Ezycom allows characters to be stuffed into the keyboard buffer
of the IBM PC on ANY menu option. This allows the simulation
of a key press to Ezycom. For example, if there was a need to
pass through one menu to get to another, you could stuff the
keyboard with the character that the user needs to press to go
to the other menu from the one in between. This option can
also be used to press keys in external programs run by Ezycom.
For Example:
Type : 7
Data : GAME.BAT /SK=$0D
This would place a return character in the keyboard, so that
when GAME.BAT is run, a return is pressed automatically. To
simulate multiple key presses, just place them one after the
other eg. /SK=ABCD$0D (be sure not to put spaces between them
however).
Conclusion Conclusion Conclusion
By now you should at least be familiar with the basics of menu
creation and the use of EZYMENU. Be sure to consult the
reference section of this document for a complete list of menu
commands and their capabilities.
Setting Up Ezycom 72 72 72
Chapter 5
System Maintenance
Introduction Introduction Introduction
Once your system is up and running, it will require quite a bit
of maintenance. Some of this must really be done on a daily
basis and the rest can be done every week or two. How often you
do a lot these tasks depends on how tidy and up to date you
want to keep your system. For instance if you like to
personally check users out before upgrading them, this is best
done several times per week else users will get impatient
waiting for access. Other things such as moving new files about
could easily be left for weeks without too much of a problem.
But once again, your users might get sick of waiting for you to
do this too. This chapter of the document therefore explains in
detail all the maintenance tools available to you and makes
some suggestion as to when you should use them and how often.
File Area Maintenance File Area Maintenance File Area Maintenance
Ezycom provides a wealth of powerful tools for managing file
areas. You will probably spend more time working with file
areas than anything else. This section will explain how to use
each of the tools provided.
FEDIT - Ezycom's File Area Manager FEDIT - Ezycom's File Area Manager FEDIT - Ezycom's File Area Manager
This is a fully menu driven file area editor that allows you to
do things like move files between areas, delete and rename
files and edit their descriptions. You can probably get away
with using this only once per week, just to tidy things up. If
you are running a larger multi-line BBS however it may be
prudent to at least have a look around your file base using
FEDIT every couple of days to make sure things are not getting
untidy, particularly if you get a lot of files uploaded to your
system.
When you first load FEDIT a scrolling list of all your file
areas will appear, just as you defined them in CONFIG. Use the
PgUp/PgDn and the Up/Down arrow keys to move from area to area
till you locate the one you wish to work with. All areas you
have defined will appear as well as those that are not used.
FEDIT will automatically skip over these and the list will
scroll up to the maximum number of areas you have allowed for
in CONFIG (up to 65535 areas). Fedit will also take advantage
of 43/50 line mode if enabled at the time of loading.
Chapter 5 - System Maintenance 73 73 73
Once you have decided on which area to work with and it is
highlighted by the selection bar, press ENTER and the contents
of that area will brought onto the screen. This list will look
very much like the file list in the BBS showing the filename,
the date (or Offline if it is marked so) and the first line of
the description. You will notice that offline files appear in a
different colour so you will immediately notice them. Anything
that is deleted will also be in a different colour and will
automatically be skipped over should you scroll near it.
Deleted files are not physically removed from the file base
until such times as you pack it (see EZYFILE later in this
chapter). Down the bottom of the screen you will als notice a
statistics box showing various information about the file
currently highlighted..
To move around within the file list use the up and down arrows
to move the selection bar one line at a time. Use PgUp and PgDn
to move a screen full at a time and use Home and End to move to
the first and last entry respectively. You can also use the
letter keys to jump to the first filename that starts with that
letter (if there is one). So if you were at the bottom of an
area for example, if you pressed 'D' then the pointer would
immediately jump to the top most filename starting with the
letter D, should there be one. The ESC key takes you back to
the file area list should you wish to work on another area.
Tagging Files
Most of the management functions in FEDIT work for files you
have previously selected by tagging them. There are a number of
different ways a file can be tagged (and indeed un-tagged).
. Tagging Individual Files (CTRL-T) - While a file is
highlighted, using this function will cause that file to
become tagged, this being indicated by a triangle on each
side of the entry on the screen.
Tagging All Files . (ALT-T) - Upon selecting this option you
will find that you have tagged all the files in the file
list for the current area.
. Un-Tagging Individual Files (CTRL-U) - This function will
un-tag the currently highlighted file if it is tagged.
Un-Tagging All Files . (ALT-U) - This option un-tags all files
in the current area that were tagged.
74 74 74 Setting Up Ezycom
. Range Tagging (CTRLK-B/CTRLK-K) - Using the standard Word
Star block marking keys, if you point to a file and type
CTRLK-B (press CTRL and K together and then release them
before pressing B) then you will be defining the first entry
in a range of files to tag. If you then move down to where
you would like to stop the range and press CTRLK-K (in the
same manner) then all files from the current one up to the
one you pressed CTRLK-B on will now be tagged. This is a
very quickly way of tagging a large number (but not all of)
the files in a given area.
Working With Tagged Files
Once you have tagged a series of files you can use a number of
useful management functions to do things to that group of
files. The options available are as follows:
Logically Deleting Tagged . Files (ALT-D) - This will delete
the DESCRIPTIONS for all tagged files in the current area.
Note it does NOT delete the files themselves however.
Physically Removing Tagged Files . (ALT-R) - This will
physically delete all tagged files ie. both the file itself
and the database entry. Care should be exercised when using
this option.
. Physically Moving Tagged Files (ALT-P) - This will
physically move all tagged files and their descriptions to
another file area. When you first press ALT-P a list of file
areas will appear from which you should pick the area to
move the files to. Press ENTER to select the area or ESC to
cancel the command. Once an area is picked FEDIT will move
each file one by one to the new area showing you each file
as it is moved. Fedit will also remember the last area moved
to on sucessive moves.
Logically Moving Tagged Files . (ALT-L) - This function is
simular to physically moving tagged files except that it
only moves file descriptions and their associated
information. The files themselves stay right where they are.
Since part of the file base record for each file stores a
pointer to the path number in which the file resides, this
is no problem. This is how full path independence in Ezycom
is achieved. This allows you to have a file area that is
made up of files from all different paths or indeed to have
the same path broken into several different file areas in
order to reduce it's size or sort it into sub-categories.
. Mark Tagged Files Offline (ALT-O) - This will mark all
currently tagged file as being offline. When a user does a
file listing the files will be shown as Offline as will the
file list is FEDIT after this command has been used.
Chapter 5 - System Maintenance 75 75 75
. Mark Tagged Files Online (ALT-A) - This has the opposite
affect to the above command and will mark all tagged files
as being Online. The file date will now be shown in file
lists instead of the Offline status.
Miscellaneous Single File Functions
There are a number of commands that can be used to do special
functions with
individual files as apposed to working will all tagged files.
Logically Delete Individual File . (CTRL-D) - This will delete
the file description of the currently highlighted file (note
- it will NOT delete the file itself however).
Physically Individual File . (CTRL-R) - This will physically
delete the selected file ie. both the file itself and the
database entry.
. Logically Move Individual File (CTRL-L) - This will move the
description and associated data for the currently
highlighted file to another file area. However the file
itself will continue to reside in its original path.
Mark Individual File Offline . (CTRL-A) - This will mark the
currently highlighted file as Offline. The file date will
now be replaced with the word Offline.
Mark Individual File Online . (CTRL-O) - This will mark the
currently highlighted file as being Online. The Offline
status will now be replaced by the file's date.
. Edit Uploader Of File (CTRL-S) - This will cause a user
editing screen to appear so that you can alter any of the
statistics that the uploader of the currently higlighted
file possesses. You may use this to reward this user for
sending you such a good file for example. This screen works
identically to the one in EZYED (see later).
Editing Descriptions
Probably the most useful feature of FEDIT is its ability to
edit the descriptions on files that are stored in the database.
Pressing ALT-M while pointing to a file will cause a pop-up box
to appear containing the current description ready for you to
edit.
The cursor keys will allow you to move around the box. Insert
or overwrite mode can be toggled using the Insert key. Delete
and back space also work in the usual manner that they would in
any text editor. It is important to note however that in most
descriptions you do not force any hard carriage returns unless
you want a specific formatting for the description. This is
because Ezycom will automatically format the description when a
Setting Up Ezycom 76 76 76
user is listing that file area on the fly depending on the
width available at the time. In other words, when typing a
description in, let FEDIT auto-wrap the text for you rather
than pressing ENTER when you get to the end of each line as
that is not REALLY the end of the line.
