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NETWORK.DOC The networking portion of Citadel grew out of a utility for Citadel, no longer supported, called CTDLNET, which, in essence, provided the integration half of a true networking system -- the sysop had to provide the communications element, and then CTDLNET would take the resulting data and attempt to integrate with the Citadel's data base. Highly unsatisfactory. Not to mention time consuming, and there was no convenient way to network the mail, which was of some interest to network. So... about 85Jun01 or so work began on integrating CTDLNET with Citadel itself. The following details how to use the networker from the sysop's viewpoint. Use of the networker from the user's viewpoint is detailed in NETWORK.HLP. The details of the protocols, etc. involved in this mess is in NETHACK.DOC. --------------------------------------------------------------------- SUMMARY Currently (as of 86May18), the networker is fairly limited, but has been designed to be easily expanded. Be that as it may, the networker capabilities are currently limited to: o Users sending mail to users on other systems. o Sysops requesting files (name or ambiguously) from other systems. o Sysops sending files to other systems. o Ability to specify that certain pieces of Mail be sent to All Local Systems. In order for the sysop to maintain control of what's happening, the following capabilities, detailed in Usage below, are provided: o Ability to view the list of systems on the network list o Adding systems to the network list Menu 1 o Setting the credit ratings of users for long distance mail o Ability to turn on and off network privileges for given users o Ability to request a file or files from another system o Ability to send files to another system. o Editing systems on the network list to reflect their changing characteristics o Change a system's baud rate(s). Menu 2 o Change a system's id. o Change a system's passwords. o Take a system off the network list. o Change a system's name. o Change a system's Local or Long Distance status. o Change a system's receive-only status. o Change the nets that a system uses. o Set long-distance polling limits. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- USAGE Access to the networking elements of Citadel are through (appropriately enough) the sysop menu (obtained through CTRL-L). The network commands are divided into two menus, one subordinate to the other. Menu 1 options are as follows: **** [A]dd node to net list This is the option to add systems to the network list. In order for the networker to handle systems on the network, the following information will be requested of the sysop: o System node name: this is usually the short, mnemonic name that messages that originate from that system have in their headers. To take an example from HACK.DOC, if the node name of a system is ODD-DATA, then messages from that system will have a header like 'from Cynbe ru Taren @ODD-DATA'. It is NOT a requirement that you use the same one as the system in question does -- but it WILL lessen confusion on the part of the users. o System id: this MUST be accurate, and takes the same form as #nodeId did in your CTDLCNFG.SYS file: i.e., <Country abbreviation> <area code> <phone#>. Feel free to insert special characters to make things more readable, Citadel will (try) to strip out what you put in. So, for instance, 'US (612) 431-1107' would probably be acceptable. But be sure it is as accurate as possible, because Citadel uses this data to call other systems in the net. o A code indicating the range of baud rates supported by the system in question. At the moment, only 300, 300/1200, 300/1200/2400, and 300/1200/2400/9600 systems have codes defined for them, these being 0 through 3. When you are asked to input the baud code for a system, you will be reminded as to what the codes mean. o Local or Long Distance: An indication of whether the system is Local or Long Distance relative to this system. After Citadel gets all of the above, the system you have listed is now on your network list. **** [N]et privileges for individual Each user of a particular Citadel installation has a switch, accessible only to the sysop, determining whether they are allowed to send mail, and anything else, out on the net. When using this option, the sysop will be requested to specify the name of an account and, if found, to confirm that net privileges should be toggled. (New accounts are not given net privileges unless you set ALLNET in your CTDLCNFG.SYS.) **** [C]redit setting In case the network ever goes long distance, we certainly don't want a sysop to go bankrupt because some abuser sends a lot of long distance mail. Thus, before a particular user can send mail (or whatever) long distance, s/he must first obtain networking privileges from the sysop of the system, and then entice the sysop into setting his/her credit rating to something greater than 0. While I have no experience as to how this should be handled, I would suggest that the sysop establish that each message shall cost some x cents, and then make a no-exceptions rule that before someone's credit is set to a non-zero, the user pay in advance. However, it's your system. NOTE: if you have LONG-HAUL set to 0 in your CTDLCNFG.SYS file, then this section was a waste of your and my time. **** [R]equest a file or files This option allows the sysop to request a file from another system. In order for this option to succeed, the Sysop needs to know a) What room the file is in on the other system (and the room, of course, must be a directory room), and b) The name of the file OR be willing to use an ambiguous file request. On selection of <R>, Citadel asks for 1) the node name of the system that has the file, 2) the name of the room on that system, 3) the name of the file in that directory room's directory, either an ambiguous or unambiguous file name, 4) what directory you want the file(s) put in, 5) if the name of the file requested if unambiguous, the name of the file to save the file under (if the request is ambiguous, then a warning is printed to the effect that files could be overwritten). At any time, if you just type an empty return, the option is aborted, except during path specification, where a '?' will abort the request. If you answer all the questions satisfactorily, the system will proceed to write out a file named 'x.RFL', where 'x' indicates what system to call for the file, in your #netDir. During networking, the system will then try to get the indicated file(s) from the other Citadel. A