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FETool Value added tools for FastEcho Version 1.42 User's Guide Send questions and comments to: Joerg Michael, 2:244/1129@fidonet Contents 1. Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 2. Shareware Notice, Legal Stuff and Disclaimer . . . . . . . . . . 3 2.1 Differences in the registered version . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 3. Software environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 3.1 Hard-/Software Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 3.2 Finding FASTECHO.CFG . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 3.3 Configuration and options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 3.4 FETOOL environment variable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 3.5 The log file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 3.6 Credits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 4. Command Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 4.1 Area list functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 4.2 DELAREAS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 4.3 DOREQ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 4.4 FAKEREQ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 4.5 FTOSS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 4.6 KILLZERO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 4.7 MAINT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 4.8 MAINTCR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 4.9 STAT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Appendix A. Errorlevels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Appendix B. Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 B.1 Batch file examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 B.2 FAKEREQ list file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Appendix C. Reporting Problems and Obtaining Updates . . . . . . . 13 C.1 Reporting Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 C.2 Obtaining Updates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Contents i 1. Features ■■■■■■■■ ■■■■■■■■ ■■■■■■■■ ■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■ ■■■■■■ ■■■■■■ ■■ ■■■■■■ ■■■■■■ ■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■■ ■■■■■■■■ ■■ ■■■■■■ ■■■■■■ ■ FETool - FastEcho value added Tools FETool is a collection of utilities for use with the FastEcho echomail processor by Tobias Burchhardt. It provides the following features: ■ For FrontDoor/InterMail users: automatic maintenance of your FOLDER.FD/.CFG file beyond FastEcho's auto create feature. Deletes areas from FrontDoor's/InterMail's setup when they have been deleted from FastEcho's area setup. Adds areas you have created manually to your mailer's editor setup. The registered version also checks for crosslinked areas. ■ For points and nodes without downlinks: provides an integrated basic file echo processor that processes standard *.TIC files and moves the associated files to subdirectories according to file area names. Files can be announced in a netmail and are, optionally, CRC32 checked. ■ Create echo area lists for different purposes. Command line switches let you define the listing by 'groups' and 'read security' levels as well as by storage type (HMB/Fido/Squish/JAM/PT). The available formats are: 1. 'human readable' with comment, group, security levels, and information on passthru/'rescan'able' status. 2. FastEcho AreaFix compatible, used for FastEcho's area request forwarding feature. 3. simple list containing only area tags, perfect input file for DELAREAS and FAKEREQ commands. 4. list of "passive" areas. Some people like to kill these. 5. list of area tags ordered by group letters 6. list of active areas for a specific system 7. list of Squish type areas in AREAS.BBS format for editors and maintenance tools. 8. Yuppie! point system compatible [Yuppie! is a german point package This list will be turned into a nice area request menu at the Yuppie-point. 9. For nodes: create a list of passthru areas with only one link ('empty' areas). Also perfect input to DELAREAS. Features 1 ■ create AreaFix requests on the fly. No need to create a netmail - just connect and disconnect areas from the command line. ■ For nodes: create 'fake' AreaFix requests from your downlinks to *your* AreaFix to connect them to echo areas, to send them area setup information or the help file. Simply: create requests on behalf of your downlinks. ■ "Delete" echo areas from FastEcho by command line or list file. This function will only delete areas with exactly one link and will automatically create areafix-unlink requests to shut down these areas. ■ Automatically delete zero length netmail message files. Some programs may leave these behind due to bugs. Features 2 2. Shareware Notice, Legal Stuff and Disclaimer This is copyrighted software owned by Joerg Michael. It is NOT public domain or freeware. You are granted a TEMPORARY license to try this software for EVALUATION purposes ONLY ! You may use this package for an evaluation period of 30 days. After this time you have to register FETool or stop using it! Any other or further use of this software is strictly forbidden and may result in legal action! To register FETool, please refer to LICENSE.DOC and REGISTER.ARJ, which contains README.REG and the order forms (REGISTER.