Current Shareware 1994 January/SHAR194.ISO/email/dove0793.zip/DOVEPACK.DOC

Text File | 1992-09-02 | 12KB | 216 lines

Documentation for DOVEPACK.EXE

PLEASE NOTE:  Previous versions of this program have had some rather serious
bugs.  Please do not use versions of this program prior to version 0.7 BETA
(and if you have any earlier versions, please destroy them on sight!).

DOVEPACK.EXE is a quick and dirty program designed to do a job that,
hopefully, will be taken over by other programs in the future.  Basically,
it's designed to take a *.UUT file produced by DOVEMAIL, rename it to a *.PKU
file, compress it into a *.mo? archive, and add the *.mo? filename to a *.?lo
file if necessary (please note that in this documention you'll see many
references to a *.mo? file, because the first version of this program didn't
"know about" any of the other valid extensions that use the first two letters
of a day of the week followed by a number.  This version DOES know about the
other extensions, however).  If all of this is confusing to you, the idea is
that it will pack files for use with BinkleyTerm and other mailers that use
*.flo attach files.  I've also included code to create file attach messages
for systems that don't use the *.?lo files, but since my system doesn't use
these I'm not sure if I have it right yet.  Just in case that doesn't meet
your needs, I'm also including an archive of a program called NOFLO in the
DoveMail distribution archive, that may make it possible to use DovePack with
some other types of mailers.  This is NOT a program that has a lot of "Bells
and Whistles", in fact, it takes only a maximum of seven command line
arguments, four of which are optional:

-o[outbound area path]
This is the path to your outbound mail area.  If you have more than one, you
can run DOVEPACK multiple times, specifying a different outbound area each
time.

-a[net/node]
Your address, in net/node format... do NOT specify zone, point, etc.  If you
are a point, use your "fakenet" address here.  If you are active in more than
one network, or have more than one address, use the net/node address
corresponding to the network associated with the outbound area you specified
with the -o parameter, or just use your primary address.

-p[packer invocation command]
This is the DRIVE, PATH, and FULL FILESPEC followed by any arguments needed to
invoke your preferred compression program for outbound mail, with spaces
replaced by underscores.  Use the argument that deletes the original file after
archiving it (usually referred to a "move").  A couple of examples follow:

     -pC:\ARCHIVE\PKZIP.EXE_-m

     -pC:\UTILITY\LHA.EXE_m_/m


The following arguments are all optional:

-s[36 byte long month string]
36 byte long string containing abbreviations for months of year.  Use this
switch only if you are in a non-English speaking location and wish to use
different month abbreviations.  This affects both the log file (if the -l
switch is used) and the date string in the message header (if the -m switch is
used)  If you're not using either the -l or the -m switch, this switch is
irrelevant.  The default string is "JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec".

-l[log filespec]
Optional switch specifies name of log file (a path specification may also be
included), if you wish to keep one.  Uses the standard Binkley/Maximus/Opus
log file format.  The default is to not maintain a log, if the -l switch is
not used.

-m[netmail area path]
Create a netmail file attach message instead of a *.?lo file in the outbound
area.  This switch is optional, and if you don't use it (or don't specify a
path following the switch), DovePack will (if necessary) create or add the
name of the mail archive bundle to a *.?lo file in your outbound directory,
which is the normal mode of operation for BinkleyTerm and some other mailers.
If you DO use this switch, DovePack will create a file attach message (with
nothing in the message body) in your netmail area, with the Private, File
Attach, and Kill after sending flags set.  Please note that I personally use
BinkleyTerm so if this doesn't work, it's going to be up to you to explain
to me what's wrong with the file attach messages that are being created.  One
other note, your netmail area messages must be in single-message-per-file
format (*.msg) or this won't work.

-f[filespec mask]
This is also an optional argument, and you probably won't need to use it, but
it can be used to restrict or change the filenames that DovePack will search
for in your outbound area when searching for uncompressed batched newsgroup
files.  Normally, DovePack searches for any file with an extension of ".UUT"
(the actual default filemask is "*.UUT").  However, should you have the need,
you can change this.  The most common reason for changing this would be to
restrict the files processed on a given run of DovePack to those destined for
certain nodes (you might do this if, for example, one node required their mail
to be packed using a different compression method than the others... you'd
pack for that node first, then run DovePack again without the -f argument to
pack for everyone else).

For example, let's suppose that you are feeding one node that wants to receive
their newsgroup feed compressed using PKARC, and that node's net/node number
is 123/456.  You'd first convert the net and node numbers to four digit
hexadecimal numbers, using leading zeroes as necessary to make four digit
numbers.  One easy way to do this is to call up BASIC and use the PRINT HEX$(n)
command to do the decimail to hexadecimal conversion.  For example:

    PRINT HEX$(123) --- result is 7B,  so use 007B
    PRINT HEX$(456) --- result is 1C8, so use 01C8

Now put the hexadecimal numbers together (net first) and add the ".UUT"
extension to form the filemask...  007B01C8.UUT in this example.  Then, you
could invoke DOVEPACK using parameters like -pC:\ARC\PKARC.EXE_-M and
-f007B01C8.UUT to specify the archiver and node to be processed using that
archiver.

