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┌╦═════════╦┐┌╦════╦════╦┐┌╦┐ ┌╦┐ │║ ║││║ ║ ║││║ ║│ │║ ║││║ ║ ║││║ ║│ │╠═════════╣││║ └╩┘ ║││║ ║│ │║ ║││║ ║││║ ║│ │║ ║││║ ║││║ ║│ │║ ║││║ ║││║ ║│ 3.10 └╩┘ └╩┘└╩┘ └╩┘└╩═════════╩┘ The Automated Maintenance Utility by David L. Hickey Table of Contents 1 Introduction 1.1 What is AMU? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1.2 Hardware and software requirements . . . . . . . . 2 1.3 Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 1.4 License and disclaimer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 2 AMUCFG.EXE 2.1 Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 2.2 System Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 2.3 File Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 2.4 User/Msg Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 2.5 Bulletin Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 2.6 File List Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 2.7 External Utilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 2.8 Archives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 2.9 Maintenance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 2.10 Edit Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 2.11 Command Line Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 3 AMU.EXE 3.1 Operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 3.2 Command Line Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 4 Registration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 5 Credits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 6 Technical notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 AMU Automated Maintenance Utility Page 1 1 - Introduction 1.1 - What is AMU? AMU is designed to incorporate many popular options into a single program, thus eliminating the need to use several small utilities. AMU's predecessor was RAMAN ( RemoteAccess Manager ) which was first released on 02 January 1991. Many things were learned from RAMAN's life, and these things were reflected in what is now AMU. AMU v3.10 is available in 16bit DOS, 32bit DPMI, 32bit OS/2, and 32bit Windows versions. The DOS and DPMI versions are distributed together as AMU310D.ZIP, the OS/2 version as AMU310P.ZIP, and the Windows version as AMU310W.ZIP. Each archive has been compressed using Pkzip 2.04g with authenticity verification. When you unzip your copy, if you did NOT see: Authentic files verified! #MJO229 DAVID HICKEY the archive may have been tampered with. You may NOT change the contents of or change the format of the original distribution ZIP archive. AMU Automated Maintenance Utility Page 2 1.2 - Hardware and software requirements AMU supports the following BBS packages: * Concord 0.01 * LoraBBS 2.40 * Maximus 2.02 - 3.01 * ProBoard 2.15 * QuickBBS 2.76a, 2.81 * RemoteAccess 1.11 - 2.50 * SuperBBS 1.17-3 AMU will also recognize the log file formats of D'Bridge, Portal of Power, InterMail, BinkleyTerm, FrontDoor, MainDoor, Bluewave, McMail, Xenia, JC-QWK, Silver Xpress, and OLMS. As far as hardware is concerned, if you are running any of the mentioned packages, you already have the proper hardware to run AMU. AMU requires a minimum of 300k of RAM to run. The DOS version will require more depending upon how large each of your file areas are. For example, if your largest file area is roughly 100k, AMU will require 400k total to execute properly. There are some external programs that are called by AMU as needed. They are (de)compression utilities for the following archive formats: ARC, ARJ, LZH, PAK, SQZ, HAP, RAR, UC2, ZIP, and ZOO. Also up to five (5) virus scanners may be used. One or more of these may be required depending on the options you enable. AMU Automated Maintenance Utility Page 3 1.3 - Features * Sort file listings alphabetically * Add headers to file listings * Update download counters for BBS and Mailer logs * Pack the file database (RemoteAccess & Concord only) * Adopt missing files * Remove orphaned file entries from file listings * Create FILE_ID.DIZ or DESC.SDI file descriptions for the files in your download areas. * Backup file listings * Rearchive files * Scan files for virus infection (notifies Sysop if virus found) * Add comments to ARJ, RAR, and ZIP files * Compress text files found in the file areas * Move files with no description * Move or delete files older than X days * Perform maintenance on a Daily, Weekly, Monthly, or Interval basis via control files * Post messages to new users * Post messages to users who upload * Post messages to users who drop carrier * Post messages to users on their birthday * Post messages to users when their subscription is about to expire * Inform users when their credit is low * Pick random menus/textfiles * Clean user records * Generate top user bulletins * Generate file area overview bulletin * Generate Message base overview bulletin * Generate Daily Upload and Download activity bulletin * Generate Doors Usage overview bulletin * Generate a Today's Birthdays bulletin * Generate a bulletin with a list of subscription expirations * Generate a Today's Callers bulletin * Generate a User List bulletin * All bulletins are fully configurable * Create Allfiles listings * Create Newfiles listings * Create dated archives * Trim files to a certain number of bytes * Promote/Demote users based on the number of files/kbs downloaded, uploaded, number of calls and posts, upload:download ratios, and Post:Call ratios, and subscription expiration. AMU Automated Maintenance Utility Page 4 * Support for the Hudson, GoldBase, JAM, *.MSG, and Squish message base formats * Create list of requestable directories * Message base locking for operation in a multi-node environment AMU Automated Maintenance Utility Page 5 1.4 - License and Disclaimer The Automated Maintenance Utility consists of all files contained within the distribution archive and is hereafter referred to as AMU. Before running AMU, you must read and agree to the following conditions. If you do not or can not agree to and accept all of the following conditions, you are prohibited from using AMU. * AMU is copyrighted material by David L. Hickey and may only be used in accordance with the conditions set forth in this license agreement. * AMU is being distributed under the " Shareware " concept. You may evaluate AMU for a period not to exceed thirty (30) calendar days. After thirty (30) calender days, you MUST either register AMU or stop using it. To register AMU, refer to Section 4 of this document. * All care has been taken to ensure that AMU does what this document states. However, AMU is provided as-is, without any warranties or guarantees of any kind, either expressed or implied. * In no event shall David L. Hickey be liable to you or to anyone else for any type of damages or costs incurred from the use of or inability to use AMU. * David L. Hickey is not obligated in any way to provide any future versions of or support for AMU. * In the event future versions of AMU are released, David L. Hickey reserves the rights not to release them under the shareware concept, and to charge a nominal upgrade charge should it be deemed appropriate. * AMU may not be used by, and/or distributed by any persons, organizations, or associations involved with/in any type of illegal activities including, but not limited to, the promoting or committing of software piracy. * AMU may only be used by, distributed by, and registered by physical persons and organizations who are not engaged in any type of illegal activity. The use of AMU in an environment where illegal activity is taking place is strictly prohibited. AMU Automated Maintenance Utility Page 6 * No compensation for the distribution of AMU may be charged or accepted without prior written permission from David L. Hickey. * AMU may not be altered, reverse engineered, or modified in any way. Only the original, unaltered AMU archive may be distributed. AMU Automated Maintenance Utility Page 7 2 - AMUCFG.EXE 2.1 - Installation If you are reading this file, the installation program has already installed the AMU executables to the proper directory. If you plan on running AMU from a directory other than the system directory, you should set the AMU environment variable to allow AMU to find it's data files. As an example, you would place the following line in your AUTOEXEC.BAT or CONFIG.SYS file: SET AMU=C:\AMU In addition, you must have your COMSPEC environment variable set to specify the location of your operating system's command processor. Examples for DOS, 4DOS, and OS/2 follow respecitively: SET COMSPEC=C:\COMMAND.COM SET COMSPEC=C:\4DOS.COM SET COMSPEC=C:\OS2\CMD.EXE If you are running AMUCFG under DESQview, you should have 'Writes directly to the screen' set to Yes in the window you will be running AMUCFG from. If you do not do this, it could cause some problems. Experimentation has also shown that running in Stealth mode under QEMM can cause sporadic problems. Each option is described in the order you will encounter them in AMUCFG. It is suggested that you print this document before setting up AMU so you can follow along. AMU Automated Maintenance Utility Page 8 2.2 - Configuration (System Data) Information pertaining to the type of software you are using, where various things are located, and other system information are defined in this section. 