*). FETool is provided 'as is', without warranty of any kind, neither expressed nor implied. I only guarantee FETool will occupy diskspace. In no event will the author be liable to you for any damages, including lost profits, lost savings or other incidental or consequential damages arising out of the use or the inability to use this program. All mentioned products and packages are copyrighted by and trademarks of their respective holders. Upon registration you will have a key file to unlock the added features. These key files are copyrighted material owned by Joerg Michael and MUST NOT be distributed, hacked, reverse engineered etc. If you don't follow these rules, your license expires immediately and legal actions may be taken against you. 2.1 Differences in the registered version The unregistered version has the following limitations: ■ Message base storage type option ("-Type") for area lists is ignored. ■ The DELAREAS command is limited to 3 area names per list file. ■ The FTOSS command is limited to process only one file per run and will not scan the _secure_ inbound directory. ■ MAINT only does passes 1 and 2. In the unregistered evaluation version there are also two beeps at startup to remind you of FETool's unregistered status. As registered user, you may use beta versions if you wish to do so. Shareware Notice, Legal Stuff and Disclaimer 3 3. Software environment 3.1 Hard-/Software Requirements FETool requires/supports: ■ Intel 80x86 or compatible CPU ■ 256 KB RAM, more if many areas/links ■ MS DOS 3.3 or later ■ FastEcho Tosser Version 1.25 or later (1.40 recommended) ■ FrontDoor 2.02 or later w/ QBBS/FIDO message base for MAINT ■ InterMail 2.21 w/ QBBS/FIDO message base for MAINT 3.2 Finding FASTECHO.CFG FETool uses the following logic to find FASTECHO.CFG: 1. if the FE environment variable is set, look in the directory pointed to by FE. 2. if the FE variable is not set, look in the current directory. 3. if not found, scan the directories in PATH for fastecho.cfg If FASTECHO.CFG cannot be found by this method, FETool will abort with an appropriate message. 3.3 Configuration and options FETOOL's options can be specified in three different ways: ■ FETOOL.CFG located in the same directory as FETOOL.EXE ■ FETOOL environment variable ■ command line options Generally, FETOOL.CFG can be overridden by the environment variable which in turn can be overridden by command line options. Note however, that not all options can be specified in all three forms and that some options cannot be overridden once specified. See FETOOL.CFG for a sample configuration. Software environment 4 3.4 FETOOL environment variable Some of the command line options can be 'pre-set' in an environment variable named "FETOOL". The following settings can be set as defaults, SEC= and GROUPS= can be overridden from the command line. ┌───────────────┬────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ Item │Meaning │ ├───────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤ │ SEC=<nnn> │default "-Sec" value │ ├───────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤ │ GROUPS=<list> │default "-Groups" value │ ├───────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤ │ NOHELP │NOHELP will skip the areafix metacommands │ │ │inserted at the top of the Yuppie!-type │ │ │area listing. │ ├───────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤ │ AUTO │specify "-Auto" mode to MAINT │ ├───────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤ │ DEBUG │enable verbose logging │ └───────────────┴────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ NOHELP, AUTO cannot be overriden from the command line. When setting the environment, separate options with commas, as in SET FETOOL=AUTO,SEC=100,GROUPS=AILS 3.5 The log file FETool can append information to FastEcho's logfile. To activate logging, you need to set the 'LogLevel' keyword in FETOOL.CFG to an appropriate value other than 'None'. The possible log levels are 'Debug', 'Inform' and 'Error'. 'Debug' will provide the most detailed log information, while 'Error' will only log serious problems. You should use at least 'Error'. Processing information displayed on the screen may be set by the 'LogLevelScreen' keyword. FETool will automatically select the appropriate log file format from FESetup (FD/IM, D'Bridge, Binkley). 