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*************************************************************************** EXPLORING THE INTERNET WITH DEMON INTERNET SERVICES Guide to ka9q for the Archimedes *************************************************************************** This is a guide to the installation and use of the various versions of ka9q for the Archimedes. Because the different versions have been produced by two people who collaborate and merge changes only occasionally, there are some differences in the implementation of some of the commands. This guide attempts to cover general principles, and will point out most of the major differences, but when in doubt, read the documentation accompanying your version of ka9q. This file is copyright © 1993 Paul L. Allen & The ARM Club. REVISION HISTORY ================ Version 1.0: 22/9/1993. Initial release. Note that this was written to a deadline with no opportunity to verify details with Jonathan Naylor or Anthony Frost (who are responsible for the various versions of Arc ka9q) so you are advised to look for updates (corrections) to this file on ftp.demon.co.uk and Arcade BBS. Version 1.1: 3/10/1993. Many corrections, both major and minor. Thanks go to the DIS support team, Anthony Frost, Jonathan Naylor, John Stonier and Julian Bewick. GENERAL INFO ============ Some of the earliest versions floating around do not handle usenet news - the latest version can be obtained by ftp from ftp.demon.co.uk or downloaded from Arcade BBS (this version uses the serial block drivers, so is RISC OS 3 only). Ka9q commands may be abbreviated to the minimum length which remains unambiguous, so `smtp kick' and `sm k' have the same effect. In this document I will use the unabbreviated form for clarity. ESTABLISHING AN ACCOUNT ======================= Pick a site name (between 4 and 8 characters), and phone Demon Internet Services during office hours on 081 349 0063 to subscribe. Give them your site name (it's best to have a couple of alternates ready in case somebody else has already chosen that name), personal details and credit card number (you can order by letter and pay by cheque, but credit card gets you connected immediately). Choose a password (you don't tell the DIS people, but use your first login to let the system know which p/w you've chosen). Requirements may change, but you will probably need to choose something which doesn't contain a valid word and you will probably need to incorporate one or more numbers. You may even find that passwords composed of key clusters (such as `qwas' or `qwerty') will also be rejected. Use your comms program to dial a suitable DIS site (London 081 343 4848, Edinburgh 031 552 8883, Warrington 0925 411383). When it asks you to login enter your site name. You will then be asked for your password - it is not echoed to your screen, so you will be asked to enter it a second time to make sure you didn't mistype. The screen will then display your site's IP address - take care to note it down. The connection will close after 30s. Note that this procedure applies *only* to your first call - subsequent connections will require the use of ka9q. INSTALLATION ============ Although the program announces itself as ka9q, the application is called !TCPIP. Unpack it from the Sparkive to a convenient place on disc. You should also get an application called !MailDir - this is not an application as such but a repository for mail and news. n the examples that follow, I will use my site name (sktb) and my IP address ([158.152.9.18]) - you should replace them with your own site name and IP address (see previous section on establishing an account). Be careful to retain the original versions of all files that you modify - if you have problems you can return to a known starting point. You should check the following files in the !TCPIP folder: !TCPIP.Autoexec --------------- This is a file of ka9q commands which are executed when ka9q starts. Like any other commands they can be abbreviated, but it is probably best to use the long form. A #-sign is used to indicate a comment to ka9q. Remember that wherever you see `sktb' you should use your own site name, and wherever you see [158.152.9.18] you should use your own IP address. There will be a sample file !TCPIP.Autoexec, but in some versions this is for packet radio use - if you see the letters TNC throughout then delete it, look for a file called Autoslip and rename it as Autoexec. Some of the commands mentioned below are not supported by all versions of ka9q. Usually if a command is supported it will appear in the sample autoexec provided, although it may be commented out (the exceptions to this are the commands dealing with Usenet news which may not be present even if they are supported). If you try and use a command that your version doesn't understand it will complain... --- Versions of ka9q which support the serial block drivers (RISC OS 3 only) allow you to pipe the display to your favourite comms program (this will let you use various terminal emulations such as VT100 which can be very useful with some services). The command will look something like: window terminal external pipeb or window terminal internal to use ka9q's in-built display routines. The default is internal. --- With older versions of ka9q, any time it displayed some text in its window it would grab the input focus (so if you were editing something at the same time you'd suddenly find your keystrokes going to ka9q). Newer versions allow you to use: window cursor off which means that no caret will be displayed by ka9q, but that way it won't give you nasty surprises. You can turn it back on with: window cursor on --- Change the hostname line to reflect your site name, e.g.: hostname sktb.demon.co.uk --- Change the ip address to reflect the number allocated by DIS, e.g.: ip address [158.152.9.18] --- Modify the attach command to reflect your baud rate. Depending upon the version of ka9q this may take one of the following forms: 1) attach asy internal slip ax0 2048 1500 19200 2) attach asy internal slip 0 ax0 2048 1500 19200 3) attach asy internal slip ax0 1500 19200 Here `asy' indicates that the interface is an asynchronous serial port. The word `internal' specifies that the internal port be used. For some versions of ka9q (form 1 and 3) this is the *only* port which may be specified, but those versions which understand the serial block drivers (RISC OS 3 only) use form 2 where the port can be one of: internal 0 II_dual 0 II_dual 1 sp_dual 0 sp_dual 1 to indicate use of the internal port or the dual serial port cards from Intelligent Interfaces or The Serial Port. Note that the version which supports the serial block drivers will not work correctly *if* you have an II card and something else is using another port (including the internal serial port). This is of particular concern for BBSs as the BBS software will poll ports at regular intervals (even if nobody is using the BBS) - the fix is to shutdown the Board software and Binkley (this problem may be fixed in a future version of ka9q). The word `slip' indicates that the SLIP protocol should be used (Arc ka9q does not support any other protocol). The word `ax0' is a label used by other commands to refer to this port (use anything you like, but remember to be consistent - we'll stick with ax0 in these examples. The figure of 2048 