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Monster Media 1996 #15
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Monster Media Number 15 (Monster Media)(July 1996).ISO
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tigerfix.zip
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README.DOC
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1996-05-22
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WTCHNEWS tiger news/mail fix (05/22/96)
========================================
By David Rance david.rance@mesnil.cemon.co.uk (WTCHNEWS)
Bernal Schooley bernal@unity.com (PRUNE)
Rick Sande rick.sande@mansco.com (CODE MODIFICATIONS/DOCS)
A note from Rick:
On April 10th 1996 I reported a serious problem to e-Soft that invoved a
problem with TIGER newsgroup processing that was cauing my system to crash
anywhere from 1 to 10 times a day.
What was happening is TIGER would attempt to toss a usenet message where
the Newsgroups: line was formed incorrectly and contained over 500 or so
characters.
Over a month went buy and no fix came from e-Soft. Instead I was told that
I was the only person who had reported this problem and that they would
have to look into it more.
Later I found that there were several people who where having the same
problem where their system would just freeze during a TIGER toss session.
I posted a message in the TBBS internet forum and later got a response
from David Rance in Europe who offered to write some quick code that
could run as a post-process before the TIGER toss took effect.
After looking at this code I decided to polish it up a bit and also have the
system create a news.log file in the main TBBS directory so I could get a
clue as to how many bad messages were coming in each day.
Later I stumbled upon some old code that Bernal Schooley wrote in 1993
during the PIMP days. The code looked pretty good but needed to be
modified heavily in order to support the new TIGER file specifications and
stuff. After getting this done I got the bright idea to merge the two
applications together and this is what it all does......
* Bernal Schooley's PRUNE portion of this code will take the mail from a
staging directory and put ^A's in front of the header lines in order to
make them invisible. Sure, TIGER can do this by itself but this piece of
code gives you the ability to "UN-HIDE" some of the lines making it easier
for your users who read messages online. Once the files have been
processed they are moved from the staging directory to the standard UUCPIN
directory and this is where David's code comes in..
* David's (THANK YOU DAVID!!) code will read in the .D files and make sure
that the NEWSGROUPS: line doesn't exceed 250 characters. If it does the
message is deleted and the remainder of the news packet is left untouched.
This prevents TIGER from crashing when it tries to toss the messages into
the system.
Now although Bernal's code was listed as shareware and I didn't have
permission to merge it in with David's I also realize that with the advent
of TIGER this code in it's original format would no longer function.
However, I did my best to give credit to everyone involved since this
whole thing was a group effort (without most of the groups knowing about
each other).
Now here's how to get this monster up and running.
--------------------------------------------------
* Put all of the files in a directory on your C: drive
* Edit the WTCHNEWS.CFG file and point the TIGERFILES variable to the same
place as TIGER's UUCPIN: statement. ex. TIGERFILES c:\pimp\in\
(ok, so big deal, I'm still using my old PIMP directory structures..)
* Make a staging directory where the TIGER dialer will place all of the
inbound files.
* Alter your tiger.ctl file to include the UUCPIN-STAGE: directory...
ex. UUCPIN-STAGE: C:\pimp\in\stage\ (notice the final backslash!)
* Alter your tiger.ctl and change SUPPRESS HEADERS: to NO
* Alter your tiger.ctl to include the postprocessing TDBS program:
SPAWN ON RECEIPT: C:\TBBS\NEWSFIX\WTCHNEWS /Q
That's it.... each time mail is received by TIGER it will start the
WATCHNEWS system and do it's thing in the background. It will also create
a log file in your tbbs directory as C:\TBBS\NEWS.LOG to give you some
idea of how many messages were dumped.
Using the default configuration files for WTCHNEWS and PRUNE with
adjustments to match your directory structure should be fine. Keep in mind
that the PRUNE portion of this code will look for the TIGER.CTL file on
the C: drive in the TBBS directory.
The PRUNE portion of this code will always (at a minimum) leave visible
the following header lines:
From:
Reply-To:
Subject:
You can instruct the system to include more lines by editing the prune.cfg
file.
I admit that this is a kludgy fix for all of these TIGER problems but my
system has been sending and receiving tons of usenet mail flawlessly for
over three weeks now.
It's really too bad that the company who produced this software in the
first place didn't responded with a solution as quickly. But I guess
that's a whole 'nother saga!
------------------------------------------------------
While we're on the subject of software development...
------------------------------------------------------
Suppose there was a way to take a fidonet packet and attach it to an
internet e-mail message destined for another TBBS system that had
internet/fidonet support. With maybe a modification to flame's AREAS.BBS
file would would look something like this:
FIDO_OTHERNETS OTHERNETS 1:141/390 1:124/1023 jsmith@bbs.com
Suppose the received internet message could remove the attached file and
put it into the TIMS inbound files directory instead of the enclosure
directory. Where it could be tossed into TBBS later by flame.
You would have a full blown fidonet <> internet gateway capable of moving
echo's throughout the country at a fraction of what it costs for long
distance service.
It would certainly add some life expectancy to FIDONET and allow it to
retain it's cozy neighborhood feeling.
another idea...
--------------------------------------
Suppose you had a way to select a message area on your system and make it
both and echomail area and an internet mailing list area without having
any message duplication? People on the internet could participate in
fidonet echomail by subscribing to the mailing list and people in
fidonet that dont have internet access could converse with those that do
very affordably. All in a semi-private environment away from USENET.
-----------------
Final Note:
-----------------
Use this code however you like. I hope it solves your system crashing
problems as it did for me. If you want to know more about what it does I
suggest you review the source code. In the unlikely event you break it.. or it
breaks your system, you get to keep the pieces!
Regards,
Rick Sande