You will notice however that if you look at most imported
descriptions (such as those imported from a FILE_ID.DIZ by the
utilities such as EZYADOPT - see later) that little carrot ^
symbols will be shown at the end of each line. Normally you
will find these on descriptions that feature a decorative box
around them or the like. This will stop Ezycom putting in its
own carriage returns and so it will not ruin the look of the
description. Thus you too can also force your own hard carriage
returns for the same purpose using the carrot symbol. Simply
place the carrot where you want to force Ezycom to take a new
line.
Pressing ESC will save the description and return you to the
file list once again.
Colours
Using Fedit you can also place colour and control codes in file
descriptions. Colours are placed in descriptions using the same
codes as the Rumours facility in Ezycom uses (see Appendix A -
Menu Type 90). So while in description edit mode (ALT-M) if you
typed:
|BThis is in Blue and |Rthis is in Red!
then the appropriate parts of this description will show up in
blue and in red when viewing the file list for this area on the
BBS.
The CTRL-F and CTRL-K codes (see Appendix C) can also be used
in the same manner if so required. Simply insert them in the
description where required.
File Statistics
You will have noticed that when you have a file highlighted
within an area that a box down the bottom of the screen shows
various statistics about that file. If you press ENTER whilst
pointing to a file, a pop-up box will allow you to edit these
statistics. The purpose of each is as follows:
Path - This shows the full physical path where this file .
resides. This may or may not be the same as the default path
for this area due to Ezycom's path independence feature
hence why it is important to show this information.
Chapter 5 - System Maintenance 77 77 77
. Uploader - This will show the name of the user who uploaded
the file. This is useful when combined with the special
CTRL-S feature for editing user records and so allows you to
reward users (or indeed punish them) for material uploaded.
. Private - This states whether the file is private or not
ie. only visible to the sysop or someone with sysop
security.
. No Kill - When a file has this option set to Yes, it can
never be automatically deleted from the file base by age or
for being off line in an area that does not allow off line
files.
Checked . - This shows whether or not this file has been
checked for integrity and the presence of a virus.
Dnloads . - This shows exactly how many times this file has
been downloaded.
Dn Date . - Shows the last date on which a user downloaded
this file. This is useful in assessing whether this file
should be kept on line in the future and could be used by
3rd party utilities to automatically delete files that have
not been downloaded for a specified time period. Combined
with the statistics, it is very easy to achieve Dnloads
sensible removal of old and disused files.
. Arvl Date - This shows the date upon which the file was
first placed onto the BBS. This is used to determine whether
a file is new or not when a user does a new file scan.
Notice this allows for files to retain their original date
and time stamp yet still show up in a new file scan.
To edit a statistic, simply move to it and change it. Type
either a 'Y' or an 'N'' on yes/no type data. To abort any
changes press Esc. If you wish to save all changes either move
down when on the Uploader option or press CTRL-ENTER.
Viewing Files and Archives
Fedit also allows you to very easily view the contents of any
file. If you press CTRL-V on the currently highlighted file,
Fedit will automatically determine the type of file and will
bring up a scrollable viewer box showing you the contents of
this file.
Setting Up Ezycom 78 78 78
. Text, Executable & Other Binary Files - If the highlighted
file is a straight text file or is an .EXE or .COM or some
other non-compressed file, a normal scrolling box showing
the raw contents of that file will be brought up. You may
then toggle between ASCII and HEX (hexadecimal) viewing mode
using the F4 key as shown. Use the cursor keys to scroll in
any one of four directions. If the file is a text file and
is wider than the viewing box, you can move to the far right
and the view will scroll horizontally. The Home and End keys
will take you to the beginning and end of the current line
respectively. CTRL-PGUP & CTRL-PGDN will take you to the top
and bottom of the file respectively. PGUP and PGDN will move
up and down one screen full at a time respectively. When you
are done viewing the file, press Esc to return to the file
list.
Archives (Compressed Files) . - If the highlighted file is an
archive, Fedit will automatically determine which type of
archive it is and will bring up a scrolling list of the
contents of that archive. This list will show the file name,
it's date, the original size of the file, its compressed
size and the compressed size expressed as a percentage of
the file's original size. Should you press ENTER on one of
these files, Fedit will automatically call the decompression
utility required, extract the file and then allow you to
view the file in the same manner as Fedit views normal non-
compressed files as above. Once you've finished viewing that
file, press ESC and you will be returned to the archive
contents list. ESC from here will allow you to return to the
file area contents list.
Viewing Graphic Files
The power of Fedit's view facility does not stop at viewing
files within archives. Fedit also allows you to view graphic
files straight from the file area content list and indeed from
within archives also. If you press CTRL-V on a non-compressed
graphic file such as one with a .GIF extension, Fedit will
automatically call up a definable viewer utility and cause that
utility to bring up a view that file. When you exit from that
utility, Fedit will return to exactly where you were before
selecting that file for viewing. If the file you select is
within an archive, Fedit will first extract that file and then
call the viewing utility. In order for Fedit to know what to
call up, you need to define .BAT files with special names and
place them in the Ezycom system directory. The format of these
filenames is FEDxxx.BAT where xxx is the extension of the file
that should cause this batch file to be called.
Chapter 5 - System Maintenance 79 79 79
Examples:
FEDGIF.BAT
@echo off
rem %1 is the Drive
rem %2 is the Path
rem %3 is the Filename (no extension)
rem %4 is the Extension (including ".")
cshow %2%3%4+
The plus '+' on the end of the CSHOW (a popular graphics
viewer) command line causes CSHOW to immediately load and
display the specified file.
FEDGL.BAT
@echo off
rem %1 is the Drive
rem %2 is the Path
rem %3 is the Filename (no extension)
rem %4 is the Extension (including ".")
grasprt %2%3%4
If Fedit cannot find such a file, it will default to ASCII/HEX
viewing of that file. Note also there is nothing to stop you
re-defining the viewer for .TXT or indeed .EXE files using this
method. Simply create a batch file that calls you favourite
utility to do so.
Command Line Parameters
Fedit has only one command line parameter and that is -
S<security level>. Using this option Fedit will prevent the
operator from looking at areas with higher access levels than
the one specified and looking at passwords for and editing user
accounts that are higher than the specified security level.
Passwords will be shown as asterisks.
80 80 80 Setting Up Ezycom
EZYIDX - Ezycom's Fast File Index Maintenance Tool EZYIDX - Ezycom's Fast File Index Maintenance Tool EZYIDX - Ezycom's Fast File Index Maintenance Tool
Part of the reason Ezycom can so quickly make use of its file
database is due to a set of files known as the fast file index.
This file is simply a list of EVERY filename available for
download on your system along with a pointer to the path it is
located in. This file MUST be kept up to date else files will
not be downloadable. EZYIDX is the tool for doing this.
-BUILD This creates/updates the fast file index. If
you add files to your file areas or remove
them, this should be run to fully update and
sort the index. This should be run once
every day to ensure your index is correct and
up to date.
-SORT This sorts the fast file index. This will
make it faster if you do not happen to use -
BUILD everyday (you should!).
-LIST<filename> This creates a list of all available
directories as per your file base. You would
normally use this file for your front-end
mailer so it can search your system during
file requests (for example Front Door).
-FLSEARCH This will make a FLSEARCH.CTL (QuickBBS File
Area List) compatible file. Some doors may
require this.
-DUPE This will list & log duplicate files in your
file base.
-N<node> Node number to run EZYIDX under (1-250).
Chapter 5 - System Maintenance 81 81 81
EZYFILE - Ezycom's File Base Maintenance Utility EZYFILE - Ezycom's File Base Maintenance Utility EZYFILE - Ezycom's File Base Maintenance Utility
The heart of Ezycom's file base maintenance lies in this
utility. EZYFILE should at best be run once per night as part
of your daily maintenance. It will keep your file area
databases in shape and ensure that all is in order. EZYIDX
should ALWAYS be run prior to using this utility to ensure the
fast file index is up to date. As usual this utility is command
line driven and each of these options is now explained in turn.
-SORT This will cause EZYFILE to examine all your
file areas and re-sort each of them into the
order (if any) specified in CONFIG for that
area.
-PACK This option will make EZYFILE physically
remove any file entries marked for deletion
from the database. Deleted files and their
descriptions still take space until they are
Squeezed out of the database with this
option.
-OFFLINE This option will mark files as 'offline' if
they are not found on your system. Also if
files that are marked offline are found to be
present, they will be marked as online again.
