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RBBSMail, the RBBS-PC Echomail Processor
(C) by Jan R. Terpstra
August 6, 1990
Bamestra RBBS
P.O.Box 66
1462 ZH Beemster
The Netherlands
RBBSNet 8:998/1.0
FIDONET 2:512/10.0
phone1 ++31 2998 3602
phone2 ++31 2998 3603 (HST)
Document Number RM_900806
│ Revisions in this document are marked by a sidebar like the one on the
│ left of this sentence.
1. What is RBBSMail
RBBSMail is a program that allows sysops of RBBS-PC bulletin boards to
hook their bulletin board into the international FIDONET and participate
in Echomail. The combination RBBS-PC + RBBSMail + any of the mail
frontends will process messages entered in designated conferences of the
RBBS-PC system and send those messages to any other system in the
FIDONET. It will put received Echomail in the proper RBBS-PC MESSAGES
file or FIDO style message subdirectory.
This way, RBBS-PC conferences can be shared among multiple RBBS-PC and
other systems in the FIDONET. Messages entered on any of the bulletin
boards in an Echomail net will eventually be copied over to all the other
bulletin board systems connected to the net. RBBSMail does handle
reception of directly addressed FIDONET messages but it cannot handle
explicitly addressed messages from users on your system simply because
RBBS-PC does not (yet??) provide a way of addressing network messages.
RBBSMail can only process Echomail.
│ To accomodate bulletin board systems that run another BBS program next to
│ RBBS-PC, RBBSMail can also do Import, Export and Maint functions on FIDO
│ style message subdirectories, just like ConfMail, QM and Dutchie's
│ Conference manager do. This allows a mixed environment where both RBBS-PC
│ and FIDO or Opus can participate in Echomail on a single system.
1.1 Software Requirements
To run RBBSMail, you need (of course) a working RBBS-PC based bulletin
board with a version of RBBS-PC that will run with a frontend mailer
(RBBS-PC v16.1A or later), RBBSMail and suitable batch files. RBBSMail
can handle RBBS-PC MESSAGES files produced by RBBS-PC v12.5A and higher,
but you will have to take special actions to have your frontend mailer
operate with pre 16.1A versions.
RBBSMail will work happily with all three front-end mailers d'Bridge
BinkleyTerm or Dutchie. Dutchie has DutchEd, the nicest message editor
I've ever seen, and the Dutchie manual has a very educational section on
FIDONET basics.
As all programs have strong and week points, it is up to you to decide
which one to use. BinkleyTerm with MSGED is recommended!
Mail notification, sysop alias and message security levels were introduced
in RBBS-PC v16.1A. These features are supported in RBBSMail, but they
will not work with earlier versions of RBBS-PC. However, RBBSMail will
run with pre-16.1A versions of RBBS-PC without any problems, and can
handle MESSAGE file formats of RBBS-PC v12.5A and later.
What is RBBSMail 1
1.2 Hardware Requirements
The minimum hardware requirements to run RBBSMail are the same as those
for RBBS-PC (think about that for a while....)
1.3 Related Documents
I advise you (well,it is sort of mandatory) to read or at least browse
through the following documents:
■ The manual of your frontend mailer ( BinkeyTerm, Dutchie or d'Dridge)
■ SD-APDX by Kim Wells (how to run SEADOG with RBBS-PC).
■ BT-APDX by Tony Young (how to run BinkleyTerm with RBBS-PC).
■ BinkRBBS, by Jim Oswell.
■ The IFNA FSC documents.
■ IFNA publications about the FIDONET.
■ The FIDO newsletters.
■ The ConfMail documentation.
And you already read the RBBS-PC documentation, didn't you??? Or did you
just fire up RBBS-PC with your fingers crossed? IF you are one of those
who never reads documentation, you'll probably will not read this. But,
in case your eye accidentially catches this: Please read the documentation
before you ask any questions!!! I have had too many questions asked by
people that obviously did not read a scrap of documentation before they
started what they were doing and I have a standard answer for these
people: R.T.F.M.!! (abbreviation for Read The F***ing Manual). This
answer usally solves about 95% of the questions. The other 5% are 'real'
problems that need some sort of action. If, after reading and rereading
the documentation, there are still questions unanswered, feel free to
elaborately commentate on your problem.
1.4 Acknowledgements
It is utterly impossible to give credits were credits are due, but here
are the names of some persons that have been of great help and deserve
kudos: Thom Mack, Ken Goosens and Jon Martin, authors of RBBS-PC. Doug
Azzarito and Kim Wells for their many suggestions. Jeff Rush, author of
TOSSMAIL and SCANMAIL, and the inventor of Echomail. The Binkley Trio.
Johan Zwiekhorst for GUS and ARCA. Special thanks to Richard Couture of
SFPCug and Jim Oswell for beta-testing my silly code.
1.5 Legal stuff
What is RBBSMail 2
1.6 Copyrights & License
RBBSMail is (C) Copyright 1988, 1989, 1990 by Jan R. Terpstra.
You are granted a limited license to use, copy and distribute RBBSMail on
these conditions:
1. You may use the program for any commercial or non-commercial purpose.
Use it on your company, private or school BBS, feed it to your dog, or
use it as a doorstop. I don't care.
2. You may copy and distribute as many copies of this program as you
like, provided you do not charge money for the program itself. A
small fee (for copying, handling, mailing and the diskette carrying
the copy) is allowed, but this amount shall not exceed the real
costs. (i.e. you may not make profit by distributing RBBSMail).
3. The program and documentation shall not bee modified in any way.
4. You shall abide by the DINNERWARE concept. If you use this program
take your wife or girlfriend (not both) out to dinner at least once.
If you absolutely insist on spending money for RBBSMail, DO NOT put a
check in the mail to me. In stead, take your wife or girlfriend (not
both) out to dinner, to make up for the many, many hours you left her
alone while you were playing around with your BBS.......
Therefore, it is understood that RBBSMail is distributed as DINNERWARE
You may also consider a donation ($20 suggested) a local charity of your
choice. If that idea does not appeal to you, send me a postcard from your
next vacation (no windmills please!) or a picture of yourself in front of
your BBS computer. Christmas cards are also greatly appreciated!
1.7 Warranty
You must be kidding? No warranty of any kind is given on RBBSMail, except
that the documentation is guaranteed to be in poor English.
You use this program AT YOUR OWN RISK. For your info: RBBSMail was
developed and tested on an IBM PS/2 mod70 with 4MB memory and a 60MB fixed
disk. This version has been tested with RBBS-PC 17.2B, ConfMail v3.3,
BinkleyTerm v2.30, oMMM v1.40 and AMAX v2.20.
The program is written in BASIC and compiled with the Microsoft BASIC
Compiler v6.00. The assembler subroutines were assembled with the
MicroSoft Macro Assembler v5.10. All development and testing was done
under IBM PC-DOS 3.30 and DESQView 2.22. I'm not sure if it is of any use
to you, but you CAN run RBBSMail in the OS/2(tm) DOS 'penalty box'.
What is RBBSMail 3
2. Installation
2.1 Configuring RBBSMail
Installation of RBBSMail is pretty straightforward. The installation
procedure assumes that you have installed RBBS-PC and your frontend
mailer, with all the conferences, the RBBS-PC control files and suitable
batch files. You should already have obtained all the stuff you need to
run as a FIDONET node, things like NET/NODE number, the NODELIST and some
programs to maintain all the files. Please read the documentation of your
frontend mailer about this. Talk to the Sysop of your host-node about
setting up your mail schedules and mailrouting.
Now, copy RBBSMail.EXE to the directory where you keep your RBBS-PC
MESSAGE files. Find out the EXACT filenames of all the conferences you
are going to hook up in the Echomail and find out by what AREA:names they
are known in the network you are participating in. You also need the
NET/NODE number(s) of the system(s) you are going send Echomail to. You
can send any AREA: to a large number of different systems. This is
usually not the case, you will probably only exchange mail with your
Echomail host.
Most local FIDONET nets have a single hostnode with some 5 to 20 connected
nodes. Ask the sysop of your local or regional host for the EXACT AREA:
names used in your net.
This version of RBBSMail can run your system as Echomail host, you can set
up your own local or regional net.
If you have all this info, you have to generate at least two files for
RBBSMail. One is RBBSMAIL.CFG and it contains the information RBBSMail
needs to make your system talk to the rest of the net. We'll talk about
the other file later. The format of the .CFG file is similar to the
configuration files used by the frontend mailers.
2.2 Valid phrases for RBBSMAIL.CFG
Some changes were made in RBBSMail 17.3A to accomodate direct reading of
BinkleyTerm's configuration file. The following configuration phrases are
now obsolete:
NODE This phrase is replaced by the ADDRESS verb.
AKA This phrase is replaced by the ADDRESS verb.
MAIL This phrase is replaced by the NETMAIL verb.
FILE This phrase is replaced by the NETFILE verb.
POINT This phrase is replaced by the PRIVATENET verb.
The new valid phrases are listed below:
Installation 4
2.2.1 ADDRESS
Up to 10 FULL ZONE:NET/NODE.POINT address. For normal operation, the full
FIDONET address(es) under which you are listed in the nodelist. For point
operation, it is the full address of the BOSS, except for the last address
part, which should be the pointnumber assigned by the Boss, i.e. the full
4 dimensional address. For point operation, RBBSMail will translate the
address internally to the proper fakenet address.
You may have up to 10 extra addresses (AKA, Also Known As addresses). The
extra addresses are ignored for point operation. The FIRST address listed
in the configration file will be used as your primary address. Additional
addresses are Ignored for POINT operation.
│ 2.2.2 DOMAIN
│ This is the common name of the network you are a member of under your
│ PRIMARY net/node number. DOMAIN is used to build the MSGID: tafs for
│ messages originating from your system and can be any valid domain name&gml
│ RBBSNet, FIDONET, Eggnet, AlterNet or whatever network you are in.
