Beijing Paradise BBS Backup

home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search

/ Beijing Paradise BBS Backup / PARADISE.ISO / software / BBSDOORW / FMAIL102.LZH / FMAIL.DOC < prev next >

Wrap

Text File | 1995-06-26 | 109.4 KB | 3,234 lines

FMail 1.02 The Fast Echomail Processor Copyright (C) 1991, 1995 by Folkert J. Wijnstra All rights reserved TABLE OF CONTENTS 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 1.1 License and disclaimer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 1.2 Registration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 1.3 Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 1.4 System requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 1.5 Various notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 2 Getting started . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 2.1 Converting config files of other echomail processors 8 3 FSetup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 3.1 FSetup keys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 3.2 Main menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 3.3 Miscellaneous . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 3.3.1 General options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 3.3.2 Message base . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 3.3.3 Mail options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 3.3.4 Mgr options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 3.3.5 Personal mail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 3.3.6 Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 3.3.7 Group names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 3.3.8 AreaMgr defaults . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 3.4 System info . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 3.4.1 Miscellaneous . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 3.4.2 Directories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 3.4.3 Log files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 3.4.4 Swapping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 3.4.5 Compression . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 3.4.6 Decompression . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 3.5 Import/export . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 3.6 Uplink Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 3.7 Pack Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 3.8 Node Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 3.9 Area Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 4 FMail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 4.1 Scan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 4.2 Toss . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 4.3 Import . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 4.4 Pack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 4.4.1 Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 5 AreaMgr . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 6 FTools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 6.1 Delete . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 6.2 Maint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 6.3 Move . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 1 6.4 MsgM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 6.5 Notify . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 6.6 Post . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 6.7 Sort . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 6.8 Stat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 6.9 Undelete . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 6.10 Export . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 7 Credits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 APPENDIX A - Error messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 APPENDIX B - Technical notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 2 1 Introduction FMail is an echomail and netmail processor for the Hudson and JAM message bases. FMail has a built-in AreaFix-like function, called AreaMgr, with new commands like %RESCAN, %ACTIVE and %PASSIVE. Seven different types of archives are supported. FMail has its own netmail routing function, called the Pack Manager. With FMail it is possible to make a copy of all personal mail in a special directory. Other features of FMail include: - Capable of handling 4D addresses. - If needed FMail automatically remaps fakenet addresses to 4D addresses and vice versa. - Swaps to disk, EMS or XMS before running an archiving utility. - Supports the message base sharing specifications also used by RemoteAccess and FrontDoor. - Multiple netmail boards in the message base. - Optionally sorts and links messages in the message base after new messages have been imported. 1.1 License and disclaimer "FMail" refers to the executables and documentation in the original distribution archive. FMail is copyrighted material by Folkert J. Wijnstra. It may only be used in agreement with the conditions set out in this license agreement. FMail may be freely distributed as long as no files are removed from the package and the files are not modified in any way, and as long as no money or any other compensation is asked or accepted for this package without prior written permission from the author. Although care has been taken to write and test a program that does what this document states, the program is provided as is, without warranty or guarantee of any kind, either expressed or implied, as to the quality or performance of this program, except that it will occupy disk space. The author, Folkert J. Wijnstra, will not be held liable to you or anyone for (but not limited to) any direct, indirect, incidental or consequential damages, including any lost profits, 3 lost savings which may result from the use or inability to use this program. Folkert J. Wijnstra is in no way obligated to provide future versions of, or support for this software. Your use of the program constitutes your agreement to this license and disclaimer and your release of the author from any form of liability or litigation. 1.2 Registration This release of FMail may be used free of charge for individual hobby use. It is not allowed to use an unregistered version of FMail within a commercial environment (i.e. business, governmental organization, school, foundation, or any other form of juridical person) longer than an evaluation period of four weeks. Registering FMail enables a number of special features (tearline options). To register FMail, fill out the registration form and send it to one of the registration sites, preferably by netmail. See FMAILREG.LZH for more information. If you want to send me netmail, use crash mail to node 2:283/619 or use normal netmail routing. IMPORTANT: It is not possible for me to answer all messages I receive. You can be sure, however, that I will read all messages! More information about the availability of the FMAIL_HELP echomail conference can be obtained from the registration and support sites or me. Folkert Wijnstra Ede, The Netherlands FidoNet 2:283/619 Data/Fax +31-8380-33642 (VFC, V32b, CM, MO, FAX) in Ede, the Netherlands 4 1.3 Files FMail, FSetup and FTools create and use a number of files. Except for the last three files, FMail will create and look for these files in the directory were FMail is located, even if the current directory is another one. The files are: FMAIL.CFG General configuration file. FMAIL.AR Contains the area configuration used by FMail. FMAIL.ARD Contains the area configuration defaults used by FMail. FMAIL.NOD Contains the node configuration used by FMail. FMAIL.PCK Contains the netmail routing information used by FMail's PACK function. FMAIL.DUP Contains the database with signatures of messages used by FMail to detect messages that have been sent to your system before (duplicates). FMail keeps track of the last 16384 messages. FMAIL32.DUP The OS/2 version of the duplicate detection file. It is capable of keeping track of a lot more dupes (max. 9999*1024). FMAIL.LOC This file is opened by FMail in the message base directory to prevent multiple copies of FMail from operating on the same message base at the same time. This file will NOT be deleted afterwards. MSG*.FML These files are created in the message base directory when FMail is running in message base sharing mode. Normally FMail will append these files to the normal message base files, but it can happen that this is not possible. FMail will retry to append them to the normal message base files the next time it is started. *.QQQ If FMail could not compress the outgoing .PKT files, they will be renamed to .QQQ files and will remain in the Outgoing mail directory. FMail will retry to compress these .QQQ files the next time it is started. *.TMP In some cases (e.g. a crash), it is possible that TMP files remain in the Outbound mail directory. In most cases, these files can be deleted without any problem, because the original mail has not 5 been removed yet: the messages will be tossed again the next time FMAIL TOSS is started. 