-DELPATH This will mark files as either deleted or
offline (depending on area settings) if their
path is found present on the system but not
the file itself.
-DELNOPATH If a file's path is found not to be present
on the system, then that file will be marked
offline or deleted depending on the settings
for that area.
-UPDATE This option will check all file sizes and
dates stored for each file in the database
against those on the actual files themselves.
Any difference will cause the new values to
be placed into the database. This is useful
for updating the size and date on your master
file list for example.
-FROM<area #> This specifies the file area to start
maintenance at.
-TO<area #> This specifies the file area to finish
maintenance at.
-N<1..250> Specifies the node number to log to.
82 82 82 Setting Up Ezycom
Note: Download counters and file points information ready for
USERCOMP to use (see later) are always updated regardless of
the parameters that EZYFILE is run with.
The switches for EZYFILE can be combined if required to do
multiple actions in a single pass eg. EZYFILE -SORT -PACK -
FROM10 -TO50. Some options such as -UPDATE are best used with -
FROM and -TO parameters else you will find it taking quite some
time if you have CD-ROMs online. It is not neccesary to run an
UPDATE process across CD-ROM areas.
EZYADOPT - Adding Files To Your Database On Mass EZYADOPT - Adding Files To Your Database On Mass EZYADOPT - Adding Files To Your Database On Mass
This is a very special utility for adding large quantities of
files quickly to Ezycom's file base. It basically adds in any
files that are present on your system that are not already in
your file base. Naturally you need to have set-up your file
areas and paths correctly before using this utility and MUST
have file adoption allowed for the appropriate paths in CONFIG
for EZYADOPT to work on that file path.
There are quite a few switches for this utility and they will
be explained now.
-CDROM To adopt files in CD-ROM areas, you MUST
specify this switch.
-FILEID This will cause EZYADOPT to use descriptions
out of FILE_ID.DIZ/FILE_ID.CLR/DESC.SDI. If
there is no such file, the description found
in FILES.BBS will be used (as per usual). If
there is no description for the file and it
is a GIF image, then EZYADOPT will make the
dimensions/colours into a description for
you.
-IGNORECR In some FILE_ID.DIZ descriptions, the
standard import process used on the
descriptions looks weird because by default
EZYADOPOT will take notice of carriage
returns. Specifying this option will disable
this feature.
Chapter 5 - System Maintenance 83 83 83
-DESC<pos> Some FILES.BBS files contain dates, file
sizes, download counters and other
information that is not used by Ezycom. Using
this option you can tell EZYADOPT which
column number to start importing the
descriptions from. For example: EZYADOPT -
DESC14 would tell EZYADOPT to start importing
descriptions from position 14. If this
option is not used on the command line, then
EZYADOPT will import descriptions from the
first space after the filename in FILES.BBS.
-COMMENT This will cause EZYADOPT to import
descriptions that are space/tab indented.
Normally EZYADOPT uses the pipe `|' symbol to
locate lines of a long description. This
option will make EZYADOPT work without pipes.
-FROM<file path #> EZYADOPT will by default scan all file
paths (except for CD-ROM paths). You can
specify a particular file path for it to scan
by using -FROM<file path #> eg. -FROM10. If
this is a CD-ROM area remember that EZYADOPT
will NOT scan it unless the -CDROM switch is
also used.
-TO<file path #> It is also possible to specify a range of
file paths. If paths 20 to 30 needed to be
scanned for adopting, you would use EZYADOPT
-FROM20 -TO30
Upon completion, EZYADOPT will tell you how many files it
sucessfully imported into Ezycom's file data base.
EZYMAST - Ezycom's Master File List Creator EZYMAST - Ezycom's Master File List Creator EZYMAST - Ezycom's Master File List Creator
Unlike some other BBS packages where you have to go and find a
third party utility to generate a complete list of all files on
your system, Ezycom provides you with such a utility as
standard. This utility is known as EZYMAST and is very simple
to use.
The command line switches for it are used as follows:
-M<filename> This is the full path and file name where
EZYMAST should create the master file list
itself.
84 84 84 Setting Up Ezycom
-H<headername> Use this option to specify the full path and
filename of a text header file for your
master list. This would normally be nicely
presented heading telling the reader what
your system is about and how to contact it,
what speeds it supports etc.
-FROM<area num> Specifies the first area number to include in
the file list being generated.
-TO<area num> Specifies the last area number to include in
the file list being made.
Example:
EZYMAST -MC:\BBSFILES\1992.LST -FROM10 -TO25
This will create a master list of all the files in areas
starting from area 10 and finishing at area 25, provided of
course that the CONFIG for these areas allows each area to be
included in a master list (see Chapter 3).
EZYMAST will also honour the date format specified in CONFIG so
that if you have selected the US Date format, then all dates
will be is US format in the master lists.
Chapter 5 - System Maintenance 85 85 85
Special Archive Conversion & Testing Files Special Archive Conversion & Testing Files Special Archive Conversion & Testing Files
Two archive conversion files that are supplied with Ezycom to
do all the conversions from one archive type to another archive
type, as well as scanning the files inside the archives for any
virii that might be hiding within. They are just batch files
which means you can modify their behaviour easily.
You must have your archive utility programs somewhere in your
PATH if you want to use these batch files. Also as they are
designed to scan for virii you will also have to have McAfee's
SCAN in your PATH somewhere as well. If you answer the phone
with an ATS0=1 command, you should ONLY use DOCONV.BAT. If you
however decide to use the UPCONV.BAT, you need to remember that
the file is converted immediately upon the completion of any
uploading and that it will take time to do the conversion(s)
and worse still, the user may get impatient and hang-up.
FILE_ID.DIZ auto importation also takes place via UPCONV.BAT so
if you wish this to occur you MUST use this file.
Ezycom will test for the presence of each of these files at the
appropriate time so if you do not what to convert after an
upload, ensure that UPCONV.BAT is NOT in the Ezycom directory.
Conversely removing DOCONV.BAT from the Ezycom directory
prevents any run of file maintenance from doing the same.
Setting Up Ezycom 86 86 86
Message Area Maintenance Message Area Maintenance Message Area Maintenance
Your message base is probably the single largest collection of
related files on your system. It may total anything from a few
megabytes in size to many hundreds. Your message base is like a
garden. It will grow and needs to be pruned back regularly. The
more mail networks you are involved in, the more obvious this
will become as time goes on. By this stage you should have
already configured a few message areas and will have configured
some maintenance settings on them such as maximum messages per
area and maximum days old. MSGCOMP is the main you will use to
take action on these settings.
MSGCOMP - Ezycom's Message Base Maintenance Tool MSGCOMP - Ezycom's Message Base Maintenance Tool MSGCOMP - Ezycom's Message Base Maintenance Tool
This is Ezycom's message base compacter and will do maintenance
on your message areas. Its function is to keep your message
areas to at least those limits you set in CONFIG for each area.
For example if you set Kill Max Msgs to 200 and the area has
300, MSGCOMP will delete the first 100 messages to maintain the
area at 200. However if you set any of the message limits to 0
then MSGCOMP will ignore these fields. MSGCOMP should be run
once a day in a nightly event and can ONLY be run while NO-ONE
is online else it will abort with an error message. Do not try
to run it otherwise.
The message compacter is limited to a maximum of 16,000
messages per message area and so if the number of messages in
an area exceeds 15,000, it will automatically compress that
message area to 15,000 messages. Depending on how much free
RAM is available, MSGCOMP will handle more messages per area
with an upper limit of 16,000. Ezycom itself and other
utilities can handle up to 65,000 messages per conference.
MSGCOMP will also check for file attaches on messages it is
deleting and if found, it will delete the files that were
attached also.
MSGCOMP also has six command line switches, explained
individually below:
-LINK This option will cause MSGCOMP to link
together any messages within an area that
share the same subject line. Only message
areas that have had new echomail/netmail
tossed into them since LINK was carried out,
will be done however.
Chapter 5 - System Maintenance 87 87 87
-LINKALL This will unconditionally LINK messages among
ALL echomail and netmail areas whether they
are linked already or not. Local areas are
NOT linked as Ezycom does this when you reply
to messages, so trying to LINK them would be
wasting system time. MSGCOMP links the
messages (makes reply chains), by matching
those with the same subjects together.
-NODELETE This will stop MSGCOMP from deleting messages
by days, received days, number of messages or
number of kilobytes.
-CLEANUP This will tell MSGCOMP to delete areas that
were used for conference(s) that no longer
exist in your configuration set-up (ie. clean
up stray database files).