2.2.1 - System Sysop name Your real name. Your registration key will be generated according to what you define in this field. The key will be case sensitive which means that DAVID HICKEY is different than David Hickey. Sysop alias If you have an alias on your system, define it here. Otherwise, just enter your real name again. BBS name The name of your BBS. This field is not used to generate your keyfile. Date format The date format AMU should use in it's bulletins for your system. You may define a format of MM-DD-YY, MM-YY-DD, DD-MM-YY, DD-YY-MM, YY-DD-MM, or YY-MM-DD where 'MM' is the month, 'DD' is the day, and 'YY' is the year minus 1900. Swapping The method AMU should use to swap itself out of memory to execute an external program. Valid choices, in order of priority, are XMS/EMS/DISK, XMS/EMS, and DISK. This is applicable only for the 16bit DOS version. BBS Software Here you define the BBS software you are running. Mailer Software Here you define the type of mailer you are running, or 'None' if you are not running a mailer. Alias System If you run an Alias-Only system and do not want users' real names to appear in any bulletins or messages, set this option to Yes. Post Log If this is set to Yes, AMU will post a copy of the logfile for the current run to you in the Sysop message area. Post Errors If this is set to Yes, and AMU encountered any errors during it's run, it will post a list of those errors to you. AMU Automated Maintenance Utility Page 9 Post Area Message area where AMU can post messages to the sysop. Messages that would go into this area include the messages from the Post Log and Post Errors entries above as well as notification if a file fails a virus scan. Switch This option allows you to rotate your menus, textfiles, or just about any other file on your system on a random basis. The control information is found in SWITCH.CTL which is an ASCII text file in the AMU system directory of the following format: -<target1 name> <choice1> <choice2> <choice3> ... <choice50> -<target2 name> <choice1> ... <choice50> - This may seem a bit complex, so first is an explanation and then an example. The first line begins with a hyphen followed by the full path/filename of the file which is to be rotated. Next, you may define up to 50 possible files that this can be replaced by. You repeat this for as many target files as you'd like. The .CTL file is then terminated by one line with a hyphen in the first column. For example: -C:\RA\TXTFILES\NEWS.ANS C:\RA\TXTFILES\MAIN.ANS C:\RA\TXTFILES\LOGO.ANS -C:\RA\TXTFILES\NEWS.ASC C:\RA\TXTFILES\MAIN.ASC C:\RA\TXTFILES\LOGO.ASC - The file C:\RA\TXTFILES\NEWS.ANS may be replaced by either the MAIN.ANS or the LOGO.ANS file. (picked at random) The file C:\RA\TXTFILES\NEWS.ASC may be replaced by MAIN.ASC or LOGO.ASC, again, picked at random. The final hyphen denotes the end of the file. AMU Automated Maintenance Utility Page 10 Clean If this is set to Yes, AMU will attempt to tidy up your user files a bit in the location field. For example, if a user entered aNNAPOLIS, mD as their location, AMU would change this to Annapolis, Md. Log level Here you specify the amount of detail you want AMU to log to it's logfile. Minimal means that only errors are reported, Normal means that errors are reported as well as a report of which set of options are being executed, and Extensive includes a little more than Normal which can be helpful for debugging purposes. Old Config When AMU starts up, if it detects that your BBS configuration is different than the last time it ran, you can set it to Abort, Use the Old Data, or Import the New Data. Password Password required to access AMUCFG. Date Sep. The character you want AMU to use to separate portions of a date. For example, if today is January 26 1997 and you specify this to be a '-', AMU will display the date as 01-26-97. AMU Automated Maintenance Utility Page 11 2.2.2 - Pathnames AMU Path Directory where your AMU configuration files are located. Your AMU.KEY file will also go to this directory when you register. <hint, hint> BBS Path Directory to the message & file area configuration files for your BBS software. Work Path Directory where AMU can decompress archives. This should be located on a drive with plenty of free space. A RAM drive is not recommended. User Path Directory where your user files are located. HMB Path Directory to where your Hudson message base is located. If you are using the QuickBBS 2.80 GoldBase format, enter the path here to your GoldBase files. FDB Path If you are running RemoteAccess 2.xx or using Concord's file database, this is the directory where your filebase is located. CDROM List For RemoteAccess 1.11 systems, this is the directory where your FILES.nnn lists are located for your CD-ROM areas. AMU Automated Maintenance Utility Page 12 2.2.3 - Filenames AMU Log Path/filename for your AMU logfile. Freq Dirs Path/filename for the file which will contain a list of requestable directories. (described later) DOS Editor Path/filename of the external text editor you would like to use to edit your text/control files for AMU. The DOS version of AMUCFG will call the editor in this field. OS/2 Editor Path/filename of the external text editor you would like to use to edit your text/control files for AMU. The OS/2 version of AMUCFG will call the editor in this field, although it is not required that this be a native OS/2 editor. AMU Automated Maintenance Utility Page 13 2.2.4 - Logfiles In this section you can define up to 32,000 logfiles for AMU to look at. Several of AMU's options gather information from your system logfiles, and this is where you define each one that AMU should access. AMU will not know where your logfiles are located unless you enter them here! Filename Full path and filename of this logfile. Type What type of logfile is this - RemoteAccess, QuickBBS, ProBoard, etc. Enabled Whether or not AMU should use information from this logfile. AMU Automated Maintenance Utility Page 14 2.3 - Configuration (File Manager) On this menu you will set up the way AMU handles your file areas. There are two steps to this: first you define global settings which will affect all file areas, then you customize each individual area. 2.3.1 - Global Options On this menu you will define those options which affect all file areas you have AMU maintain. Missing Desc This is the default description to be used for files AMU's Adopt function adopts. Ext. Char For FILES.BBS based systems, it is necessary to use characters which indicate which lines are part of long descriptions as opposed to just extraneous comments. Here you may define up to 10 such characters. If you have AMU set up to import FILE_ID.DIZ type descriptions, it will use the first character you define here as it's default. Semicolon Ok? This is related to the above field. If you set this to Yes, AMU will treat the semicolon as a valid extended description delimiter. Ordinarily, lines which begin with a semicolon are treated as comment lines. Ext. Offset This is related to the above two fields. This is the column in which extended descriptions begin. When AMU reads the file entry it does not matter which column the extended descriptions are found in. However, when AMU rewrites the FILES.BBS, this is the column in which it will place the extended descriptions. Left Bracket This is the character used as the left delimiter for your download counters. The default is a '['. Right Bracket This is the character used as the right delimiter for your download counters. The default is a ']'. AMU Automated Maintenance Utility Page 15 Counter Width If this is non-zero, AMU will pad your download counters to have at least this many digits. If you have this set to two and the file has been downloaded 100 times, AMU will automatically expand the width for that file to three places rather than truncate it. If you set this to zero, it will disable download counters from being added. In fact, it will tell AMU to strip the download counters from your file listings. Max DIZ Lines This is the maximum number of lines you want AMU to import from FILE_ID.DIZ type files. If you set this to zero, AMU will import the entire description. Max DIZ Width This is the maximum width of each line imported from FILE_ID.DIZ type files. If this is non-zero and a line exceeds the specified value, that line will be truncated to the proper width. If you set this to zero, AMU will not care how long each line is. Mult Desc Lines If this is set to Yes, when AMU imports FILE_ID.DIZ type files it will import it line by line. If you set this to No, AMU will import the description as one long, continuous line. Some BBS packages such as Maximus require the description to be all on one line. Max Single Line If you have the above option set to No (which tells AMU to import FILE_ID.DIZ on one line), this is the maximum length of that line. Again, some packages have an upper limit of 255 or 1024 characters for their description lines. AMU Automated Maintenance Utility Page 16 Kill Bad Arcs This is a very powerful and potentially dangerous switch. If this is set to Yes, when an external decompression utility returns a non-zero errorlevel after attempting to decompress a file, AMU will assume that this means the archive is bad and will delete it. Use this with extreme caution! It is designed to aid Sysops in removing corrupted archives but if for some reason your decompression utilities are configured incorrectly and report that a file is bad when it is not, this could cause you to lose many files. If you are interested in using this option to clean out your file areas, I strongly recommend that you first run AMU with this turned Off so you can make sure the decompression utilities are not returning invalid errorlevels. Use this with caution!! Change Uploader This option is available only for RemoteAccess 2.02, RemoteAccess 2.50, and Concord 0.01 systems which are using the file database. If this option is turned On, AMU will insert the Sysop's name as the uploader for any file which has either no uploader specified or which has 'AMU' defined as the uploader. Skip Nested Arc If this option is set to Yes, AMU will not attempt to rearchive or perform a virus scan on nested archives. The default is to check and convert nested archives. Create File Lists If this option is set to Yes AMU will create the FILES.BBS or FDB for any area without one. AMU Automated Maintenance Utility Page 17 2.3.2 - File Area Manager This menu represents the heart of AMU - the actual file area maintenance options. Previous versions of AMU will perform each option one at a time on each file area which caused AMU to read, process, and rewrite each file area many times. Needless to say, this was not efficient. This version of AMU handles this in a "one pass" mode - when it starts, the first file area which has at least one option turned On is read into memory. From there, all option you have enabled for that file area are performed in memory, then the area is written back to disk. AMU then will move on to the next area. While the advantage to this is obvious, there is one significant disadvantage: Memory usage. If you have large file areas, it could take quite a bit of memory to read the entire area's information. This is, of course, not a concern for those using the DPMI, OS/2, or Windows version. However it can be a problem for those using the 