2.2.3 NETMAIL
tells RBBSMail the subdirectory where it can find incoming/outgoing
netmail.
2.2.4 NETFILE
Subdirectory where RBBSMail can find the incoming mailbundles.
2.2.5 HOLD
Where Binkley/oMMM compatible mailbundles go. When the -O commandline
switch is given, RBBSMail will store outgoing mail in this directoy as
.OUT bundles in stead of regular FIDO style messages in the MAIL
directory. This saves one step in packing and squeezing your outgoing
mail.
2.2.6 DUPS
When RBBSMail finds a duplicate message, this is the directory where
RBBSMail moves the duplicate to. Mailbundles that could not be properly
unbundled will also be moved to this directory.
2.2.7 WORKDIR
Drive and path where RBBSMail can save intermediate files. The available
space in the working directory should be large enough to hold the largest
message file that is on your system. Using a VDISK for the working
Installation 5
directory improves the speed of RBBSMail SCAN.
2.2.8 PRIVATENET
Is the NETnumber of your private network for points. RBBSMail will strip
all point addresses from the SEEN-BY: lines in outgoing mail, but retains
the addresses locally. The PRIVATENET MUST be the HIGHEST netnumber in
your list. PRIVATENET is mandatory for both Boss AND point operation.
2.2.9 SIZE
Maximum size (in BYTES) of incoming messages. Any message larger than
this will be ignored. RBBSMail (i.e. BASIC) does not have enough
dataspace to process messages that are over 15KB in size. 10240 bytes is
a good value, maximum is 15000.
Note: Most sysops pay the bill for Echomail out of their own pocket, so
messages in the Echomail should be kept small. Sending Echomail messages
that are over 10KB in size may be considered anti-social.....
2.2.10 DBCS
This tells RBBSMAIL to operate in "Double Byte Character Set" (DBCS)
mode. See Appendix B for details.
2.2.11 SYSALIAS
The alias name sysop uses to logon remotely to RBBS-PC. Beginning with
RBBS-PC v16.1A, the sysop's alias name is listed in the USERS file.
RBBSMail needs to know this alias to find the sysop entry in the USERS
file to be able to flip the 'mail waiting' indicator for the sysop.
2.2.12 SYSOP
The name you are normally known under as sysop of this system. Whatever
you specify here will be overridden if you specify a SYSOP name after the
ORIGIN line in AREAS.BBS.
2.2.13 SECURITY
The security all imported messages are set to. A user has to have at
least this access level to read any imported Echomail. Ignored for
messages in FIDO style message subdirectories.
Installation 6
2.2.14 GATE
ZONE:NET/NODE of a ZONEgate or ECHOgate (HUB) you exchange mail with,
followed by the NET/NODE numbers (NOT the zone numbers!!) that should
ALWAYS appear in the SEEN-BY lines in messages addressed to that gateway
node. Normally, the SEEN-BY line to an ECHOgate or ZONEgate should only
contain the gate's NET/NODE and the NET/NODE of your own system (and your
AKA addresses, if applicable). Ignored for point operation.
If you are serving as Echomail hostsystem and also send echoes to the host
of another net, you and the other hosts are only concerned about the
SEEN-BY info for your own nets, and there is no reason to tell the host of
the other net all of your SEEN-BY info. The two host systems only have to
tell each other the fact that they have seen the message, but all other
info about what happened to the message in the one net, is of no interest
to the other net. Having a short SEEN-BY line keeps down the mailcost for
ZONE and ECHO gates.
In all cases, the NET/NODE numbers in the prefabricated SEEN-BY lines
should be in numeric order, without the ZONE numbers, typed with one space
in between, exactly as they should appear in the SEEN-BY line. You may
define up to 25 gates.
2.2.15 PACK
The name of a BATchfile or program to be called by RBBSMail to packup your
outgoing mail. This normally calls oMMM, Dutchie's PACKER or a similar
mail packing program to bundle and route outgoing mail. See also the -M:
switch.
The program listed after PACK can be a BATchfile that invokes your mail
packer or just the name and parameters of your mail packer. A PACK batch
file (for example named PACKMAIL.BAT) can look something like this if you
use BINKLEY and oMMM:
ECHO OFF
CD\BT
oMMM -iBINKLEY.PRM -m\BT\MAIL -h\BT\HOLD -c\BT\OMMM.CTL -sA -z2
CD\RBBS
In this case, the RBBSMail entry should read
PACK C:\PACKMAIL.BAT
Or the PACK parameter could list only the oMMM program with parameters:
PACK oMMM -i\BINKLEY.PRM -m\BT\MAIL -h\BT\HOLD -c\BT\OMMM.CTL -sA -z2
In this case, RBBSMail calls oMMM directly and you do not need a separate
BATchfile to run oMMM.
Note: If you decide to use this RBBSMail feature, BE SURE you have enough
memory to run RBBSMail, oMMM and ARCA on top of each other! 320KB free
memory when starting RBBSMail with this feature is the bare minimum.
Installation 7
2.2.16 UNPACK
The program or batch file RBBSMail should call to decompress compressed
mailbundles (i.e. ARCmail, ZIPmail, ZOOmail).
Today, it is very common to compress mailbundles before they are sent to
another system. This will in some cases save over 50% of connect time to
transfer mailbundles. RBBSMail recognizes compressed mailbundles and will
call the uncompress program that is listed at the UNPACK phrase to
uncompress the compressed mailbundles before unbundling them into separate
messages.
If your system only processes one style of compressed mail, UNPACK should
list the unarchive program (ZOO.EXE, ARCE.COM, PKUNZIP.EXE, or whatever
exotic variety you use).
If your system receives different kinds of compressed mail, use an unpack
shell like GUS, the General Unpack Shell, written by Johan Zwiekhorst.
GUS will look at the compressed file it has to uncompress and then call
the appropriate uncompress program. In combination with the ARCA
simulator (by the same author), you can make a very flexible setup to
send/receive any kind of compressed mailbundles.
2.2.17 ELASTIC
Set this configuration option if you use RBBS-PC v17.2A or later AND you
have configured RBBS-PC to use MESSAGES files that are growing in size
when messages are added. This greatly improves the way in which your
precious disk space is used and it will make RBBSMail a bit faster on SCAN
runs. RBBSMail will not be bothered by a filled up MESSAGES file.
│ 2.2.18 NOFORWARD
│ All NETmail messages that do not originate from your system on are not
│ sent out to other systems. Some people make a habit of sending messages
│ to the other side of the world by delivering the messages to your system
│ and have YOU make the expensive call. Messages originating from or
│ addressed to systems in your PRIVATENET will always be forwarded.
│ NOFORWARD is ignored for ZONEGATE operation.
│ 2.2.19 NOFILES
│ This will prevent file attaches, file requests and file update requests
│ from other systems to be sent on your dime. Mail is forwarded from/to
│ other systems, attached files and file-requests are not. Inbound file
│ attaches to the private network are retained.
Installation 8
│ 2.2.20 UNCRASH
│ Forward mail for other systems, but always reset the CRASHmail bit.
│ 2.2.21 ZONEGATE
│ The zonenumber you are the zonegate for. If your system is in zone 2 and
│ your system is the zonegate for zone 3, set ZONEGATE 3. See section
│ "Zonegate Operation" for information about setting up a Zonegate. Ignored
│ for POINT operation.
│ 2.2.22 Reading BINKLEY.CFG
│ RBBSMail is also capable of directly reading BinkleyTerm's configuration
│ file. If RBBSMail cannot find the file RBBSMAIL.CFG, it will look for the
│ file BINKLEY.CFG in the subdirectory pointed to by the DOS environment
│ variable "BINKLEY".
│ The configuration phrases Address, Netmail, Netfile, Hold, Sysop and
│ Privatenet are read directly from Binkleyterm's configuration file.
│ The phrases Dups, SysAlias, Size, Elastic, Security, Gate, Pack, Unpack,
│ WorkDir and DBCS should be added to BINKLEY.CFG by putting APPLICATION
│ RBBSMAIL in front of the configuration phrase.
│ For example, to enter the SECURITY phrase in BINKLEY.CFG, add the line:
│ Application RBBSMail Security 4
│ See the BinkleyTerm documentation for more info.
│ Note: As RBBSMAIL cannot read nested configuration files, you cannot use
│ the INCLUDE statement in your BINKLEY.CFG file.
Installation 9
2.2.23 Example of a RBBSMAIL.CFG file
; Lines starting with a ';' are comment lines. BLANK lines are ignored.
;
ADDRESS 2:512/10.0
ADDRESS 2:512/101.0
ADDRESS 8:998/1.0
ADDRESS 8:998/0.0
DOMAIN FIDONET
NETMAIL C:\BT\NETMAIL\
NETFILE C:\BT\NETFILES\
HOLD C:\BT\HOLD\
PRIVATENET 1234
DUPS C:\BT\DUPMSGS\
SYSALIS Buck Rogers
SYSOP John Sysop
SIZE 9000
ELASTIC
SECURITY 4
GATE 1:1/0 1/0 512/10 101
GATE 2:2/0 2/0 512/10 101
GATE 3:3/0 3/0 512/10 101
GATE 8:8/0 8/0 512/10 926/0 1
PACK C:\BINKLEY\PACKMAIL.BAT
UNPACK GUS.EXE
NOFILES
UNCRASH
ZONEGATE 3
(another example is included in this package, see file EXAMPLE.CFG).
Put the config file RBBSMAIL.CFG in your RBBS-PC directory.
Installation 10
The second file you need is named AREAS.BBS (for historic reasons). This
file lists all the conferences you want to hook up to Echomail, the AREA:
tag for that conference and the NET/NODE number you want to send the
Echomail to.