is a buffer size, but the Arc version of ka9q ignores it. Some versions of Arc ka9q require it be present (forms 1 and 2) even though it is ignored, whilst some versions (form 3) require it to be absent - be guided by the example autoexec provided. The figure of 1500 is the maximum IP packet size - this is probably the optimal value for internet usage (lower values values in some versions derive from ham-radio usage). The figure of 19200 is the speed of the serial port - set this accordingly Some versions of ka9q may ignore this figure entirely and not change the serial port speed - they rely on your comms/dialer program setting things up. Put it in anyway... Note that older machines (A300 and A400 series) running RISC OS 3 may have problems with speeds above 9600 (there is a patch which fixes the problem in most cases). It is a good idea to ensure that the speed given here matches the speed your dialler/comms program uses to establish the connection to demon - some modems can handle a speed-change mid-call but some can't. --- Check that the default route is given as follows: route add default ax0 [158.152.1.65] 1 The address is that of gate.demon.co.uk, and need not be changed even if you dial in to a different node. The value of 1 at the end represents a routing `cost' - versions of ka9q from Jonathan Naylor do not use this (and may complain if it is present). --- Check that the IP time-to-live is given as: ip ttl 64 This determines the maximum number of hops a packet can take (the maximum number of routing sites it passes through). Older versions of ka9q may have a lower figure here - you should change it to 64 as the Internet has grown quite a bit since that version was released. --- Check that the TCP maximum segment size is 40 bytes smaller than the IP packet size given in the attach command - if you attached with an IP packet size of 1500 you would have tcp mss 1460 --- The value used for the initial round-trip time is a guess which is used until ka9q can measure the actual round-trip time. Ka9q assumes packets which take longer than the average round-trip time to arive have gone missing, so setting a high value initially will prevent a flurry of retransmissions. Typically this is given as tcp irtt 30000 --- The value for tcp window defines the maximum number of words of data can handle - in essence it defines a buffer size. Each time ka9q requests a packet from a remote site it tells it how much room is left in the buffer. This should be larger than the figure given in the `tcp mss' command or transfers will be inefficient, especially over slow links. Some versions of ka9q have the same value here as for tcp mss, and should be changed to: tcp window 15000 Note that different versions of ka9q have some very strange and conflicting ideas for the values of tcp window, tcp mss and the IP packet size specified in the attach command. I've chosen a value which is 10 times the IP packet size specified in the attach command. It is possible you may have to increase the value of WimpSlot set in !TCPIP.!Run to accomodate this, although I have had no problems with the existing value of WimpSlot. --- Some versions of ka9q have a hangup command, if so you will see tcp hangup 15 3 which hangs up the modem if there have been 3 consecutive idle periods of 15 seconds. The hangup is achieved by toggling the DTR line for one second, so you must configure the modem to respond to this. If you want to turn the timer off, use `tcp hangup 0 0'. Note that finger and ping commands do not count as activity, but that various wait states do - so if you are very unlucky ka9q may not hangup automatically. DIS also have an inactivity timer (which, for reasons of legal liability, they do NOT guarantee to operate), so you have to be extremely unlucky for the connection not to close. However, if you are planning unattended operation you may want to invest in a time-switch as well... Note to BBS sysops, a `tcp exit' command may appear in the next release to allow BBSs to automatically communicate with demon in the small hours and then return to BBS operation. --- Check that the domain suffix is correct: domain suffix demon.co.uk --- Decide if you want a logfile recording connections and activities. This file can grow very large if you forget to clear it out regularly, and a large logfile will slow things down quite a bit. If you want logging, use the command: log <TCPIP$Dir>.logfile Or remove the command/comment it out if you don't want logging. --- Start the echo server with: start echo This will allow your machine to echo characters to incoming telnet sessions if requested. --- Start the discard server with: start discard I'm not sure what this does, but every autoexec file I've seen has it in... --- If you wish to allow people to ftp to your machine to send you files or to take copies of your files, then start the ftp server: start ftp Note, you should edit the FTPusers file to reflect the degree of security you require - see later. --- You should start the smtp server so you can receive e-mail: start smtp --- If you would like other sites to be able to finger your machine to see which usernames exist and possibly get some info on you or your setup, start the finger server: start finger You will need to create information files for each user in the finger directory - see later. --- If you would like other sites to be able to telnet in for a chat, start the telnet server: start telnet --- During the initial stages of setting up you may wish to have the trace window appear for debugging purposes: trace ax0 112 Note that ax0 is the label given in the attach command. The trace window will slow things down tremendously - it is fairly undecipherable, but you should watch for error messages. You may see a `bad packet' message on startup, but there should be no errors after that. Closing the window kills the trace activity. --- When you telnet or ftp to a remote machine it is preferable to have the remote machine echo what you type rather than perform the echo locally. However, remote echoing of commands can slow command entry quite a bit. You turn remote echoing on with: echo accept or turn it off with echo refuse --- Define post.demon.co.uk to act as a mail-router with: smtp gateway [158.152.1.72] --- It's useful to get some feedback as the sending of outgoing mail progresses, as well as to get a message when all mail has been sent: smtp trace 1 --- To make outgoing mail be sent automatically when ka9q starts up, use: smtp kick --- If you are going to receive Usenet news, it's useful to see when news starts, what groups are being downloaded and when the session finishes: nntp trace 2 --- To tell ka9q where to get Usenet news from, put in: nntp addserver news.demon.co.uk 1800 Dem The figure of 1800 means that the ka9q will check for news every 1800s (30min). The `Dem' is an abbreviation prefixed to certain filenames used by to get Usenet news, it should consist of a maximum of 4 characters which are valid in a filename - in the remainder of this document we will stick with `Dem' in the examples. Note that you should be able to set up several different news servers, or drop a server and switch to another. In practice, none of this works on any existing version of ka9q - you're limited to a single news server. --- To start a news download initially, use: nntp kick Dem The very first version of