16bit DOS version. For that reason, if you experience memory problems with the 16bit version and you have at least a 386 CPU, try running the DPMI version to solve this problem. Also, unlike previous versions, AMUCFG stores the file area information from your BBS configuration in CONFIG.AMU for optimal performance. If you change your BBS file area configuration, you must also run AMUCFG so it can update it's internal database. You will NOT lose any of your settings when AMUCFG re-imports the new file area information. To aid in configuring each file area, there are several function keys available which may be used: F2 - This will let you make Global changes to the file area settings. F3 - This will copy the settings of the current area to those you select. F4 - This will jump to a specified file area In addition, AMU does not support multi-volume archives. As such, if it encounters a multi-volume ARJ or RAR archive and you have turned on any option which would ordinarily cause the archive to be modified, those options will not be performed for the multi-volume archives. With that out of the way, here are the options available for each file area: AMU Automated Maintenance Utility Page 18 Storage Type This tells AMU how the current file area is stored. Valid choices are: FILES.BBS, RemoteAccess FDB, and Concord FDB. When AMU imports the file area information from your BBS configuration, it will automatically set this to the proper value. The option to change the storage type is offered for those who, for example, run a FILES.BBS based system but use an external door which allows them to utilize the RemoteAccess or Concord file database format. CD-ROM area This tells AMU whether or not the current file area is located on a CD-ROM. For those BBS packages which have a setting for this in their file area configuration, AMU will take care of setting this for you. However, some of the older software does not have such a setting and you will need to set this manually for your CD areas. Just use the Global Change option (F2) to easily make this change. Format This is related to the above option. If the current area is a CD-ROM area, there are three different formats it's FILES.BBS may be in. (if you are using the RA FDB or Concord FDB storage type, skip this option) Here you choose whether the format is in: <filename> <description>, <filename> <filesize> <description>, <filename> <date> <description>, <filename> <filesize> <date> <description>, or <filename> <date> <filesize> <description> Sort If this enabled, AMU will sort the file entries of the current file area in one of six methods which you choose below. AMU Automated Maintenance Utility Page 19 Sort Type Here you define the method in which you want AMU to sort this file area. Valid choices are: Normal - Alphabetical order (A-Z) Reverse - Reverse alphabetical order (Z-A) Normal, new first - A-Z order with newer files at the top Normal, old first - A-Z order with older files at the top Reverse, new first - Z-A order with newer files at the top Reverse, old first - Z-A order with older files at the top Headers This option allows AMU to add a header to the top of your file listings. The text for the header is found, by default, in the file AMU.HDR. You may, however, have unique headers for various file areas. For example, if you create a file called AMU23.HDR, the text in AMU23.HDR will be added for area #23 instead of the default text in AMU.HDR. There are several macros available for use in the .HDR files. The format of a macro is best described by example: @SYSOP<<<<<<<<<<<<@ This will be replaced by the name of the Sysop. The '<' tells AMU to left-justify the name, and the name will occupy 17 spaces (5 spaces taken up by 'SYSOP', and the additional 12 denoted by the extra '<'s. You can also use a '>' to tell it to be right justified, or a pipe ('|') to tell it to center the macro. If you do not want any formatting to take place, simply use the macro as-is, i.g. just put @SYSOP@ where you want the Sysop's name to appear Following is a list of valid macros: AMU Automated Maintenance Utility Page 20 @PRODUCT_ID@ - Replaced by the version of AMU you are running. For example, this version will replace this macro with "AMU 3.10" (no quotes) @SYSOP@ - Replaced by the Sysop's real name. @ALIAS@ - Replaced by the Sysop's alias. @BBSNAME@ - Replaced by the BBS name. @FILES@ - Replaced by the number of files in the current file area. @BYTES@ - Replaced by the number of bytes in the current file area. @BYTESK@ - Replaced by the number of kilobytes in the current file area (bytes / 1024). @DLS@ - Replaced by the number of downloads in the current file area. @TOPFILE@ - Replaced by the filename of the file that has been downloaded the most from the current area. @TOPDLS@ - Replaced by the number of times that @TOPFILE@ has been downloaded. @TOPSIZEB@ - Replaced by the number of bytes in @TOPFILE@ @TOPSIZEK@ - Replaced by the number of kilobytes in @TOPFILE@ @AREANUM@ - Replaced by the number of the current area. @AREANAME@ - Replaced by the name of the current area. @DATE@ - Replaced by the date on which AMU added this header. @TIME@ - Replaced by the time at which AMU added this header. @YEAR@ - Replaced by the current year (i.g. 1997) @MONTHNUM@ - Replaced by the number of the current month. (i.g. 6 for June) @MONTHNAME@ - Replaced by the name of the current month. (i.g. October) @DAYNUM@ - Replaced by the current day of the month. @DAYNAME@ - Replaced by the name of the current day. (i.g. Wednesday) AMU Automated Maintenance Utility Page 21 Old This option will take files that are older than a certain age and either move them to another file area or delete them. For RemoteAccess systems using the RA Filebase, if a file entry is marked as Locked, AMU will not move or delete it. In addition, this option looks for a text file called LOCKED.CTL in the AMU System Directory. Any file found in LOCKED.CTL will not be moved or deleted under any circumstances. If you are using the RA Filebase and have a LOCKED.CTL, AMU will set the Locked bit for the corresponding filebase entry of any file found in LOCKED.CTL. This file is a straight ASCII text file, one filename per line. Wildcards are not valid. See the next three options for additional settings for the Old option. Delete/Move Specifies whether the Old option should Delete old files or Move them to another file area. Days Old Specifies the number of days old a file must be for the Old option to process it. UL Date For RemoteAccess 2.xx systems, if this is set to Yes AMU will use the Upload Date in the FDB instead of the actual timestamp on the file to calculate the age of a file. New Area If you have configured the Old option to Move files to another file area, this is the file area to which they will be moved. This cannot be a CD-ROM area, obviously. Adopt If a file is found in a file area directory but is not listed in your file listing for that area, this option will "adopt" it. AMU looks for a file called NOADOPT.CTL while it is running. In this file you can define the names of files which you do NOT want AMU to adopt such as FILES.BBS, FILES.BAK, etc. The default description for adopted files is defined in the previous section (Global Options, section 2.3.1). Orphan If a file has an entry in the file listing but does not actually exist on disk, this option will remove it's entry from the listing. AMU Automated Maintenance Utility Page 22 BBS D/L's This option will update the download counters for any file downloaded from your BBS. This information is gathered from your BBS logfile. If a file was downloaded but does not have a download counter, AMU will add one for it. If you are running a RemoteAccess 2.xx system, it is not recommended that you enable this option if RA is updating the counters for you already. But if you do, RemoteAccess systems, the field in the FDB which records the date of the last time a file was downloaded will be updated as well. Mailer D/L's This option will look at your mailer's logfile(s) and update the download counters for any file which was sent from your system. Some files such as mail archives, .TIC files, .FLO files, etc are skipped since they are not really files on your BBS. For RemoteAccess systems, the field in the FDB which records the date of the last time a file was downloaded will be updated as well. Backup This option will create a backup of your file listings. Pack If you are running a BBS type which uses a file database as opposed to the standard FILES.BBS, this option will 'Pack' the file database. If you delete a file from your database, it will most likely only be marked for deletion. This option will physically remove any entries marked for deletion. AMU Automated Maintenance Utility Page 23 Rearchive This option will rearchive files into the archive format of your choice. While running, AMU looks for three files, if they exist: 1) NOREARC.CTL - You can specify the filenames of files which AMU should NOT convert in this file. 2) TRASH.CTL - You can specify the filenames of unwanted files in this file. After AMU has decompressed a file, it will check this .CTL file. Any file from the archive which is present in this .CTL file will be deleted prior to being recompressed. This effectively allows you to remove files such as BBS ads 'on the fly'. Since this alters the original archive, you should think hard before enabling this - most authors do not want their archives to be tampered with, and that includes ME! 3) ADD.CTL - This is the inverse of the TRASH.CTL file. Any file entered in ADD.CTL will be added to an archive when AMU recompresses it. The same warning applies here as for TRASH.CTL above. After AMU has converted an archive, it will update the extension and the filesize (if applicable) in the file listing. AMU will also convert 'nested archives', that is, archives within an archive. Format If the Rearchive option is enabled, this is the compression format you want the files recompressed into. Currently ARC, ARJ, LZH, HAP, PAK, SQZ, UC2, RAR, ZIP, and ZOO are supported. Force Rearchive If this option is set to Yes, AMU's Rearchive option will re-compress archives even if they are in the proper format. For example, if your Rearchive Format is set to ZIP and this switch is turned On, AMU will recompress all ZIP files in addition to rearchiving files in other