2.2.24 Example of an AREAS.BBS file
; Lines starting with ';' or '-' are comment lines, so are BLANK lines
; First non-commented line has the ORIGIN line ! optional SYSOP name
The Tennis Court, Herejezusveen, The Netherlands ! John Sysop
; all subsequent lines have either
; RbbsFileName AreaName SendToList PrivateModifier
; or
; MsgSubdir AreaName PrivateModifier
;
; You should at least have AREA:GENERAL and AREA:PRIVATE.
; Per conference, you can have up to 100 netnumbers with each 100
; nodes. This is sufficient for 10000 nodes, more then you will
; be able to exchange mail with during the national mail hour.....
C:\RBBS\MESSAGES GENERAL
C:\RBBS\MESSAGES PRIVATE
C:\RBBS\TENNISM.DEF TENNIS 2:512/1 2 8:926/1 8:999/1 2:1234/1 2 -
C:\RBBS\IBMPCM.DEF IBM-PC 2:512/1 2 3 12 8:926/1 -
C:\RBBS\RBBSM.DEF RBBS-PC 2:512/1 6 8:926/1 +
C:\BINK\SYSOPS\ SYSOP 2:512/1
(see also EXAMPLE.BBS in this package).
This AREAS.BBS example will have the following result:
■ The string "The Tenniscourt, Herejezusveen, The Netherlands" will be
used as the * Origin: line in all outgoing Echomail originating from
your system. This way, anybody on any other system will know where
the message was originally entered.
■ If an outgoing message has SYSOP in the address field, it will be
replaced by the name John Sysop. This way, other sysops will not find
that message addressed to themselves, avoiding confusion.
If you specify the OPTIONAL sysop name this way, it will overrride the
SYSOP entry of RBBSMAIL.CFG.
■ If an incoming message has John Sysop in the address field, it will be
replaced by SYSOP. This way, the message scan function of RBBS-PC
will identify those messages as being addressed to SYSOP.
■ Your MAIN RBBS-PC MESSAGES file will receive all the incoming mail
that is directed to the area's GENERAL and PRIVATE. All messages with
a PRIVATE tag will be put in the MESSAGES files as private files.
■ All messages in the file TENNISM.DEF will be sent to nodes 512/1 and
512/2 in ZONE 2, to nodes 926/1 and 999/1 in zone 8, and they will be
sent to the nodes in the private (point) network 1234/1 and 1234/2.
Installation 11
When sent out, an AREA: tag TENNIS will be put in the first line of
the message. This way the receiving system on the other end knows
what to do with the message. When importing incoming mail, messages
with an AREA: tag TENNIS will be put in the TENNISM.DEF file.
■ The area SYSOPS does not refer to an RBBS-PC MESSAGES file, but to a
subirectory that holds FIDO style messages. If a message with
AREA:SYSOPS is received, it will be moved to the subdirectory
C:\BINK\SYSOPS\, where it can be read by an appropriate message editor
like MsgEd or Dutchie's Editor. RBBSMail "sees" the difference
between RBBS-PC MESSAGES files and FIDO subdirectories by looking the
filename. If a filename is listed, a RBBS-PC MESSAGES file is
assumed. If a subdirectory is listed (i.e. with a trailing
backslash), RBBSMail will treat the conference as a FIDO style message
subdirectory.
■ You can probably figure out by yourself what happens to the other two
conference files RBBS-PC and IBM-PC? Well, sort of......
The last charcter '-' on the line defining the RBBS-PC conference tells
RBBSMail that private messages left in that conference should not be sent
out. Also, all incoming private messages for that conference will not be
TOSSed in the conference, but killed right away.
The directive '+' on the line defining the TENNIS conference tells
RBBSMail to allow import and export of private messages. i.e. the
message's attributes will remain unchanged.
By default, RBBSMail will force all incoming and outgoing messages in all
conferences to be PUBLIC messages.
AREA:PRIVATE and AREA:GENERAL will never be changed in status, but
messages addressed to SYSOP in those areas will ALWAYS be made private
messages.
This example has all your Echomail information in one file. You may have
different AREAS.BBS-type files with different names and different origin
lines. For instance, you could have a TENNIS.BBS file like:
The Tennis Court, Herejezusveen, The Netherlands ! John Sysop
C:\RBBS\TENNISM.DEF TENNIS 2:512/1 2 8:926/1 8:999/1 2:1234/1 2
Or an IBMPC.BBS file with:
The Tennis Court, IBM PC Tech support, The Netherlands ! John Sysop
C:\RBBS\IBMPCM.DEF IBM-PC 2:512/1 2 3 12 8:926/1 -
When you invoke RBBSMail SCAN explicitly giving TENNIS.BBS or IBMPC.BBS
(see next chapter) it will take the sysop name, origin line text and
distribution info from that file. This way, you can put different things
in you ORIGIN line and process Echomail conferences separately and at
different times.
Also, it is possible to have more than one RBBSMAIL.CFG file. This comes
in handy if your system is participating in more than one NET. You can
set up multiple .CFG files and multiple .BBS files, allowing you to do
Installation 12
different things with different files under different NET/NODE numbers.
This is highly flexible, but you should take real good care of what you
do. You may completly clobber up your Echomail!!
There is one additional file RBBSMail uses to store the serial numbers it
│ uses to create the MSGIDs it adds to messages originating from your
│ system. This file, RBBSMAIL.NUM is set to HIDDEN and READ_ONLY by
│ RBBSMail. You should not manually interfere with this file. If you do,
│ the MSGID serial number scheme will get mixed up and it is possible that
│ messages originating from your system are treated as duplicate messages by
│ other systems.
2.3 Setting up for POINT operation
What's a point? A point is basically a private bulletin board system,
│ i.e. a BBS with only one single user: the point-sysop. A point is a BBS
│ that does not exist in the public nodelist. The point only exists in the
│ "private network" of the BOSS node. A point only communicates with his
│ BOSS. Any node in the nodelist can have points. There is no formal point
│ addressing method in the FIDO compatible network, so a kludge was invented
│ to address points. The addressing system for points works like this:
│ Suppose node 2:512/10 wants to support points. He then picks a netnumber
│ for his private network, usually by adding 1000 to his own node number.
│ All points under the Boss get a node number in this private network. The
│ Boss maintains his own nodelist extension for his private network. For
│ example, Boss 2:512/10 uses private network PRIVATENET 1010. Point number
│ 3 then gets address 1010/3 in this private network.
│ Any message arriving at the Boss from point number 3 in the private
│ network, will be run through a program that translates the point's private
│ network address to a public address. After this translation (commonly
│ known as 'address remapping'), a message from private net address 1010/3
│ will appear to have been send from 2:512/10. The remapping program will
│ add an FMPT tag to the body of the message. Putting the BOSS ADDRESS and
│ the POINT NUMBER together gives the full "4 dimensional" point address
│ 2:512/10.3 (i.e. point 3 in the private network of Boss 2:512/10).
│ Another person on another node or point, sending a reply to that message,
│ will add a TOPT 3 tag to the body of his reply. When the reply arrives at
│ BOSS 2:512/10, the remapping program understands that the TOPT tag means
│ that the message is not for the Boss himself, but that it must be routed
│ to point number 3 in his private network. The public address 2:512/10.3
│ will be translated to node 1010/3 in the private network. The BOSS node
│ will then take care of proper mail distribution in his private network.
│ The translation scheme described above applies for Echomail too, but
│ there's one other thing. Because a point address never appears in the
│ public nodelist, the address listed in the origin line of a message should
│ be the public address of the point sending the message. If the address in
│ the origin line is the point's address in the private network, the origin
│ line wouldn't make much sense. Usually nobody (except for the Boss) knows
│ whcich POINT addresses belong to whatever private network.
Installation 13
│ Therefore, the origin line in an Echomail message from a point should list
│ the extended public address. This way, anyone wishing to reply to such a
│ message with a direct message can find the full address of the sender in
│ the origin line.
│ On the BOSS side, RBBSMail will add a FMPT tag to any message that
│ originated from a system in the private network. This is done for both
│ Echomail and netmail messages. Address remapping is also done for all
│ incoming netmail adressed to systems in the private network. FMPT (from
│ point) and TOPT (to point) tags will be added to all messages that are
│ remapped.
│ You do not need an external remapping program to forward mail to/from your
│ private network, RBBSMail takes care of the proper address translation.
Installation 14
3. Running RBBSMail
First a word of caution for those of you running a multi-node system.
RBBSMail uses a bit of an odd scheme to export mail. During a SCAN run,
RBBSMail copies the RBBS-PC MESSAGES file it processes to a temporary file
named RBBSMAIL.$$$, erases the RBBS-PC MESSAGES file and then copies the
temporary file over to the original filename.
This scheme is likely to cause some unwanted (but still interesting)
side-effects on your network or multi-tasking supervisor, especially if a
user on one of the active nodes joins a conference at the moment RBBSMail
is scanning that conference.
Depending on the phase of the moon, relative humidity and wind, your PC
will lock up or display Christmas decorations on your screen. To be on
the safe side, you MUST bring down all nodes of your system when RBBSMail
SCAN runs.
Beginning with version 17.3A, a number of safeguards have been build in
RBBSMail to ensure RBBS-PC MESSAGES file integrity while TOSSing mail into
RBBS-PC style conferences. You do not need to bring down all your nodes
when TOSSing mail. You can have users reading and writing messages
on-line while at the same time RBBSMail TOSSes mail in to the RBBS-PC
conferences.
RBBSMail runs in four modes: TOSS, SCAN, MARK and MAINT.
3.1 MARK mode
This is the command line to invoke the MARK mode:
RBBSMail MARK:areaname -C:cfgfile -F:areasfile -MSG:#
Note: You can use either '-' or '/' as command delimiter.
