MW> I am having real problems with the netmail option on QWKRR I have been sending internet messages to a friend for a while and if I send them through QWKRR he doesn't receive them at all.
This doesn't really surprise me. QWKRR wasn't written with any consideration for Internet mail whatsoever.. And to make matters worse, neither was the entire QWK format.
MW> I have tried all the netmail formats (12 I think) and still no luck.
The "key" to sending netmail (or internet mail) is in knowing: 1. What the QWK format allows. 2. What is required by your mail door. 3. What is required by the Internet itself, and 4. What the QWKRR "autonet" routines actually do.
MW> I was wondering if you can help me there,
I'll do my best.
MW> when I look at the mail I send out while online with the bbs, in the header (if I can call it that) it says:
To: UUCP@1:250/98
From: Mark Wigston
MW> then in the regular message section of the netmail the first line is blank then the second line has the internet address like this:
To: neil@yorku.ca
Thanks for this very vital piece of information. Without it I'd not be of much help at all.
MW> I hope you can help me with this as the only way I can send internet e-mail now is to do it while online
I assume that your online "internet" mail goes out ok ? (if not then I'm wasting my time).
Now, before I go any further, from what you have said, your BBS doesn't have its own direct link to the internet.. as such, any internet mail you send (or recieve) is going through what is known as a "UUCP gateway" I will warn you now that this method of passing mail between fidonet and the Internet is never reliable at the best of times, and since the sysops of such gateways invariably pay for the gating of this mail out of their own pockets there have been a number of such gateways that have closed down in recent times.
First up, you need to know how a gated message travels from you to the final reciever.. this is kinda important to know. because it affects your addressing.
Using your online sample above, you mail will be passed from your BBS via FIDOnetmail to the UUCP gate, as specified in the TO field. In your case it is:
MW> To: UUCP@1:250/98
Since it travels via fido, you message could be going through several systems before it reaches the gateway.
When the mail reaches this gateway, the first few lines of the message are evaluated for an Internet address.. in your example, this appears to be the second line of the message.. namely...
MW> blank then the second line has the internet address like this
To: neil@yorku.ca
If this is found, the message gets processed by an internet type mailer and your message then goes pretty well direct to its destination.
As you have found, this is pretty easy to do online, however, when it comes to doing it offline we run into problems.. the QWK mail format made no provision for FIDO netmail whatsoever, and as explained above, your mail *must* travel via the FIDOnet netmail system to reach the UUCP gating system.
Even ignoring the internet gating, the QWK format doesn't officially cater for netmail, however, the authors of MOST QWK mail doors have developed their own "kludges" to pass on netmail. The most common format (Qmail) being to place the destination persons NAME in the TO field (like a regular echomail message), and on the FIRST line of the message, the destination address (preceded by a predefined sequence of characters). In the case of "Qmail", this is "To: ", so the first line of the message will read
To: <destination address>
(This is a FIDOnet address remember.. we are ignoring Internet at this stage).
Other formats (depending on the mail door) are
@> <destination address>
or even just
@<destination address>
When you upload such messages to your BBS it will extract the ADDRESS from the first line of the message, and route your mail to that address. If you look at such messages online you will *probably* see that your first line (which held the address) has been totally stripped, and the "TO" field will be modified to read
<name>@<address>
Are you still with me ? Good..
Now, Because when I was developing QWKRR I was sending a fair bit of netmail, AND I was using two different BBS's to do this, AND because they both used different addressing formats (one required "To: <address>", the other required "@> <address>" I decided to create an address book, and a method to automatically use the correct addressing format for whatever BBS I was using.. This is what I called the "Auto-net" routines. They determine the BBS being used from the control.dat file, and it looks for a "definition" file for that system. These files can be seen on disk (if any exist), with the name <BBSID>.NET (where "BBSID" is the Identifier of that particular BBS). This definition file tells QWKRR what message area is for NETmail messages, and what address format to apply when messages are posted in that echo. These are the autonet setup options. What it means for the end user is once they have set up these options to send NETmail on any particular BBS, they need not worry about remembering what format to use.. They supply the destination address (or grab it from the phone book), and QWKRR will automatically add the address format and the address to the first line of the message AS IT IS BEING SAVED.