formats. This recompression will only occur one time for each file. AMU Automated Maintenance Utility Page 24 Honor -AV If this is set to Yes, AMU will not modify any ZIP, ARJ, or RAR file which has a valid security envelope. Comments This option allows you to add file comments to ZIP, ARJ, and RAR files. The text for the comment is defined in COMMENT.TXT which should be located in the AMU directory. Note: If you use the OS/2 version, you MUST use a native OS/2 ZIP utility, otherwise AMU will not be able to add comments to ZIP files. The DOS ARJ program will work fine for ARJ files. You may also define a different comment file for each area. If, for example, AMU finds a file called COMMENT.34, that will be used as the comment for area #34 instead of the default text in COMMENT.TXT. The same macros which you can use in the AMU.HDR type files are available for use in the COMMENT.TXT type file as well. See the section on Headers for more information. Virus This option will scan files for a virus using up to five (5) different virus scanners. (you configure these in a later section) If one or more of these scanners returns an errorlevel indicating the presence of a virus (also configured later), AMU will post a message to the Sysop and make an entry to the logfile about this. Import DIZ This option will check archives for the presence of a FILE_ID.DIZ and/or DESC.SDI description file. If present, the description in that file will be imported as the description for the file in the file listing. Filter Graphics If this is set to Yes, AMU will strip high-ascii characters from FILE_ID.DIZ files when it imports them. Import GIF Info If this is set to Yes, the Import Description option (defined later) will import the resolution of GIF files as part of each GIF file's description. Export DIZ This option will take a file's current description, create a FILE_ID.DIZ using it, and add it to the archive for a file. AMU Automated Maintenance Utility Page 25 Import FILES.BBS If this option is set and you are running either a RemoteAccess filebase or a Concord filebase, this will import the data from a FILES.BBS into the filebase. This is a destructive import - all data currently in the filebase for the current area is replaced by what is contained in FILES.BBS. Export FILES.BBS This option is the inverse of the above. If you set this option and are running a RemoteAccess or Concord filebase, AMU will export the data from the filebase for the current area to a FILES.BBS for that area. Move Blank This option will cause any file which has no description or which has the 'Missing Description' string specified on the File Manager -> Global menu as it's description to another file area. New Area If the Move Blank option is enabled, this is the file area to which the file will be moved. Comp. Text If this option is enabled AMU will compress any file in the the current file area whose file extension you have defined as being a text file. The definition for this is made in a text file called ZIPTEXT.CTL in the AMU directory. For example, if you have TXT listed in your ZIPTEXT.CTL file and AMU encounters a file called BBSLIST.TXT in the file area, and you have the format set to ZIP, AMU will do the following: compress the BBSLIST.TXT file into BBSLIST.ZIP, change the entry in the file area listing, and then remove the BBSLIST.TXT file. Format If the Comp Text option is enabled, this is the archive format that will be used to compress the text files. AMU Automated Maintenance Utility Page 26 2.3.3 - Mark Areas The options which add comments to files, import and export FILE_ID.DIZ description files, perform virus scans, and rearchive files (if you have the 'Force Rearchive option enabled') are options which you only want performed on each file one time. To accomplish this, AMU stores the CRC-32 signature of each file along with the options it has performed on that file in a file called TRACKING.AMU in the AMU system directory. This file is maintained by AMU as it runs. However, sometimes you may find that you want AMU to, for example, import the FILE_ID.DIZ files in a certain area, but you do not want it to waste time re-importing the descriptions of files already in your file areas. You can use this option to mark all of the files in selected areas as having already been commented, scanned, rearchived, imported, or exported. 2.3.4 - Unmark Areas This is the inverse of the above option. You can use this to unmark all files in selected areas which will cause AMU to reprocess those areas. AMU Automated Maintenance Utility Page 27 2.4 - Configuration (User/Msg Manager) Information pertaining to options which post messages to your users and enforce various types of ratios are described in this section. You may suppress the posting of messages to certain users by placing their name into a file called NOPOST.CTL. Any user listed in here will not be posted to under any conditions. For all of the messages in the next two sections, there are a number of macros you can insert into the text files which are posted to the Sysop and to the user. The format of and the way the macros are used is identical to that of the File Headers which is described in section 2.3.2. Following is a list of valid macros available for the user messages: @SYSOP@ - Real name of the sysop @ALIAS@ - Sysop's alias @BBSNAME@ - BBS name @PRODUCT_ID@ - The string 'AMU' followed by the version number @DATE@ - Today's date @TIME@ - Current time @YEAR@ - Replaced by the current year @MONTHNUM@ - Replaced by the number of the current month. (i.g. 6 for June) @MONTHNAME@ - Replaced by the name of the current month. (i.g. October) @DAYNUM@ - Replaced by the current day of the month. @DAYNAME@ - Replaced by the name of the current day. (i.g. Wednesday) @USER_NAME@ - User's full real name @USER_FIRST@ - User's first name (real) @USER_LAST@ - User's last name (real) @USER_ALIAS@ - User's alias @USER_CITY@ - User's city (location) @USER_DLS@ - Number of downloads @USER_DLKB@ - Kilobytes downloaded @USER_ULS@ - Number of uploads @USER_ULKB@ - Kilobytes uploaded @USER_CALLS@ - Number of calls @USER_POSTS@ - Number of posts @USER_BDATE@ - User's birthdate @USER_SUBDATE@ - User's subscription expiration date @USER_SECURITY@ - User's security level at the time of the post @USER_CREDIT@ - Number of credits the user has remaining AMU Automated Maintenance Utility Page 28 2.4.1 - Enforce This is a very powerful set of options which allow you to automatically upgrade/downgrade users' security levels based upon a wide range of criteria. You may define up to 32,000 different records for this option. Use the INSert key to add a record and the DELete key to remove a record. You can use F3 to create a new record which has the current record's settings. Type There are eight different methods you can use to upgrade/downgrade users' security: 1) Uploads - Action will be based upon the total number of files uploaded for each user. This is not available for Maximus 2.02 systems since Maximus 2.02 does not store this information in the user file. 2) Downloads - Action will be based upon the total number of files downloaded for each user. This is not available for Maximus 2.02 systems. 3) Posts - Action will be based upon the total number of messages each user has posted. 4) Calls - Action will be based upon the total number of times each user has called your system. 5) UL:DL (Files) - Action will be based upon the upload:download ratio for number of files uploaded/downloaded for each user. This is not available for Maximus 2.02. 6) UL:DL (KB) - Action will be based upon the upload:download ratio for the number of kilobytes uploaded/downloaded for each user. 7) Post:Call - Action will be based upon the post:call ratio for each user. 8) Subscription - Action will be taken only when a user's subscription has expired. AMU Automated Maintenance Utility Page 29 How many The meaning of this setting varies depending upon the Type selected above. If you are using types 1, 2, 3, or 4, this is the point of comparison. If you are using types 5, 6, or 7, this is the ratio. If you are using type 8, this option is not available. This is a bit vague, but it will become clear when you see the example at the end of this section. Comparison This is the logical operator (greater than or less than) to be applied to the above setting. It is not available for Type 8. Again, this is a bit vague, but it will become clear when you see the example following. Days Forward This is specific to Type 8 (Subscriptions) and allows you to give users a grace period before affecting their security. To make use of this option, you will need to define two Type 8 records. An example of how this is used follows at the end of this section. Current Level Only users with a security level equal to this will be processed. Next Level If a user meets all of the criteria listed above, this is the security level he/she will be changed to. User Msg Area Message area where messages to the user will be posted. User Msg Name If a user's security is changed, this is the file AMU will post to them in a message. If this field is left blank, no message will be posted. Sysop Msg Area Message area where messages to the Sysop will be posted. You can use this to have AMU notify you as well as the user whose security is being adjusted. Sysop Msg Name If a user's security is changed, this is the file AMU will post to them in a message. If this field is left blank, no message will be posted. Enabled If this is set to Yes, this record will be processed by AMU when it runs. Otherwise it will be skipped. AMU Automated Maintenance Utility Page 30 Example 1 ~~~~~~~~~ Type : Calls How Many : 250 Comparison : Greater Than Days Forward : N/A Current : 10 Next : 20 User msg area : 120 User msg name : C:\AMU\TO20.USR Sysop msg area: 2 Sysop msg name: C:\AMU\TO20.SYS Enabled : Yes In this example, all users who currently have a security level of 10 and have called the system at least 250 times will have their security level raised to level 20. The text in C:\AMU\TO20.USR will be posted to each user affected in area #120, and the text in C:\AMU\TO20.SYS will go to the Sysop in area #2 for each user changed. Example 2 ~~~~~~~~~ Type : Upload:Download Ratio : 1:10 Comparison : Greater Than Days Forward : N/A Current : 10 Next : 20 User msg area : 120 User msg name : C:\AMU\TO20.USR