1.4 System requirements To use FMail you need an IBM PC, AT, 386, 486 or Pentium or fully compatible computer with a mono or color card and a harddisk. Also you need MS-DOS or PC DOS 3.3 or later for the DOS, DOS/386 and DOS/DPMI version or OS/2 2.1 or later for the OS/2 version. DOS users should have at least FILES=20 in their CONFIG.SYS. Use a higher value (e.g. FILES=40) if you are using the 'Extra handles' option. In order to be able to send and receive mail, you need a mailer that is compatible with FTSC-0001. For reading and writing mail you need a message editor or a BBS program that uses the QuickBBS and/or JAM message base format. Finally you need one or more of these compression programs: ARC, ARJ, LHA, PKARC, PKPAK, PKZIP, SQZ or ZOO. 6 1.5 Various notes * FMail supports up to 16 AKAs. AKAs 11-15 cannot be used for netmail boards in the message base. * Enter your AKAs in FSetup in the same order as in FrontDoor's FDSetup and GoldEd's setup, i.e. if you have AKA 3 in FrontDoor defined as 2:283/619, you should also define AKA 3 in FSetup as 2:283/619. * When entering node numbers in FSetup or on the FMail command line, always use the 4 dimensional address for points, not the fakenet address. * Node numbers may be entered in an abbreviated way. FMail or FSetup will use the main node number to complete the node number. E.g. if you enter ".1" and the main node number is defined as 2:283/619, FMail will use 2:283/619.1. Likewise "1" will be changed into 2:283/1. * FMail looks for the de-/compression utilities in the directories that are included in the DOS PATH statement. * If one or more de-/compression utilities are not available on your system, you should remove them from FSetup. That way, they will not be mentioned in the AreaMgr confirmation report as being available. * Internally FMail always uses 4 dimensional addresses. If FMail is handling mail from or to a fakenet address, the address will be internally converted into the corresponding 4-d address. If necessary, the 4-d address will be converted back into the fakenet address if that is required by the receiving system. As a consequence, all node numbers entered in the node manager or the area manager should be 4-d addresses !!! 7 2 Getting started Use the DOS command CD to go to the system directory of your mailer (e.g. FrontDoor). After you type FSETUP and press the ENTER key, a menu pops up. If you use a monochrome monitor in combination with a video adapter with colour capabilities, you might want to force FSetup not to use any colours. You can do this by appending /M after the FSetup command. FMail looks for its configuration files in the same directory as where the EXE files are stored, even if that is not the current directory. If you want FMail to look for the configuration files in another directory, just put that directory in the environment variable FMAIL. Example: SET FMAIL=C:\FIDO\FMAIL\ You can only start one of the FMail programs (FMAIL.EXE, FSETUP.EXE and FTOOLS.EXE) at the same time. When you try to start a second program, this program will display a message that another FMail program is still running. If the other program has not stopped after 30 seconds, the program will abort. 2.1 Converting config files of other echomail processors FSetup has the capability to import the configuration files of a number of other echomail processors: IMAIL, TosScan and all programs using an AREAS.BBS file. Before using this capability however, you first should enter all node numbers you will be using and include the fakenet numbers you are using, if any. This way, FMail will automatically convert all fakenet addresses in the configuration files into 4 dimensional addresses that are be used by FMail. IMPORTANT: 1) Always check the imported configuration files. 2) The archiver program to be used will not be converted correctly in the node manager! 8 3 FSetup FSetup is the menu oriented setup utility for FMail. First the keys that can be used to enter information in FSetup are discussed. The rest of the chapter discusses all menus in FSetup. 3.1 FSetup keys The following keys can be used in FSetup: - Move bar to the previous menu entry Up arrow - Move bar to the next menu entry Down arrow - Select option at the position of the bar Enter - Return to the previous menu (or exit if the current menu is the Main menu) ESC - Shell to DOS ALT-Z - Go to a menu item Press the highlighed character When editing a data field in FSetup, the following options are available to you: - Move one position to the left Left arrow - Move one position to the right Right arrow - Move to the first position of the previous word Ctrl-Left arrow - Move to the first position of the next word Ctrl-Right arrow - Move to the first position of the field Home - Move to the last position of the field End - Delete the character at the current position of the cursor Delete - Delete the character left of the cursor Backspace - Delete rest of the field Ctrl-End - Clear the entire field Ctrl-Y - Accept contents of data field Enter - Restore original contents of data field ESC - Toggle insert mode Insert - Shell to DOS ALT-Z When editing a group selection window: - Select all groups Insert - Deselect all groups Delete - Toggle an entry The listed character 9 3.2 Main menu The main menu of FSetup contains seven options: Miscellaneous Allows you to enter general information about the message base and how messages should be handled. You also can specify the compression and decompression programs the should be used for your mail. System info Information about directories, swapping, compression programs etc. can be entered via the System info sub menu. Import/Export With the Import/Export option of FSetup you can export selected parts of the configuration to a text file or a printer. Also it is possible to import area and node configurations of IMAIL and TosScan. Uplink Manager The uplink manager contains information about the systems you receive most of your echomail from. Areas can be connected and disconnected from these systems automatically. Pack Manager The pack manager is used to enter netmail routing information. This information is used by FMail's Pack function. Node Manager The node manager is used to review and update information about other systems, like the password for AreaMgr and the node's capability. Area Manager The area manager is used to enter information about echo areas that have to be tossed by FMail. 10 3.3 Miscellaneous The "Miscellaneous" menu contains eight options, which will be described below. 3.3.1 General options This option shows a menu that lets you enter general configuration information: Sysop Name Your name. It is used for determining whether or not netmail should be imported into the message base netmail board and if a copy of an echomail message should be placed in the personal mail directory. FMail key 1 FMail key 2 Enter your FMail registration keys here. Mailer The mailer program you are using. Supported mailers are FrontDoor, InterMail, D'Bridge, Binkley, Portal of Power and MainDoor. Busy flags FMail can create busy flags for FrontDoor and InterMail. It prevents these mailers from calling systems that you are compressing mail for at that moment. BBS program The BBS program you are using (if any). Supported programs are RemoteAccess, SuperBBS, QuickBBS and TAG. This info is only used by the AutoExport function. Tearline (registered users only) You can define which type of tearline you would like FMail to use for your messages. The options range from the standard FMail tearline to a custom tearline or no tearline at all. If you want the tearline to be empty or absent, you can tell FMail to use a Tosser ID (TID) kludge instead. 11 Custom (registered users only) If you select 'Custom' as the desired tearline type, FMail will use the tearline you enter here. ReTear (registered users only) If FMail should replace an existing tearline. Normally FMail only retears the message in the PKT file it generates. If you want FMail to update the message text in the Hudson message base as well, enable the switch Update text after scan (see page 13). 3.3.2 Message base This option shows a menu that lets you control the way the message base will be handled. Netmail boards FMail allows you to use different netmail boards for each of your AKA's. Information about these netmail areas can be entered in a sub menu. The information includes: - A comment that will be used in the areas files that can be created by FSetup AutoExport feature. - Hudson message base board number. It is possible to use a board number for more than one AKA. If you do this, only the information of the first netmail area that uses a particular message base board will be used, e.g. by AutoExport to create the FrontDoor and GoldEd areas files and by FTools for determining which messages should be deleted. JAM is not yet supported, but will be in a coming release. - Information that can be used by FTools for message base maintenance purposes. - Security information to be used in the BBS area file. For more information about the options available in the BBS info menu you are referred to the documentation of your BBS program. Bad message board Message base board number of the board in which bad messages will be stored. Duplicate message board Hudson message base board number of the board in which duplicate messages will be stored. 12 Recovery board Hudson message base board number of the board to which FTOOLS MAINT /C should move messages in boards that are not defined in FSetup. If the Recovery board is not defined, FTOOLS MAINT /C will delete all messages in undefined boards. AutoRenumber FTools Maint will renumber your Hudson message base as soon as the highest message number in the message base has reached the AutoRenumber limit. Import netmail to sysop If set to "No", messages addressed to your name or to "Sysop" will not be imported into the Hudson message base. Has no effect if no netmail board number has been entered. Remove 'Re:' Some message editors put "Re:" before the actual subject when replying to a message. FMail is capable to remove "Re:" from subject lines. Remove lf/soft cr Linefeeds and soft carriage returns are unnecessary in echomail messages. In order to save some diskspace, you may want to remove them. It will, however, slow the program down a bit. Update text after Scan Write the text of the message as it will be sent to other systems back to the message base. This means that the message in the message base will contain PATH and SEEN-BY information. Currently only the Hudson message base is supported. See also Retear (page 12). Update reply chains If set to "Yes", all message reply chains will be updated after messages have been tossed into the message base. Sort new messages If set to "Yes", new messages in the message base will be sorted according to subject and date. 13 Use subject Apart from date/time also use the subject to sort messages. Message base sharing Allows concurrent access of FMail and the BBS software to the message base. DOS's SHARE should be installed. Scan always If set to "Yes", the messages base will always be completely scanned for outgoing messages. If set to "No" FMail relies on the files ECHOMAIL.BBS and NETMAIL.BBS to indicate new messages. If these files are found to be pointing to a message that does not qualify for export, a complete scan of the message base will be performed. Quick toss If enabled, this option slightly shortens the time needed by FMail after a packet has been tossed. Normally the message base files are closed and re-opened between packets, but this option causes the files not to be closed. Using this option, might under extreme conditions, slightly increases the risk of loosing some messages in the message base. For example: in case of a power failure. 