ka9q which supported news downloads required the the full name of the news server be used instead of the abbreviation - so if you have that version you would use `nntp kick news.demon.co.uk'. News downloads can take a long time, so if you want to login between 13:00 and 18:00 to check for mail (something you might want to do if you work from home or the site belongs to a company) then you don't want news starting up and running up the phone bills, so leave this line out and enter it manually when you're on the cheap rate. --- Now to check for errors... Just run !TCPIP (no need to dial out first, it will work quite happily). If you've mistyped the name of a command ka9q will complain about an unknown command and tell you which line of Autoexec contains the error. Note that you should ignore the message `NNTP - No mail ID archive' if it appears - this is nothing to do with autoexec. !TCPIP.Domain ------------- This is a list of sitenames and their IP addresses. The purpose of it is to allow you to refer to sites by their sitename rather than by the IP address - it's much easier to remember micros.hensa.ac.uk (the microcomputer section of the Higher Education National Software Archive) than [148.88.8.84], so it's worthwhile building up this file. You must maintain this file manually - this is a bit of a pain whenever you want to ftp to a site you've never used before, and can cause problems when the name/address relationship changes. As with autoexec, a #-sign means the rest of the line is a comment. If you know a sitename but not the IP address you can use finger to look it up (see the section on the finger command) and enter it into this file. However, you should note that this file is read in by ka9q only on startup, so modifications to it will *not* be recognised until the next time you start up ka9q (the way around this problem is also discussed in the section on the finger command). Whichever ka9q you have, you should ensure it contains the following entries (note that the format is *not* the same as that described in the user manual). A future version of ka9q may support automatic address queries, at which point the only entries you need add by hand will be your own and the DIS machines. First ensure your sitename/address appears in both of the following formats (as usual, I will use my sitename/address as an example): sktb.demon.co.uk. IN A 158.152.9.18 Note that the `.' on the end of the sitename is a necessary part of the syntax, and that the square brackets normally associated with IP addresses are not used in this file. The `IN A' stands for `Internet Address' - PC versions of ka9q allow other types of record such as `MX' (mail alias). . IN A 158.152.9.18 The single `.' here ensures that the local site is used if no sitename is given in a command. --- It is useful to have the Points of Presence (dial-in sites), so you can finger them and see who's on. The name/address is unlikely to change. gate.demon.co.uk. IN A 158.152.1.65 # London PoP clootie.demon.co.uk. IN A 158.152.6.65 # Edinburgh PoP hel.demon.co.uk. IN A 158.152.5.194 # Warrington PoP --- The news server is necessary for the nntp addserver command, and the mail server is handy so you can finger yoursite@post and see how many messages are waiting. The password server allows you to change your password if you think it may have been compromised. The addresses for these functions have changed in the past (when mail and news handling was offloaded from gate onto separate machines) and it is possible that news may change again during the next twelve months. news.demon.co.uk. IN A 158.152.1.69 # news server post.demon.co.uk. IN A 158.152.1.72 # mail server password.demon.co.uk. IN A 158.152.1.68 # password server --- There are many useful files held by demon, so it is useful to have the address of the ftp server. The Internet Relay Chat host is fun, but may give you a heart attack when you see your phone bill. The addresses of these two sites are a little more volatile. Ftp access may be shunted to the machine with the biggest free disc space, whilst irc may move to follow spare CPU capacity. This is no great problem - if things break then finger ftp.demon.co.uk@gate.demon.co.uk (or irc...) to see what the new address is and change the entry in the file (this will not take effect until the next time you start up ka9q). ftp.demon.co.uk. IN A 158.152.1.68 # ftp server irc.demon.co.uk. IN A 158.152.1.74 # irc host !TCPIP.Finger ------------- This directory is used to hold textfiles relating to users on your system. When somebody fingers your site the names of the files in this directory are displayed on their screen as usernames. So, if you finger sktb.demon.co.uk (and sktb happens to be logged in to demon at the time) you will see a user called `pla' because I have a file called !TCPIP.Finger.pla. If you then finger pla@sktb.demon.co.uk the contents of the `pla' file is displayed on your screen. You can put any info you want in here - full name, whether your site is your home connection or a company, the equipment you use, interests, etc. It is not a good idea to put in your full address - I don't know if any burglars use the internet, but why risk telling them where to go for computer equipment? You can finger your own site to see what the display will look like to others. Of course, for this directory to be of use, you must have started the finger server. Note that the usernames in this directory are for informational purposes only - you do not need an entry in this directory for people to be able to e-mail a username. However, by having a list of usernames in this directory you allow people to find out what your *preferred* usernames are. !TCPIP.FTPusers --------------- This file controls who can ftp to your site (provided you have started the ftp server). Be *very* careful with this as you can leave your private files wide open. The file contains lines describing who can ftp to your site and what they can do, as follows: username password path permissions the user manual says there must be exactly one space between fields. A #-sign in column 1 denotes a comment. You can give access to many different users, such as guest, or anonymous. The password can be * (a single asterisk) which means that any password is acceptable. The path determines the effective CSD for that user - there are some important points to note: 1) You cannot specify a filing system in the path. 2) Unless the path exists on the currently-selected drive/filing system it won't be found, so you must ensure that the current drive/FS is correct if you want people to ftp to your machine. 