If you're not sure what I mean here, load QWKRR, define a netmail area, and a format to use, then post a message, giving a valid fido address at the appropriate prompt. Save the message. Now, without changing anything, enter another message in this same area, but this time leave the address line blank.. This will cause the QWKRR auto-net routines to be disabled. Save the message. Now, ZIP the two replies, and rename your reply packet to "messages.dat", place it in the same directory as the control.dat, then read it with QWKRR. You will notice that the *only* difference between them is that one will have the address line inserted, and the other will be exactly as you typed it.
Now we come to the fun stuff... To send Internet mail via a fidonet gateway, you first need to be able to send regular fidoNETmail via your BBS.. IF YOU CAN'T DO THIS THEN FORGET ABOUT SENDING GATED INTERNET MAIL.
OK, so you can send regular Fidonet mail from your QWK reader, what now? Simple, we replicate the formatting that the online mailer uses to route gated internet mail.
As we have determined, such messages need to go to UUCP at 1:250/98 So this is where you must first concentrate on. First up, lets forget about the QWKRR autonet routines.. load QWKRR go to the netmail setup options, and define the format as "manual", OR simply delete the <BBSID>.NET file from your disk.. in either case, all automatic formating will be disabled.. You will be doing this manually (like just about every other QWK OLR ever written). Let us assume that for NETmail your system requires "@><address>", so to send netmail to the UUCP gateway you will place "UUCP" in the TO field of the message, then on the FIRST line of the message you place @>1:250/98
If you write your message and send it now, when you upload the message, your mail door will extract the address from this first line (it may or may not physically delete the line as it does so. I'll assume it does) and you message will bounce around fidonet until it reaches its destination at 1:250/98.. This system will then evaluate your message and promplty toss it into the bit bucket because it can't fine a valid INTERNET address.. (Which you say is normally on line 2 of the message).
Back to the drawing board.
Compose your message again.. Address it to "UUCP", and again, on the first line of the message place the UUCP address.
@>1:250/98
Now on the second line of you message, place the INTERNET address that the UUCP gate is going to look for. Your message will now look like this
From: me
To : UUCP
---------------- end of header-------------
@>1:250/98
To: moranec@hal9000.net.au
Hi Gaelyne,
--------------------end of message-----------
Now if you upload and send this message it will probably STILL go into the bitbucket at the UUCP gate. Why ? Because YOUR BBS will have stripped the first message line "@>1:250/98" so the "To: moranec@hal9000.net.au will now be on the FIRST line of the message when it reaches the UUCP gate. In order to have this on the SECOND line of the message (as your gate seems to use), then you'll need to place this address on the THIRD line of the message. Course, if your home BBS *doesn't* strip this first line, then the above format will work.
What I'm trying to impress upon you here is that there is nothing magic or mysterious about it, but you really must know what your local BBS requires for netmail, AND what the gating system requires to pass the mail onto the internet.
FWIW, the "@><address>" format isn't very common.. I used it mainly as an example of the fact that to send gated netmail you *may* require two different addressing formats.. one for you local BBS for its netmail format, and a different format for the UUCP gate.. In practice, your message could look like:
From : Me
To : UUCP
--------------------------------
To:1:250/98 To:moranec@hal9000.net.au
Hi Gaelyne,
---------------------------------------
Also note that *spacing* is often important to.. eg
To: 1:250/98 may work fine, where as To:1:250/98 will barf.
Once you can send UUCP gated Internet mail by typing in the relevent addresses in your mail packet, then and only then should you consider using QWKRR's Autonet routines to help simplify matters. As already mentioned (and proven), these routines simply add the first line to a message, using a pre-defined format.. Since this will be common for normal netmail AND the gated internet mail it can releive some of your burden.. You set QWKRR to use the format used for netmail, eg "@>" and you add an entry to your address book of UUCP, with the address of 1:250/98. When this is done, to send your Internet mail, you use QWKRR's auto-net routine to add the gateway address (select it from the address book), then on the first (or second, from the info you gave me) line of your message you place the internet address, in the form of
To: moranec@hal9000.net.au.
When you save this message now, if you inspect it, you will find that QWKRR has inserted the address of the UUCP gate into the first line of the message, and moved subsequent lines down. If you have followed me up to this point, this should be kinda obvious. If it isn't, then go back and re-read the entire thing again, and this time do those checks I mentioned.
There are a lot of things that need to be RIGHT, and although QWKRR 's autonet routines can simplify or automate some of them, you are best of trying to do it manually first, until you get it right.. otherwise they only complicate matters even more.