14 3.3.3 Mail options This option shows you a menu that lets you control certain aspects of the way FMail handles mail. Dupe detection Enables FMail's duplicate message detection system. If a duplicate message is found, it will be placed into the duplicate messages directory (if defined). Ignore MSGID Normally FMail uses the MSGID of a message (if present) for duplicate detection purposes. In some cases, this may cause problems when different messages are having the same MSGID: one or more of these messages will be marked as duplicates although they are not. If you are frequently experiencing these problems, try setting this switch to 'Yes'. Use EMS (not available/necessary in DPMI version) Try to use EMS memory to store the signatures of messages in. This saves about 64 kb of conventional memory. Max PKT size (kb) The maximum size of an outgoing PKT file in kilobytes. Max bundle size (kb) The maximum size of an outgoing mail bundle (compressed mail file). The bundle may get a bit bigger than the requested size. It partly depends on the Max PKT size you entered. You are advised not to enter a relatively a large number there if you use Max bundle size. Kill empty netmail Kill empty received netmail messages when scanning the netmail directory. If you enable this option, empty netmails will not be moved to the Received mail directory. 15 Kill bad ARCmail msg Kill ARCmail messages of which the attached mail bundle is missing. Can be used for example to remove file attach messages of mail bundles that are moved (e.g. by a command in a batch file) from FMail's outbound directory to the inbound directory of a point's FMail in a network environment. ARCmail compatibility Use ARCmail 0.60 naming convention for out-of-zone mail. Some other programs require the use of the ARCmail 0.60 naming convention. Normally this is not necessary. Ask the SysOps of your uplinks and downlinks if you are not sure. Extended bundle names Use 0-Z in stead of only 0-9 for mail bundle name extensions. Some programs do not recognize bundle name extensions that do not end on a digit. Check PKT destination If this option is enabled, only packets that are addressed to one of your AKAs (or to one of your points if you are not a point yourself) will be tossed. Packets addressed to other nodes will be renamed to files with the file name extension '.DST'. Max net msgs The maximum number of netmail messages allowed in one PKT file when tossing. If the maximum number is reached, the PKT file will be renamed to MLB (mail bomb). Normally there is no need to use this option and should it be set to 0. Keep exported netmail Do not set the KILL flag on netmail messages that are exported from the message base. Remove netmail kludges Some echomail processors cannot handle echomail messages containing netmail kludges (INTL, FMPT, TOPT). If some of your downlinks use such an echomail processor, you may want to enable the 'Remove netmail kludges' toggle. PLEASE CHECK THE ECHOMAIL POLICY OF YOUR NET BEFORE USING THIS OPTION. 16 Set Pvt on import Set the Private flag on all netmail messages that are imported into the message base. 3.3.4 Mgr options For a more extensive explanation of some of the options below see also paragraph 3.8. Keep requests Do not delete AreaMgr requests after they have been processed. Keep receipts Do not set the KILL attribute on receipts created by AreaMgr. Allow %PASSWORD Allow nodes to change their AreaMgr passwords through a message to AreaMgr containing the %PASSWORD command. Allow %PKTPWD Allow nodes to change their packet passwords through a message to AreaMgr containing the %PKTPWD command. Allow %ACTIVE Allow nodes to change the status of their systems from active to passive and back through a message to AreaMgr containing the %PASSIVE and %ACTIVE commands. Allow %COMPRESSION Allows nodes to use %COMPRESSION to change the compression method used for their mail. Allow %NOTIFY Allows nodes to toggle the notify status on or off using the %NOTIFY command. Allow %+ALL Allow nodes to use %+ALL to connect all areas at once. 17 Auto-disconnect Automatically disconnect passthrough areas with only one link (export address). 3.3.5 Personal mail FMail is able to scan all messages being tossed for messages directed to you personally and store them in a separate directory. Pers. mail path If you enter a directory name here, a copy of each echomail message that is directed to you (even if it is in a pass- through area) will be placed in *.MSG format in this directory. IMPORTANT: this directory should _never_ be the same as any other directory entered in FSetup. Topic 1 Topic 2 FMail has the ability to scan the subject lines of messages it is tossing for up to two keywords. If messages are found containing one of these keywords, they will be copied to the personal mail directory. Using FMail's topic scan feature will slow down the tossing function a bit. Include netmail Indicates whether or not personal netmail should also be copied to the personal mail directory. New mail warning If enabled, FMail will send a netmail message to you, each time personal netmail or echomail messages have been tossed. Users (registered users only) Enter up to eight names of users whose mail should be copied to the Personal mail board too. 3.3.6 Addresses Your main address and up to ten other addresses that you may use, can be entered in this window. If the echomail processors of some of your points do not have Type 2+ capabilities, they will have to receive their mail using the fakenet method. For each of the eleven addresses you may enter a fakenet number. You can do this 18 by appending it to your normal 4-d address using a dash '-'. For example 2:283/619-7619. 3.3.7 Group names If you are using a lot of different groups, remembering what each group letter stands for can be rather difficult. The Group names window lets you enter descriptions for all groups. These descriptions will be used in the Node Manager, the Area Manager and in AreaMgr replies. 3.3.8 AreaMgr defaults To save some time when installing new areas in the Area Manager, you may enter a number of default settings that will be used for new areas. Of course, these values may be changed in the Area Manager, should it be necessary. For more information about the offered options, you are referred to the chapter about the Area Manager. 19 3.4 System info The system info menu is used for various types of information that are related to the system on which FMail is used. 3.4.1 Miscellaneous Extra handles (not useful on point systems) If you have more than about 5 downlinks and you want FMail to run faster, you should allow FMail to use extra file handles. You may let FMail use up to 235 extra handles (apart from the standard 15 handles that are always available to FMail). ATTENTION: if you are running more than one program at the same time, please make sure that there are enough handles left for the other programs. Increase the FILES= value in CONFIG.SYS if necessary. Ctrl-Break If the Ctrl-Break option is enabled, you may stop FMail with Control-Break when tossing. This also may enlarge the time available to other programs when running in a multi-tasking environment. Buffer size (not available/necessary in the DPMI version) The size of FMail's internal buffers. Huge buffers require about 100 kb of free memory, while tiny buffers only take about 12 kb. FT buf size (not available/necessary in the DPMI version) The size of FTools's internal buffers and FMail's buffers for sorting and updating reply chains. Monochrome If enabled, FSetup will not use color, even if a color card is detected. This may be useful on systems using a monochrome monitor in combination with a color card. Color set FSetup now comes in three flavours: Summer, Winter and Marine. If you select another color set, it will become visible the next time you start FSetup. 