number and phonenumbers. You may also leave a message in the RBBS-PC
or RBBSMAIL_PACK Echomail conferences.
10.2 Comments & Suggestions
If you have comments on the workings of RBBSMail, suggestions for new
features, improvements or bug reports, feel free to send a NETmail message
to Sysop at FIDO 2:512/10.0 (RBBSNet 8:998/1.0) or a written letter to the
postal address listed on the title page.
Future enhancements 48
RBBSMail v18.2
Appendix A. Changes to RBBS-PC
There is a conflict between RBBSMail's way of flagging messages that are
processed and "repair message file" option 185 in RBBS-PC's CONFIG
program. RBBSMail changes the ":" (colon) in the datefield of the message
header to a "." (dot) to flag a message. CONFIG's option 185 will choke
on this, because it uses that same ":" to scan for valid message headers.
This will result in mixed-up message numbering. To circumvent this
conflict, either do not use CONFIG option 185. You don't normally need
that option, since RBBSMNT does a nice and FAST job of mesage/user file
maintenance and repair. Alternatively you may remove the following line
from linenumber 50580 of module CONFIG.BAS:
AND MID$(MESSAGE.RECORD$,64,1) = ":" _
This line appears TWICE in linenumber 50580.
Appendix A. Changes to RBBS-PC 49
RBBSMail v18.2
Appendix B. Update history
January 17, 1992 - Initial release of RBBSMail v18.0
■ Complete rewrite of RBBSMail in C.
■ Maintenance moved to a separate program RBBSMNT.
■ Buggy Zone and Point remapper removed.
February 28, 1992 - release of RBBSMail v18.1
■ Added ExportComments configuration phrase.
■ Improved errorchecking for grunged bunldes.
■ Changed order in which ARCmail bundles are processed.
■ Fixed bug that incorrectly reported inconsistent header records in
messages files.
■ Fixed bug that dumped copies of PASSTHRU messages in netmail area.
■ Fixed bug that incorrectly set message attributes on RTS messages.
■ Fixed bug in ARCmail address parsing (ARCto, ZIPto et al).
September 17, 1992 - release of RBBSMail v18.2
■ Major rewrite to accomodate full 4-dimensional addressing.
■ Removed the DOMAIN configuration phrase, the ADDRESS config phrase is
now 5-dimensional.
■ Points can now be address with either their 4D or their 2D addresses.
■ Major rewrite so outbound mailbundles are FSC-0039 compliant.
■ Major rewrite to recognize FTS-0001r015, FSC-0039/FSC-0048 and
FSC-0045 compliant mailbundles.
■ Added Disk/EMS swap when running external programs.
■ Added NoSwap config phrase. Disk/EMS swapping can now be disabled in
case of problems, lack of EMS memory of lack of disk space.
■ A change, required by the swapping routines, was made to the PACK
configuration phrase.
■ Added embedded commands in AREAS.BBS.
■ The ExportComments configuration phrase is replaced by the embedded
command -ExportComments, which is configurable per separate
conference.
■ Added mailbundle password protection via the -Password embedded
command.
■ Added separate OVERFLOW subdir.
■ Added DynaPurge<tm>.
■ Added capability to copy incoming nemtail messages to a RBBS-PC style
conference.
■ Added NETBIOS file/record locking.
■ Added RBBS-PC compatible file locking via the DESQview mailbox
interface.
■ Added NetBrick<tm> thrower.
■ Added Force2D config phrase.
■ Added FSC-0045 config phrase.
■ Added support for BinkleyTerm 4D POINT subdirectories.
■ Added StdARCmail config phrase.
■ Added YabomFA config phrase.
Appendix B. Update history 50
RBBSMail v18.2
■ Added support for RBBS-PC style messages with multiple CC: headers.
■ Large messages can now be split over multiple messages in a RBBS-PC
style message base. Maximum lines per message is configurable per
separate conference.
■ Message Margin is now configurable per separate conference.
■ Improved archive type recognition for ARCmail handling.
■ KillSent bit now properly set on forwarded netmail.
■ Plugged a hole in SecureMail. Thanks, Kim kodde!