Please note that the original case of all arguments given in the command
line used to invoke DovePack is retained (this is a change from previous
versions of DovePack), so that if your compression program treats uppercase
and lowercase arguments differently, DovePack will now pass them with the
original case given in the DovePack command line.

This program is admittedly a bit "brain dead" in its current form.  It will
always try to add a .PKU file to an existing *.mo? file for the node in
question, if one exists, and it will always add the filename to an existing
attach file (*.?lo file) if one exists (unless, of course, you are creating
file attach messages).  If no attach file exists, it will create a *.flo file
for the node in question.  You will then need to either use the DOS REN
command to rename the *.FLO file to another "flavor" (e.g. .HLO for hold, .CLO
for crash) OR you can run a program like oMMM to rename the attach files
according to a schedule.

I'm hoping that the authors of programs like oMMM will "teach" their programs
to look for .UUT files, rename them to .PKU files, and archive them into
outbound mail archives, similar to what is now done with FTS-0001 format .OUT
files.  If that happens, the need for this program will disappear; otherwise
I'll consider enhancing it.

While this all works very similar to the packing of normal Fidonet FTS-0001
mail, there are a couple of nuances you should be aware of.  The main one is
that newsgroup feeds CANNOT be rerouted through intermediate systems (unless
you use some exceptional batch file programming at both your system and the
intermediate).  In other words, suppose you are system "A" in the diagram
below, and you want to send mail to system "C" by way of system "B":

                            A <-----> B <-----> C

What you CANNOT do is pack mail for C, but then send it to B.  What you SHOULD
do in such a case is pack the mail to B, and let him run DoveMail which will
then repack the mail for C.  If B isn't willing or able to run DoveMail, then
you'll either have to send directly to C, or use some real batch file magic at
B (that is beyond the scope of these instructions).

Also, newsgroup packets do NOT have a "packet header" like FTS-0001 mail
packets, for the simple reason that the RFC- specs don't specify one.
Therefore, if anything goes wrong during the packing process, DovePack will
TRY to rename the *.PKU file back to its original *.UUT name, so that you
still have some chance of figuring out where it's supposed to go later on.
But, should you ever wind up with an "orphaned" .PKU file in the outbound
area, there's no header information to decipher to figure out where it's
really supposed to go.  Hopefully, this will not be a major problem.

Please remember that if you are sending both echomail and newsgroup feeds to
the same node, you MUST use the same compression program with DovePack as you
use for sending echomail... otherwise, you may have one compressor trying to
add to a mail archive that was created by a different compressor, making the
archive unreadable by either.  And, nodes that receive feeds may need to use a
general purpose unpacking shell such as GUS, POLYXARC, or SPAZ to unpack the
incoming mail archives, so that the presence of .PKU files in a mail archive
doesn't confuse the echomail processor.  If you are feeding nodes that use the
SQUISH echomail processor, be sure to read the notes on SQUISH in the DoveMail
documentation.

Here is a typical invocation line for DovePack:

     DOVEPACK -a3210/123 -oC:\BBS\OUTBOUND -pC:\COMPRESS\PKZIP.EXE_-M

Again, note the underscore that replaces a space in the compressor invocation
line, and especially note that both the full patch ("C:\COMPRESS\") and the
program extension (".EXE") are given... these MUST be present since DovePack
neither assumes path nor extension for the called program.  You can ignore
this if you want to, but if you do don't complain when DoveMail doesn't work!

Here's the typical flow of mail processing for a node that receives and
distributes both echomail and neswgroups:

1) Mailer receives mail archive (*.mo?) file from another node.  We'll assume
this archive contains both echomail (*.PKT files) and newsgroups (*.PKU
files).

2) After mailer disconnects, a general purpose unpacking program such as GUS,
POLYXARC, or SPAZ is called to uncompress the *.mo? file.  This leaves both
*.PKT and *.PKU files in the current directory.

3) DoveMail is called, and it processes the *.PKU files.  It may also create
some outgoing *.UUT files in the outbound directory, if you send newsgroups to
other nodes.

4) Your echomail processor is called (for both import and export) and it
processes the echomail and may also create some *.OUT files in the outbound
directory.

5) If necessary you call a program like oMMM to archive up the outgoing *.OUT
files into outgoing mail archives.

6) You then call DovePack to place any outgoing .UUT files into outgoing mail
archives.

(Note: in some installations it may work better if you do #6 before #5,
especially if you want the program referenced in 5 to rename any .FLO files to
another "flavor").

Possible errorlevels that may be returned by this program are:

0 - No error
1 - Invalid or missing data in command line
2 - Unexpected error (some .PKT files may have been processed)
3 - An errorlevel was returned from the file compression program

Once again, I hope that the need for DovePack as a separate program will go
away soon, but in the meantime use it as necessary in the meantime to handle
archiving newsgroups.

Jack