20 3.4.2 Directories In the 'Directories' window you can enter eight paths to directories that will be used for specific files. Unless stated otherwise, no directory should be used for more than one purpose! IMPORTANT: Do not use a directory more than once for FMail. Only Sent mail and Received mail may point to the same directory if desired. Message base The message base path points to the directory where the message base files are stored. The message base files are MSGHDR.BBS, MSGIDX.BBS, MSGTOIDX.BBS and MSGTXT.BBS. When FMail is running in message base sharing mode, it is possible that also files with the same names as the normal message base but with extensions .FML are present in the message base directory. Apart from the file name extension, this is a normal Hudson message base. When tossing and the optional sorting has finished, FMail tries to append the FML files to the normal message base files. This can go wrong for a number of reasons: - The message base is locked. - The resulting message base would be bigger than is allowed (e.g. the new MSGTXT.BBS would be bigger than 16 Mb). Use FTools to reduce the size of the message base. - There is not enough disk space available. FMail needs an amount of free diskspace that is about equal to the combined size of all FML files. If appending the FML files to the BBS files goes wrong, FMail displays the message 'Can't update the message base files'. FMail will retry to append the FML files to the normal message base files the next time it is started. Netmail The netmail directory contains netmail messages in *.MSG format. File attach messages will be placed in this directory. Incoming mail The incoming mail directory is the directory where your mailer stores its received files. Incoming mail bundles will also be unpacked in this directory. Sometimes for some reason packets are not tossed by FMail. If this is the case, the PKT files will be renamed. The file name extensions of these remaining files indicate the nature of the problem: 21 PKT If there is not enough free disk space on your harddisk when a incoming PKT file is being tossed, FMail aborts and the PKT file remains in the 'Incoming mail' directory. QQQ If FMail for some reason cannot compress an outgoing mailbundle, the file name extension will be changed from PKT into QQQ. If FMail is run again, it will first try to compress any packets with the QQQ extension if found. SEC The password in this packet did not correspond with the password for the source node in the node manager. DST The mail packet is not directed to your main node number or one of your AKAs. ERR For some reason, the PKT header could not be read. Outgoing mail In the outgoing mail directory FMail will store the mail bundles it creates for other nodes. Local PKTs (optional) If you are using some program that creates PKT files that you would like to have tossed by FMail, there may be a problem if you have security enabled in the Area Manager. Placing those packets in the Local PKTs directory will cause FMail to toss them, even if security is enabled for that particular echomail conference. CAUTION: Be very careful with what PKT files you place in the Local PKTs directory. It is very easy to create dupes this way! Semaphore (optional) Indicates whether or not FMail should create FDRESCAN.NOW and FMRESCAN.NOW after netmail has been tossed. If the FD environment variable has been set, these files will be created in the directory indicated by this variable. Otherwise, they will be created in the directory in which FMail is located. Sent mail (optional) Received mail (optional) If the 'Sent mail' and/or 'Received mail' directories are defined, FMail will move sent and/or received netmail from the netmail directory to the appropriate directory: mail that has been sent, will be moved to the 'Sent mail' directory if 22 defined. Message that have been received by the addressee will be moved to the 'Received mail' directory. Messages with special attributes (file attach, in-transit) will never be moved to either one of these directories. Sent mail and Received mail may point to the same directory. ATTENTION: the 'Sent mail' and 'Received mail' directories have to be located on the same drive as the netmail directory. 3.4.3 Log files Log style The layout that should be used for the log file. Possible settings are: FrontDoor, QuickBBS, D'Bridge and Binkley. Log file name (optional) If you want a log file to be created, you should enter the desired path and filename here. IT IS NOT RECOMMENDED TO LET FMAIL SHARE A LOG FILE WITH ANOTHER PROGRAM THAT MAY RUN SIMULTANEOUSLY. Log settings Various Yes/No switches let you set the specific information you want to have logged. AreaMgr log If you want a separate log file containing information about AreaMgr requests to be created, you should enter path and filename here. If left blank, information about AreaMgr requests will be inserted in the normal log file. Toss summary The Toss summary file contains information about the number of messages tossed into each area, about which nodes sent those messages and to which nodes those messages were forwarded. 3.4.4 Swapping (not available in the DPMI and OS/2 versions) Under some circumstances, there may not be enough memory left to execute a (de)compression utility. To make sure that there is enough memory available, you may want to enable swapping. This means that FMail will temporarily remove itself from memory in order to make room for the (de)compression utility. 23 There are three types of swapping available. The slowest type is swapping to disk. FMail will try to swap itself to disk if the other two methods are not available. These other two methods are swapping to EMS and swapping to XMS. If both swapping to EMS and swapping to XMS are enabled, FMail will first try XMS and if that does not work it will try EMS. If you are running FMail under DESQview or a similar program, make sure that there is enough EMS or XMS available to FMail. Under DESQview the amount of EMS/XMS that is available in a window can be changed via 'Change a Program'-> 'Maximum Expanded Memory Size'. It should be left blank or be set to at least 700 kb. You may set the directory in which the swap file will be located by entering the path to the desired directory. If left blank, the swap file will be placed in the directory where FMail is located. 3.4.5 Compression The programs that are used to compress your outgoing mail bundles are listed here. FMail can handle seven different types of archivers: ARC, ZIP, LZH, PAK, ZOO, ARJ and SQZ. First the name of the program should be listed, followed by optional arguments. Using the program name with a full path lets FMail find the requested program faster and prevents problems when there is another program with the same name in a directory that is included in the path. Default settings for each program are automatically created by FSetup when it is run for the first time. It is important to add the proper command line switches for the compression utilities. You must make sure that the programs are not waiting for additional input such as a response to a Yes/No prompt. The archiving utility listed behind "Default" is used for nodes not listed in the Node Manager. For each of the compression programs you can enter the minimum amount of memory that is required to run the program. If the required amount is available, FMail won't swap itself out of memory when it start a compression program. If you enter 0, FMail will always swap itself out of memory (if swapping is enabled). 3.4.6 Decompression The programs that are used to decompress your incoming mail bundles are listed here. The Decompression window has a special entry called GUS. The program that is entered here is called by FMail when it can't determine the type of the archive. For more information see section 3.4.5 (Compression). 24 3.5 Import/export All menu options starting with "List" allow you to send information about parts of your FMail setup to a text file or to the printer. If you want to send it to the printer, just enter PRN as the file name. 3.5.1 Import Config The option "Import config" allows you to import AREAS.BBS, FOLDER.FD and area and node configuration files of two other popular echomail processors: IMAIL (version 1.20) and TosScan. In some cases you have the choice whether to use the area tag or to use the comment to identify an area in the config file that is created by FSetup. A special option is Import RA info. It imports RA security information into an EXISTING FMail areas file. If you do not already have an FMail areas file, enter the information manually in the Area Manager or use one of the other import functions first. When you start the Import RA info option, the program will try to find security information in MESSAGES.RA for each area that is defined in FMail.Ar and insert it in that file. 3.5.2 AutoExport Normally when a new area is installed, this had to be done in a number of programs. With FSetup's AutoExport feature this is no longer necessary. Each update in the Area Manager can result in an automatic update of AREAS.BBS, FOLDER.FD (FrontDoor), IMFOLDER.CFG (InterMail), MESSAGES.RA (RemoteAccess), BOARDS.BBS (SuperBBS), MSGCFG.DAT (QuickBBS) and a file in a format that can be used by GoldEd. All you have to do is to enter the path to the directory in which the desired file should appear (the actual filename should not be added; FSetup will append a standard name to the path). IMPORTANT: The AutoUpdate function will overwrite the existing file, so ALL INFORMATION IN THAT FILE WILL BE LOST. For example, areas defined in MESSAGES.RA that are not defined in FSetup will be removed by AutoExport. That is the reason why local areas should also be defined in FSetup: that way they will be exported to MESSAGES.RA and other files. With AREAS.BBS you may include pass-through areas by setting the switch to 'Yes'. 25 With FOLDER.FD/IMFOLDER.CFG and the BBS area files you may choose which item should be used: the area tag or the comment field. You may include the Bad messages board, the Duplicate messages board and the Recovery board in the BBS areas file by setting the appropriate switch to 'Yes'. AutoExport will use some standard settings for these areas: e.g. they will be Local and ReadOnly and all security levels will be set to 32000. The GoldEd file AREAS.GLD can be used by GoldEd if you insert the following line as the last line in your GoldEd configuration file: INCLUDE AREAS.GLD In QuickBBS's MSGCFG.DAT the write security information will also be used for the template security information. 3.6 Uplink Manager The Uplink Manager is used to enter information about uplinks that is needed by FMail to connect and disconnect echomail areas. You can define up to 16 uplinks. The information that is needed for each uplink will now be explained. Uplink system The node number of the uplink. AreaFix program The name of the program FMail should direct its request messages to. If you are not sure, try 'Areafix'. This will work in most cases. AreaFix password The password you use to connect and disconnect echomail areas on this system. Add '+' prefix If FMail should put a '+' in front of the area names it tries to connect. This is normally not necessary. Authorized groups Authorized groups are groups a downlink has to have access to in order to be allowed to use the Forward Request feature for this uplink. 