3) Ka9q should prevent users changing directory to anywhere which does not start with the specified path, although it is rumoured that some early versions of Arc ka9q did not enforce this. The permissions field is a decimal number which determines access for read, create and write operations. The number is interpreted as a bit-mapped mask with the following interpretation: Decimal value Access Bit 0 1 File read Bit 1 2 File create/write (cannot overwrite an existing file) Bit 2 4 File create/write/overwrite existing file/delete existing file A value of 1 allows read-only access, 3 allows read/write/create access (but existing files may not be overwritten) and 7 allows read/write/create/delete access. For instance, to allow anonymous ftp to a directory $.ftp giving permission to download and upload files but not overwrite/delete existing files you would have anonymous * $.ftp 3 You might like to also have the commonly-used alternative of ftp * $.ftp 3 so people don't have to type `anonymous'... You can run ka9q without calling demon and ftp to yourself to check your setup and gain some familiarity with ftp. !TCPIP.DemGroup --------------- This is a file you create containing a list of Usenet newsgroups you wish to receive. Note that the `Dem' part of `DemGroup' was the abbreviation specified in the `nntp addserver' command in autoexec - if you chose a different abbreviation (4 chars max), you will need to change the name of this file accordingly. The simplest way of specifying groups is to put each group on a new line. Note that you should not leave any blank lines in the file or ka9q will get upset. comp.binaries.acorn comp.sys.acorn comp.sys.acorn.advocacy comp.sys.acorn.tech demon.announce demon.ip.support demon.ip.support.archimedes demon.local However, this format is not conducive to news.demon.co.uk finding articles very quickly as it will perform a linear search of the news database for articles in the first group, send them, search for articles in the second group... Things can be speeded up quite a bit by using wildcards: comp.binaries.acorn comp.sys.acorn* demon* Note that if you had put comp.sys.acorn.* (a `.' before the `*') then you would not receive comp.sys.acorn itself. There is another speed-up which can be performed, and that is to put the group names on one line, separated by commas. E.g., the previous example could be given as: comp.binaries.acorn,comp.sys.acorn*,demon* There should be no spaces anywhere on the line - although spaces would make it easier to read, it just won't work if you have: comp.binaries.acorn, comp.sys.acorn*, demon* Note that there is a limit on the maximum length of a groups line. Although the recommended limit is supposed to be 512 characters, Arc ka9q seems to be stuck with 256. You can't even use the full 256 because ka9q adds control information to the list, so a safe figure to use is 200 characters (2.5 rows in a full-width !Edit window). If your line is longer than ka9q can accept it will crash with a bad memory access - you have been warned. Although I have not tried it, you should also be able to use the `!' wildcard to negate matches. If you wanted all the comp.sys.acorn* groups except comp.sys.acorn.advocacy you should be able to use: comp.sys.acorn*,!comp.sys.acorn.adv* Note that this will *only* work if the two group specifications are on the same line and are therefore processed as part of the same request. If you want to know what groups are available, there are listings of all the groups in the seven main hierarchies and the mainstream alternative hierarchies (but not the national ones like uk or scot) posted monthly to news.announce.newusers - these listings have a brief (one or two line) description of what each group is about. If you want to know all the groups that DIS carry (but without descriptions), then you should ftp to ftp.demon.co.uk and get the file active.zip from the /pub/news directory. !TCPIP.DemLast --------------- This file holds the date and time of the start of your last *successful* news download (again, the `Dem' in `DemLast' is the abbreviation you gave in the `nntp addserver' command). When you ask for news, ka9q will use the information in this file to request all news which has appeared since that time. When your download finishes successfully this file is updated - that way, if news crashes in mid-download you can start again without missing anything. If this file is not present, ka9q will request all news since the first day of the current month - you don't *have* to create it, but if you don't your first news download could be *very* big... The file consists of two lines, the first for the date and the second for the time, as folllows: yymmdd hhmmss So, if your last news download was on the 21st of September 1993 at half-past seven (and a few seconds) in the evening the file would contain: 930921 193004 USING KA9Q ========== Logging in ---------- Ka9q is not capable of dialling DIS or logging in for you, so you must use your favourite comms program (or a dialler program) to do this *before* starting ka9q. Use your comms program to dial whichever DIS Port of Presence results in the cheapest phone charges. When you see the `Login:' prompt enter your site name (e.g., I would enter sktb). When you see the `Password:' prompt enter your password (it will not be echoed). Next you will see a `Protocol:' prompt - enter slip. Wait until you see the word `HELLO', then quit your comms program (with some comms programs like HearSay you can select the `off-line' option instead) and start up ka9q by double-clicking on !TCPIP. If you forget to quit your comms program or take it off-line it will `eat up' incoming data and nothing will work. You may experience problems if your comms program establishes the connection at a different speed to the one given in !TCP.Autoexec - some modems can cope with a speed change in mid-call, but many cannot. Note that if you have a smart comms program which allows login sequences to be handled automatically, the *only* words it should look for/act upon are Login, Password, Protocol and HELLO. Demon actually advise that you look for `ogin:', `word:', `ocol:' and HELLO as the checks are usually case-sensitive and you might get `Login' or `login', depending upon who last fiddled with the login software at the DIS end... Also note that ka9q assumes that you are using ReaderS to read news messages (mainly because Anthony Frost who wrote ReaderS added the support for news to Arc ka9q), and relies upon ReaderS's message history file to avoid downloading the same messages twice (this happens because you request new articles which arrived since the *start* of your last news download, so there can be overlaps). If you don't have ReaderS you will get the warning message `NNTP - No mail ID archive', which you can ignore. Entering commands ----------------- To enter commands, ensure the ka9q window has the input focus and type away. There is a problem with Acorn's `txt' routines in the C library which surfaces in programs which handle character-echoing themselves instead of allowing the `txt' routines to perform the echoing - sometimes you type a character and it doesn't appear until you type the next one. This can be confusing (did I press the key hard enough?) and there can be occasions (see section on finger) where you don't want another character to be entered - the answer is to press one of the cursor keys, this causes the missing character to show up without any side-effects. You will not see any modem activity as you type - you are entering a command to ka9q which then interprets it. If it is a command which results in ka9q sending data to the DIS Point of Presence (possibly to be passed on to a distant machine), then there will be a brief burst of modem activity when you press return. If you want to check your connection then the ping command is a quick and easy way of finding out if everything is working. If you use a command which requires a sitename to be specified (telnet, finger ping or ftp), and the site is in the demon.co.uk subdomain (i.e., DIS machines or subscribers) you can omit the `demon.co.uk' part. E.g., to change your password you could use `telnet password' instead of `telnet password.demon.co.uk'. Sitenames which do not end in `demon.co.uk' must be specified in full. If you see the error message `host <sitename> unknown' this means that there is no entry for <sitename> in !TCPIP.domain - if you know the numeric address you can use that instead - e.g., `finger @[158.152.9.18]' instead of `finger @sktb.demon.co.uk'. Ka9q will run perfectly happily even if you haven't dialled into DIS - the only difference is that no site other than your own will answer. This way you can learn how the various commands work and what sort of responses to expect without running up your phone bill. You can ftp to your own site and learn to how to find and transfer files, finger your own site to see how the !TCPIP.finger.