This mode will mark the RBBS-PC conference or the FIDO style conference
for the supplied areaname as being echoed up to the messagenumber supplied
with the -MSG: switch. For RBBS-PC conferences, the flagging is done by
changing the ':' (colon) between minutes and seconds in the DATE field of
the RBBS-PC message to a '.' (dot).
Note: This has some unwanted side effects on RBBS-PC's CONFIG option
"repair MESSAGES files". See appendix A for details. For FIDO style
conferences, the marker is stored in the first message (i.e. 1.MSG) in
the subdirectory.
RBBSMail MARK:TENNIS -MSG:34 marks the file TENNISM.DEF (that is related
to the AREA: tag TENNIS by the entry in the AREAS.BBSfile) as being echoed
up to message 34. You should consider doing this one time for all your
conference files before you start processing Echomail. If you do not, the
first SCAN run of your RBBS-PC files will find no flagged messages.
RBBSMail will assume that all messages in all files must be thrown out on
Running RBBSMail 15
the network. Not very useful if you have messages a half year old.....
The -C: switch allows you to use an alernate filename for RBBSMAIL.CFG.
By explicitly giving a different filename for AREAS.BBS (-F: switch), you
can use an alternate filename for AREAS.BBS.
3.2 SCAN mode
This is the command line to invoke the SCAN mode:
RBBSMail SCAN -C:cfgfile -F:areasfile -AKA:# -L -M:# -O|OZ -R
Note: You can use either '-' or '/' as command delimiter.
This mode will read all RBBS-PC MESSAGES files and all FIDO style message
subdirectories listed in the AREAS.BBS file. All messages are processed
and written to the the MAIL directory. An AREA: tag and, if needed an
ORIGIN: tag, will be added to the messagetext and the SEEN-BY: lines will
be appropriately added or updated. A copy of the message will be sent to
all nodes listed in the send-to list for the AREA: the message is in, IF
these nodes have not already received a copy of this specific message
(i.e. the node was not in the SEEN-BY: tag). Messages that have been
processed will be marked as such.
If a message contains NOECHO (just one word, in UPPER case) as the first
line of the message text, RBBSMail will NOT send that message out on the
network. So, if there's anything to be said in a conference that only
concerns users on YOUR system, put NOECHO as first line of the message and
that message will not be sent to other systems. Inform your users about
this feature!
RBBS-PC allows users to leave comments to sysop in conferences, which is
not such a good idea anyway. Those comments may contain information that
is nobody else's business but the sysop's. Comments to Sysop in
conferences will not be sent out on the network.
Switch -AKA:# (where # is a number from 1....10) tells RBBSMail to put '#'
of our AKA addresses in the SEEN-BY: lines. Addresses are counted from
top to bottom in your RBBSMAIL.CFG file. The first address is used as
your primary address, subsequent ADDRESS verbs are treated as AKA
addresses. RBBSMail uses no AKA addresses by default.
This way, you can have 10 AKA addresses that RBBSMail will recognize for
incoming mail, and have only 1 or 2 of your AKAs listed in outgoing mail.
Note: This switch is ignored for point operation.
The -C: switch allows you to use a different filename for RBBSMAIL.CFG.
By explicitly giving a different filename for AREAS.BBS (-F: switch), you
can use an alternate filename for AREAS.BBS.
Switch -M:# (max: number) This tells RBBSMail after how many messages it
should shell out to the mail packing program listed in RBBSMAIL.CFG.
Every time # of outgoing messages is reached, this PACK program is
Running RBBSMail 16
called. By having the mail packer pack up the mail that has been exported
up to that moment, you will generate small outgoing mailbundles. Some
other echomail processors, like ConfMail, work more effectively with small
mailbundles. '#' can be any number between 1 and 32676.
Switch -O tells RBBSMail to store outgoing mail as .OUT bundles in the
HOLD directory, instead of regular FIDO style messages in the MAIL
directory. This saves a step in packing up outgoing mail. You can only
use this switch with BinkleyTerm/oMMM or Dutchie/Packer.
If you use -OZ in stead of -O, and you have Binkley and oMMM v1.30
properly configured for full ZONE support, RBBSMail with put outgoing mail
for other zones in the right 'discrete' outbound directories. Please see
the Binkley and oMMM v1.30 documentation how to set up the full ZONE
support. When using the -OZ switch, be sure to have FULL ZONE:NET/NODE
addresses in your AREAS.BBS file, otherwise RBBSMail will assume all mail
is for nodes in your own zone. In this case, you also may leave the ZONE
addressing out of the 'send-to' lists in your AREAS.BBS file.
If you use AutoEcho, AreaFix or another automatic maintenance utility that
allows other systems to change your AREAS.BBS file without your personal
intervention, you may wish to use the -R (Rescan) switch. This forces
RBBSMail to treat ALL messages in ALL conferences as new messages. With a
suitable batch file you can use the errorlevel returned by AreaFix to
rescan all your message areas. This way, a system signing up to get a
certain Echomail area from you will get the whole message base the first
time RBBSMail SCAN runs after the other party signed up.
Note: This switch makes RBBSMail rather slow, so you may want to set up
your AutoEcho or AreaFix BATchfiles in such fashion that you do a RESCAN
only when your AREAS.BBS has been refreshed.
During the SCAN process, RBBSMail will put an MSGID: (Message
Identification) tag at the top of all outgoing messages. The MSGID: tag
is a unique message identifier in the format MSGID: Z:N/N/P yyyyyyyy
where:
Z:N/N.P is your full Zone:Net/Node.Point address
yyyyyyyy = a DOS style date&time marker.
The datestamp plus the 16 bit CRC over the Sender, Addressee and Subject
fields of the message are used to generate an identiefier that can be used
to check for duplicate messages. The identiefier, commonly known as the
EID (Echo ID) is written to a file named xxxx.EID (where xxxx is the name
of the current conference). This is a wrap around file, holding the Echo
Identifiers of the last 1364 incoming and outgoing echo messages for each
area.
3.3 TOSS mode
This is the command line to invoke the TOSS mode:
Running RBBSMail 17
RBBSMail TOSS -C:cfgfile -F:areas.bbs file -D -KU -L
-MD|ID -N -S -U -X
Note: You can use either '-' or '/' as command delimiter.
The TOSS function will look in the MAIL directory for incoming Echomail.
All messages addressed to your NET/NODE will be processed to either the
appropriate RBBS-PC conference or the proper FIDO style message
subdirectory that is listed in AREAS.BBS for the AREA:tag in the incoming
FIDONET messages. If there is no RBBS-PC conference file or FIDO message
subdirectory related to the AREA:label, the message is ignored. You can
select to have it killed by using the -KU (Kill Unknown) switch.
During TOSS, RBBSMail will look for a USERS file belonging to the
conference it writes any message to. This USERS file is scanned for the
name the message is addressed to. If the name is found, the 'mail
waiting' bit for this user will be flipped ON. If you use the new mail
notification or the [V]iew conferences feature of RBBS-PC (i.e. you have
a CONFMAIL.DEF type file), users can quickly check if there is any new
mail in the conferences without having to access each conference
separately.
Note: USERS file update only works for RBBS-PC MESSAGES files, not for
FIDO style message subdirectories.
In the above examples, if a message is written to the TENNIS conference
(file TENNISM.DEF) RBBSMail will look for the name of the addressee in the
file TENNISU.DEF. The relation MESSAGE<-->USERS file is the standard
RBBS-PC method, i.e. MESSAGES file xxxxM.DEF relates to USERS file
xxxxU.DEF. No fancy stuff allowed here, except that the .DEF extension
can be anything, as long as it is the same for both files. For instance,
if you want to have the TENNIS conference as subboard and want to use odd
names for the files, TENNISM.AAA and TENNISU.AAA or TENNISM.123 and
TENNISU.123 are legal names for RBBSMail to use. In fact, RBBSMail only
cares about the 'M' and 'U' in the names of the message and USERS files.
The -C: switch allows you to use a different filename for RBBSMAIL.CFG.
By explicitly giving a different filename for AREAS.BBS (-F: switch), you
can use an alternate filename for AREAS.BBS. Be careful when you process
incoming mail with the -C: or -F: switch. RBBSMail will only recognize
the AREA: tags listed in your alternate AREAS.BBS file, and the setup in
your alternate RBBSMAIL.CFG file. Any message with an AREA: tag that is
not listed in your AREAS.BBS will be considered a bad_msg. With the right
(or wrong) choice of switches, RBBSMail will kill bad msgs immediately
(See -KU switch). To process incoming Echomail, best is to use an
AREAS.BBS file that lists ALL Echomail areas you carry.
Switch -D (Direct) will put messages without an AREA: tag in your
AREA:GENERAL MESSAGES file. Per default, RBBSMail ignores messages
without an AREA: tag and leaves them sitting in the MAIL subdirectory.
Switch -KU (Kill Unknown) will let RBBSMail kill all messages that could
not be put in a proper conference. Per default, all messages with
unmatching AREA: tags will be left sitting in your MAIL subdirectory.
This way, you can use other Echomail programs to process these messages to
other types of message bases like Opus, QuickBBS, TBBS or whatever other
Running RBBSMail 18
system you run next to RBBS-PC.
Messages addressed to net/node numbers other than your net/node number(s)
are ignored and left in the MAIL directory.
Switch -L tells RBBSMail to log activities and statistics in a logfile
named RBBSMail.LOG.
-MD tells RBBSMail not to kill duplicate message right away, but to move
them to the DUPS directory. You may then inspect the duplicates manually
with a suitable mail-editor (Dutched or MSGED). RBBSMail calculates an
Echo Identifier (EID) for each incoming message and checks it against the
contents of the corresponding xxxx.EID files. If a given EID is found,
then a duplicate message is assumed and the message is either killed or
moved to the DUPS directory. If the EID of an incoming message is not
found, it will be added to the proper xxxx.EID, so possible duplicates of
that message can be recognized in the future.