Sysop msg area: 2 Sysop msg name: C:\AMU\TO20.SYS Enabled : Yes In this example, all users with a security level of 10 and have an Upload:Download ratio of at least 1 upload for every download will have their level raised to level 20. The text in C:\AMU\TO20.USR will be posted to each user affected in area #120, and the text in C:\AMU\TO20.SYS will go to the Sysop in area #2 for each user changed. AMU Automated Maintenance Utility Page 31 Example 3 ~~~~~~~~~ Type : Subscription How Many : N/A Comparison : N/A Days Forward : 14 Current : 10 Next : 5 User msg area : 120 User msg name : C:\AMU\TO5.USR Sysop msg area: 2 Sysop msg name: C:\AMU\TO5.SYS Enabled : Yes In this example, all users who currently have security level 10 and whose subscription has expired will be lowered to level 5. The text in C:\AMU\TO5.USR will be posted to each user affected in area #120, and C:\AMU\TO5.SYS to the Sysop in area #2. However, the subscription expiration for each user affected will be advanced by 14 days. This can be very useful if you wish to give users a "grace period" to pay their subscription. AMU Automated Maintenance Utility Page 32 2.4.2 - User Messages This is a very powerful set of options which allow you to automatically upgrade/downgrade users' security levels based upon a wide range of criteria. You may define up to 32,000 different records for this option. Use the INSert key to add a record and the DELete key to remove a record. You can use F3 to create a new record which has the current record's settings. Type There are six different types of messages you can have AMU post to your users: 1) Newuser - posted to new users on your system. The information about who is new is taken from your BBS logfile. Note - if you run ProBoard and use Nutlog by Eddie van.loon, see the LOGNU11.ZIP archive distributed with AMU to make this option work properly. 2) Uploaders - posted to users who have uploaded to your system. This information is taken from your BBS logfile. If a user has uploaded more than one file during the day, AMU will only send one message to that user instead of messages for each file uploaded. 3) Carrier - posted to users who have dropped carrier instead of logging off properly. Again, this information is taken from the BBS logfile. Since some doors allow a user to log off from within a door, you most likely will not want AMU to post them a Lost Carrier message. To accomplish this, you can create a file called CARRIER.CTL in your AMU directory. This is an ASCII text file that contains a list of strings that would indicate the user possibly logged off in a door even if the BBS thinks they dropped carrier. The line just prior to the Lost Carrier entry in the BBS logfile will be looked at to determine this. For example, on my system users may enter the QWK door and log off from there. The batch file I use to load the door is XP.BAT. By entering XP.BAT in the CARRIER.CTL file, that will tell AMU to look at the line in the BBS log just prior to the Lost Carrier string, and if it contains XP.BAT, consider it to be a valid logoff. You will need to check your BBS logfile to determine what string(s) to enter in your CARRIER.CTL file. AMU Automated Maintenance Utility Page 33 4) Sub. Exp. - posted to users whose subscription will expire in XX days (defined later in this section). This does not perform any of the security level changes that are performed by the Subscription option in the Enforcement types in section 2.4.1. Rather, this is just an option to notify users that their subscription will expire soon. 5) Birthday - posted to users on their birthday. 6) Low Credit - posted to users whose credit has dropped below XX credits (defined later in this section). Minimum Credits If you have set this record to be a Low Credit message, this is the minimum number of credits a user must have before they have a message posted to them. All users who have less than this number of credits will be posted to. Post For Zero This is related to the above for the Low Credit message. If this is set to No, users who have zero credits will NOT have a message posted to them. This is useful if you have some users who do not need credits since they will most likely have zero credits and you do not want to have AMU posting warning messages to them constantly. Days Before Exp If you have the current record set up to be a Subscription Notification, this is the number of days before expiration that AMU will post a message to a user. User Msg Area This is the message area where messages to the user will be posted. User Msg Name This is the full path/filename of the file which will be posted to the users. Sysop Msg Area This is the message area where messages to the Sysop will be posted. Sysop Msg Name This is the full path/filename of the file which will be posted to the Sysop. Enabled If this is set to Yes, this record will be processed by AMU when it runs. Otherwise it will be skipped. AMU Automated Maintenance Utility Page 34 2.5 - Configuration (Bulletin Manager) Information pertaining to various bulletins AMU is capable of generating for your system is configured in this section. You can have AMU create as many as you need, just press INSert to add a new bulletin, DELete to remove one, or F3 to create a new one with the current record's settings. Type Here you define which type of bulletin to create. There are 15 choices: 1) Top Uploaders - creates a bulletin of users who have uploaded the most files to your system. 2) Top Uploaders (K) - creates a bulletin of users who have uploaded the most kilobytes to your system. 3) Top Downloaders - creates a bulletin of users who have downloaded the most files to your system. 4) Top Downloaders (K) - creates a bulletin of users who have downloaded the most kilobytes to your system. 5) Top Upload:Download - creates a bulletin of users who have the best upload:download ratio. 6) Top Upload:Download (K) - creates a bulletin of users who have the best upload:download ratio based on kilobytes uploaded and downloaded. 7) Top Posters - creates a bulletin of users who have posted the highest number of messages on your system. 8) Top Callers - creates a bulletin of users who have called your system the most. 9) Top Post:Call - creates a bulletin of users who have the best Post:Call ratio on your system. 10) Top Files - creates a bulletin of which files have been downloaded the most frequently on your system. You select which file areas AMU should look at later in this section. AMU Automated Maintenance Utility Page 35 11) File Area Overview - creates a summary of the total number of files, kilobytes, and downloads in each of the file areas you select later in this section. 12) Message Area Overview - creates summary of the total number of times message areas have been read, how many posts made, and the total number of messages in each area. You select the message areas AMU should look at later in this section. 13) Door Overview - creates a report of the total number of times doors on your system have been accessed by your users. Later in this section you will tell AMU which doors to include in this report. 14) Daily Downloads - creates a report of which files have been downloaded from your system and who downloaded them. This only includes files which are entered the logfile, so if you want this to truly reflect "Daily" downloads, you need to have your BBS logfile deleted at the end of each day. You can use AMU's option to create dated archives to accomplish this. (defined later) 15) Daily Uploads - same as #14 but this works for files uploaded instead of downloaded. The same restriction applies to this bulletin as well as that in #14. 16) User List - creates a listing of all the users on your system. Any user whose profile is set to be "Hidden" will not be shown. 17) Today's Calls - creates a listing of all users who have called your system based on the information in your system logfile. Note that if you only delete your logfile once a week instead of having it archived by AMU every night, this bulletin will contain a list of all users who have called for the week, etc. 18) Today's Birthdays - creates a listing of all users whose birthday falls on the current date. AMU Automated Maintenance Utility Page 36 19) Today's Subscription Expirations - creates a listing of all users whose subscription expires on the current date. Filename This is the full path/filename for the bulletin to be created. You do not need to append an extension to this filename as AMU will use the .ASC, .ANS, and .AVT extensions as appropriate. Template This is the full path/filename for the template file for this bulletin. This is the core of the bulletin options, the template file contains all of the information to actually create the bulletin. Sample templates are provided in the SAMPLE.ZIP file, they are the files which end in .TPL. The following macros are available for use in the template files. As always, you may use the '|', '<', and '>' formatting characters to pad and/or center the macros. See the section on the Headers option in section 2.3.2 for more information. Just by reading this section, this is going to sound complex, but it really is not. If you have a copy of this file printed out and can take a look at some of the sample .TPL files as you read, it will make much more sense. You define colors in the templates by using the following type of macro: @<background><foreground>@ Where <background> is the hex code for the background color and <foreground> is the hex code for the foreground color. For example, @1F@ would give you text with a background color of Blue and a foreground color of White. The following is a chart of the hex codes: 0 - Black 8 - Dark Gray 1 - Blue 9 - Light Blue 2 - Green A - Light Green 3 - Cyan B - Light Cyan 4 - Red C - Light Red 5 - Magenta D - Light Magenta 6 - Brown E - Yellow 7 - Light Gray F - White The colors 0 thru 7 may be used for background colors. The colors 0 thru F may be used for foreground colors. AMU Automated Maintenance Utility Page 37 In addition, as you might expect, we now have an entire boatload of macros available. Some macros are not available for all bulletin types. For example, if the template file for your Most Downloaded Files bulletin contains the macro for the total number of messages on your system, it's value will be zero since that information