<user> files you have set up will appear to other people, etc. You'll also catch any errors in your !TCPIP.Autoexec. Special Keys ------------ Ka9q recognises the following special keys: F10 and Ctrl-] return you to the net prompt when a session is active (see later for a discussion of sessions). F10 works only with ka9q's own window (window terminal internal) whilst Ctrl-] works when you pipe ka9q's I/O through your comms program. <-| The backspace key deletes characters from the line you've typed. <Escape> empties the line buffer - if you're typing a line and realise you made a mistake at the beginning, this is a lot quicker than using the backspace key. Ctrl-W deletes the last word in the line buffer - this is quicker than the backspace key but not as brutal as <Escape>. Ctrl-R repeats the line you're entering. This is useful when ka9q gives an informational message just as you fumble and are not sure what you typed. F3 recalls the last line you entered. This is handy if you want to repeat commands. Unfortunately it `loses' @-signs, so is not very useful with the finger command. It only works with ka9q's internal window. Help ---- The help command (or just ?) will list the available commands. You can get further help on most, but not all, commands which take arguments by following the command name with a space then a question mark, e.g.: smtp ? will list the possible arguments for the smtp command. Ping ---- A useful way of checking your connection is to ping the PoP you've dialled into - if you phoned the London PoP then `ping gate' should give you some modem activity and return the round-trip time (typically 250ms under light loading, up to a couple of seconds under heavy loading). Mail ---- Incoming mail is delivered automatically as soon as you login (it can take up to a minute under heavy loading to start up). Outgoing mail created before you started ka9q will be sent as soon as you login, provided you have the command `smtp kick' in your autoexec. If you create mail whilst connected, or the mail appears to be stuck, you can enter the `smtp kick' command manually. You can check how much incoming mail is waiting for you with the finger command (see section on finger). You can also use the smtp timer command to cause the mail queue to be scanned automatically at fixed intervals. I wouldn't advise using this - too long an interval and you'll have logged out before it kicks in, too short and ka9q will waste a lot of time repeatedly checking for outgoing mail. Mail to a particular username appears as a file in !MailDir.spool.mail.text and the filename is the same as the username (so mail to pla@sktb... appears as a textfile called `pla'). The upshot of this is that you *must* choose usernames which are valid RISC OS leaf-names (so paul.allen@sktb... would not work). In fact a DOS limitation has been retained and usernames must have no more than 8 characters (the required user called postmaster is handled as a special case and converted to `postmast'). I don't advise you to try reading mail with Edit - bad as the BM mailer is at creating mail, it's better than Edit for reading mail. There is no way of defining which usernames are acceptable and which aren't for incoming mail - as long as it's a valid leafname of 8 characters or less, people can send mail to it. However, you can indicate your preferred username(s) by creating entries for them in the !TCPIP.finger directory. Outgoing mail is placed in !MailDir.spool.mqueue.text - each message gets a unique number, and each message requires a correspondingly-numbered work file in !MailDir.spool.mqueue.work. I won't go into the formats of these files as I *definitely* wouldn't advise trying to create outgoing mail with Edit. However if you create e-mail you have the opportunity to tweak or delete it before firing up ka9q - just remember to remove the work file as well as the text file if you want to delete a message. Mail can only handle 7-bit characters, and some IBM machines have a habit of getting the ASCII/EBCDIC conversion wrong and mangling the odd character even then, so you can't mail Sparkives or other binary files to people. However, you can uuencode the file (an option Spark offers) which encodes the file so it will survive. The file will increase in size, but at least it can be sent. Arc ka9q differs from the PC versions in that all outgoing mail is routed via the smtp gateway defined in !TCPIP.Autoexec. Prior to this modification mail was sent directly to the site concerned (which meant that mail to other demon subscribers could not be sent unless they were logged on to DIS at the same time). Although this change means that mail takes slightly longer to reach its destination, it also means that you (generally) spend less on-line time sending it. News ---- News downloads are started using `nntp kick Dem' (assuming `Dem' was the abbreviation you used in the `nntp addserver' command in your autoexec). You will either have this command in your autoexec if you want news every time you login, or enter it manually to only collect news during cheap rates. No further interaction should be required on your part. Downloaded news appears in !MailDir or !MailDir.spool, depending on which version of ka9q you have. The file will be called DemNews (again assuming you used `Dem' as the abbreviation in the nntp addserver command), and there will also be a file called DemNG which lists all the new groups which have been created since you last downloaded news. You should look at DemNG to see if there's anything of interest, add the groups to !TCPIP.DemGroup as required then delete it (information is appended to DemNG, so if you don't delete it it will slowly grow and grow). You can read news with an editor, but if you want to see it presented more logically, and have the opportunity to reply you should get hold of a newsreader. You may notice that after ka9q requests a list of groups that activity is rather slow at first. This is because the news-server is searching an index to find articles in the appropriate groups which have arrived since your last news download - it passes the unique message-ID of each matching article to ka9q which puts the IDs in a temporary workfile !TCPIP.DemNew (see previous comments about `Dem'). Once the list is complete ka9q then requests each article in turn and there will be a lot of activity as the articles come down. If news terminates unsuccessfully (say you get cut off) then !TCPIP.DemNew may be left hanging around - don't worry about it. Note that if you've been on holiday you can reset