3.6 Credits Obviously, FETool would not have been possible without Tobias Burchhardt's FastEcho, the best tosser in the galaxy. The registration key scheme is loosely based on Brian Pirie's REGKEY package. The CRC routines are copyrighted material owned by Arjen G. Lentz and LENTZ SOFTWARE-DEVELOPMENT. The configuration file parser was created by Gilles Kohl. Software environment 5 4. Command Reference For quick help, run FETool without parameters and the program will display a list of available commands and how to get more online help on specific commands. 4.1 Area list functions The list functions are used to create area lists in several different formats for different purposes. You can select or filter areas to be listed by three criteria: group letters, read security level and message base storage type. By default, i.e. when no options are specified, areas in groups A thru Z with read security 0 in any kind of message base format will be listed. Therefore, you will generally want to specify at least the "-Sec" (urity) parameter to get meaningful lists, otherwise only areas with read security level of 0 will be listed. If you specify ' -Groups * ', areas in all groups will be included in the list. This may be useful to override a default groups option in the environment variable. To indicate that you want only areas in a specific message base format listed, use the "-Type" option. Valid arguments to "-Type" are QBBS, FIDO, SQUISH, JAM, PT (PassThrough). E.g.: FETOOL AREAS JAMLIST.TXT -SEC 1000 -GROUPS F -TYPE JAM The following table contains the criteria an area must match to be listed for each list command. All listed criteria must apply for an area to be included in the list. ┌───────────────┬────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ Command │Criteria for listing │ ├───────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤ │ AFIXLIST │area is <EchoMail> │ │ │area matches -Groups, -Sec and -Type │ ├───────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤ │ AREAS │area is <EchoMail> │ │ │area matches -Groups, -Sec and -Type │ ├───────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤ │ EMPTY │area is <EchoMail> │ │ │area is <Passthrough> │ │ │area is not <Passive> │ │ │area has only one link │ │ │area matches -Groups, -Sec and -Type │ ├───────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤ │ GROUPS │area matches -Groups, -Sec and -Type │ └───────────────┴────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Command Reference 6 ┌───────────────┬────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ TAGS │area is <EchoMail> │ │ │area matches -Groups, -Sec and -Type │ ├───────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤ │ MEMBER │area is active for specified system │ ├───────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤ │ PASSIVE │area is <EchoMail> │ │ │area is <Passive> │ │ │area matches -Groups, -Sec and -Type │ ├───────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤ │ SQUISH │area is <Squish> │ │ │area matches -Groups and -Sec │ ├───────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤ │ YUPPIE │area is <EchoMail> │ │ │area matches -Groups, -Sec and -Type │ └───────────────┴────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ 4.2 DELAREAS This command is used to delete one area or an entire list of areas from FastEcho and to automatically create unlink requests for these areas. You may specify areas to be deleted on the command line or in a list file, which may have been created by EMPTY or PASSIVE. To prevent you from accidentally disconnecting downlinks from areas, only areas with exactly one link can be deleted with DELAREAS. Remember to run FETOOL MAINT after DELAREAS to update your FD folder setup as well. Also note that you will end up with 'messages in undefined boards' if you delete areas that you also have in your messagebase. This is normal and nothing to worry about. The next message base purge/pack will 'fix' this for you. Of course, there's a potential pitfall: let's assume you DELAREAS an area. It no longer exists in your setup. Life is beautiful and you feel happy. Then, when your system calls your uplink to deliver the unlink request, it picks up a mail bundle containing mails in the deleted area .... -> see 'badmail' and 'auto-area create' in FastEcho :-) Such is life. Just DELAREAS it again and it'll be gone for good. FETool will rename your current FASTECHO.CFG to FASTECHO.BAK before re-writing the file. DELAREAS will process a maximum of 1000 areas in one run. 4.3 DOREQ The DOREQ command allows you to create AreaFix to any of your uplinks from the command line. Basically, DOREQ works like FAKEREQ decribed below - look there for details. The syntax is exactly the same for both commands, the only difference is that with DOREQ you specify your Command Reference 7 uplink's address instead of your downlink's address. 