is not calculated for that type of bulletin. The macros are as follows, and the same rules concerning formatting apply to these macros as to all the other macros AMU uses, and for brevity I will leave out the beginning and trailing '@' marks. So if you see AVGCALLS, the macro you would really use is @AVGCALLS@ in the template file. One important note regarding the macros which report a total number of something. If you use a macro in your Top Uploaders bulletin which reports the total number of uploads, for example, the total is that of ALL users on your system, not the total of just those listed on the bulletin. Consequently, the macros which report averages are based on the average of ALL users on your system and not just those listed on the bulletin. A similar situation prevails for the file and message area totals/averages. CLS - Used to clear the screen in the ANSI and AVATAR bulletins AREANAME - Name of the current file/message area AREANUM - Number of the current file/message area RANK - Which entry in the bulletin this is (1, 2, 3, etc) BPS - BPS Rate at which this file was downloaded (Daily Ul/Dl) LOWBPS - Lowest BPS rate (Daily Ul/Dl) HIGHBPS - Highest BPS rate (Daily Ul/Dl) NUMFXER - Number of files transferred (Daily Ul/Dl) USERNAME - User's real name USERALIAS - User's alias USER_CITY - User's city (location) FILENAME - Filename DOORNAME - Name of the door (from the DOORS.CTL type file) GRAPH - Horizontal bar graph of the use the current entry has versus the rest of the system FILESIZE - File size in bytes FILESIZEK - File size in kilobytes FDLS - Number of times file was downloaded TOTALFILES - Number of files in all areas selected for this bulletin TOTALFSIZE - Number of bytes in the files in all areas selected for this bulletin AMU Automated Maintenance Utility Page 38 TOTALFSIZEK - Number of kilobytes in the fileas for all areas selected for this bulletin TOTALFDLS - Number of downloads in all areas selected for this bulletin AVGFDLS - Average number of downloads for each file on your system AREAFILES - Number of files in the current area AREASIZE - Number of bytes in the current area AREASIZEK - Number of kilobytes in the current area AREADLS - Number of downloads in the current area POSTS - Number of messages posted to the current area READS - Number of messages read in the current area MSGS - Number of messages in the current area TOTALPOSTS - Total number of messages posted by users on your system as read from the BBS logfiles if this is a Message Base Overview bulletin, or the total number of posts by users as read from the user file if this is a Top User bulletin. TOTALREADS - Total number of messages read by users on your system. TOTALMSGS - Total number of messages on your system. ACCESS - Number of times the current door was accessed TOTALACCESS - Total number of door accesses AVGACCESS - Average number of times each door was accessed ULS - Number of files the current user has uploaded ULSK - Number of kilobytes the current user has uploaded DLS - Number of files the current user has downloaded DLSK - Number of kilobytes the current user has downloaded CALLS - Number of times the current user has called ULDL - User's Upload:Download ratio (based on files) ULDLK - User's Upload:Download ratio (based on kilobytes) POSTCALL - User's Post:Call ratio TOTALULS - Total number of files uploaded by all users TOTALULSK - Total number of kilobytes uploaded by all users TOTALDLS - Total number of files downloaded by all users TOTALDLSK - Total number of kilobytes downloaded by all users TOTALCALLS - Total number of calls by all users TOTALPOSTS - Total number of posts by all users TOTALULDL - Upload:Download ratio on your system (files) TOTALULDLK - Upload:Download ratio on your system (kilobytes) AMU Automated Maintenance Utility Page 39 TOTALPOSTCALL - Post:Call ratio on your system AVGULS - Average uploads per user (files) AVGULSK - Average uploads per user (kilobytes) AVGDLS - Average downloads per user (files) AVGDLSK - Average downloads per user (kilobytes) AVGCALLS - Average calls per user AVGPOSTS - Average posts per user AVGULDL - Average Upload:Download ratio per user (files) AVGULDLK - Average Upload:Download ratio per user (kilobytes) AVGPOSTCALL - Average Post:Call ratio per user As I said earlier, this probably sounds very complex. The best advice is to use the sample .TPL files provided and then modify them until you get the hang of this. It will not seem so bad once you look at it, trust me. ;-) Data Filename For the Message Area Overview and the Door Usage bulletin, AMU needs to keep track of the number of times a door has been accessed, the accesses for the message areas, etc. Here you tell AMU the file it can use to keep track of this. You only specify the root filename, AMU will append a .AMU extension and place the file in the AMU System Directory. For example, if your AMU Directory is C:\AMU\ and you define this to be MSGOVR, AMU will use C:\AMU\MSGOVR.AMU to keep track of the message base history. If you have more than one Message Overview or more than one Door Usage report configured, this must be a unique name so AMU can keep separate information for each bulletin In addition, if this is for a Door Usage bulletin, you need to tell AMU about the doors you want reported. For simplicity, AMU uses this field as well for that. For example, if you defined DOORS in this field, AMU will store it's door information tracking in C:\AMU\DOORS.AMU and it will look in C:\AMU\DOORS.CTL for a list of doors you want included in the report. This .CTL file is an ASCII text file in the following format: <search string> <description> <search string> <description> ... AMU Automated Maintenance Utility Page 40 For example: TRADE.BAT TradeWars 2002 OOII.BAT Operation Overkill ][ Errorlevel_15 Baron Realms Elite In this example, AMU would look for the following strings in your BBS logfile: TRADE.BAT, OOII.BAT, and Errorlevel 15. Note that if the search string has a space in it, you must replace the space with an underscore in the .CTL file. Max Entries This tells AMU how many entries should be made on the current bulletin. For example, if you set this to 20 for a Top Uploaders bulletin, only the top 20 users on your system will be listed. This is not applicable to the File Area Overview, Message Area Overview, Daily Downloads, Daily Uploads, or Door Usage bulletins. These bulletins use a different mechanism (defined in this section) to determine what appears on the bulletin. Include Sysop If this is set to Yes, the Sysop will be treated as a normal user on your system and will appear in the Top user bulletins. If set to No, the Sysop will be ignored when creating these bulletins. Areas For the File Area Overview, Top Files, and Message Area Overview bulletins, here you select which file/message areas AMU should look at when creating the bulletin. ASCII Version If enabled, an ASCII version (.ASC) version of this bulletin will be created. ANSI Version If enabled, an ANSI version (.ANS) version of this bulletin will be created. Avatar Version If enabled, an Avatar version (.AVT) version of this bulletin will be created. Enabled If this is set to Yes, this record will be processed by AMU when it runs. Otherwise it will be skipped. AMU Automated Maintenance Utility Page 41 2.6 - Configuration (File Listings) In this section you can define up to 32,000 Allfiles and Newfiles listings for AMU to create. Use the INSert key to add another record, the DELete key to remove one, and F3 to create a new list with the current record's settings. For the header and footer files, the same macros are available as are for the Headers option. For more information, refer to section 2.3.2. Listing Type If this is an Allfiles or Newfiles record. Text Version Full path/filename for the text version of the listing. Archive Version Full path/filename for the compressed version of this listing. This must be different from the Text Version for obvious reasons. Main Header Path/filename for a text file which you would like added to the top of the listing. Main Footer Path/filename for a text file which you would like added to the bottom of the listing. There are a few extra macros available only for this file as follows: @TOTALFILES@ - Total files on the system @TOTALBYTES@ - Total bytes of all files @TOTALBYTESK@ - Total kilobytes @TOTALDLS@ - Total downloads The totals for these macros refer to the total of all the areas which are displayed in the current Allfiles/Newfiles listing. Area Header Path/filename for the text file which is added at the beginning of each file area included in the current listing. Area Footer Path/filename for the text file which is added at the end of each file area included in the current listing. AMU Automated Maintenance Utility Page 42 List Format Here you tell AMU how each line in the listing should be formatted. To do this, you use the following macros: @FILENAME@ - Filename @DATE@ - File date @SIZE@ - File size (in bytes) @SIZEK@ - File size (kilobytes) @DLS@ - Number of downloads - right & left download brackets are included @DESC@ - Description @DESCDL@ - Description + approximate download time for 2400, 14400, and 28800 Note - unlike versions of AMU prior to v3.10, you need the second '@' symbol and you may also use the '<', '>', and '|' formatting characters. Include Comment If this is set to Yes, AMU will include comment lines that may appear in your filebase or FILES.BBS in addition to the actual file entries. Note that if you are using AMU's option to add headers to the top of each file listing (see section 2.3.2), those headers will NOT be included in the Allfiles/Newfiles list regardless of this setting. The reason is quite simple - you already have a mechanism to add this. See the section on 'Area Headers' above. Compress If you would like the text version of this list compressed. (filename will be what you specify for the Archive Version above) Format Archive format for the compressed version. Delete If you are creating an archive version but do not want the text version online, setting this to Yes will tell AMU to delete the text version after it has been archived. Age For Newfiles listings, only files newer than this many days will be included. Date To Use If you are running a RemoteAccess 2.xx system, it stores the file's timestamp and the date it was uploaded