26 Unconditional If set to Yes, FMail doesn't check the Areas file listed below. Areas file name Name of the file containing area names that should be checked by FMail. This file has to located in the same directory where the FMail executables are located or the directory that is pointed to by the FMAIL environment variable (if defined). Areas file type If set to 'Random', FMail searches the entire file. If 'Areas file type' is set to '<AREANAME> <DESCRIPTION>' FMail searches for area names at the beginning of each line only. Also it then uses the description to fill in the comment field in the Area Manager. Origin address The address that should by used as the origin address of the request message. 27 3.7 Pack Manager The syntax to be used for Pack Manager entries: <node> ... [EXCEPT <node> ...] [VIA <node>|HOST] [/A] [/C] [/H] [/I] [/L] [/O] The one or more <node> entries before the optional VIA keyword specify the nodes for which messages should be packed. The '*' and '?' characters may be used here. '?' may be any digit. '*' indicates that the rest of the node number may be anything. E.g. 2:283/* specifies all nodes in net 283 in zone 2. 2:283/6?0 specifies nodes 2:283/600, 610, 620, 630 etc. The wildcard '#' is substituted by digits 0-9 in subsequent evaluations. If the VIA node is 'HOST', the mail bundles will be sent to the net hosts. Five switches may be used: /A Do not process AreaMgr requests /C Include messages with Crash status. Normally these messages will not be packed. /H Include messages with Hold status. Normally these messages will not be packed. /O Include orphaned messages. Normally these messages will not be packed. /I Only pack messages that are in transit. Normally all netmail messages destined for other nodes will be packed. /L Only pack messages that originated on your system. Normally all netmail messages destined for other nodes will be packed. Entries in the Pack Manager are used from top to bottom: the first entry that applies to a particular message will be used for that message. An example: 2:282/357 2:282/309 via 2:282/301 2:283/216 via 2:283/203 1:* 2:* 3:* 4:* 5:* 6:* via 2:282/1 This example packs all messages for nodes 2:282/357, 2:282/309 and 2:282/301 and their points that do not have the crash, hold or orphan status and sends them to node 2:282/301. Messages for 2:283/216 and 2:283/203 are packed and sent to node 2:283/203. All remaining messages for zones 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 will be sent to 2:282/1. 28 3.8 Node Manager The node manager is used to store information about the systems you exchange mail with. System The node number of a system. IMPORTANT: This node number should always be the normal node number i.e. you should NEVER enter a node number containing a fakenet. If it is necessary for some of your points that you send them their mail using a fakenet, you should set their capability to "Stone Age" (see below) and define a fakenet in the Addresses window. Sysop Name Here you may enter the name of the sysop of the remote system. The name of the sysop will be used in AreaMgr replies and to determine if a message should be sent to a system if that system is 'passive'. Only messages directed to the Sysop will be forwarded to such systems. Via system Address where to route mail for this system to. NOTE: the PKT files will be directed to the original AKA. Only the ARCmail bundle will be directed to the Via node, if specified. Use AKA Which AKA should be used for mail bundles to this system. If set to AUTO, FMail automatically picks the best-matching AKA. Groups The area manager lets you assign a group letter to each echo area. In the node manager you can enter the letters of the groups that are available to a particular system. Write level If the write level of a system is less than the write level that is specified with an echo area in the Area Manager, then this system is not allowed to write messages in this area. Compression The Compression toggle can be used to set the type of archiving program that will be used to compress mail for this system. A system is able to change this setting using an AreaMgr request message. 29 Capability You can tell FMail whether or not the software of the other system recognizes 4-d addresses (FSC-0039) or only 2-d addresses by setting the capability switch to "Type 2+" for 4-d or "Stone Age" for 2-d. If you want to send mail to one of your "Stone Age" points, FMail will automatically try to use the fakenet method. In most cases setting the capability of a system to Type 2+ will be fine. Attach status You may set the status of the file attach messages for a system to "None", "Hold", "Crash", "Hold/Direct", "Crash/Direct" and "Direct". Normally "None" is fine. Please see the manual of your mailer on how to handle mail bundles. Active A system that is not active will not receive echomail for the connected areas except for messages that are directed to the SysOp name of that system. A system that has the Active set to No is still allowed to send echomail for connected areas. The Active status can be changed by the system through the %ACTIVE and %PASSIVE commands in a message to AreaMgr. Notify Send a notify message to this system when the command 'FTools Notify [/A] [/N]' is issued. Pack netmail If enabled, the Pack Netmail switch causes netmail for this system to be packed for this system directly. This means, that mail for this system will not be routed according to the contents of the Pack Manager. Forward requests The Forward request toggle is used to allow systems to use the Uplink Manager. Allow rescan When a system connects a new area through an AreaMgr request, that system may also request to scan your message base for messages in that area. You can prevent a system from rescanning your message base by setting this switch to No. Rescan does not work with JAM areas yet. 30 Route point If the system you are editing in the Node Manager is one of your points, then if you enable this switch, FMail will check all messages directed to your AKAs to see whether they are meant for this point (by checking the To: name). If so, the message will be automatically forwarded. Rem.maint (+) Allow this system to perform remote maintenance. A system that is allowed to perform remote maintenance (e.g. your Co- SysOp) can connect and disconnect areas on behalf of other systems. A remote maintenance message has the same syntax as a normal AreaFix message, but also contains a %FROM command, followed by the node number for which the remote maintenance has to be performed. The password that should be used is the password of the system performing the request, not the password of the system behind the %FROM keyword. Tiny SEEN-BYs If you set the "Tiny SEEN-BYs" switch to "Yes", this system will receive echo mail messages in which only you and your downlinks will be listed in the SEEN-BY lines. In normal situations this switch should be set to "No". Reformat date Some echomail utilities create date strings which are not in accordance with the specifications. Some other echomail utilities have problems recognizing those date strings. FMail will send a corrected date string to a system if "Reformat date" is set to yes. AreaMgr password The AreaMgr password is used by a remote system to connect or disconnect echomail areas. To do this, the remote system has to send a message to "AreaMgr", "AreaFix" or "FMail" at your node number. The password should be on the subject line. Packet password If you enter an Packet password, FMail will only toss packets from this system if the listed password is present in the header of the received packet. The password also will be placed in the header of each packet created for this system. The combination of packet password and the Security option in the Area Manager should make it a bit more difficult to successfully drop an echomail bomb on your system. 31 Ignore If you want to put a password in packets you are sending to another system, but do not want to check packets you receive from that system for that password, you should toggle the Ignore switch to Yes. 32 3.9 Area Manager The area manager is used to tell FMail which echomail conferences (areas) you are carrying. Use the left and right arrows to walk through all areas. If you press F5, you will see a list of all areas you have defined. Here you can walk through all areas by pressing the up and down arrows. NEW FEATURE: You can use the left and right arrows to switch between area tag and comment. Each of the fields of the Area Manager will now be explained in detail. Area name This is the name of the conference. It can be up to 50 characters long. This name is often referred to as the area tag. It is inserted into every message that your system exports for an area so that other system's echomail processors can put the message into the correct area when it arrives. Comment This field is used to give some info about an echomail area in messages that are returned by AreaMgr. It also appears in the output of some of the list functions in the Import/export menu. JAM MB path Path of the JAM message base. If you enter a path name here, FMail will set the Hudson board number to None (if it was not set to that already). Board The "Board" field is used to select the message base board number in which the messages in this area should be imported. If you select this option, a window pops up containing all possible board numbers and the word "None". The board numbers that are displayed in a dark colour are already used by another area. If you select the word "None" and the JAM MB path is left blank, the messages will not be imported into the message base, but only forwarded to your downlinks (a so called "Pass-through area"). Any other choice of board number will cause the JAM MB path field to be blanked. Use the cursor keys to go to the desired board number and press ENTER to select. 