-RAMDRIVE=<path> If you have a reasonably big RAM drive you
can tell MSGCOMP to use it as a temporary and
FAST packing location whilst it kills
messages. During MSGCOMP you will see a (RD)
after an area during packing when the RAM
drive is being used. If the RAM drive is not
big enough for some areas they will be packed
on disk.
-FASTMAIL This will compress the fast mail index
leaving only entries for mail belonging to
users of your system. This will speed new
mail checks on large message bases but will
mean that new users will not get echomail
that happens to belong to them until after
the next time MSGCOMP is run.
-N<node> Allows you to specify the log file which
MSGCOMP should log its progress to.
Maintaining Your User Base Maintaining Your User Base Maintaining Your User Base
Possibly the most common and often most time consuming thing
you will find yourself doing as a sysop is maintaining your
user base. Ezycom provides many tools for you to use to make
this task a little easier.
Setting Up Ezycom 88 88 88
EZYED - Ezycom's User Editor EZYED - Ezycom's User Editor EZYED - Ezycom's User Editor
Ezycom's easy to use menu driven user editor is known as EZYED.
Using this utility you can alter any/all the settings on the
accounts of users who use your system. You should try to use
this utility at least once every couple of days.
On loading EZYED you will be presented with the first user in
your Ezycom user base. This should normally be the Sysop as
he/she would usually be the first person to use the system and
should also have the highest security level. A number of
options are available to you from here.
F1 Displays the online help screens for EZYED.
P This gives you a very elaborate pick list for
you to choose a user from. To move around in
the pick list just use the arrow keys to go
up and down one user at a time, or use the
PgUp and PgDn keys to move up and down the
list a page at a time.
E This launches you in to the edit mode (more
on this later).
F10 Toggles you to and from the two available
display screens.
Arrow keys These keys move you to and from the next and
previous record (as do PgUp and PgDn).
F2 This option will give you a choice to search
for someone either by their user name/alias
or by the their security level. The search
will bring up the first occurrence of the
pattern you chose. For example, Name = 'Pet'
will find the first record that has 'Pet' in
the Name/Alias Field. Case is ignored in the
search so 'Peter' is the same as 'peter'.
F3 This will continue the search using the last
pattern used. When the search does not find a
user to match the pattern, EZYED will tell
you before taking you to the first user in
your user base.
Chapter 5 - System Maintenance 89 89 89
F4 This command allows certain global options to
be performed on the user base. These include
flag editing and group editing. When editing
global flags, a '-' (minus) sign means do not
change the flag, an 'X' symbol means turn the
flag ON for all users and an 'O' symbol means
turn the flag OFF for all users. When
editing global groups, the setting that you
make will affect all users, so every user
will have that global group setting.
ESC This will exit from EZYED.
INS This will add a new record to your user base.
DEL This key will toggle the Deleted flag of the
user displayed.
Keys Available In Edit Mode
CTRL A This will abort any changes made to this
record.
CTRL P This gives you a pick list of users.
CTRL S This saves the record you are editing. ESC
will do the same.
CTRL Y This deletes the current line in a text field
(eg. alias, location) while editing.
Arrow These keys move you to and from the next and
previous field entries.
PgUp/PgDn These two keys move you to the next and
previous records after first saving your
changes.
CTRL Home/End These keys will take you to the top and
bottom of the page you are currently editing.
CTRL PgUp/PgDn These keys will take you to the first and
last records in your user file respectively.
ALT J This will cause a jump (shell) to DOS. This
also works when not in edit mode.
ESC This will exit from edit mode.
The function keys (F1, F2, F3, F4, F10) work in exactly the
same way as they do in display mode.
Setting Up Ezycom 90 90 90
User Account Settings User Account Settings User Account Settings
You will notice that each account has a wide range of togglable
settings available to it. All of these settings are changed by
placing the highlight on the Yes or No display and then you tap
the Space Bar to toggle between Yes or No. The meaning of these
settings are as follows:
Deleted . - If this is set to Yes then the next time you run
USERCOMP, this user will be deleted from the user base.
Clear Screen . - This will tell Ezycom whether or not to send
screen clearing codes to this user when required.
ontinue C . - This tells Ezycom that this user requires a
continue prompt to be sent when displaying file lists and
screens longer than their screen length.
ANSI Capable . - This tells Ezycom whether the user will
accept ANSI graphics characters/control codes or not.
Don't Kill User . - If this option is set to Yes, then even if
the user has not called in the number of days you set to
kill users when using USERCOMP, they will NOT be deleted
from the user base.
Ignore File Points . - This option will stop the user from
using his/her file points. The end result is this user will
not be stopped by this powerful ratio system when
downloading files.
. Full Screen Ed - This enables or disables whether this user
uses the external Full Screen Editor (such as EzyEdit or
Gedit).
Quiet Mode . - If enabled for this user, then they will not be
able to be called by another node with the multi-node chat
system.
Ignore Ratios . - This is similar to the ignore file points
option but it applies to all the other file ratios used in
the Ezycom package. So if this option is Yes and ignore
file points is No the users can download all they like until
their file points are used up (providing they don't exceed
their daily download/time limit).
Avatar Capable . - This option will tell Ezycom to send AVATAR
screen codes to this user when it is set to Yes.
IBM Characters . - When this option is set to Yes, Ezycom will
send high-bit IBM characters to the user (frames, lines
etc). Users of Non-IBM systems will likely have this set to
No.
Chapter 5 - System Maintenance 91 91 91
. Ignore Paging - If this option is set, then the user will be
able to override all paging hours, hence be able to page the
sysop 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Exclude User . - With this option to Yes, the user will NOT
show up in any statistical type lists eg. best user
statistics, online user lists, last caller lists etc. The
sysop may find this setting of use given the number of times
the sysop may end up logging in each day. A user with this
setting will however still show up in a Who's Online? list.
Menu Time . - If this option is set to Yes, then the user will
NOT have to wait for the time restrictions on any of the
menu options.
No Page Sound . - When a user pages you with this option set
to Yes, no page sound will be heard. The user will however
still be under the impression that he/she is paging you.
Page On Logon . - If you set this option to yes and this user
logs on, five short beeps are sounded to indicate to you
that a very important user has logged on. Note though that
this option works 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and is NOT
restricted by page times.
. Ignore Message Ratio - If this option is set to Yes, then
the user will NOT have to comply with message ratio
restrictions on menu options.
The rest of the settings for user accounts are fairly self
explanatory and so will not be discussed.
92 92 92 Setting Up Ezycom
USERCOMP - Keeping Ezycom's User File In Shape USERCOMP - Keeping Ezycom's User File In Shape USERCOMP - Keeping Ezycom's User File In Shape
USERCOMP is a user base compacter utility for Ezycom. You
should run this utility at least once per day AFTER any message
and file base maintenance. You MUST not run USERCOMP while a
user is online to your system. There are several command line
switches that can be used with USERCOMP. Each will be discussed
separately below:
-S1 Sort the user list by security then surname.
-S2 Sort the user list by security then first
name.
-S3 Sort the user list by security then alias.
-S4 Sort the user list by surname.
-S5 Sort the user list by first name.
-S6 Sort the user list by alias.
-D<days> This will delete users who have not called
the system for the number of days specified
by <days>. Eg. If you use the option -D30
then all users who have not called for 30
days (or more) will be deleted, unless you
have set Don't kill user in their user
record.
-U<Security> This will tell -D<days> option not to delete
users with a security level greater than or
equal to the one specified by <security>. Eg.
If you set -U100 the users with security
level 100 and above will not be deleted
regardless of how long it has been since they
last called.
-ADD This option will add security zero users to
TRASHCAN.CTL. (See the Appendix C for more
information on TRASHCAN.CTL)
-P This option will credit file points to
uploaders whose files have been downloaded,
provided this option has been implemented in
CONFIG and you are registered.
-Bnnn This allows you to assign how many users you
want shown in your best users information
screens. Eg. If you assign a setting of -B10
then the best 10 users will be shown. The
valid range is 1-200.
Chapter 5 - System Maintenance 93 93 93
-ALIAS When USERCOMP makes the best user lists, it
will make them up using the users' aliases
instead of their real names if you give this
switch.
-N<Node> This will tell USERCOMP which file to log to.
Range 1-250.
Any combination of these command line switches can be used
simultaneously if you wish with USERCOMP.