to your system in its filebase. This setting will allow you to pick which to use for the Newfiles listing's age calculations. AMU Automated Maintenance Utility Page 43 Areas On this menu you define the file areas to include in this listing. Note that if this is a Newfiles listing and an area has no new files in it, that area will not appear in the Newfiles listing even if you have selected it here. This is to prevent your Newfiles list from containing a lot of blank areas. Enabled If this record should be performed when AMU runs. AMU Automated Maintenance Utility Page 44 2.7 - Configuration (External Utilities) In this section, you define the names of various (de)compression utility programs as well as virus scanners. You may also define the parameters to be used for each, however it is recommended that you use the default parameters unless you know what you are doing. For each there are separate slots for DOS and OS/2 versions of the programs. The DOS, DPMI, and Windows versions of AMU will use what you have defined in the DOS slot, and the OS/2 version will use what you defined in the OS/2 slot. Makes a certain amount of sense, doesn't it? When AMU goes to execute an external program, it searches for the program in the directories listed in your PATH statement. If you do not have a PATH statement defined in your CONFIG.SYS or AUTOEXEC.BAT, check your operating system's manual to set one up. The settings for the (de)compression utilities are self-explanatory. For the virus scanners, you will notice that you may define up to five (5) scanners. In addition to the filename of the scanner and the parameters passed to it, you must define two other fields as well. The first is the directory in which this scanner is located. The second thing is that you need to define the errorlevel which denotes the presence of a virus. If the scanner returns this errorlevel, AMU will assume that a virus has been found and will notify you of this. Note - if you use PKUNZIP and/or PKZIP and are running in a network environment, it is highly recommended that you disable the network support by adding '-~' on the command line for PKZIP and PKUNZIP. AMU Automated Maintenance Utility Page 45 2.8 - Configuration (Archives) In this section you can define up to 32,000 logfiles for AMU to archive. Actually, you can do more than just archive logfiles, it is possible to back up user files and things of that nature as well. Use your imagination! Press INSert to add a new record, DELete to remove one, and F3 to create a new record with the current record's settings. Type This is the type of archive AMU should create: Normal - The archive will be named with the following convention: xxMMDDYY.arc where 'xx' are two letters you choose (these are defined later), MMDDYY is the date, and 'arc' is the archive format. For example, if the first letters are PB, today is July 4, 1995, and the archive format is ZIP, the name will be PB070495.ZIP. Note that you may change the format of the date a little later in this section. Julian Rename - The logfile will be renamed with the Julian date as it's extension. For example, if RA.LOG is on January 1, the file will be renamed to RA.001. Julian Compress - This is similar to the 'Normal' type except that the date used will be the Julian date instead. For example, a logfile for May 25 (145th day of the year) with the first letters of RA and an archive format of ARJ will be compressed, and the name of the archive will be RA-145.ARJ. AMU Automated Maintenance Utility Page 46 Size - This isn't an archive, but it does fit in which the general idea of this section. This type will let you keep a file trimmed to a certain size. For example, on my system I don't want to keep daily archives of my mail tosser's log on disk, but I also don't want the log to grow forever. The solution was to set up an entry in here of this type to keep it trimmed down to 150k Filename This is the file to be archived/renamed. (depending on the setting above) Wildcards are fully supported, and so is a list file. If you have a number of different files you'd like compressed into the same archive, list them in an ASCII text file then define it here. For example, if the list file is LIST.FIL, you would enter it as @LIST.FIL in this field - the '@' symbol tells AMU that it should read the contents of the file that follows for a list of all files to be included. This makes it possible to backup your user files or just about anything else you can think of, and is what makes this option much more than a simple logfile archiver! If you are using this as a Size entry, then you may not use the '@' feature and you may not use wildcards. You must enter a full path/filename only. Note - In order for AMU to work properly, it must have exclusive access the file(s) it is archiving. This means if you are, for example, archiving your mailer's logfile, the mailer must be shutdown so AMU has access to it's log. Failure to allow AMU exclusive access will result in a failed operation for that log. Path This is the directory where the archive should be placed. This is not applicable for the Size type First Letters This is the first two letters of the archive name. This is not applicable for the Size type. Format Compression format to use for this archive. This is not applicable for the Size type. Date Format For the 'Normal' type, this is the date format to be used in the filename. AMU Automated Maintenance Utility Page 47 Erase If set to Yes, the original file(s) will be deleted after they have been archived/renamed. This is not applicable for the Size type. Monthly If set to Yes, after AMU has performed the archive/ rename procedure, it will then add that resulting file to a 'monthly' archive. If the first two letters are PB, the archive format is ZIP, the month is May, and the year is 1995, all archives created for this record during the month of may will be placed into an archive called PB-0595.ZIP. This way you'd have only 12 archives per year instead of 365! This is not applicable for the Size type. Erase Daily If you have enabled the Monthly option and set this to Yes, the original archive will be deleted after it has been added to the Monthly archive. This is not applicable for the Size type. Day Here you define the day this record should be processed. You may pick any day of the week if you just want it run once a week (great for user file backups) or select 'Everyday' and it will be run everyday. Max Size (K) For the Size type, this is the size, in kilobytes, you would like the defined file to be kept at. Enabled Whether or not this record should be processed when AMU runs. AMU Automated Maintenance Utility Page 48 2.9 - Configuration (Maintenance) This contains options relating to AMU's ability to run other programs in your daily maintenance. Instead of having multiple lines in your batch file to run things such as door maintenance utilities, you can tell AMU to run them. The advantage of this is that AMU will trap and report the error code the programs return (if nonzero) and thus allow you to check up on these programs in case they are not behaving as expected for some reason. To add a new record, press INSert, press DELete to remove one, or press F3 to create a new record with the current record's settings. Type Here you select which type of maintenance file this is. There are four types: Daily - Executed every day. Weekly - Executed once per week on the day you select. Monthly - Executed once each month on the day you select. Interval - Executed every X days, where 'X' is defined later in this section. Interval (days) If this is an Interval entry, here you enter how often you want this executed. For example, entering 15 here will cause this to be executed every 15 days. Day of week If this is a Weekly entry, here you define which day of the week to execute this entry. Day of month If this is a Monthly entry, here you define the day of the month on which this is executed. Maint Filename Here you define the name of the file which contains the commands you want executed. The file is an ASCII text file of the following format: <directory> <program/parameters> <directory> <program/parameters> ... AMU Automated Maintenance Utility Page 49 For example, I have AMU run the following: ; Daily.Ctl file for The North Star ; Maintenance performed every night C:\ALLFIX Allfix File C:\ALLFIX Allfix Announce C:\RA rauser -p -s -d180 C:\GECHO GEcho Scan -Force -IgnoreMark C:\GECHO GEcho Toss Pack C:\GECHO MButil Purge C:\GECHO MButil Pack -Renumber -Link -Delete As you can see, any line starting with a semi-colon will be ignored and treated as a comment. When executing, AMU will first change to the appropriate drive/directory, then execute the program with it's parameters. This is done because some programs require that their configuration files be in the directory they are executed from. Enabled Whether or not this record should be processed when AMU runs. AMU Automated Maintenance Utility Page 50 2.10 - Configuration (Edit Files) Now that you've configured AMU, you can see that there are quite a few external files which you may need to create in order to customize it to suit your system. If you go to this menu, you will see a list of all the text files that may need to be created. All you need to do is select the one you want to edit and AMUCFG will load it into the editor you defined (see section 2.2.2). If you need to edit something that is not in this list, select the 'Other' option and you will be prompted for the file to edit. AMU Automated Maintenance Utility Page 51 2.11 - Command Line Parameters There are a few command line parameters available for use by AMUCFG as follows. A similar list can be displayed by running AMUCFG ? at the command prompt. Parameter Function ------------ ------------------------------------------- UPGRADE Upgrade your configuration from a previous version of AMU. RESTORE Restore default values for the external programs. IMPORTFILES Import BBS file area configuration into the internal database in CONFIG.AMU. IMPORTMSGS Import BBS message area configuration into the internal database in CONFIG.AMU. MONO Run AMUCFG in monochrome mode. AMU Automated Maintenance Utility Page 52 3 - AMU.EXE 3.1 - Operation For those running AMU under DESQview, you should have 'Writes directly to the screen' set to Yes in the window you will