33 Write level If the write level of an area is greater than or equal to the write level that is specified with a system in the Node Manager, then this system is not allowed to write messages in this area. Group The "Group" field defines which group a conference belongs to. The valid range for this field is A through Z. It's used to regulate the availability of conferences to other systems. You should divide your conferences into a number of categories. For example, all conferences that only a few people should be able to access could be put into group S for Secure while all other conferences are put into G for General. Local If you have local message areas in your message base, you should enter those areas in FSetup with Local set to Yes. That way, you can enter message base maintenance information for that area and make sure, that the boardnumber cannot be accidentally assigned to another area. Also those areas will be marked as Local in AutoExported files. Areafix Allow your downlinks to connect to and disconnect from this area by sending messages to AreaFix or FMail. Normally this switch should be set to Yes. Active If the 'Active' switch is off, the area will no longer be recognized by FMail as a valid echomail area. This switch can be used to temporarily disable a particular area. BBS info Here you may enter the security level and flags and other information that will be used in the area file of your BBS program. Use SeenBy Normally FMail only uses the address in the packet header to determine to which systems a message in a particular area should be forwarded: a message is forwarded to all systems listed in the export list in the Area Manager. If Use SeenBy 34 is enabled, a message also will not be forwarded to systems listed in the SEEN-BY lines of that message. Tiny SeenBy If set to "Yes", all of your downlinks that are connected to this area will receive messages in which the SEEN-BY lines will contain only your downlinks. Imp. SeenBy If set to "Yes", SEEN-BY information of messages in this conference will be imported into the message base. Security Only messages from systems that are connected to a particular conference are accepted by FMail. For example, suppose you carry an area called FMAIL_HELP and you have enabled Security for that area. If you receive an echomail message from some system and that system was not listed in the export list of FMAIL_HELP, that message will be tossed into the bad messages board (if defined). Private If the "Private" field is set to "Yes", private message are allowed in this conference. Otherwise, the private bit will be removed from all messages in this conference. # Messages Maximum number of messages in an area. If there are more messages in an area, they will be deleted as soon as FTools Maint /d is used. # Days old If there are messages in an area that are older than the number of days that is entered here, they will be deleted as soon as FTools Maint /d is used. # Days rcvd If there are received messages (i.e. messages that have been read by the person they are addressed to) in an area that are older than the number of days that is entered here, they will be deleted as soon as FTools Maint /d is used. 35 Arrival date Use the date that a message arrived on your system instead of the date that a message was written when deleting messages using the # Days. This option does not work with messages with an extremely long subject line. For these messages the date that the message was written will be used. Keep SysOp Do not remove any message that has not been read by the Sysop (the user with the first entry in Users.BBS). If this switch is set to Yes, no message that has not been read by the SysOp will be deleted, if it should be deleted according to one or more of the other criteria. Origin AKA The origin is the address that will be added to the PATH and SEEN-BY lines. It will also used in the origin line that will be appended by FMail if the message that is exported from the message base does not contain an origin line (NOTE: FMail will NEVER add tear and/or origin lines to messages that are received from other systems in case they are missing). Other AKAs If you want to add more than one of your AKAs to the SEEN-BY lines of a message, you should use the "Other AKAs" options to indicate which AKAs should be added also. Origin line If a message that is exported out of the message base does not contain a origin line, FMail will add one. This added origin will contain a text string that may be entered here. Export The systems connected to the conference are listed in a window which pops up when you select the option "Connected systems". IMPORTANT: The node number should always be the normal node number i.e. you should NEVER enter a node number containing a fakenet. FMail automatically uses the fakenet if necessary. The maximum number of systems on the Export list is 64. 36 4 FMail The actual FMail program has four main commands. They are "Scan", "Toss", "Import" and "Pack" and will be discussed in detail below. 4.1 Scan Scan the message base for outgoing echomail and netmail messages. Echomail messages will be packed to be sent to other systems. Netmail messages will be moved to the netmail directory. They may be packed later by the FMail Pack command discussed below. The Scan option can be used in combination with three switches: /E Scan for echomail messages only /N Scan for netmail messages only /S Scan the entire message base (ignore ECHOMAIL.BBS and NETMAIL.BBS) ATTENTION: FMail's SCAN function does not support netmail credits. 4.2 Toss Tosses received mail bundles into the message base and forwards echomail messages to your downlinks. If FMail Toss seems to be returning messages to the system they were coming from, please check if the address listed on the 'Processing...' line when tossing, is the same address as the one that is listed in the Export list of the echoes concerned. The /B switch may be added to let FMail check all messages in the bad messages directory to see whether they are valid echomail messages or not. This may necessary if you are receiving a new conference from your uplink but forgot to enter it in the area manager. Messages that are moved to the message base using the /B switch will not be sent to your downlinks as this may cause duplicate messages to be sent into the net. 37 4.3 Import Imports netmail messages destined for your system into the message base. A netmail board should be defined in FSetup. Whether or not messages to the Sysop should be imported can also be defined in FSetup. Import has no switches. 4.4 Pack Packs and compresses netmail messages. These messages may be routed through a specified system or may be sent directly. The syntax of FMail Pack: FMail Pack [<node> ... [EXCEPT <node>] [VIA <node>|HOST] [/A] [/C] [/H] [/I] [/L] [/O] ] This syntax is the same as the syntax of Pack Manager entries and is described in section 3.7. If the command line does not contain any node numbers, the information stored in FSetup's Pack Manager will be used. Packing messages is not required (but sometimes useful) in e.g. a FrontDoor environment. It _is_ required in a Binkley/PoP environment. 4.4.1 Examples FMail Pack 2:282/301 2:283/203 VIA HOST Packs mail for nodes 2:282/301 and 2:283/203 and points of these nodes and sends it to the host of these systems (2:282/0 and 2:283/0). FMail Pack 2:282/1.1 /C Packs mail for point 2:282/1.1 and sends it directly to that point. Messages with the Crash status will also be packed. 4.5 MGR FMail Mgr only scans the netmail directory and processes AreaMgr requests found in that directory. 38 5 AreaMgr AreaMgr is a built-in function of FMail that allows other systems to connect or disconnect echomail areas by simply sending a netmail message. This netmail message should be addressed to one of your AKAs and directed to 'AreaMgr' or 'FMail'. For compatibility reasons the message may also be directed to 'AreaFix', 'AreaLink' or 'EchoMgr'. Instead of the normal subject, a password should be entered. For each system that will be allowed to send AreaMgr messages to your, you should create an entry in the node manager containing a password. The message body of an AreaMgr request contains the requested mutations in connected echomail areas. To connect to area TEST_AREA you just enter that name followed by the ENTER key. To disconnect from an area, just put a minus '-' before the area tag. The format of an AreaLink request: By: <your name> To: AreaMgr (<node number of dest node>) Re: <AreaMgr password> St: Pvt --------------------------------------------------------- FMAIL_HELP Connect area FMAIL_HELP FMAIL_HELP /R Connect area FMAIL_HELP and rescan all messages in the message base FMAIL_HELP /R=50 Connect area FMAIL_HELP and rescan at most 50 messages -FMAIL_HELP Disconnect area FMAIL_HELP %+ALL Connect all available areas %-ALL Disconnect all areas %COMPRESSION ZIP Change the compression method used for your m a i l t o Z I P ( o r ARC/ZIP/LZH/PAK/ZOO/ARJ/SQZ) %PASSWORD ABCDEF Change your AreaMgr password to ABCDEF (password should be at least 5 characters and at most 16 characters long) %PKTPWD QRSTUV Change your packet password to QRSTUV (password may be at most 8 characters long) %HELP Request this message %LIST Request a list of areas available to you 39 %QUERY Request a list of areas for which you are active %UNLINKED Request a list of areas to which you are not connected %FROM Perform remote maintenance for another system. The node or point doing remote maintenance should use his/her own password. The replies generated by FMail will be sent to both the system doing remote maintenance and the system for which the maintenance is being done. %RESCAN Request a rescan of all new areas %RESCAN=50 Request a rescan of at most 50 messages per area for all new areas %PASSIVE Temporarily disable all areas. This means that you won't receive any echo mail unless it is addressed to you personally (only if the sysop on this system has entered your name correctly in the Node Manager). You will still be allowed to send echo mail to this system in areas to which you are connected. %ACTIVE Make your system active again. [---] Everything below the tear line is ignored You can also use the -H, -L, -Q and -U switches on the subject line. 40 When FMail processes an AreaMgr request message, it will generate a reply, containing the result of the request. This reply will look like this: By: FMail AreaMgr To: Folkert Wijnstra, FMail Development (2:283/619.1) Re: FMail AreaMgr status report St: Pvt Local ------------------------------------------------------------- FMail AreaMgr status report for 2:283/619 on 2:283/619.1 Result of requested mutations: - FMAIL_HELP .................................. added You are not connected to any area Node status : ACTIVE Notify : ON Compression : PKZip.Exe -ex - available : ARC ZIP LZH PAK ARJ SQZ Use %HELP in a message to FMail for more information. 