4.4 FAKEREQ There are often situations where a sysop needs to connect a downlink to some areas or have FastEcho send help or link information. Of course you can use FESetup to connect the downlink, but with FAKEREQ you can do it all on the command line *and* the downlink will receive AreaFix receipts for your actions. You can also prepare a list file used when connecting new downlinks, i.e. to rescan and connect local areas, point discussion areas and to automatically send the AreaFix help text to the downlink. For an example of a listfile used to 'initialize' new points, see the examples section at the end of this document. If you use 4DOS and wish to enter areafix metacommands (e.g. %rescan) from the command line, you must use '%%' to prefix the metacommands. 4.5 FTOSS The FTOSS command is a TIC file processor for systems without downlinks. FTOSS will read *.TIC files in your inbound directory (if you use FD or IM, the directory will be determined from your mailer's setup, otherwise FE's inbound directory will be used) and move the associated files into subdirectories below your inbound directory or below a specified 'filebase root directory. The directory names will be the first eight characters of the file area name - so there *may* be overlaps. These subdirectories will be automatically created as needed. FILES.BBS files will be appended with filename and description and a netmail to yourself will be created announcing the new files. Note that even though FETool also scans the secure inbound directory, the file area directories will always be created below the regular inbound directory, unless the 'FileBase' option is used. If you specify the "-Announce" or "-a" option, FTOSS will only create the announcement netmail and not move any files or delete .TIC files. The "-NoAnnounce" or "-na" option will skip the announcement netmail. Use "-FileBase" to specify a 'filebase root dir'. You will probably want to set this up in FETOOL.CFG so you don't have to specify it every time you run FTOSS manually. The "-AutoReplace" or "-ar" option was added on special request for the following scenario: A node frequently hatches files with the same name but without the 'Replaces' keyword in the .TIC file. This option will set the 'Replaces' filename to the current 'File' filename if the Command Reference 8 'Replaces' keyword was not present in the .TIC file. In the unregistered version, FTOSS will only process one *.TIC file per run and not scan the secure inbound directory. 4.6 KILLZERO Some programs may sometimes leave zero length *.MSG in the netmail directory behind when they exit. Once you have identified a program with this buglet, you can run "FETool KillZero" after the "problem software". Zero length netmail files may cause confusion within some other pieces of software. 4.7 MAINT MAINT allows you to update your mailer's editor folder setup, provided your mailer is FrontDoor or InterMail. FastEcho's area setup is used as a reference to which your editor's setup will be synchronized by performing the following 5 steps: 1. For all FD/IM QBBS folders, check if an area with the same QBBS board number exists in FE. If not, delete the folder from FD/IM. 2. For all FE QBBS areas, check if a folder with the same QBBS board number exists in FD/IM. If not, create the folder in FD/IM. 3. For all FD/IM *.MSG areas without FD's 'local' flag, check if an area with the same name exists in FE. If not, delete folder from FD/IM. 4. For all FE *.MSG areas, check if an area with the same name exists in FD/IM. If not, create *.MSG folder in FD/IM. 5. Check for crosslinks in FastEcho's area configuration. Note that steps 3-5 are only available to registered users. For QBBS, please consider: if you delete a QBBS-area iun FESetup and immeditately create a new area re-using the same board number, MAINT will not see the change in FastEcho's setup because the board number is present in both the old and new setups. Run MAINT before adding new areas in FESetup. Note that any other (private, local) folders you define in FDSETUP/IMSETUP should have the local flag set to make sure FETool will never delete them because they are not defined in FESetup. 'Local' is used as safety switch. Before FETool rewrites FOLDER.FD/.CFG, the current version is renamed to FOLDER.BAK. Command Reference 9 For areas added to FOLDER.FD/.CFG, FETool will attempt to find an AKA in the mailer's setup that matches the zone used for that area in FESetup. Note: if you have more than one aka for one zone, make sure the one you want to use for echomail is listed before the other in FDSetup. Also note that '-Comment' and '-Tags' options are never applied to FIDO style *.MSG folders. The tag will always be used. The area name should never be changed in FDSETUP for *.MSG areas. 4.8 MAINTCR Basically the same as MAINT, but FOLDER.FD/.CFG will *always* be created from scratch. This means that some folders you created for FD/IM may be deleted if they are not present and defined as echomail in FESETUP. Use with caution! 