be running AMU from. This applies to AMUCFG as well. If you do not do this, you may lock the computer up. AMU.EXE may be run in one of two ways. The first is by typing AMU at the command prompt and then pressing enter. When run like this, AMU will perform all options you have enabled in AMUCFG. This is probably the way that you will run AMU in your system's nightly maintenance. The second way is with command line parameters. AMU Automated Maintenance Utility Page 53 3.2 - Command Line Parameters Each of AMU's options may be executed itself ( or in conjunction with others ) via command line switches. The format for running like this is: AMU <parameter1> <parameter2> etc The parameters passed to AMU may be preceded by a '-' or a '/'. Or you may just pass the actual parameter with a space between each one, and the parameters are not case sensitive. For example, AMU -sort carrier_msg /newuser_msg are all valid command line options. By default, AMU will work on only those areas you've defined in AMUCFG for each option, however you may override this on the command line. For example, the following will run only the Sort option on areas 1,3,5, 15 through 20, and 56, and will run the Pack option on all areas defined in AMUCFG: AMU Sort[1,3,5,15-20,56] Pack Notice that the list of areas to be operated on is a part of the Sort parameter and is NOT separated by a space. If you put a space between Sort and the [1,3,5,15-20,56], AMU will ignore the file area list and will perform the Sort option on all areas defined in AMUCFG. Following is a list of parameters available. Running AMU ? will also get you a similar list. AMU Automated Maintenance Utility Page 54 Parameter Function ------------ ------------------------------------------- ADOPT Adopt missing files BACKUP Create backups of the file listings BBSDLS Update Download counters - BBS's logfile COMMENT Add comments to ARJ and ZIP files EXPORTBBS Export the filebase to FILES.BBS EXPORTDIZ Export FILE_ID.DIZ file to archives HEADERS Add headers to the file listings IMPORTBBS Import FILES.BBS into the filebase IMPORTDIZ Import FILE_ID.DIZ/DESC.SDI files MAILERDLS Update Download counters - Mailer's logfile OLD Move/Delete old files ORPHAN Remove orphaned entries from file listings PACK Pack file database REARC Rearchive files SCAN Scan files for virus SORT Sort file listings LISTS Create the allfiles/Newfiles listings BDAY_MSG Post messages to users on their birthday CARRIER_MSG Post messages to users who drop carrier CREDIT_MSG Post messages to users whose credit is low NEWUSER_MSG Post messages to new users SUBEXP_MSG Post messages for subscription expirations UPLOADS_MSG Post messages to users who upload ENFORCE Enforce User Promotions/Demotions, etc. BDAYLIST Create the Today's Birthdays bulletin DAILYDL Daily Downloads bulletins DAILYUL Daily Uploads bulletins DOORS Door usage bulletins FILEOVR File area overview report MSGOVR Message base overview bulletin SUBLIST Subscription Expiration bulletin TODAYCALL "Today's" Callers bulletin TOPFILE Create most popular files bulletin TOPUSERS Create the top user bulletins USERLIST User listing bulletin AMU Automated Maintenance Utility Page 55 Parameter Function ------------ ------------------------------------------- ARCHIVES Create dated archives CLEAN Clean user records DAILY_MAINT Execute daily maintenance files INTERVAL_MAINT Execute interval maintenance files MONTHLY_MAINT Execute monthly maintenance files WEEKLY_MAINT Execute weekly maintenance files SWITCH Pick random menus/textfiles OKFILExxxxx Creates a list of directories available for file-request in the file defined in AMUCFG on the System -> Filenames menu. Only file areas with a security level less than or equal to xxxxx will be included in this file. This option is not yet active for Maximus or Lora systems. * * These options are only available via the command line. There is a certain order in which AMU's options are executed, and they execute in the same order regardless of whether you are using command line parameters or not. You cannot force AMU to execute in a different order. The order is as follows: 1) AMU will scan your logfiles and gather information from them that may be needed during it's run. If it is not needed, AMU saves this information in the AMU Directory to be used for a later run which may need that information. 2) AMU will read your user file and perform the options which post messages to users and the Enforce options. If you have configured AMU to Clean the user file, this is done as the user file is read into memory, and the updates are written back to disk at the end of the message posting and Enforce section. 3) The file area options are performed in the following order: a) Import FILES.BBS b) Backup c) Adopt d) Orphan e) Old f) Pack g) Rearchive/Scan/ImportDIZ/ExportDIZ/Comment h) Sort i) Update download counters j) Move files with no description k) Compress Text Files l) Headers m) Export FILES.BBS AMU Automated Maintenance Utility Page 56 The Allfiles/Newfiles listings are created as AMU cycles through each file area. A temporary copy of the list is made in the Work Directory, and at the end of the file area options, AMU will copy this to the file defined in AMUCFG for each list and archive it (if so configured). 4) Bulletins created. 5) Maintenance files executed. 6) Archives 7) The menu/txtfile switching As explained in section 2.3.2, AMU now maintains an internal database of your file and message areas. Before AMU runs any of the file area maintenance options, it will check to make sure your BBS configuration has not changed since the last time you ran AMUCFG. If it has, it will refuse to do any file area maintenance until you have run AMUCFG to update the internal database. This is done to ensure that your file area information is valid so it isn't chasing after file areas that no longer exist, were moved, etc. An entry to the logfile will be made if AMU aborts something due to the database being out of date. If you are running in a multitasking environment, you may wish to have your BBS taken offline while AMU runs. In fact, it is strongly recommended that you do so! Some BBS and mailer software will look for semaphore files to do just this, and AMU has a feature to help deal with this. When AMU starts running, it looks for a file called SEMAPHOR.CTL in the AMU directory. In this file you can tell AMU which semaphore files to create to take your BBS offline, and at the end of it's run, AMU will remove the semaphore files to put the BBS back online. If you decide to use this feature, you need to consult the documentation for your software to determine the appropriate semaphore files to be created. For example, in order to take InterMail offline, you could enter the following line in this .CTL file: C:\IM\SEMA\IMSLEEP.NOW AMU Automated Maintenance Utility Page 57 4 - Registration As outlined in the license agreement, registration is required if you are going to use AMU past the thirty day evaluation period. Use of AMU beyond the evaluation period is strictly prohibited and is in violation of the license agreement. To register, you may send the fee to one of the four registration sites: 1) Australia - REGISTER.AUS 2) France - REGISTER.FRA 3) Other European countries - REGISTER.EUR 4) U.S. and all others - REGISTER.FRM Do not send cash! Checks must be drawn on a bank located in the country in which you are sending the registration. For example, if you live in Spain and are sending your registration to the site in REGISTER.FRM, the check must be drawn on a U.S. bank. If you have a FidoNet address your keyfile will be sent to you via Netmail file attach. If you do not have a FidoNet node address, you will need to log onto the BBS of the site you are registering with, and download your keyfile. If this is the case, you will need to provide a name AND a password on your form so an account can be set up for you. If you need to contact me, my FidoNet address is 1:261/1108.0 and my BBS number is 1-410-974-9305. Any questions or comments should be directed there. I am also reachable via the AMU_HELP echo which is on the Fidonet backbone, and on the Internet at davidh@smart.net. The preferred method of reaching me is via the AMU_HELP echo or via the Internet. If you prefer to send Fidonet netmail, you will need to poll my system for the reply within about 24 - 48 hours. AMU Automated Maintenance Utility Page 58 5 - Credits A lot of the credit has to go to the members of the Beta team. Without their suggestions and extensive testing, AMU would be little more than a third-rate piece of junk. The names and FidoNet addresses of each of these fine individuals is listed in the file, BETATEAM.310. Thanks guys! AMUCFG uses the user interface originally designed by Joaquim H. Homrighausen and is used with permission. The routines to swap to XMS/EMS/DISK were written by and released into the public domain by Ralf Brown. Squish is a trademark of Scott J. Dudley. JAM(mbp) - Copyright 1993 Joaquim Homrighausen, Andrew Milner Mats Birch, Mats Wallin. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. GEcho is copyrighted by Gerard J. van der Land PKzip and PKunzip are copyright by PKWare, Inc. and Phil Katz AMU Automated Maintenance Utility Page 59 6 - Technical notes * AMU and AMUCFG were written in C++ and compiled under Borland C++ 4.52 and Turbo Assembler v3.2 using the Large memory model. The OS/2 version is compiled under Borland C++ for OS/2 v2.00. The DPMI and Windows version are compiled under the Watcom 10.0a compiler. * When accessing the various message bases, AMU performs all of the required file locking/sharing for complete compatibility in a multi-tasking environment. * The GoldBase, Hudson, *.MSG, and JAM message bases are accessed via proprietary routines. * The DOS versions of AMU and AMUCFG use direct screen writes for displaying to the screen. * AMU will return the following errorlevels to indicate various conditions which may occur during run-time: 0 - No error 1 - Error with the configuration file (not found usually) 2 - AMU and/or COMSPEC environment variable not set 3 - One or more parameters passed on the command line were not valid * When decompressing archives, AMU will first verify that there is adequate free diskspace to complete the task, ( a minimum of three times that of the archive ). End of File - AMU.DOC