41 6 FTools FTools is the message base maintenance program that comes with FMail. FTools is e.g. used to remove old messages from the message base and the display information about the message base. FTools can be divided into four parts, which will be discussed below. ATTENTION: The FTools functions that use the Hudson message base do NOT allow message base sharing. FTools will not run if either FMail, FSetup or another copy of FTools is active. Everywhere below where <board> is mentioned, you may use the area tag of the area. In some cases it also is allowed to use the Hudson board number. For the netmail board of the main AKA use #NETM, for netmail board of for example AKA 5 use #NET5. For the netmail directory use #NETDIR. For the Bad messages board, the Recovery board and the Duplicate messages board, you can use #BAD, #REC and #DUP. 6.1 Delete To delete all messages in a particular board in the message base, enter FTools Delete <board> 6.2 Maint The most important function of FTools is message base maintenance. If started without any switches, FTools Maint only updates the reply chains and recreates the index files. Additional features are available by using command line switches: /H Process Hudson base only /J Process JAM message bases only /C Recover messages in undefined boards. This means that messages in message base boards that are not defined in the Area Manager will be moved to the recovery board, if that board was defined in FSetup. IMPORTANT: If no recovery board number was defined, those messages will be deleted! So please make sure, that your non-echomail boards are also defined in the Area Manager, with the Active switch set to No. 42 /D Delete messages using the information in the Area Manager. See section 3.9 for more information about the criteria that may be used to delete messages. /N Renumber the message base. All messages in the message base will be renumbered. First message will become message #1 etc. /P Pack (remove deleted messages). When a message in the message base is deleted, the actual message is still present in the message base. It will only be marked as being deleted. In order to keep the message base size within reasonable limits, the message base has to be packet regularly, i.e. deleted messages are removed from the message base. /R Remove "Re:" from subject lines. Some editors put "Re:" in front of the actual subject line, when a reply is written. This switch allows you to remove it. /U Undelete deleted messages. Deleted messages cannot be undeleted after the message base has been packed. /X Delete messages with bad dates or bad board number. /B Keep .BAK files. This switch only has effect if it is used in combination with /P and if the Overwrite mode is not used. /F Force Overwrite mode. This switch only has effect is used in combination with /P. /O Use Overwrite mode if there is not enough disk space available to create backup files. This switch only has effect is used in combination with /P. In most cases the following command can be used: FTOOLS MAINT /D /P /N /R /O 6.3 Move To move messages from one board to another board in the message base, enter FTools Move <old board> <new board> 6.4 MsgM In the current version of FTools, the .MSG maintenance function only contains the renumber function. The syntax is: FTools MsgM [-net] [-sent] [-rcvd] [-pmail] /N 43 [-net] Netmail directory [-sent] Sent messages directory [-rcvd] Received messages directory [-pmail] Personal mail directory IMPORTANT: don't renumber the netmail directory while FrontDoor is active. 6.5 Notify To send a notify message to all systems in the Node Manager that have the notify switch set to Yes, enter Ftools Notify [/A] [/N] [/A] Send an Area Status report [/N] Send a Node Status report To send a notify message to for example 2:283/619, enter FTools Notify 2:283/619 [/A] [/N] 6.6 Post The general syntax of the Post command is: FTools Post <file> <area tag> [-from xxx] [-to xxx] [-dest xxx] [-subj xxx] [-aka x] [/C] [/H] [/D] [/K] [/P] [/F] [/E] [/T] <area tag> can be one of the following: - The area tag of the desired echomail area. - #netdir for the Netmail directory. - #netm for the Netmail board of your main aka. - #net1-#net10 for the Netmail boards of your akas 1 - 10. Available options with default value which are used if the options is omitted: [-from xxx] From name, default is the SysOp name as defined in FSetup [-to xxx] To name, default is 'SysOp'. [-subj xxx] Subject line, default is the name of that file that was posted. [-dest xxx] Node to send the message to (netmail only). [-aka x] The AKA that should be used as the origin address (netmail only). [/C] Crash status (netmail only). [/H] Hold status (netmail only). [/D] Direct status (netmail only). 44 [/K] Delete message after sending it. [/P] Private status. [/F] File attach (netmail only) [/E] Erase sent file (file attach only)\n" [/T] Truncate sent file (file attach only)\n" Two examples: To send a file EXAMPLE.TXT as an echomail message in area FMAIL_HELP, enter: FTools Post EXAMPLE.TXT FMAIL_HELP -subj "This is an example" To send a file EXAMPLE.TXT as a netmail message with the file attached to node 2:283/619, enter FTools Post EXAMPLE.TXT #netdir -to "Folkert Wijnstra" -dest 2:283/619 /F 6.7 Sort To sort messages in the Hudson message base that have not been read yet, enter FTools Sort To sort all messages in the message base, add /A. WARNING: After sorting the message base with the /A switch, the lastread pointers will not be valid any more. This switch should NOT be used on BBS systems. 6.8 Stat To display message base statistics which also will be written to the log file, enter FTools Stat 6.9 Undelete To undelete all deleted messages in a particular board in the message base, enter: FTools Undelete <board number> 6.10 Export To export messages in a particular Hudson board to a text file, you can use the FTools Export command. The general syntax of the Export command is: 45 FTools export <board name> <file name> [/D] [/F] [/T] [/S] [/X] [/P] [/K] 46 7 Credits The standard version of FMail uses the SPAWNO 3.0 routines by Ralf Brown to minimize memory use while running archiving utilities. This product uses parts of the JAM(mbp) API. Copyright 1993 Joaquim Homrighausen, Andrew Milner, Mats Birch, Mats Wallin. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. The following copyrighted programs are mentioned in this manual: ARC Systems Enhancements Associates ARJ Robert K. Jung Binkley Bit Bucket Software Borland C++ Borland International, Inc. D'Bridge Chris Irwin FrontDoor, TosScan Joaquim Homrighausen GEcho Gerard van der Land GUS Tri-Systems co. IBM, PC DOS International Business Machines Corp. IMAIL Fabiano Fabris LHA Haruyasu Yoshizaki MainDoor Francisco Sedano Microsoft, MS-DOS Microsoft Corporation PAK NoGate Consulting PKZIP PKWARE, Inc. Portal of Power The Portal Team QEMM, DESQview Quarterdeck Office Systems, Inc. QuickBBS Pegasus Software RemoteAccess, RA, RAMSG Andrew Milner SQZ Jonas I. Hammarberg SuperBBS SuperBBS group TAG Robert Numerick & Victor Capton I would like to thank all of my beta testers for the time they invested in testing a program that was completely unknown to them at first. 8 Registration sites For information about the nearest registration site please see the FMAILREG.LZH file contained in the FMail distribution archive. 47 APPENDIX A - Error messages Below some of FMail's error messages are listed with a brief explanation. Bad node in pack list There was a syntax error in the list of nodes that should be packed. Bad VIA node There was a syntax error in the node number after the optional VIA keyword. Can't forward area xxx to a local AKA You are using one of your own AKAs in the export list of the listed area. Exporting an area to one of your own AKAs is not allowed. Can't lock the message base for update FMail couldn't lock the message base for update in a multiline environment. If after several retries this message doesn't go away, reboot your computer, because some program may have locked the message base without unlocking it when it was finished. Can't read FMAIL.CFG FMail could not find FMAIL.CFG in the directory where the currently running executable in located. Can't send mail to more than 256 nodes in one run You have used more than 256 different export addresses in the export lists of your echomail areas. Can't update the message base files When running in Message base sharing mode, FMail could not append the shadow message base (MSG*.FML files) to the actual message base files. Probable causes are: - The message base is locked. Try resetting your computer. - The message base has reached its maximum size. Use FTools Maint /D /P to reduce its size. - The highest message number has been reached. Use FTools Maint /N to renumber the message base. 48 Disk-related error FMail has a problem reading or writing some file. This might be caused by a full disk. ERROR: .... Please contact the author! In case of the message 'Not enough file handles available' try using a higher number in the FILES= command in CONFIG.SYS first. FMail requires at least DOS 3.3 Some functions of FMail require the presence of DOS 3.3 or higher. DR DOS should also work. Highest allowed message number has been reached The highest allowed message number in the Hudson message base (32768) has been reached. Use FTools Maint /N to renumber the message base. Main nodenumber not defined in FSetup You should always define the main node number in FSetup; FMail will not work without one! Maximum message base size has been reached The size of the Hudson message base file MSGTXT.BBS has reached its limit of 16 Mb. Use FTools Maint /D /P to delete old messages. If you have enabled FMail's multi-line option, the error message means that MSGTXT.FML has reached the 16 Mb limit. Packet is addressed to another node A PKT file is not addressed to your main node number or to one of your AKAs. Packet password security violation A PKT file contained a wrong password or no password at all, although a password was set for the source node in the node manager. Received password "xxx" from node x:x/x.x, expected "yyy" A packet from node x:x/x.x contained password xxx, but password yyy was entered in the Node Manager. 