the time in !TCPIP.DemLast so you don't get deluged with news - that's if you can live without it. Outgoing news articles are actually sent as e-mail. Depending on which newsreader you use they will be addressed either to mail2news@post.demon.co.uk (which allows cross-posting) or <newsgroup>@post.demon.co.uk (where the article is posted only to the group given in the address, e.g., comp.sys.acorn@post.demon.co.uk to post to comp.sys.acorn). Either way, you have the opportunity to tweak or remove them before firing up ka9q (see the section on Mail). By the way, there's a little more to creating a valid news posting than just addressing mail to mail2news, so don't be tempted to do it by hand... If news.demon.co.uk is heavily loaded it will refuse further connections - if there appears to be no activity use the tcp status command (explained later) to see if socket 119 is in use. If not, try the nntp kick command again, or logout and try later. Telnet ------ Telnet allows you to login to remote sites - just `telnet <site>' e.g., `telnet archie.doc.ic.ac.uk' to connect to the `archie' Internet archive listing service at Imperial College. For some sites a telnet session will behave as if you were logging in at a local terminal on that machine - you will be asked for a username and password (if you don't know a valid combination you won't get very far). If you telnet to information services you will usually be told a username and password to enter, or logged on automatically. Some sites may react to telnet connections in a special way: for instance you change your site's password by `telnet password.demon.co.uk' and following the instructions. You can even use telnet to explore the hidden depths of some protocols which build upon telnet by adding a `socket number' to the command, but that is outside the scope of this document. Most single-user machines (as used by many demon subscribers) will enter a chat mode if you telnet to them - you can talk to your friends whilst news downloads. If the person you're chatting to is using a PC you should telnet to socket 87 by `telnet <site> 87' or they will have a hard time of things. Telnet is one of the ka9q commands which runs in its own `session' - you should read the next section to see what this means. Depending on what you telnet to, you might need to use logout, logoff, quit or exit to finish (if you telnet to someone for a chat you have to return to the net prompt and close the session - see next section). If ka9q complains of an unknown host you will have to find the IP address (see section on finger) and telnet to that instead until you update your domain file. Sessions -------- Some ka9q commands (such as telnet and ftp) create a `session' - you can have several sessions running simultaneously and switch between them (*only* if you're using the `internal' window and not piping i/o through your comms program). If you've entered a telnet command the title of the ka9q window will change from `NET <version>' to `Telent - <site>'. Also the command prompt `net>' will no longer be present. Anything you type now will be sent to the remote site (after you press return). You can return to the ka9q command line by pressing F10 (this *only* works with the `internal' window, if you pipe i/o through your comms program use Ctrl-] instead) - the `net>' prompt returns and the window title reverts to `Net <version>'. Back at the `net>' prompt you can enter ka9q commands again, but the telnet session isn't dead - it's just hiding. If you type the command `session' at the net prompt it will list all active sessions - they each have a number and you can return to them by entering `session <number>'. One of the sessions will have an asterisk by it - that is the session you were most recently using, and pressing return at the `net>' prompt will (usually) return to it. If you close the session (say by logging out of a telnet session or quitting an ftp session) once the remote site has acknowledged you will be returned to the `net>' prompt. If you can't work out how to finish a particular session (you can't logout if you're using telnet to chat to someone), you can kill a session with the `close' command - e.g., F10 followed by `close <session number>'. Note that whilst you are in a session you will still see informational messages from ka9q (for instance mail and news progress) - this is useful because you don't have to return to the `net>' prompt to see how things are going, but it's also a bit of a pain because they appear in the middle of what you're typing. Sometimes the `net>' prompt doesn't appear after you press F10 - check the window title to see where you are. Sessions buffer information sent from the remote machine whilst you're in another session or at the `net>' prompt - to a degree. I don't know what the limit is - certainly 1 line, maybe 2. It might even be more, but I have a vague feeling that it isn't very much. If someone telnets to you for a chat, you will see a message like `Incoming Telnet session 2 from 158.152.9.18:1003'. The `2' in the example is the session number (so use `session 2' to connect to it), the `158.152.9.18' is the IP address of the site telnetting to you, and the `:1003' is a sequentially-assigned socket number (which you can ignore). If you don't feel like chatting to that person, just ignore the message... Ftp --- Ftp connections run as ka9q sessions and start out a little like telnet sessions in that you usually have to login. After that you send commands to the remote ftp server to change directories, examine directory listings, get files, etc. Usually you will be using anonymous ftp - that means you give a username `anonymous' (some sites accept ftp as an alternative) and give your full e-mail address as a password (some sites ask for an `ident' - then you need only give your username). One site which is handy to try for test purposes is ftp.demon.co.uk, which you can connect to with the command ftp ftp.demon.co.uk or even just ftp ftp. Another thing you can try is to ftp to yourself with the modem offline (keeps the phone bills down whilst you familiarize yourself with the commands). If ka9q complains of an unknown host you will have to find the IP address (see section on finger) and ftp to that instead. Most ftp sites use a restricted Unix style syntax (though there are variations). You will also find that with most ftp sites you can give the minumum unique abbreviation for a command, e.g., `c' can be used instead of `cd'. Useful commands (which are usually accepted): quit this quits the ftp session, and will (after the remote machine acknowledges it) return you to the `net>' prompt. Be careful that you only enter this command when you are connected to an ftp session, if you type it at the `net>' prompt ka9q will exit. This command cannot be abbreviated. ls brief directory listing giving names of files and directories, but you probably won't be told which is which. dir full directory listing, giving file sizes, ownerships and some method of distinguishing ownership (on Unix you will see a string of letters denoting access permissions - `r' for read-only, etc. - directories have a `d' in there somwhere). cd change directory. Usually you change to a subdirectory with `cd <subdirectory>'. You can move back up the directory tree with `cd ..' (sometimes you can also use `cdup'). The usual directory