For FIDO style message subdirectories, a file named EID in the
subdirectory holds the EIDs.
Switch -ID tells RBBSMail not to check for duplicate messages during
TOSS. This makes RBBSMail slightly faster because it doesn't have to read
and write the EID files for each separate area.
You can kill duplicate messages later by using the -Killdup switch in
MAINT mode.
Normally, when RBBSMail tosses a message into an RBBS-PC MESSAGES file, it
will also update the mail waiting status for the addressse of the
message. Switch -N tells RBBSMail to skip the USERS file search. This is
especially useful when you run a point setup (only one user reading *all*
the mail) or when you have disabled the "Check conferences for Mail" and
"View Conferences" command in your system (i.e. you do not have a
CONFMAIL.DEF file). Switch -N makes RBBSMail slightly faster on TOSS
operations.
The -MD and -ID switches are mutually exclusive.
The -S switch tells RBBSMail that your node is a static system at the end
of a leg in the network (Cul-de-Sac), i.e. your Echomail conferences are
only exchanged with ONE single other node. If -S is used on a TOSS run,
RBBSMail will not attempt to process messages that were received for other
systems during subsequent SCAN runs.
Use this switch ONLY if you exchange all your Echomail conferences with
ONE single system. This means that you do not feed any single Echomail
conference to more than one system and that you do not service points.
The exchange can be with a different system for any conference, but only
one single system per separate conference.
Note: The -S switch is ignored for FIDO style message subdirectories.
Switch -X tells RBBSMail not to TOSS messages from the MAIL directory.
RBBSMAIL unpacks incoming mailbundles and archived mailbundles. Messages
that cannot be tossed into a RBBS-PC MESSAGES file will be stored in the
MAIL directory of your system. It is not always useful to process these
messages again and again. However, if a MESSAGES file fills up, RBBSMail
Running RBBSMail 19
will write the messages for that area in the MAIL directory, too. If you
do not process these messages automatically but do so at a later time by
hand, it may well be that other mailbundles have been succesfully tossed
in the mean time. This will mess up the date-order in the RBBS-PC
MESSAGES files.
While tossing messages, RBBSMail does a number of checks. It keeps track
of the number of messages and the available space in the RBBS-PC MESSAGES
files. This is to ensure your messages files will not be corrupted. All
these checks take up considerable time and people have complained about
this.
Switch -U (the UNSAFE option!) will skip the checking and RBBSMail will
TOSS slighly faster.
However!! This option can only be used when you are using "elastic"
MESSAGES files (i.e. MESSAGES files that grow in size as new messages are
added) and you have set the maximum number of messages for all your
MESSAGES files to 999. If the maximum number of messages of a file is
less then 999, RBBSMail will disable the UNSAFE option for that file. And
even then..... In case your MESSAGES file fills up, RBBS-PC will blow up
in your face reporting a negative number of available message records.
Your MESSAGE file may be corrupted and you owe it all to yourself.
To make it absolutely clear: The -U switch poses a potential danger to
your MESSAGES files and it should not be used by the faint of heart. You
accept the sole responsibility for using it!
Note: The -U switch is ignored for FIDO style message subdirectories.
│ 3.4 MAINT mode
│ This is the command line to invoke the MAINT mode:
│ RBBSMail MAINT:MESSAGES_FILE -age:# -K -L -R -T:# -usr:USER_FILE
│ or
│ RBBSMail MAINT:MESSAGES_SUBDIR -age:# -K - L -R
│ or
│ RBBSMail MAINT:@response_file - L
│ RBBSMAIL will perform maintenance on the RBBS-PC or on the FIDO style
│ message subdirectory. Maintenance on RBBS-PC MESSAGES files will
│ physically remove all "inactive" messages, thus freeing up space for new
│ messages.
│ Switch -AGE:# will tell RBBSMail not only to remove killed messages, but
│ to also remove all message that are older than the specified number of
│ days. # nust be specified as an integer number between 1 and 32767.
│ Switch -R (renum) will also renumber the messages in the RBBS-PC MESSAGES
│ file or FIDO subdirectory, starting at Msg #1. When renumbering RBBS-PC
│ MESSAGES files, you may also specify a USERS_FILE. All Last Message Read
│ pointers for each individual user will be adjusted accordingly.
│ Switch -T: (Treshold), followed by a number, indicates that renumber
Running RBBSMail 20
│ should be performed only when the highest message number in the file is
│ above the treshold value.
│ Note: User file renumber and Treshold are not supported for FIDO style
│ message subdirectories. The LASTREAD file, used by SEADog and MsgEd to
│ keep track of the last message read by the sysop, will be properly
│ adjusted.
│ Switch -K (Killdup) will scan the MESSAGES file or FIDO style message
│ subdirectory for duplicate messages. This is especially useful if your
│ xxxx.EID files were damaged or erased and duplicate messages slipped
│ through TOSS mode. Also, If you do not check for duplicates during TOSS
│ (see -ID switch on TOSS), you can kill duplicates later during the
│ maintenance run.
│ In case you pack and renumber your MESSAGES files every night, it is
│ advised not to check for duplicates while TOSSing (i.e. use the -ID
│ switch), and to run MAINT with -Killdup after processing received
│ Echomail.
│ Switch -L will write the activities to the log file.
│ The above options may be combined in a number of ways. Some examples:
│ RBBSMail MAINT:C:\BINK\SYSOPS\ -R
│ renumbers the messages in the FIDO style message subdirectory
│ C&GML\BINK\SYSOPS\.
│ Note: The trailing backslash is mandatory for RBBSMail to make a
│ destinction between RBBS-PC MESSAGES files and FIDO style message
│ subdirectories.
│ RBBSMail MAINT:TENNISM.DEF -AGE:30
│ removes all killed messages and all messages older than 30 days from the
│ file TENNISM.DEF.
│ RBBSMail MAINT:TENNISM.DEF -RENUM
│ removes all killed messages from the file TENNISM.DEF and renumbers all
│ messages in sequential order.
│ RBBSMail MAINT:TENNISM.DEF -AGE:30 -KILLDUP -RENUM -USR:TENNISU.DEF
│ does it all in one (FAST!) sweep: All killed messages, all messages older
│ than 30 days and all duplicate messages are removed from TENNISM.DEF, the
│ messages are renumbered sequentially starting at 1 and the Last Message
│ Read pointers in the USERS file TENNISU.DEF are updated for all users.
│ For maintenance, RBBSMail accomodates the use of a response file. This
│ response file holds the names of RBBS-PC messages files and FIDO style
│ messages subdirectories where maintenance is to be performed on. To start
│ maintenance mode with a response file, call RBBSMail like this:
Running RBBSMail 21
│ RBBSMAil [-L] MAINT: @maint.ctl
│ The file MAINT.CTL could, for instance, contain:
│ C:\RBBS\TENNISM.DEF -AGE:30 -R -USR:C:\RBBS\TENNISU.DEF
│ C:\BINK\SYSOPS\ -AGE:10 -R
│ This will renumber the TENNIS conference and it's USERS file and kill all
│ messages older than 30 days. The SYSOPS conference, a FIDO style message
│ subdir, will be renumbered and all messages older than 10 days will be
│ deleted.
│ Switch -L will optionally write the activities to the logfile.
│ Note: The maintenace facilities for FIDO style message usbdirectories
│ provided by RBBSMail are only the bare essentials. The programs, RENUM
│ and REPLYLINK offer more functionality for doing this type of
│ mainetnance.
Running RBBSMail 22
4. A word on RBBS-PC MESSAGES files
4.1 Filesizes
When you installed RBBS-PC, it required you to tell it what the size (in
128 byte records) of your MESSAGES files should be, how many lines per
message you allow and what the maximum amount of active messages in a
particular MESSAGE file should be. RBBSMail has its own ideas about the
size of a message, so you should take a few precautions.
If you configure RBBS-PC to use MESSAGES files that grow as messages are
added, and you set the maximum amount of messages to 999, you don't need
to bother with sizes of MESSAGES files. Just include the ELASTIC
configuration option in RBBSMAIL.CFG and RBBSMail will manage the size of
the MESSAGES files for you. RBBSMail will respect the maximum number of
messages you configured for any MESSAGES file.
Note: These checks can be omitted with the -U (unsafe) switch.
RBBSMail will change the size of a message, because it has to modify or
add the SEEN-BY: line(s) and possibly add an ORIGIN: line. In general,
make the size of your conference files about 15% to 20% larger than needed
for the maximum number of messages you allow if you do not use the elastic
MESSAGES files.
However, RBBSMail will always check the number of free records in any
MESSAGES file before it starts processing that file. If there is not
sufficient room left to process the newly entered message in a MESSAGES
file, RBBSMail will not process the file.
If, for some reason, the MESSAGES file is full before the SCAN process is
completed, the MESSAGES file will be expanded to ensure that no messages
are lost.
A warning about the expansion will be written to the RBBSMail.LOG file.
Other than in the above situation, RBBSMail will respect the maximum
number of messages allowed in any MESSAGES file and the size of the file,
but NOT the size of a single message.
In any case, RBBSMail will ALWAYS increase the size of any message
originating from your system by AT LEAST 5 lines (2 or 3 records of 128
bytes) by adding the MSGID: tag, Tearline, Origin line, SEEN-BY: line and
PATH: line to these messages.
The formula used by RBBSMail to calculate the number of free records
needed to process a MESSAGES file is:
free_records > new_msgs * 4
Example: If you have an average of 25 new messages per day in a
conference, you must have 25*4 = 100 FREE records available in that
MESSAGE file when RBBSMail SCAN starts.
If you use RBBS-PC's CONFIG to build a MESSAGES file of 1024 records, and
set a maximum of 25 lines per message, there will be room for about 205
messages. That is about 5 records per message. So, you will have to set
A word on RBBS-PC MESSAGES files 23
the maximum number of messages down to 184, leaving 105 records (about
10%) that will never be used by RBBS-PC.