4.9 STAT This command will generate a netmail to you listing some vital statistics for your mail system such as free space on inbound, message base and outbound drives, size of MSGTXT.BBS and total outbound ARCmail size. It will also inform you of .QQQ files in your outbound and .BAD files in your inbound directories. FETool will hilight crtitical values by using the quote marks ('>'). Usually, this would be run once daily during the daily maintenance event. Command Reference 10 Appendix A. Errorlevels FETool will return specific errorlevels to DOS in certain situations. You may want to check for these in batch files. ┌─────┬──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ RC │Meaning │ ├─────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤ │ 0 │no error, normal exit │ ├─────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤ │ 1 │command line error, invalid command or parameter │ ├─────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤ │ 2 │no error, help was displayed. nothing was done. │ ├─────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤ │ 3 │FD environment variable not set for MAINT command │ ├─────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤ │ 4 │invalid address/other problem with FAKEREQ command │ ├─────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤ │ 5 │FastEcho.cfg revision level not supported, i.e. pre 1.21 │ ├─────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤ │ 6 │Problem with registration/key file/"registered only" feature. │ ├─────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤ │ 11 │error opening a file │ ├─────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤ │ 12 │error reading from a file │ ├─────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤ │ 13 │error writing to file │ ├─────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤ │ 14 │memory allocation error │ └─────┴──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Appendix A. Errorlevels 11 Appendix B. Examples B.1 Batch file examples In my midnight maintenance batch file, I do the following: rem -- create list of squish areas for timEd fetool squish areas.sq -sec 1000 -groups * rem -- find and delete "empty" areas fetool empty areas.lst -sec 1000 -groups * fetool delareas @areas.lst rem -- find and delete "passive" areas fetool passive areas.lst -sec 1000 -groups * fetool delareas @areas.lst rem -- synchronize FD's editor with FE fetool maint -auto After tossing ... if not exist newareas.fe goto continue rem -- create new area lists for downlinks/Yuppie points fetool yuppie r:\service\areas.yup -groups AILSG -sec 100 fetool areas r:\service\areas.lst -groups AILSG -sec 100 :continue B.2 FAKEREQ list file To connect new points to my system and supply them with some areas to get started with, I use the following command and list file: FETool FakeReq .<n> @newpoint.lst NEWPOINT.LST contains: %help %info %avail %rescan cave.info cave.points points.244 %msgs 5 cave.test Appendix B. Examples 12 Appendix C. Reporting Problems and Obtaining Updates C.1 Reporting Problems If you encounter a reproducable problem with FETool and wish to report it to me by netmail, please do the following - after making sure you are using the latest version of FETool: ■ in your FETOOL.CFG file, specify "LogLevel=Debug". If you do not use a configuration file for FETOOL, create a new file FETOOL.CFG and include the above LogLevel statement or SET FETOOL=DEBUG in the DOS environment. ■ run FETOOL with the command that gives you the problem. Make sure you use the same optional parameters as you did when you first discovered the problem. ■ run FETOOL DIAG Please include the logfile extract produced by the previous TWO runs of FETOOL and your FETOOL.CFG with your problem report netmail. Obviously, feel free to include any other files you feel may be helpful in diagnosing/reproducing the problem. C.2 Obtaining Updates Obviously, you can always f'request the latest version from my system using the following magic filenames: ■ FETOOL for the latest publicly released version. ■ FETOOLB for the latest and greatest beta version. The file obtained via this magic name may actually be updated several times a day. To make sure you are always using the latest version, here is some information on how FETool is distributed via file echos: ■ New releases are hatched into the FASTECHO file echo. This file echo is rather widely spread, so you should be able to find the latest FETool wherever you found the latest FastEcho. ■ Major beta versions are hatched into the appropriate FastEcho beta file echo. Therefore, FastEcho beta sites should also have major FETool beta versions. ■ There is also a rather private file echo, FETOOLB, that you may link into if you are a registered user. To link into FETOOLB, contact me via netmail. Appendix C. Reporting Problems and Obtaining Updates 13