separator on unix systems is `/' and you can traverse more than one level if you wish, e.g.: cd foo cd bar cd fubb could be replaced by cd foo/bar/fubb The root directory is specified as `/', so `cd /' will take you to the root directory, whilst `cd /pub' will take you to the `pub' (public) directory (on the Arc this would be called $.pub). Many ftp sites make /pub your CSD when you connect, and those which do often prevent you straying - frequently if you type `cd /' you will end up in /pub. Note that when you ftp to ftp.demon.co.uk you will be placed in the `real' root directory. get get a file. The file will be placed in your CSD, wherever that happens to be when you issue the file. The format is `get <file>'. Ka9q will try to create a file with the same name - which will fail if you try and get something which isn't a valid RISC OS leafname (like name.ext, verylongfilename or $^@). To fix this problem you can specify a local filename in the command, e.g.: get verylongfilename$.zip localfile which will copy the remote file to `localfile'. Arc ka9q does not support the `mget' (multiple get) command which allows you to transfer several files at once by using wildcards, so you'll have to do it the hard way. type this shows or sets the type of file to be transferred. Different OSs have different conventions about end-of-line markers for text files (as you will realise if you've ever seen a DOS textfile in a Spark archive). You can tell ftp to convert end-of-line markers from the conventions on the remote system to Archimedes conventions with: type a where the `a' stands for ASCII (do this *before* you use the get command). Obviously you don't want this conversion to take place if you are transferring an archive, executable or similar binary (non-text) file, so for this you use: type i where the `i' stands for image. On most systems you can also use `type b' instead of `type i' (the `b' stands for `binary') and sometimes you can enter just `image' or `binary' (sometimes even `i' or `b'). Similarly you can often enter `ascii' to select ASCII transfer. The default type is usually ASCII, but you can check by just entering `type' without an argument. You may forget to set the type at first, but once you've transferred a big Sparkive in ASCII mode you'll not forget again... Unix compressed file (readable with Spark) normally end in `.Z' - so if you grab one of these you need type i. put this transfers a file *to* the remote site. Obviously sites are a little more sensitive about this sort of thing. DIS allow uploads (of *useful* software, usually having some relevance to their subscribers - e.g., an improved mailer) to /incoming - you should then e-mail a description of the file, what machine it's for, etc. to uploads@demon.co.uk. abort when you realise you've started to get the wrong file, or you've set the wrong type, or conditions mean the transfer has slowed to a crawl, abort will kill the transfer. Some ftp servers are rather antisocial and perform a quit when you abort (so if you aborted because you had the wrong file you then have to start a new ftp session to get the right one. hash this is a very useful command which puts a #-sign on the screen every time a block of data has been transferred so you can estimate progress. This just doesn't work on the Arc, so when people tell you about it, ignore them. Whenever you type an ftp command you will (eventually) receive an acknowledgement message (usually prefixed by something like `220-', which you can ignore). This can be confusing during a get operation as the acknowledgement that the get command is being processed can come well into the file transfer, and the wording is such that it is easy to mis-interpret it as meaning the file transfer is complete. One way to check is to enter `xxx' - if the transfer is in progress you will be told that the only acceptable command is abort (though quit will often also be accepted), whilst if the transfer has actually completed you will be told that the command `xxx' is not understood. Actually, and somewhat perversely, the message telling you that the file transfer is complete can appear while there are still blocks of data in the pipeline - so check the modem lights before quitting... Most ftp sites have a textfile in the root directory which lists all the files available for transfer. On Unix systems this is called `ls-lR' (Unix filenames are case-sensitive) because the command to recursively list all files is ls-lR. Other systems may have something called 000directory.list - you'll just have to look in the root directory until you spot something that looks like it might be the file listing. The DIS ls-lR listing is just under a megabyte, so if you want Archimedes- related files (what few there are) just cd to /pub/archimedes and do an ls. If you are looking for DOS files (why?) DIS mirror (keep an automatically- updated copy) of the famous SIMTEL-20 archive of PD DOS files (this is maintained by the US military, although it is in the process of being moved from the White Sands Missile Range). Note that you receive no warning message if someone is ftp-ing to you, so be careful about security (see the section on the FTPusers file). Finger ------ Finger also runs as a session, but it is transitory in nature and once the (limited quantity of) information has been provided the session will close automatically. Note that if it's taking finger a long time to return the information and you leave the session then the information will be lost if it comes in whilst you're away. Do not type anything into a finger session - for some reason this prevents the information ever being sent (remember the display bug where characters appear to get lost - this can affect the carriage return at the end of the command - the solution is to press one of the cursor keys). Finger sessions can also get confused if you set more than one in motion at once... If someone fingers you, you will see a message like `You're being fingered by 158.152.9.18:1005!'. The `158.152.9.18' is the IP address of the site telnetting to you, and the `:1005' is a sequentially-assigned socket number (which you can ignore). Demon have a modified finger server running on gate and post: if you finger <site>@gate it will tell you the IP address and other (possibly) useful info. Note that when <site> is a DIS address you give the *full* sitename - e.g., finger sktb.demon.co.uk@gate will give you the IP address [158.152.9.18]. Remember that even if you modify your domain file this will not take effect until the next time you start ka9q, so if you wanted to telnet in for a chat during that connection you would need to use the numeric form of the address (telnet [158.152.9.18] instead of telnet sktb). The modified finger server on post also serves another function when used with *abbreviated* sitenames of DIS subscribers - it tells you how many mail messages are waiting for that site. E.g., finger sktb@post will tell you how many messages are waiting for sktb. If you finger your own sitename you will also be told who each message is from and to. Hanging up ---------- Enter the `quit' command or select the quit option from ka9q's icon-bar menu, then use your comms program to hangup the modem. Most versions of ka9q scramble the serial port when they exit (which persists even though both Jonathan and Anthony changed the code to try and