As there are no restrictions to the size of FIDONET messages, it is
possible that you receive mail with more lines per message than you have
pre-set in RBBS-PC's CONFIG program.
You should periodically review the behaviour of your MESSAGES files. If
you get the EXPANDED message during SCAN or a MESSAGES file FULL during
TOSS, it is time to make your MESSAGES files larger and/or increase the
percentage of free records. Kim Wells' MU-PURGE program shows statistics
about the amount of used and free space in your MESSAGES files.
Sometimes RBBSMail just hangs up in the middle of a SCAN or TOSS run.
This is usually caused by a broken link in the MESSAGES file. A possible
reason for having your MESSAGES files messed up is that MU-PURGE choked on
a message that was too big to process. If you run MU-PURGE on a MESSAGES
file with a lot of *big* messages, MU-PURGE will sometimes run out of
memory and abort, leaving a broken chain in the MESSAGES file.
It is therefore HIGHLY advised to set the SIZE parameter in RBBSMAIL.CFG
to a value of 12000 or less.
If the above happens, the most elegant way to recover is:
- Use RBBS-PC's CONFIG program to repair the broken MESSAGES file.
- Use RBBS-PC's CONFIG program to pack the MESSAGES file.
- Start RBBS-PC and kill the lowest message number of the MESSAGES
file you just repaired.
- Decrease the value of the SIZE parameter in RBBSMAIL.CFG.
As an alternative to MU-PURGE's message packing, RBBSMail now offers the
PACK mode for messages file maintenance.
4.2 Filenames for CONFERENCES
Let's take the TENNIS conference from the above examples. You have a
TENNISM.DEF file that holds all the messages and a TENNISU.DEF file that
holds all users of the TENNIS conference. If you create a file TENNIS.ORG
in the same directory your TENNISM.DEF and TENNISU.DEF files are in,
RBBSMail will take the FIRST line from this file and use it as the text in
your * Origin line.
So, for all conferences or subboards on your system, the naming
conventions should be:
xxxxM.def the Messages file of conference with name 'xxxx'
xxxxU.def the Users file of conference with name 'xxxx'
xxxx.EID the file containing the EIDs of the last 1364 messages processed
for this conference. You shouldn't bother with this file,
RBBSMail handles it for you.
xxxx.ORG the file containing the text of the Origin line for the
conference with filename 'xxxxM.DEF'
A word on RBBS-PC MESSAGES files 24
For FIDO style message subdirectorie, a file named EID in the subdirectory
holds the EIDs.
4.3 Filenames for SUBBOARDS
RBBS-PC allows any valid DOS filename for MESSAGE and USERS files in
subboards. By not using the standard RBBS-PC xxxxM.DEF naming convention,
MESSAGES files are not accessible by the [J]oin conference command, which
is exactly what you want for a subboard.
This poses a bit of a problem for RBBSMail, for it has no way of figuring
out the names of MESSAGE and USERS files in subboards, execept maybe
reading the RBBSxPC.DEF files for each conference and/or subboard. And
that would be very slow.
Therefore, RBBSMail uses the following convention for MESSAGE and USERS
files that are not named according to the standard RBBS-PC xxxxM.DEF and
xxxxU.DEF method:
ABCXYZ the MESSAGES file of a subboard (NO extension!)
ABCXYZ.USRthe USERS file of the subboard with ABCXYZ as MESSAGE file (.USR
extension is mandatory!)
ABCXYZ.EIDthe file containing the EIDs of the last 1364 messages processed
in this conference. You shouldn't bother with this file,
RBBSMail handles it for you.
ABCXYZ.ORGthe file containing the text for the Origin line for this
subboard.
In short:
If your RBBS-PC MESSAGE and USERS files are named in the form of xxxxM.DEF
with an accompanying xxxxU.DEF file, RBBSMail will strip off the M.DEF,
and ONLY the significant part of the MESSAGES file's filename (i.e. the
conference name) will be used to identify the xxxx.ORG and xxxx.EID
files.
If your RBBS-PC MESSAGE and USERS files (for subboards) only consist of a
filename with no extension, the whole name of the files will be used to
identify xxxx.ORG and xxxx.EID files.
│ 4.4 Filenames for FIDO style subdirs
│ In a FIDO style message subirectory, all messages are in separate files
│ with the extension '.MSG" (i.e. message 1 will be 1.MSG). The filenaming
│ convention for FIDO style message bases differs somewhat from the above
│ method of naming files for RBBS-PC conferences and subboards.
│ To have a separate text for the origin lines in a FIDO style message
│ subirectory, simply put a file with the name ORIGIN (no extension) in that
│ particular subdirectory. This is the equivalent of the xxxx.ORG files
│ mentioned avbove.
A word on RBBS-PC MESSAGES files 25
│ The EIDs of the last 1365 messages are stored in the subdirectory in a
│ file named EID (no extension). It is the equivalent of the xxxx.EID files
│ mentioned above.
A word on RBBS-PC MESSAGES files 26
5. How to set up your mail
5.1 What you need
To get your mail in and out on the FIDONET, you need a number of other
programs and files. (Assuming you already have RBBS-PC running):
■ Frontend mailer (BinkleyTerm, Dutchie or d'Bridge)
■ oMMM, mOOO or Packer, to pack up outgoing mailbundles
■ ARCA and ARCE or PKARC and PKXARC
■ If you don't want RBBSMail to unpack incoming mailbundles, use
Confmail, QM or whatever appropriate program to unpack incoming
mailbundles.
■ A recent nodelist
■ PARSELST, a program to compile and update your nodelist
■ A mail-editor (Dutched or MSGED) to inspect incoming/outgoing mail is
strongly suggested. It will be a great help getting started.
First, you need to set up the frontend mailer and the schedules. Your
local or regional HOST or HUB has to supply the times when you should call
him to deliver and pick up your mail. There is an extensive chapter about
setting up schedules (or events) and routing in the documentation of your
frontend mailer.
If you want to have control over your schedules from within your batch
files (i.e. outside the scheduler of your mail frontend), you may want to
look at the program WDATIME that is included in this package. WDATIME
enables you to test Month, Date, Time and Day of the Week from within your
batch files.
It is STRONGLY recommended to make arrangements with your HOST or HUB to
have him forward the weekly NODELIST or NODEDIFF files, so your nodelist
will always be up to date. See PARSELST.DOC how to set up an automatic
update of your nodelist.
If your HOST or HUB carries the weekly FIDO newsletter or other
newsletters of interest, ask him to forward it to you. There is a lot of
useful information in some of these regular newsletters.
After you set up your frontend mailer and your schedules, you are ready to
run.
Well, sort of..... While setting up the events and the bulky batch file
you need to run your system plus mailer, you should also stick in some
lines containing RBBSMail SCAN and RBBSMail TOSS at the proper places.
I'm afraid you are on your own on this, there is no boilerplate for it.
You should at least do a SCAN run shortly BEFORE your main mail event
(usually the National Mail Hour) and a TOSS run AFTER the NMH. If you run
mail outside the NMH, for instance to exchange mail with othe local
systems, you may do SCAN and TOSS as often as you may need for other
events.
Again, you have to decide on this in agreement with whatever other systems
you exchange mail with.
How to set up your mail 27
5.2 A quick overview
│ 1. Bring down all your RBBS-PC nodes.
│ 2. Run MU-PURGE or RBBSMail MAINT on all your conferences.
│ 3. Run RBBSMail SCAN to export new mail from your system.
│ 4. Bring up all your RBBS-PC nodes, except for the one that handles
│ mail.
│ 5. Run your mailpacker (oMMM, MOOO or whatever) with the appropriate
│ schedules and routings (contact your host for the routing). Your
│ outgoing mail is now ready to be sent.
│ 6. Have your frontend mailer call all other systems you exchange mail
│ with, or sit and wait for them to call you.
│ 7. Run RBBSMail TOSS to import the received Echomail. You do not need to
│ bring down all your RBBS nodes when TOSSIng mail. If you service
│ POINTS, all remapping to and from the PRIVATENET is performed
│ automatically during TOSS. If your system is a Zonegate, all
│ interzone mail, too, is handled during TOSS.
│ You may wish to use ConfMail to unpack all received mail if you have
│ both FIDO style message subdirectories and RBBS-PC MESSAGES files.
│ ConfMail can then process the mail for these subdirectories and leave
│ the mail for RBBSMail in the MAIL directory.
│ 8. Bring up all your RBBS-PC nodes again.
│ 9. You have now succesfully exchanged Echomail. Congratulations!
Note: If you have both FIDO/OPUS style messages directories AND RBBS-PC
MESSAGES files for your Echomail, you need TWO AREAS.BBS files if you want
the FIDO style conferences to be processed by another program. For
instance, you need an AREAS.BBS for ConfMail to process mail to/from the
FIDO style subdirectories and an AREAS.BBS for RBBSMail to process mail
to/from the RBBS-PC MESSAGES files. The two files may have different
names or may be located in different subdirectories. You can NOT use the
same AREAS.BBS file for both ConfMail and RBBSMail.
5.3 Enhanced setup
With combinations of different RBBSMAIL.CFG, AREAS.BBS and xxxx.ORG files
you can do CRITMON. That is Creative Renaming In The Middle Of The
Nigth. You can appear to the net as two or more completely different
systems. Or run as one system in several different networks. Or both.
Or send all your Echomail to yourself twice every night. Or receive
Echomail as 123/1 and send the whole bunch back to your host as 789/2,
thus making a lot of "friends".
Don't rush to your keyboard to do CRITMON right away. Remember, Personal
Computers can be used Personally, programmed Personally and you can
Personally screw the thing up beyond belief. Like me, you are likely to
do the latter.....