number of errors are possible, such as the indicated room not existing, or the file not existing, or even, perhaps, the transfer facility not being available on that system (this facility should reside on systems that are Net version 1.1 or higher). If it succeeds, you should find your file(s) after networking at the location you specified. On smaller systems, you may be forced to tell Citadel to overwrite a file (especially if you are requesting updates!), so, please, be careful using this function, and make sure you have backups! **** [S]end files to another system This option allows the sysop to send files to another system. When you select this option, Citadel will ask you what system you are sending the files to, then the name of the system. If you answer all the questions satisfactorily, the system will proceed to write out a file named 'x.SFL', where 'x' indicates what system to call for the file, in your #netDir. (The [S]end file command is what the #recieptDir is for -- all files sent to your system will be placed in this directory, as long as the directory doesn't contain more than RECEIPTK Kbytes of files.) **** [V]iew net list This option allows the sysop to view the list of systems on the network list. This lists names, ids, and receive-only status, unlike the list that can be obtained from doing a '?' at the 'destination system:' prompt during use of the <.en> command. **** e[X]it to Main Citadel menu Takes the sysop back to the main Citadel menu. **** [E]dit a node This option allows the sysop to edit a given system on the network list. The options are detailed below in Menu 2. Menu 2 (Net editing) options are as follows: **** [A]ccess setting There may be times when you need to access a system via something other than the ordinary ID (something on a alternate l-d telephone system, for example?) If there is an access string, citadel will use it as the phone number to call when networking. **** [B]aud code change When a system in the network changes baud rates, it is necessary to tell Citadel about it. If you don't, at a minimum, nothing will happen (if your own system is 300 only); at a maximum, if your system is 1200/300 and THINKS that another system is 1200/300 when it is only 300, the systems will most likely be unable to communicate AT ALL. Try to keep the list up-to-date, and, personally, I think it behooves all participants in the net to not keep changes secret -- perhaps some (efficient) way can be found to broadcast all changes. **** [C]- set receive-only status There are some systems that you probably don't EVER want to call, because they may be dummy systems for a UUCP feed or a long-distance system that wants to pay all of the networking costs. If you set receive-only status, you will never call this system. ****L[D] role reversal This allows a system to role-reverse during long-distance networking. (Normally systems don't role-reverse, so people won't be surprised by noxiously high phone bills.) If you are doing l-d networking with a receive-only system, BOTH systems must allow l-d role reversing. **** [I]d change It is, of course, highly important to keep the ids up-to-date see the notes on Adding a system to the net for the reason), but, fortunately, most systems don't change ids very often. Use this option if one does. **** [K]ill node from net Naturally, nodes will leave the net as sysops move, lose interest, etc. This option allows the sysop to take systems off the network list. **** [L]ocal or Long Distance System If systems or you move, your new location may not have the same Local status relative to the systems on the net. If they change, use this option to change the Local status of the other systems. **** [N]ame change Certainly, systems are going to change their nodeId names as sysops change mood, locations, girlfriends, boyfriends, etc. Use this option when that occurs. **** [P]assword settings. If you've got passwords defined, your system will exchange passwords with this system when you call it or it calls you during networking. If the passwords are incorrect, the systems will not do roomsharing and will not role-reverse. (This option is only available in C-86 V2.17 and above, and in STadel 3.1a and above.) **** [R]ooms shared. This lists the rooms you are sharing with this system. *** [U]se nets This lets you change the networks that this system is available on. The system will ask for what nets to put this system in, you reply with a comma-separated list of net numbers (1-32). [e.g. '1,2,5'] When you add a net, it is put into net 1 by default. **** [V]iew node configuration This shows the current configuration of this node. ****e[X]it to Main net menu Use this option to return to the main Network menu. ****[Z] - set l-d poll count To avoid excessive long-distance bills, STadel will only call a long- distance system once a night (not counting busy signals.) If anything goes wrong during networking and the session shuts down, STadel will not call again until the next night. If you don't want that behavior, you can change the poll count to allow more attempts. -------------------------------------------------------------------- OPERATION The networker operates on an automatic basis. You define when the network is active by putting #event lines into your CTDLCNFG.SYS like so: #event NETWORK time duration <name> <netnumber> In the Twin cities, networking occurs at 3:00 am for 45 minutes, every day. Pell uses the following #events for networking: #event NETWORK 3:01 39 c86net 1 * this is the ordinary citanet. #event NETWORK 4:00 10 alternet 2 * a private network. What days does it do this? Every day. -------------------------------------------------------------------- SPECIAL STUFF It can be quite useful to specify that a given piece of Net Mail be sent to all systems that are Local to this system; for example, picnic announcements, update announcements, etc. Citadel can do this in a limited sort of way. Usage: Use Net Mail as normal. When the "System" prompt comes up, rather than answering with a system name, answer with "&L" (sans quotes, of course). This signals Citadel to send the following piece of Mail to all Local Systems, to the user specified. While it seems obvious that the only logical user to send such Mail to would be "sysop", this option can be used to send Mail to all systems to anyone else. During the next networking period, your installation will attempt to send this piece of Net Mail to each Local System. In order for a user to use this particular Network service, the user must possess both Net privileges AND Aide privileges.