For Example:
USERCOMP -S1 -D20 -P -B1O -ALIAS -N1
If you forget any of these switches, you can type
USERCOMP -?
at the DOS prompt for a quick reference.
Setting Up Ezycom 94 94 94
Chapter 6
Mail Networking
Introduction Introduction Introduction
One of Ezycom's most powerful features is its ability to
interact with Fidonet Technology Networks (FTN). The Fidonet
concept was invented by Tom Jennings around May 1984 as a way
to connect many BBS's together so that they could exchange
electronic mail. His original concept with the help of many
other BBS community notables has developed today into a solid
and mostly reliable way of exchanging mail between BBS's. The
network in which the technology began, Fidonet, now has over
26,000 member systems around the world. There are also
literally thousands of other networks run by different groups
using the same technology often referred to as 'other-nets'.
The shear size of these networks and the many different levels
of technology in use within these networks, is the cause of a
lot of late nights for new sysops. As a result, the next few
pages will delve into the inner workings of these networks so
that beginners will have some ground work for the later
sections. If you are already quite familiar with the basics,
As you may well have already imagined, a network with 26,000
participating BBS's must have some sort of operating structure
else it could not possibly hope to do its job in a successful
manner. In the case of FTN's this structure is derived from a
file called the Nodelist. A nodelist is simply a text file
which contains a list of all BBS's (nodes) in that network
along with the administration structure that holds them
together. Today, the full Fidonet nodelist exceeds 2 megabytes
in size!
You may well have come across an FTN network address before but
not understood it's meaning. The components of an address will
therefore now be explained.
A typical full 5-dimensional Fidonet address may look as
follows:
3:622/407.0@fidonet
Chapter 6 - Mail Networking 87 87 87
Let's break each component (dimension) up:
The 3 represents the zone . which is typically a very large
geographical area and in this case means the Pacific Basin
(Australia, New Zealand). Other major zones in Fidonet
include Zone 1 (USA & Canada) and Zone 2 (Europe).
The 622 represents the network number . (in this case,
Newcastle - New South Wales). Typically a network is a
defined by a geographical area such as a city or a group of
towns. In more populated areas a city may consist of many
similarly numbered networks because there are too large a
number of nodes in the area to make one network manageable.
The 407 represents the actual node's individual number .
within his/her network. These are typically numbered
sequentially with the network co-ordinator taking the /100
address (the person who is responsible for that small part
of the nodelist).
The .0 is the point . number. It is possible to have other
nodes that hang off your system for example that are not
listed in the nodelist but can still exchange mail using the
same technology. Often mail intensive users opt to do this
as do new sysops who do not want to take on full network
membership just yet. You as the boss node (.0) allocate a
number to each system who 'points' off of you. Normally you
would allocate these sequentially so the first system would
be .1 and so on. For most situations you can ignore the .0
for your address, it is not needed. Back before the days of
4 & 5 dimensional addressing, a method known as the fakenet
was used for points. Ezycom neither supports this or
recommends such an outdated method of point management. If
your points cannot support the modern method, its time they
changed software.
The '@fidonet', the 5th and last dimension, is known as the .
domain. The '@' signifies that a domain name is following
and is not part of the domain itself. The domain (when fully
implemented) allows multiple networks to have conflicting
Zones without getting the two confused. Mailers such as
BinkleyTerm 2.56 or later are fully 5 dimensionally aware
and use the domain name to its fullest potential. Ezycom is
5D in all respects when fully configured. Be sure to ask
your network co-ordinator for the correct domain to use in
each network you are in.
88 88 88 Advanced Features
Other Aspects
Within the nodelist you will also notice other entries. The
most notable ones are (briefly):
. Hub - In larger networks or networks that cover several
small geographical areas, the network co-ordinator will
often allocate hubs to break down the distribution of mail
into smaller groups. Instead of everyone connecting to the
net co-ordinator for mail, nodes are broken into smaller
groups and are assigned a hub who picks up the mail from the
net co-ordinator and then passes it on to these smaller
groups thus reducing the load on that system. The only
affect this has on addresses is normally in causing a jump
to the next multiple of 100 and then sequentially numbering
nodes from there.
- A geographically based grouping of networks. Used Region .
for co-ordination purposes only and so has no part in the
network address
There is also often quite a quantity of other information
contained within the nodelist such as nodelist flag types and
other announcements placed in there by the network hierarchy.
These are part of comment lines and do not affect the nodelist
structure. You may however find reading this information useful
for understanding some of the conventions used in the nodelist.
Types Of Mail Types Of Mail Types Of Mail
There are two major types of mail transmitted within a FTN.
These are and echomail netmail.
is probably the type of mail that you and your users Echomail
will make the most use of. The term echomail is derived from
the fact that every message posted within a specific area
(known as a conference) is 'echoed' to every other BBS system
who receives that conference. The nett result is discussions
can be held over a local, national and even an international
level with ease and very little effort on the part of the
participating BBS's. Conferences have a specific topic and you
should ensure that you and your users adhere to that topic else
the moderator (the person in charge of that area) can have your
feed access to that conference cut.
Typically echomail is public only so anything you post in there
can be read by every user on every BBS that has access to that
conference. There are however times when you will want to send
a private message to someone on a distant member system. This
netmail is where is used. Unlike echomail, netmail is point to
point only and for all intents and purposes can only be read by
the sender and the recipient. It only goes to one system, the
one to which it is addressed where it will be received by the
Chapter 6 - Mail Networking 89 89 89
person there to whom it is addressed. Often netmail is used for
replies to echomail messages that would otherwise be off-topic
or possibly not a good idea to post a public reply to (for
example a response to a for sale advertisement giving your name
and address). Netmail can either be routed (sent through other
systems and eventually arrive at its destination) or be sent
Crash (where it is sent directly to its destination). Its a
good idea not to give your users access to crash netmail else
you could end up with quite a phone bill if they write
internationally bound netmails. Unless otherwise stopped by
your mailer configuration, your system will happily dial up an
international number and deliver the message for them.
You should now be familiar with mail network basics and be
ready to start configuring Ezycom to work within such networks.
Mail Networking With Ezycom Mail Networking With Ezycom Mail Networking With Ezycom
Many components of Ezycom have to work together to allow it to
efficiently interact with mail networks. Most of these
components rely upon the settings in CONFIG to determine the
way in which they behave. Following is a virtual step by step
approach to configuring your mailing set-up that can be used
each time you wish to make major changes to your configuration.
It deals with each option in order of importance so that you
may later skip components that do not require any changes but
this procedure will ensure you do not forget things. An
incorrectly configured system can cost you and many other
systems a lot of money in unwarranted long distance charges so
its important that you get it right.
Defining Your Network AKAs Defining Your Network AKAs Defining Your Network AKAs
Messages Areas On the menu in CONFIG you will find a submenu
Network AKA entitled (AKA = Also Known As) that allows you to
configure up to 16 different network addresses. Each time you
join a new mail network you must first come here and enter in
your address. Your main address (typically the first or most
major network you join) goes in the top entry and all other
addresses follow in which ever order you wish after this. Be
sure to keep your Main (Primary) address consistent throughout
your system, especially in other programs such as your front-
end mailer. Simply press ENTER on an entry and another box will
pop-up allowing you to enter each dimension of your address (by
pressing ENTER on that dimension). The ESC key will allow you
to exit from a field without changing it or to exit from the
address box back to the AKA list after you have finished
editing that address. If you're not sure about the correct
domain name for each net, ask your host.
90 90 90 Advanced Features
The Uplink/Downlink Manager The Uplink/Downlink Manager The Uplink/Downlink Manager
Your various mail feeds for echomail have to come from
somewhere. Normally these come from a system known as an Uplink
who is essentially someone who is up-stream from you. Most
often this will be your network co-ordinator. On the other hand
if you are a network co-ordinator yourself or you simply feed
mail to certain systems (you may be a hub for example) then you
will also have Downlinks as well as uplinksError! Bookmark not Error! Bookmark not Error! Bookmark not
. These are nodes that are 100% dependant on you for a defined. defined. defined.
feed to a particular conference. In other words the bulk of the
mail they receive in that conference is passed to them through
your system. Consequently ANY system you send or receive
echomail to or from whatsoever MUST be defined in the Node
which can be found as a submenu off the Manager Message Areas
menu in CONFIG. Currently Ezycom allows up to 128 of these
entries, ample for just about any system.
Each option will now be explained.
Node Address . - In a simular manner to your Network AKA set-
up, enter the full address of the node you will be
sending/receiving echomail from in here. Be careful to set
the domain name correctly. This will be used for outbound
naming when running with a fully 5-dimensional mailer (see
later).