Sit down with a big sheet of paper, a pencil and a pencil eraser. Setup
an overview of what you want your system to do and where you send mail
How to set up your mail 28
to. Figure out the setup of your config files and your schedule(s) of
events. Then, set up your system for ONE of the alternatives and test
it. With another sheet of paper, setup the other alternatives, and test
them one by one. In any case, don't change more than one thing at a time
in your setup. FUBAR is the word! RBBSMail will (in most cases) do
faithfully what you want, even with the craziest setup. If it doesn't do
what you want, (and even if it does) you have yourself to thank for it.
5.4 Zonegate Operation
FIDONET is dived into geographical areas called ZONES. North and South
America are Zone 1, Europe and Africa are Zone 2, Asia and Australia are
Zone 3, plus there are some countries with a separate zonenumber.
Netmail between zones should be sent to the the system that is acting as
the zonegate for the zone your system is in. For instance, your address
is 2:512/10.0 and want to send a messages to someone at 3:307/3.0. You
then address the message to the your zone's to the other zone. In this
case, the zonegate address is 2:2/3 (i.e. the zonegate TO zone 3 IN zone
2). Furthermore, you add
^AINTL 3:307/0 2:512/10
(international) tag to the body of the message. When the message arrives
at zonegate 2:2/3, it looks at the ^AINTL tag and will send the message to
the Zone 3 zonegate at address 3&gml3/2. The zonegate on the other side
also looks at the ^AINTL tag and will forward the message to address
3:307/0.
When your system is set up as zonegate for zone 3, add "ZONEGATE 3" to
RBBSMAIL.CFG. Do NOT add your zonegate address in the ADDRESS phrase.
Address translation for zonegate operation is handled by RBBSMail
internally. When a message addressed to 2/3 is received on your system
AND it has a ^AINTL tag addresses to Zone 3, that message will be
forwarded to the zonegate in the other zone (i.e. to 3:3/2).
All mail with a ^AINTL tag addressed to a zone that is not your zone and
not addressed to the zone you are the zonegate for, will be forwarded to
the proper zonegate in your own zone. For instance, if you do NOT run the
zonegate for zone 5 and a message addressed to zone 5 is received on your
system, that message will be forwarded to the Zone 5 gateway in your own
zone (in this case, at address 2:2/5).
If your system is NOT a zonegate, all mail with a ^AINTL tag addressed
outside your own zone will be routed to the proper zonegate in your zone.
5.5 Error determination
Sometimes it looks as if you just can't get it right. If you encounter
problems with RBBSMail, step thru the following procedure to diagnose the
situation.
How to set up your mail 29
1. RTFM.
2. Check the configuration files for typos, incorrect drive, path or
filenames. Check contents of AREAS.BBS. Change if needed.
3. RTFM again.
4. Check the commandline for proper switches. Change if needed.
5. Relax, have a cup of coffee and let the situation soak in for a while
6. Run the program again.
7. If the symptoms change, repeat the above steps till the error
'magically' disappears.
8. If the above steps fail, erase RBBSMail.LOG.
9. Run RBBSMail in the failing situation with -DEBUG as last argument on
the commandline.
10. Send me a CRASHmail message with the problem described and file-attach
a copy of your setup files and the RBBSMail.LOG file that was created
during the above step. Feel free to include any other relevant
information, like type and version number of hardware and software you
use, filesizes, AREAS.BBS, BINKLEY.CRG and such.
11. Poll my system after a few days to see if there's a reply for you. If
you have a real problem, and I'm not on vacation, there will be a
reply (and hopefully a fix) waiting.
12. If there's no reply and I'm not on vacation, RTFM and repeat the above
steps.
13. Flames will never be dignified with an answer.
5.6 Other stuff
I'm sure you will have a lot of questions about Echomail. It is a strange
sort of animal to RBBS-PC sysops. But, don't fear! Echomail can be fun
and can be a great enhancement to your system. If, at first, you don't
understand what Echomail is all about, talk to a local OPUS or FIDO sysop
or to the sysop of the host in your local network. Sysops are strange
birds, but very helpful and usually eager to show you around. The moment
you have your Echomail running you'll see the benefits of it.
If you decide to hook up your RBBS-PC system to the world of FIDONET, you
also may wish to take part in several RBBS-PC related Echomail
conferences. In the USA, contact your local host system. In Europe,
contact me by sending me a netmail message, and start polling for mail a
few days later.
And there are several Echomail conferences about the frontend mailers
BINKLEY (for BinkleyTerm), WINDMILL (for Dutchie) and DBRIDGE (for
d'Bridge, what else..). If a local or regional HOST or HUB carries a
conference on the mail frontend you use, make arrangements to get the
echo. It will be of great help to you.
How to set up your mail 30
6. The RBBSNet
Several RBBS-PC sysops have started a RBBSNet, separate from FIDONET.
Currently, there are a bunch of FIDO compatible networks in operation:
FIDONET, EggNet, The People's Net, AlterNet, TuboDatanet and GT-Net. I'm
part of both FIDONET and RBBSNet, and my system is the European gateway
for RBBSNet (node 8:998/1.0 in the RBBSNet). For more info on the
RBBSNet, Contact Rod Bowman of the PC-Spectrum RBBS in Alta Loma, CA at
(714) 945-2612. Rod has put an enormous amount of work in setting up the
RBBSNet. I sure hope it will all work out.
The RBBSNet 31
7. Future enhancements
7.1 Planned for new releases
In order of priority:
1. RBBS-PC USERS file maintenance.
2. Combination of SCAN, MAINT and Renum in one sweep.
3. Full NETmail capability, but this is waiting for some changes in
RBBS-PC.
4. Full filesharing support for RBBS-PC systems running multiple copies
under DESQView, DoubleDos, Multilink, Alloy PCSlave, IBM Token Ring
Network (i.e. NETBIOS), 10-Net, Corvus Omninet and Ochid PCnet.
(Suggestions, anyone???)
5. A version of RBBSMail that will fully run under OS/2. I already have
one, but it is not yet a stable piece of software. (Huh?? Is software
ever stable??)
If you have any comments, suggestions for enhancements or you have found
something in RBBSMail that doesn't work the way it should, feel free to
contact me via Bamestra RBBS. See the title page of this document for the
node number and phonenumbers. You may also leave a message in the RBBS-PC
Echomail conference.
7.2 Comments & Suggestions
If you have comments on the workings of RBBSMail, suggestions for new
features, improvements or bug reports, feel free to send a NETmail message
to Sysop at FIDO 2:512/10.0 (RBBSNet 8:998/1.0) or a written letter to the
postal address listed on the title page.
Future enhancements 32
Appendix A. Changes to RBBS-PC
Add the patch below to RBBS-PC v17.1D and the 'hidden' lines (prefixed
with a 'Ctrl-A' or x'01' and the SEEN-BY: lines will be suppressed while
reading Echomail messages. There were many complaints about the redundant
(from a user's point of view) info in echo mail. This patch satisfies the
complaints.
' * UNCOMPRESS MESSAGE PRIOR TO DISPLAY
' * Changed to filter Echomail info by <JT> - for RBBS-PC 17.1D
'
9000 IF NOT JUST.
SEARCHING THEN _
CALL SKIPLINE (1) : _
REMAIN$ = ""
FOR X = 2 TO VAL(MID$(MESSAGE.RECORD$,117,4))
J = 1
GET 1
IF JUST.SEARCHING THEN _
A$ = MESSAGE.RECORD$ : _
CALL ALLCAPS (A$) : _
HIGHLITE.POS = INSTR(A$,SEARCH.STRING$) : _
IF HIGHLITE.POS > 0 THEN _
HIGHLITE.REC = LOC(1) : _
X = 9999 : _
GOTO 9090 _
ELSE GOTO 9090
9050 B = INSTR(J,MESSAGE.RECORD$,CHR$(227))
9060 IF B = 0 THEN _
REMAIN$ = MID$(MESSAGE.RECORD$,J) : _
GOTO 9090
9070 A$ = REMAIN$ + MID$(MESSAGE.RECORD$,J,B-J)
REMAIN$ = ""
IF HIGHLITE.REC = LOC(1) THEN _
HIGHLITE.REC = -1
9085 J = B + 1
IF MID$(A$,1,1) = CHR$(01) OR MID$(A$,1,9) = "SEEN-BY: " THEN _
GOTO 9050
GOSUB 12979
IF RET THEN _
RETURN
CALL ASKMORE ("",TRUE,TRUE,MESSAGES.SELECTED.INDEX,FALSE)
IF NO THEN _
GOTO 5160
GOTO 9050
9090 NEXT
IF JUST.SEARCHING AND HIGHLITE.POS > 0 THEN _
JUST.SEARCHING = FALSE : _
GET 1,M(MESSAGE.DIM.INDEX,1) : _
GOSUB 8000 : _
GOTO 9000
A$ = ""
RETURN
Appendix A. Changes to RBBS-PC 33
This patch is based on RBBS-PC v17.1D, vanilla flavour. Unfortunately,
the patch will disable emphasizing within the message text, i.e. if a hit
is found while you 'search-and-read', the hit will NOT be emphasized
within the message body.
For RBBS-PC v17.2A and later, this patch is not needed. The new CONFIG
program has an option to suppress lines in messages that start with a
sysop-definable string, which should be set to "SEEN-BY: ".
Furthermore, there is a conflict between RBBSMail's way of flagging
messages that are processed and "repair message file" option 185 in
RBBS-PC's CONFIG program. RBBSMail changes the ":" (colon") in the
datefield of the message header to a "." (dot) to flag a message.
CONFIG's option 185 will choke on this, because it uses that same ":" to
scan for valid message headers.
This will result in mixed-up message numbering. To circumvent this
conflict, either do not use CONFIG option 185 (you don't normally need
that option), or remove the following line from linenumber 50580 of module
CONFIG.BAS:
AND MID$(MESSAGE.RECORD$,64,1) = ":" _
This line appears TWICE in linenumber 50580.