■ Fixed DESQView file locking.
■ Fixed problem that would sometimes drop addresses from SEEN-BY and/or
PATH lines.
■ Fixed problem with parsing ARCto et all parameters.
■ Fixed bug that sometimes made PASSTHRU areas inoperable.
Appendix B. Update history 51
RBBSMail v18.2
Table of Contents
1. WARNING! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
2. What is RBBSMail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2.1 Software Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2.2 Hardware Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.3 Limitations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.4 Related Documents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.5 Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3. Legal Stuff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3.1 Copyrights & License . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3.2 NO WARRANTY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
3.3 NO MONEY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
3.4 The RBBS commitment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
4. Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
4.1 Configuring RBBSMail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
4.2 Valid phrases for RBBSMAIL.CFG . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
4.2.1 Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
4.2.2 ARCto, ARJto, PAKto, LHAto, ZIPto, ZOOto. . . . . . . . . 10
4.2.3 StdARCmail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
4.2.4 Domain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
4.2.5 Elastic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
4.2.6 DupSize . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
4.2.7 DynaPurge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
4.2.8 ExportComments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
4.2.9 Gate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
4.2.10 Hold . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
4.2.11 IBMFLAGS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
4.2.12 ImportDate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
4.2.13 Indomain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
4.2.14 KeepDups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
4.2.15 KillNull . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
4.2.16 LogLevel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
4.2.17 MaxOut . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
4.2.18 NetFile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
4.2.19 UseNETBIOS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
4.2.20 UseDV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
4.2.21 NoRts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
4.2.22 NetBrick . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
4.2.23 NoStinkingKludgeLines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
4.2.24 OpusDate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
4.2.25 Pack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
4.2.26 PrivateNet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
4.2.27 Force2D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
4.2.28 FSC-0045 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
4.2.29 Size . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
4.2.30 Security . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Table of Contents 52
RBBSMail v18.2
4.2.31 SecureMail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
4.2.32 StatusLog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
4.2.33 StripSeen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
4.2.34 SwapPath . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
4.2.35 NoSwap. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
4.2.36 SysAlias . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
4.2.37 Sysop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
4.2.38 YabomFA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
4.2.39 Reading BINKLEY.CFG . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
4.2.40 Example of a RBBSMAIL.CFG file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
4.2.41 Example of an AREAS.BBS file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
4.3 Special AREA: names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
4.3.1 The OVERFLOW area . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
4.3.2 The XNETMAIL area . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
4.4 Embedded commands in AREAS.BBS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
4.4.1 -Margin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
4.4.2 -MaxLines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
4.4.3 -Notify . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
4.4.4 -NoNotify . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
4.4.5 -ExportComments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
4.4.6 -NoExportComments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
4.4.7 -Security . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
4.4.8 -Slack & -MsgAge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
4.4.9 -OrgAddress . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
4.4.10 -Password . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
5. Running RBBSMail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
5.1 Commandline options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
5.1.1 -A <areasbbsfile> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
5.1.2 -AKA # . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
5.1.3 -BM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
5.1.4 -C <configfile> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
5.1.5 -FA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
5.1.6 -H . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
5.1.7 -I . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
5.1.8 -KN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
5.1.9 -OB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
5.1.10 -OF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
5.1.11 -OP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
5.1.12 -P . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
5.1.13 -S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
5.1.14 -T . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
5.1.15 -X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
6. A word on echomail distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
7. A word on RBBS-PC MESSAGES files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
7.1 Filesizes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
7.2 Filenames for CONFERENCES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
7.3 Filenames for SUBBOARDS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
7.4 Filenames for FIDO style subdirs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
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RBBSMail v18.2
8. How to set up your mail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
8.1 What you need . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
8.2 A quick overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
8.3 Enhanced Setup / CRITMON<tm> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
8.4 Cross-zone echomail / CRITMON<tm> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
8.5 Network Gateway Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
8.6 Error determination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
8.7 Other stuff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
9. The RBBSNet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
10. Future enhancements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
10.1 Planned for new releases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
10.2 Comments & Suggestions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Appendix A. Changes to RBBS-PC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Appendix B. Update history . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Table of Contents 54