Echomail Active . - This is normally set to Yes. Use this to
temporarily disable the processing of mail to this node
without actually disconnecting them from the conferences
they get from you. This can be useful if the person is going
to be down for some time such as while away on holidays.
. Pack To - By default this address will be the same as the
Node Address however if you press ENTER on this field you
will be presented with a pick list of currently defined
nodes. Move the highlighted option so that it points to the
appropriate entry and then press ENTER again. This allows
you to 'pack-route' echomail from one address to another and
is a very powerful option. It is mostly used to eliminate
lots of smaller mail bundles where your system sends mail
for more than one FTN to the same physical system. Instead
of having one or more special mail archives for each network
you send to them, you can have it all placed into the one
archive.
Chapter 6 - Mail Networking 91 91 91
. Echo Manager Groups - In order to make it easier to control
access to various conferences (and to make management easier
overall) you can place echomail areas into groups, often on
the basis of where you receive them from. The group consists
of a single letter of the alphabet A..Z. A downlink may well
be connected (or be allowed to connect) to multiple groups
so up to 26 can be put here. Use CTRL-Y to delete all groups
shown. Ezycom will automatically alphabetically sort
whatever you put in. You can also enter an asterisk/star '*'
character to enable all groups.
. Compress To - This option will allow you to choose the
compression method which will be used on all mail archives
destined for the system being configured. Press ENTER to
toggle through the available choices. The node will usually
inform you of their preferred method. Please note however
that if Pack-To is active, the compression method for the
Pack-To node will over-ride the setting here. It is
regardless still a good idea however to keep them consistent
for each physical system you feed.
Password To Echomgr . - This is the password that this node's
automatic echo area manager will expect from any requests
that your system sends it. This is used for wait-thru areas
(see later) and allows any of your downlinks (with
sufficient privilege) to cause your system to send requests
to your uplink to turn on new echomail areas so that they
can receive them through your system.
. Password from Echomgr - This is the password this node must
use in requests to your Ezycom echo area manager (see
later). Normally this password is the same as the previous
one but for added security you may use different ones. Often
this will also be the same as your mailer's session level
password with this node.
Mail Status . - This option will determine the status of any
mail bundles destined for the system. Use ENTER to toggle
through the many options. Normal is the most common status
and should be used unless you have a special reason not to.
status will mean the mail could be sent immediately by Crash
your mailer (at your cost) and Hold status means it can
never be sent by your mailer and must be picked up by the
node in question unless you manually alter the status on
waiting mailer later on. The Direct version of each of these
options means the mail cannot be routed through another
system and so will only be sent (when allowed) straight to
the system it is addressed to.
Advanced Features 92 92 92
. Days to Hold Mail - This option will cause Ezycom to only
allow mail to be awaiting delivery for the specified number
of days before it will automatically be deleted. The test
for this condition is based on the last date the mail
archive was updated. Use Zero days to disable deletion of
mail bundles. Systems that do not pick up for some time,
especially if they are heavy mail takers, will cause a large
quantity of your hard disk space to disappear over time. A
setting such as 7 days is probably a good start.
Send .PKT Type . - This option will control the structure of
the uncompressed mail packets that Ezycom will generate. It
is quite important for outbound mail (it has no affect on
inbound mail). Type 2 is a 2-dimensional only mail packet
and contains no Zone or Point information. You can see this
by looking at your Ezycom log after tossing mail and noting
whether there is only a 2-D address listed next to the
'Tossed Packet From'. Thankfully most systems today generate
Type 2+ packets which are fully 4-dimensional. Unfortunately
this is not always the case though (strangely enough
particularly among Fidonet administration) so you should
check first with your uplink/downlink to ensure you choose
the right packet type.
Can Create New Echos . - If set this to Yes, this node is
allowed to send you new echomail areas and your system can
be configured (elsewhere) to create them automatically as
they arrive to save you manually doing so.
Add to New Echos . - This works in tandem with the previous
option and will add this node to any new echos that arrive
in any groups they are connected to. So not only will the
new echo be created, but this node will immediately begin
receiving mail from it.
. Allow 2D Security - This is a very special setting that is
only used if you have to communicate with a 2 dimensional
(type 2 - stone-age) mail system. Without this setting
turned On for such a system, ALL mail from that system will
be tossed bad should you have security (see later) enabled
for a message area they feed to you. On the other hand if
this option is enabled, Ezycom will check the net/node
dimensions for allowable exports for the area in question
and if it finds a match it will allow tossing into that area
from this node. If you see only 2 dimensional addresses for
PKT tossed entries in your log, then that system is only
sending you Type 2 packets. You should then find out if they
are capable of type 2+ and get them to switch otherwise be
sure to use this option if you want a secure system.
Chapter 6 - Mail Networking 93 93 93
. Max Num Msgs in PKT - This is a space conservation measure
and is particularly useful if you feed a large quantity of
the same conferences to a number of nodes. While tossing
(processing inbound) mail, once an outbound PKT to one of
your downlinks has this number of messages in it, it will
stop tossing mail and automatically archive that packet and
then continue tossing upon completion. Setting Zero will
disable this option. A good working value might be 400.
Count on the fact that average message size is about 1K so
if you have say 6 downlinks that is at least 2.4MB of space
that will be used up by this stage in the processing.
Archiving at this point would normally at least halve the
amount of space used.
Max Bundle Size (k) . - Once an archive gets within this
specified size, a new archive will be started for that node.
When an archive is updated, a complete temporary copy of the
old archive has to be made on disk before the new PKT is
added to it. So the bigger the archive gets, the more disk
space you will need as you progressively wish to add more
PKTs to it. Do a calculation simular to the above to
determine the best size. Also be aware that the bigger the
archive gets, the more space your downlink will need to
unpack it because the complete contents must be extracted
before the archive can be deleted on their end. A 2MB
archive could produce 5MB of PKTs so that is 7MB of free
space they would require to even begin to process that mail.
Once again a value of Zero will disable this feature for
that node.
Packet Password . - This adds a further and almost impossible
to by-pass mail security feature to Ezycom. Passwords on
packets prevents bogus systems from dropping off mail under
an anonymous AKA that looks like (when tossed) it came from
a valid system that you normally have mail exchanges with.
Up to 8 characters can be used for this password. The node
you are defining here must be capable of packet passwords
else you will be unable to toss mail from their system. You
MUST implement this feature when neither of your two systems
have mail waiting for each other under this AKA else you
will have problems tossing some of the mail as it will not
contain a password since those packets would have been
created before you set this option up. Any packets that fail
will be renamed to have a .BAD extension and a note of the
violation is made in the log.
Now that you have configured each of the systems you will be
connecting to for mail you can now move on to the message area
configuration to actually create the echomail areas themselves.
94 94 94 Advanced Features
Configuring Network Message Areas Configuring Network Message Areas Configuring Network Message Areas
This section of the manual only deals with the components of
Message Areas the configuration that relate specifically to
mail networking. The other options have already been explained
in detail in the first part of this document and it is thus
assumed you know how to use these options by this stage and so
they are not covered again.
To configure your mail network areas you need to look at the
following options:
Area Tag . - This is a special unique name that is assigned
normally by the echo conference creator to his or her
conference and is used to identify the messages that belong
in this area when mail is being tossed. As soon as you enter
something in this field, the configuration will
automatically set the Message Type field to Echomail for
you. For example the area tag for the Fidonet Ezycom Support
area is EC_SUPPORT. Your mail feed will supply you with a
list of area tags and a description of what they are about.
You will normally pick from this list, the conferences you
wish to connect to.
Once this is set you should then check the field and the Alias
Message Kind fields to ensure they are correct. All conferences
with few exceptions are public only and some areas allow
aliases while most do not. It is safest to assume initially
that aliases are not allowed and that public is the only status
allowed on messages in that area.
EchoArea Group . - This is used as mentioned previously to
group echomail message areas together normally by their
source so that you can control who can get access to them
(by the node manager) and also be able to globally manage
selected groups of echos. Be sure to correctly set this
field as per the node manager. Do not confuse this field
with Message Group which is normally used for grouping areas
of simular subject and is not limited to echomail areas.
. Private - Some echos are meant to be private. This option
will cause any private echomails to be imported with the
private status maintained. Normally this status would be
stripped. Check the particular conference rules.