fix it) - you can send data out (which is why you can use your comms program to hangup), but incoming data vanishes into thin air. The only cure is to quit your comms program and reinstall it (occasionally you may have to do this a couple of times). It is possible that the version of ka9q which supports serial block drivers does not suffer from this problem, but I've never used it so can't be sure. Other Commands -------------- Other useful commands include: Record this allows you to record a telnet session to a file. Use: record <file> to record the current session (the one marked with the asterisk when you use the `session' command into <file>. When you're finished, use `record off' to finish. Note that you cannot record ftp sessions. Theoretically you can record finger sessions, but in practice the incoming information usually vanishes before you can start recording. asystat shows how many characters have been transmitted/received and how many overruns occured. ip status shows how many ip packets have been transmitted/received and how many errors of various sorts have occured. It is a good idea to check this (and asystat) during your first-ever connection to DIS. If there are lots of overruns or errors then you may have a problem with your serial port not coping with the speed (a problem which occurs frequently with RISC OS 3 - get hold of the serial port patch). tcp status this lists all the tcpip connections. Even if you aren't doing anything, connections will be shown for the various servers you started in autoexec (like start smtp, echo, discard, etc.) but if the number against the `remote socket' for a connection is 0.0.0.0:0 then that connection is not in active use. You can use this as a way of checking that it's safe to logoff, or if you see unexplained disc activity you can check if someone is ftp-ing to you (remember you get no warning message) - look for a local socket number ending in :21 with a remote socket number other than 0.0.0.0:0. Bugs ---- Apart from problems already mentioned, there is a bug which until recently affected all versions of ka9q on all platforms - this concerns the transfer of mail and news in both directions (the latest PC ka9q has fixed the bug for mail but not for news). Any outgoing news/mail message which has a line starting with a full stop (.) should have another full stop appended to it by ka9q before that line is sent to the remote site. Any incoming news/mail message which has one or more full stops at the start of the line should have the first full stop removed. The net effect is that as long as both sites perform these actions, the messages will end up the same as they started (why this has to be done at all is to do with the mechanics of the message transfer). Unfortunately ka9q does not do either action, so outgoing news/mail which has a full stop at the start of the line will end up without one, whilst incoming news/mail which ought to have a a single full stop at the start of a line will have two. This is not usually a serious problem, with one exception. Uuencoded files (see the section on Mail) sometimes have the penultimate line start with a dot (only the penultimate line can ever start with a dot, and even this is rare) - the dot gets doubled and the archive is corrupted. I found this problem when I obtained a uuencoded archive from the Newcastle info-server and it was corrupted - it took a long time for all concerned to figure out what had gone wrong. BM == BM is the horrible mailer which comes with ka9q (on the occasions Anthony Frost actually remembers to include it). It is a real pain to use, and is something you only perservere with until you get something better (like ReaderS). Installation ------------ You need to modify !BM.BMconfig to reflect your details. As an example, mine looks like: host sktb.demon.co.uk user pla fullname Paul L. Allen reply pla@sktb.demon.co.uk You should replace the sktb.demon.co.uk with your own fully-specified site name. The user is the username you will use to send/receive mail (remember the username must be a valid RISC OS leafname, and have a maximum of 8 chars). Fullname is your own name (or a pseudonym if that's what you want). Reply is the address which is inserted into the `Reply-to:' field of your messages - try and get this one right or you won't get any replies. BM can only handle a single user (so remember to check the postmast mailbox by hand occasionally), but you can get round this by having several config files named after users, and using obey files to delete BMconfig and copy the appropriate config file to BMconfig. Some versions of BM allow you to create a file !BM.Sig, the contents of which are appended to the end of any mail message you create. This usually holds some informative or witty comment - it is considered bad taste and a waste of bandwidth to have more than 3 lines of signature. Using ----- BM has many problems. 1) Lines do not automatically wrap, so you must insert carriage returns manually at the end of each line. If your lines are longer than 80 characters (because you forgot to press return) you will annoy people, if they're longer than 1024 characters they will be truncated en-route and people will miss your words of wisdom. 2) It isn't a cursor-driven text editor. You can type, and you can use the delete key - that's all. And once you've pressed the return key that line is cast in stone. 3) You can't quote bits of other people's messages when you reply. 4) There is a command (~r) that allows you to include a pre-prepared text file, but it doesn't seem to work. It is possible to work around some of these problems (but if you do this make *sure* you haven't used ka9q's `smpt timer' command to have ka9q scan for mail every so often or a half-formed message may go out). For new mail use BM to set up the address and subject, and send a blank message (no text). Then go to !MailDir.spool.mqueue.text and use Edit to write the body of the message into the blank. For replies, use BM's save option to save the incoming message. Then use the reply option to reply to the message, but again send a blank message. Use edit on the saved message to `quote' it and compose your reply. So if the incoming message said: Hello Paul. How are you? The first stage would be to `quote' it (indicate which bits came from the original message - this is conventionally done by prefixing the lines with a `>' character: Then indicate that you are in fact replying by adding something along the lines of: In message <1234@foo.bar.com> you wrote: > Hello Paul. > How are you? Next, insert your own comments, and trim out any excess quoting In message <1234@foo.bar.com> you wrote: > How are you? I'm fine thanks. How are you? Note that the `> Hello Paul' was deleted - the sender doesn't want to see that again, but the `> How are you?' was retained to jog his memory as to what your answer refers to. Finally use Edit to take your composed message and insert it into the blank message in !MailDir.spool.mqueue.text. Alternatives ------------ After you get fed up with BM (which will be very shortly after you start playing with it), you might want to consider using ReaderS which handles both mail and news. Send 10 (the bulk of which is divided between the RNLI and the Cornwall Air Ambulance Trust) to Anthony Frost VCS Kernow 10 Whiterocks Park St Anns Chapel Gunnislake Cornwall PL 18 9EF