49 Unexpected password "xxx" from node x:x/x.x A packet from node x:x/x.x contained password xxx, but that password was not entered in the Node Manager. Warning: Fakenet not defined but required for AKA x You are trying to send mail to a point system, which was configured in the Node Manager as being a "Stone Age" system, and thus requiring a fakenet number which was not defined. There are two possible solutions: - Set the Capability of the point system to Type 2+ if that system is using an echomail processor that can handle Type 2+ packets. - If the echomail processor of the point system can't handle Type 2+ packets, you have to assign a fakenet number to the AKA that is used for that particular point. See paragraph 3.3.6 for more information. Warning: Node xxx is not defined in the Node Manager You are trying to send mail to a node which is not listed in the Node Manager. As a consequence, FMail does not know what the capability of the remote system is, which compression program should be used and status the resulting file attach message should have. If this is the case, FMail will use default values. 50 APPENDIX B - Technical notes * The FTSC assigned product code for FMail is 0x81 (129 decimal). * FMail can handle up to 512 echomail conferences of which up to 200 may be imported into the Hudson message base. The DPMI and OS/2 versions of FMail can handle up to 4096 areas. * FMail can handle up to 256 downlinks. * FMail supports up to 16 AKAs. AKAs 11-15 cannot be used for netmail boards in the message base. * FMail is fully zone and point aware. * Maximum message size is 45 kb. * The mail packets created by FMail are FTS-0001, FTS-0004 and FSC-0039 compatible, using the Type 2+ packet header and the Capability Word. FMail also recognizes Type 2.2 (FSC-0045) packet headers. * If an AREA: tag is preceded by a ^A, it is still recognized by FMail. Also tags in lower case are recognized. * SEEN-BY and PATH lines are created and updated and are optionally used by FMail for duplicate prevention purposes (the PATH lines are not used by FMail). * FMail can parse both Fido/Opus and SEAdog style date fields. * FMail supports the RemoteAccess/FrontDoor Hudson Message Base sharing specifications. * FMail was written in C and compiled using Borland C++ Version 3.1. The DPMI version was compiled using Borland C++ Version 4.02 and Borland Powerpack for DOS Version 1.5. The OS/2 version was compiled using Borland C++ for OS/2 1.0. * File input/output is performed using standard DOS file handle calls. * The DOS versions of FMail, FSetup and FTools automatically detect the video environment and write directly to the screen or DESQview screen buffer. 51 * FMail returns one of the following errorlevels: 50 Message base is full 5 Possible mail bomb detected 4 Error in configuration files 3 Control-break pressed 2 Insufficient memory available 1 Insufficient disk space available or disk error 0 No errors occurred 52 INDEX Address . . . . . . . . . . . . 7, 18, 19, 27, 29, 34, 36, 37, 44 Area Manager . 7, 10, 19, 22, 25, 27, 29, 31, 33, 34, 37, 42, 43 AreaFix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3, 26, 31, 34, 39 AreaMgr . . . . . . . 3, 7, 10, 17, 19, 23, 28-31, 33, 38, 39, 41 AutoExport . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11, 12, 25, 26 BBS . . . . . . 6, 8, 11, 12, 14, 21, 25, 26, 34, 36, 37, 45, 49 Board number . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12, 13, 33, 42, 43, 45 Buffer size . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Capability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8, 10, 29, 30, 50, 51 Color set . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Compression . . . . . . . . 6, 7, 10, 17, 23, 24, 29, 39, 41, 50 Control-break . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20, 52 Defaults . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5, 19 Delete . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9, 13, 17, 42, 43, 45, 49 Directories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7, 10, 21-23 Duplicate messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12, 15, 26, 37, 42 Empty netmail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 EMS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3, 15, 24 Error messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 Export . . . . . . . . . . . . 10, 14, 18, 25, 33-37, 45, 46, 48 Export addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 File handles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20, 49 Files *.QQQ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 *.TMP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 FMAIL.AR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 FMAIL.ARD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 FMAIL.CFG . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 FMAIL.DUP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 FMAIL.LOC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 FMAIL.NOD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 FMAIL.PCK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 MSG*.FML . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 FMAIL.LOC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 FML . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5, 21, 48, 49 FML files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Group names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9, 19, 26, 29 Handles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6, 15, 20, 49 Hudson message base . . . . . . . . . 12, 13, 21, 42, 45, 49, 51 Import . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8, 10, 13, 16, 25, 33, 37, 38 JAM message base . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6, 33 Kludge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Log . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23, 45 Mailer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6, 8, 11, 21, 30 Maintenance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12, 31, 34, 40, 42, 43 Message base sharing . . . . . . . . . 3, 5, 14, 21, 42, 48, 51 Monochrome . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8, 20 53 MSG*.FML . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5, 48 MSG*.FML files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 MSGID . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Node Manager 7, 8, 10, 19, 22, 24, 29, 31, 34, 39, 40, 44, 49, 50 Notify . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17, 30, 41, 44 Origin line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Pack . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3, 5, 10, 28, 30, 37, 38, 43, 48 Pack Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3, 10, 28, 30, 38 Password . . . . . . . . 10, 17, 22, 26, 31, 32, 39, 40, 49, 50 PATH . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7, 13, 18, 21, 23-25, 33, 36, 51 Personal mail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3, 11, 18, 44 PKT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5, 12, 15, 16, 21, 22, 29, 49 Post . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44, 45 Private . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17, 35, 45 QQQ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5, 22 QQQ files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Registration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4, 11, 47 Remote maintenance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31, 40 Reply chains . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13, 20, 42 Rescan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3, 30, 39, 40 Security . . . . . . . . . . . . 12, 22, 25, 26, 31, 34, 35, 49 SEEN-BY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13, 31, 35, 36, 51 Sort . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13, 14, 45 Statistics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 Status . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17, 28, 30, 38, 41, 44, 45, 50 Swapping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10, 23, 24 Tearline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4, 11, 12 Technical notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 Tiny SEEN-BYs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 TMP files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Undelete . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43, 45 Uplink Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10, 26, 30 Via Node . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28, 29, 48 XMS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3, 24 54