Chapter 6 - Mail Networking 95 95 95
. Import Seenby - Determines whether the SEEN-BY lines will be
imported into the message base for this area. These lines
are hidden at the bottom of a message and allow mail
processors to determine which systems have already gotten
that message and so it will not scan it out to them again.
This information takes up valuable space however and is
normally stripped on import. If you are however having dupe-
problems (where mail goes around in circles), you may loop
wish to turn this on for a short time in order to track down
the source of the loop.
Tiny Seenby . - If you are acting as a domain (echo) gate
between two different networks, this option allows you to
completely strip all seen-by lines out of a message before
forwarding it over this boundary so that foreign addresses
will not show up on either side of the gate and confuse mail
processors. Most systems will never use this option. Between
any two different FTN's there should NEVER be more than one
system doing this.
Visible . - Determines whether this conference is visible to
all echo manager (Areafix) requests to your system (see
later). Setting this Yes means the requestor will not have
to have access to this area's group to actually see that it
exists. They will however not be able to connect to it
without access to it's group. This can be used to show
compulsory conferences to people without allowing them
access to the group so they can disconnect from them.
Security . - When Ezycom is tossing mail into this area, if
the mail is coming from a system that is not allowed to have
access to that area, then this option will prevent mail from
being tossed from that node to that area. Such mail will
then be tossed to a bad area (if defined) for your perusal
later. This option should normally always be on and is
useful for finding when systems are sending to you from an
AKA different to the one you have set-up for them to send to
you from.
. Origin Aka - If you press ENTER on this option a list of all
your network addresses will pop-up for you to choose from.
Press ENTER again to select one. Be sure to pick the correct
network address for the network the conference in question
belongs to else you will find yourself receiving nasty
messages from those above you.
. Uplink aka - Again pressing ENTER on this option will give
you a pick-list of nodes that you send/receive mail to/from.
Pick the node whom the bulk of the flow comes from in this
echo ie. the person who actually gives you your connection
to the distribution chain for that echo at large. This is
(or will be) used for forwarding requests for connection
from your downlinks to this uplink via your system if this
area happens to be a wait-thru area.
Advanced Features 96 96 96
. Origin Line - This is a the greeting/advertising type line
that goes on the bottom of every message posted in this area
form your system. If you don't specify one, the default will
be used. Note: Do NOT put the ' * Origin : ' part in as this
is automatically done for you during processing of new
outbound messages.
The bulk of the configuration for the message area is now done.
All that remains now is to configure the seen-by and export
tables.
Seenby . - This option is accessed by F8 and will cause a
special easy selection box to pop-up that will show all your
currently defined AKAs. Simply move throughout this box (the
highlight will show you where you currently are) and use the
ENTER key to toggle the little box beside each relevant
address. The box indicates that this AKA is active for that
conference. Normally you should only activate one AKA for
any one conference and only the one for that network. If you
hold a co-ordinator position or multiple addresses in the
one network, its a good idea to enable all of the addresses
for that network that you hold so as to prevent any possible
dupe looping when confusion over which AKA you are using
occurs. Notice how this box will stay open even if you
PgUp/PgDn to another area? This is a useful way of quickly
setting Seenbys in multiple areas and/or checking that they
are correct. The pointer will remember where it was also
even if you close the box (F8 again) until you completely
exit CONFIG so if you are configuring many areas in the same
network it will save quite a lot of time for you. Notice
also that upon closing the window, any AKAs you have enabled
will be listed beside the Seenby field.
Export To . - By pressing F10 you can configure this in the
same way as you do for the seen-by table. This is where you
define ALL the systems that you send/receive this conference
to/from. This includes the Uplink system you defined in the
option just above. A small square box beside the address
indicates that node is active for this conference and once
again PgUp/PgDn will work allowing you to move to other
areas with this view still open. The only extra thing to be
aware of is if you have more than 45 nodes in your node
manager, you will need to use the 'Q' and the 'A' keys to
move up and down between each screen full of defined
uplink/downlink nodes. The status of the display is also
maintained during movement between areas too so you do not
have to press 'A' to go to the 2nd page after doing a
PgUp/PgDn again.
Chapter 6 - Mail Networking 97 97 97
Global Management Of Echomail Conferences Global Management Of Echomail Conferences Global Management Of Echomail Conferences
Altering export lists can get very tedious after a while,
especially for a new node. Ezycom does provide an alternative
way to add nodes to the seen-by and export lists. Go into the
Global option at the bottom of the Message Areas menu in
CONFIG. Here you will find among other things two options for
echo control, specifically Global Export List and Global Seenby
. Selecting these options gives you an A)dd R)emove Q)uit List
menu. This menu will allow you to either add or remove a system
from a group of echos or to add or remove an AKA from seen-bys
in a given echo group.
Once you have picked the type of operation you will get a pick
list. Choose the node/AKA to work with and then press ENTER and
you will get an echo group list. By default all groups are
affected (hence all are listed) but you should NOT allow it to
proceed that way unless you want to change that setting in ALL
groups regardless of network. Be very careful if you want to do
that. Use CTRL-Y to delete all the groups listed and then type
the ones you wish it to work with. Pressing ENTER will then
carry out the request. If you then go and check in the message
area(s) you should see your changes affected. This method for
instance provides a very quick way of adding a node to several
hundred echos.
Something worthy of pointing out at this stage is that the
message areas only contain a reference to the appropriate entry
in the node manager so if one of your nodes has an address
change for some reason you need only change the address in the
node manager. If someone else takes over a major feed the same
also applies, just change the address in the node manager and
when you check the area configuration you should see the
correct address in the export list. You do NOT have to do a
Global Remove followed by a Global Add.
Advanced Features 98 98 98
Netmail Message Areas Netmail Message Areas Netmail Message Areas
When configuring a netmail board, all but one of the options
previously mentioned are irrelevant. That exception is the
Origin Aka which aside from general area settings, is the only
thing you have to configure for a netmail area, that is of
course, aside from setting the Message Type to Netmail in the
first place. CONFIG will tell you if you try to use an option
not meant for the message area type you have set. Once you have
defined all your netmail boards (you MUST have one for each
network you are in) you have to go into the Netmail Boards off
the Message Areas menu and tell Ezycom the board number of the
appropriate netmail board for each network AKA you have
defined. If you are feeling lazy and are sure you have
correctly defined all the netmail boards (one for each AKA) hit
ENTER on the intelligent guess option and Ezycom will locate
and set all the options for you automatically. It is however
best to check them anyway to make sure you have not made a
mistake.
General Network Message Options General Network Message Options General Network Message Options
Selecting the Network Misc option from the Message Areas menu
will take you into a screen full of options to do with
configuring your FTN operations. Each of the options is
explained in turn below:
Inbound Mail Path . - This tells Ezycom where to find inbound
mail archives destined for your system. Your front-end
mailer will place them in a directory specified by you.
These two directories should thus be the same.
Outbound Mail Path . - This is where Ezycom will place all
outbound mail archives. This directory MUST be unique and is
NOT the same as the PACKET directory which Front
Door/Intermail mailers use for creating dynamic outbounds
(see the section on Front End Mailer Types for more
information).
Binkley/Portal Path . - This tells Ezycom exactly where to
find/create OUTBOUND.zzz holding directories if you are
using a Binkley style mailer. Normally you would set
something like C:\BINKLEY and so any mail for zone 3 from
your primary network would go into C:\BINKLEY\OUTBOUND.003.
ARCmail 0.6 Compatability . - This will force Ezycom to use
the ARCmail 0.6 naming convention on mail archives. Ezycom
uses a much more intelligent method of its own if you set
this to No. However in Fidonet particularly, some older
systems may not be able to cope with anything other than
ARCmail 0.6 naming. More often than not though the naming
method is irrelevant.
Chapter 6 - Mail Networking 99 99 99
. Import Messages to Sysop - Most sysops prefer not to have
private netmail addressed to them imported into the message
base and instead have it left in their *.MSG netmail folder
for direct manipulation by their mail reader. This option
will allow you that choice.
Real Name Kludge Line . - In Alias message areas this option
will cause a hidden @REALNAME kludge to be inserted in all
the messages posted. This means the real name of the author
can be readily identified. This may not be desirable
especially in some Adult type echomail areas where
embarrassment could be caused to the author of the message.
Swap Out On Ezymail . - Here you can control the swapping
method that Ezycom will use while processing mail whenever
it needs to fire up an archive processing utility. Use ENTER
to toggle through the various options. Disk is always the
ultimate (and slowest) fall-back. Best option is XMS/EMS
since XMS is faster. Ezycom will try each method in order of
priority in this case.
Dupe Detection . - This enables automatic echomail dupe
detection in Ezycom. Instead of blindly forwarding/tossing
mail your system has already seen before (as the result of a
dupe-loop) Ezycom can detect such dupes and delete the
messages without processing them further. To do this it uses
a dupe table of 8000 entries which contains CRCs of the
message header info for the most recently tossed messages
backwards. This makes detection of dupes very fast and very
reliable.
. Number Of Dupe Messages - This allows you to control the
size of the dupe table that Ezycom maintains. You should set
this to as high a value as memory will allow you to go to
ensure that maximum effectiveness against in detecting dupes
is achieved. EZYMAIL will indicate during startup how many
dupes it is checking against or will state there is not
enough memory to check using the table size specified here.
You can have up to 999000 set here, although 10000 to 25000
is more workable. The larger the table, the slower mail will
process.
. Keep EchoMgr Node Receipts - When a node in your node
manager sends a request to your echo manager, this option
allows you to keep a copy of those requests if you so wish.
You may want to keep track of who has been doing such
requests or if someone is having trouble with them you can
help them because you will be able to see where they are
going wrong.
100 100 100 Advanced Features
. Bad Message Board (0=Off) - Placing a number here defines a
message board where bad messages will go upon tossing. Bad
messages are caused by security violations on an echo area
ie. a system trying to send mail into an area that is not
available to them.
Unknown Area(s) Action . - Probably one of Ezycom's more
powerful features, this will allow you to cause new echo
areas sent to you to be auto-created and even be fed to your
downlinks automatically if the Node Manager specifies so.
EchoMail* Set to enable this Registered Only feature.
Optionally you can set new areas to pass through (which
still allows auto-adding to downlinks) or to Kill whereby
any messages to them will be killed without question.
. Kill Bad Archive(s) - Any inbound mail archives found to be
corrupt (often incomplete) can optionally be killed upon
discovery. Setting this option to No is probably a good idea
in a Front Door/Intermail set-up however because a mail
transfer may have aborted leaving only half the file
received and if the archive is then deleted, the transfer
cannot resume except from scratch should the transfer be
tried again at a later date.
Default Origin Line . - This simply defines an origin line to
use by default in the absence of a specific one in any of
your message areas. As with the specific one, the ' *
Origin: ' is NOT required as this is automatically placed in
for you when new outbound messages are processed.
Mark Netmail as Kill/Sent . - Determines whether mail written
on netmail boards and any other netmails that Ezycom
generates, get a kill upon sending status. If you want to
keep all netmails for manual deletion then set this option
to No.
. Kill Null Netmail - Any netmails without a body text in them
(eg. file attaches coming in) will be killed if this option
is set to Yes.
. Maximum Messages To Rescan - If a node in your node manager
issues a rescan request (ie. wishes to get old mail from an
area he/she has just turned on so as to give their system
something to start with) then this option will control the
maximum number of messages that they can actually get (per
area). This option has a maximum value of 999 and Zero
disables this feature entirely.
. Delete Mail Bundles - Any mail bundles found lying around in
a Front Door/Intermail type mailer environment that do not
seem to have a netmail attached to them, will be killed if
this option is set to Yes. Do NOT enable this in a
BinkleyTerm/Portal Of Power environment.
Chapter 6 - Mail Networking 101 101 101
. Binkley Support - This option is used to specify the style
of outbound your front-end mailer uses. If you are using
Front Door/Intermail, set this to No. If you are using
Portal of Power, set this to Yes. If you are using
BinkleyTerm 2.50 or higher, set this to Yes + 5D. The latter
will enable full 5-dimensional mailer support ie. the use of
domains, which allows two different networks to share the
same zone number.
Create OUT, DUO, etc . - If you are running either Portal Of
Power or BinkleyTerm (or any other Binkley style mailer)
then enable this option so that EZYPACK will happily convert
Crash/Hold etc *.MSG netmails to outbound bundles that this
type of mailer uses.
Automatic Creation of Echomail Areas Automatic Creation of Echomail Areas Automatic Creation of Echomail Areas
Probably the most time consuming thing a new sysop can find him
or herself doing is setting up new echos, especially if you
have just joined a new mail network and have to add tens or
even hundreds of new echos. Ezycom allows sysops using a
registered version of Ezycom to avoid this very time consuming
task through its ability to automatically create new echos as
they arrive and even link up downlinks on the fly. The heart of
this function is controlled from the New Echo Area option that
can once again be found off the Message Areas menu in CONFIG.
Upon selecting this option you will see a pop-up box that shows
all your defined AKAs once again as well as Group, Msg Board
Start and Template Board fields beside each. This means for
each network you receive (or indeed each AKA you receive from),
you can configure a default echo group and starting position
(message board number) for new (unknown) echos to begin being
created at. Ezycom will start at this message area number and
locate an empty area where it will quickly create the new echo
for you. It automatically skips over used ones till it finds a
suitable location to create the new area. When creating the
area it uses the message area specified Template Board as a
skeleton area to choose settings for most of the options
(setting zero disables this component). EZYMAIL then
automatically sets the uplink, seen-by and export list fields
for you (including auto-added downlinks as per the node manager
settings) and then proceeds to toss mail into this area (and to
downlinks). Other options such as default security levels are
configured elsewhere (see next section). A node MUST have
access to the group defined for the appropriate AKA here else
they will NOT be able to create areas despite their node
manager setting.
The configuration in this section equally applies to pass-thru
echos also and registration is not required for this feature.
Pass-thru areas are simply ones that do not exist in the
message base but contain mail that gets forwarded to downlinks.
102 102 102 Advanced Features
Normally if the echos are of no interest to yourself or your
users but a system you feed wants them, then you make them
pass-thru so that they do just that, pass through your system.
This is a fairly speedy process as they don't have to be tossed
into your message base and merely go from one packet to
another.
Be aware that once echos are created, they will not be
completely ready for use by users. You will have to go and
adjust the access levels on them and give a proper title to the
message area (the default will be the echo-tag). You will also
need to check message maintenance options (ie days, number,
kilobytes etc) and set a proper QWK area name (which also
defaults to the first 12 chars of the echo-tag). But overall
you will save hours of otherwise tedious work.
Special Message Security Settings For Network Mail Special Message Security Settings For Network Mail Special Message Security Settings For Network Mail
Security In the option found off the Message Areas menu you
will find quite a number of security controls related to echo
and netmail. These are very much set and forget options
although if you ever make any major changes to your security
level system, it is a good idea to check these settings again.
The options available are used as follows:
Force Crash Mail Security . - This is the minimum security
level for which crash status on netmail messages will be
forced ie. no choice is given, it is forced on. You are well
advised not to give this to users unless you trust them with
your life. Your front-end mailer could be going bizzerk
delivering netmails all over the globe otherwise.
Optional Crash Mail Security . - This is the minimum security
for which crash status is optional (up to the forced
security). Upon attempting to write a netmail message, users
with this security and above (up to the forced level) will
be prompted as to whether they would like the message sent
crash or otherwise.
. Netmail File Attach Security - This is the minimum security
required for a user to upload and attach files to a netmail
message. Be very careful of this as a user could attach
large quantities of files to messages and you will pickup
the tab for sending them to their destination via your front
end mailer (registered version only).
Chapter 6 - Mail Networking 103 103 103
. Netmail File Request Security - This is equally dangerous,
at least for your wallet. If users have access to this
option they can cause your system to do a file request to
anywhere they like and your mailer will happily dial and try
and pick-up whatever files they have requested (*.* maybe?)
All of the previous options should only be available to you and
maybe co-sysops.
Read Sec on New EchoMail Area . - This defines the default
read security on auto-created echo areas (see previous
section). Normally you would set this to the same as the
sysop security so you can prevent access to new echos until
you have correctly completed their set-up.
. Write Sec on New EchoMail Area - Simular to the above this
option defines the default write security on auto-created
areas.
Sysop Sec on New EchoMail Area - . This defines the default
sysop security on newly created areas.
Reply Via Netmail Security . - This is the minimum security a
user must have in order to reply via netmail to an echomail
message. This will automatically determine the appropriate
netmail address using the hidden kludge lines present in
most echomail messages (see later). If these kludge lines
are not missing, Ezycom will ask the user to type the
destination address manually.
. Request Receipt Security - This applies to local mail as
well as netmail. A user with this security or higher can
request a receipt to their message. In the case of netmail,
a message will be sent back by the destination system once
the message arrives to say that it did arrive and possibly