Appendix A. Changes to RBBS-PC 34
Appendix B. DBCS operation
"Double Byte Character Set" is a way of representing the Chinese, Japanese
and Korean pictorial characters. A DBCS character consists of two bytes
in the form:
XXYY
where XX can be a hex value from x'40' thru x'7E'
YY can be a hex value from x'A1' thru x'FE'.
DBCS poses a problem when translating strings to upper case. Upper case
translation is done inside RBBS-PC and RBBSMail for user names and parts
of the message text. The normal method used for case translation of plain
ASCII tekst messes up DBCS strings.
RBBSMail can be told to skip case translation by putting the DBCS phrase
in RBBSMAIL.CFG and will thus not mess up DBCS text.
Another thing is the carriage return substitution used in RBBS-PC's
messages. Normally, a carriage return is hex x'0D'. RBBS-PC uses x'E3'
internally, but that characters happens to be one half of a set of DBCS
characters. To prevent messing up message text, RBBSMail uses x'93'
(ASCII 147) as carriage return substitution when configured for DBCS
operation.
You need to modify RBBS-PC for DBCS operation. This is rather easy, but
it requires you to edit the RBBS-PC source and recompile it. Changing
RBBS-PC for DBCS operations, perform the following steps:
1. Change CHR$(227) to CHR$(147) in the source code of all RBBS-PC
modules.
2. Remove the call "CALL ALLCAPS" in the subroutine prompting for the
MESSAGE SUBJECT. This call is in line 2065 of RBBS-PC.BAS.
3. Recompile and link all modules of RBBS-PC.
This method is not the ultimate solution for DBCS operation, but it is
workable. Running RBBS-PC in a DBCS environment will make "thread
messages" and selective message reading by entering a search phrase behave
erratically. Some of the RBBS-PC utilities will not operate correctly,
either.
My knowledge of Asian languages and their characters is non-existant, so I
wouldn't really know how to make this work properly in all cases.
Mr Samson Chen of the New World RBBS in Taipei, Taiwan (FIDO 3:720/201)
has worked out a method for proper DBCS operation of RBBS-PC. My special
thanks to him for pointing out a way to get RBBSMail to run properly on
DBCS systems.
Appendix B. DBCS operation 35
Appendix C. Update history
Release of September 25, 1988 - v17.1A.
■ This version was tested with RBBS-PC v17.A
■ Fixed a few minor bugs in the PATH handling.
■ Some odd BASIC routines were replaced by assembler subroutines. This
version of RBBSMail should run a little quicker than older ones.
■ Fixed a bug where RBBSMail would get confused if the TO, FROM or SUBJ
field of a message was blank. (Which should NEVER happen, but it
does.)
■ Fixed a problem were RBBSMail would add a blank line to a message each
time is was processed by the next node in the Echomail chain.
Release of October 1, 1988 - update of v17.1A.
■ Fixed (again) an annoying bug in the PATH handling (It seems I can't
get that one right!)
Release of November 22, 1988 - v17.1B
■ Only released to two test sites, you didn't miss it!
Release of December 17, 1988 - v17.1C
■ First release of RBBSMail 17.1C, tested with RBBS-PC v17.1C.
■ Increased the number of EID: tags to 1364 per conference.
■ Enhanced duplicate message checker.
■ Can now handle messages up to 25KB in size.
■ Added a test for message size before TOSSING messages.
■ Added routines for mail notification in conferences.
■ Improved error handling.
■ 'Cul-de-Sac' nodes can run in STATIC mode.
■ Incoming Echomail from points is 'remapped' by RBBSMail.
■ DEBUG mode for problem error determination.
■ Ignores comments to sysop while SCANning mail.
■ Rewrote most of the documentation.
Release of January 6, 1989 - update of v17.1C
■ Sysop's name now properly converted to UPPER case during TOSS.
■ Sysop's name & alias now properly recognized during SCAN.
■ Fixed 'mail notification' for sysop's ALIAS.
■ Fixed hangup when writing .EID file.
■ Fixed some typos in the DOC.
Release of Januari 12, 1989 - update of v17.1C
■ TOSS now run considerably faster.
Release of April 9, 1989 - v17.2A
Appendix C. Update history 36
■ Added support for multiple AKA addresses (up to 10)
■ Added ZONE support if used with oMMM v1.40, Binkley 2.00 and Dutchie.
■ Changed the way in which addresses in AREAS.BBS are handled.
■ Fixed ERROR 5 bug in USERS file search for flipping mail_wait bit.
■ Fixed bug in EID: routines that could case hangups.
■ EID tags now generated if incoming mail has none.
■ Improved detection of corrupted RBBS-PC MESSAGES files.
■ Enhanced the "Donald Duck" error handling routines.
Release of September 9, 1989 - v17.2B
■ RBBSMail can now handle 'elastic' MESSAGES files.
■ Private messages within conferences can now be processed without the
attribute bits being reset to PUBLIC.
Release of October 18, 1989 - update of v17.2B
■ RBBSMail can now be used in a POINT system.
■ Double Byte Character Sets are now handled properly when some small
changes are made in RBBS-PC.
■ Added a test for "non standard EID idiocy" to prevent problems in
duplicate message checking. Some software writers, specifically the
authors of XBBS and LYNX have the idea that standards only exist for
other people. They have apparently decided that standard message
formats and standard EID tags should not be generated by their
software. May they be sentenced to run DOS 1.00 for the rest of their
lifes!
■ Fixed an annoying bug in the duplicate message checking routine.
Release of October 22, 1989 - update of v17.2B
■ It turned out that strictly following the FSC-0001 document as for the
exact layout of FIDO compatible messages and mailbundles was not such
a good idea. The DATE/TIME field of a FIDO message or mailbundle
should be EXACTLY 20 bytes, and should NOT be padded with NULL bytes
terminated. The 891019 release of RBBSMail was following this
standard exactly, but other Echomail processors appear to padd
trailing zeroes in the DATE/TIME field of FIDO messages and
mailbundles, or use a non-standard DATE/TIME format. By following the
exact standard as described in the FSC-0001 document, mailbundles
build by RBBSMail could not be processed by some of the other Echomail
processors.
After exchanging some messages about this with Henk Wevers (of Dutchie
fame), I decided that "If you're in Rome, act like the Romans". So
RBBSMail does not follow the FSC-0001 standards for message packing,
but does it the wrong way like oMMM, ConfMail and QMail do.
■ According to the FSC-0001 document, a FIDO message is saved on disk
with a null-terminator as last character. RBBSMail wrote messages to
disk in this way, but some message packers do not test for that
trailing null character an append a null to every message they pack.
This results in early termination of the mail bundle when it is
unpacked at the receiving end. In some cases only the first message
from a mailbundle will be unpacked and the remainder of the bundle
discarded.
Appendix C. Update history 37
:br
I don't know (and I really don't want to know) how many messages have
gone out in the blue because of the above problems. Don't complain to
me if you have lost messages due to conflicts like the ones described
above. You're barking up the wrong tree. RBBSMail DID follow the
FSC-0001 standards.
I guess that this about wraps it up for "standards"..........
Release of Januari 8, 1990 - v17.3A
■ Added internal unpacking of mailbundles and archived mailbundles with
the proper unarchive program. (GUS is recommended).
■ Added capability to TOSS incoming Echomail into FIDO/OPUS style
message subdirectories. Dropped the -TU (Toss Unknown) switch, it is
no longer needed.
■ Added PACK/Renum options for MESSAGES and USERS file maintenance.
■ Added the -X switch to allow exclusion of tossing the MAIL directory.
■ Added the -U (UNSAFE!) switch to allow faster tossing of mail.
■ Added the -N switch to skip user file update.
■ Added some filters to handle non-standard FIDO mailbundles and
messages.
■ Added a filter to handle non-standard EID tags.
■ Fixed a bug in the translate routines for the PRIVATE net.
■ Fixed problem with WORKDIR "Rename accross disks".
■ Fixed bug in the DBCS wordwrap routine.
■ Fixed improper update of MESSAGES file header records.
■ Total revision of the documentation.
■ Massive cleanup of the code. It is now spaghetti BASIC with huge
chunks of assembler subroutines. Anybody got a good course on C
language?
Release of August 6, 1990 - release of v17.3B
■ Fixed bug where RBBSMail would hang on damaged mailbundles.
■ Fixed bug in PATH line updating.
■ Changed the PACK command to MAINT to avoid confusion with the PACK
configuration phrase.
■ Added maintenance mode for FIDO style message subdirectories.
■ Added Treshold for renumbering MESSAGES files.
■ Added NOFORWARD to suppress forwarding of mail to other systems.
■ Added NOFILES to suppress forwarding of files to other systems.
■ Added REMAP function for netmail messages to/from points.
■ Added ZONEGATE function for inter-zone message forwarding.
■ Messages now have a MSGID: tag added in stead of a EID: tag.
Appendix C. Update history 38
Table of Contents
1. What is RBBSMail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1 Software Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 Hardware Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.3 Related Documents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.4 Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.5 Legal stuff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.6 Copyrights & License . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.7 Warranty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.1 Configuring RBBSMail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.2 Valid phrases for RBBSMAIL.CFG . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.2.1 ADDRESS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.2.2 DOMAIN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.2.3 NETMAIL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.2.4 NETFILE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.2.5 HOLD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.2.6 DUPS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.2.7 WORKDIR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.2.8 PRIVATENET . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.2.9 SIZE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.2.10 DBCS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.2.11 SYSALIAS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.2.12 SYSOP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.2.13 SECURITY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.2.14 GATE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.2.15 PACK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.2.16 UNPACK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2.2.17 ELASTIC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2.2.18 NOFORWARD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2.2.19 NOFILES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2.2.20 UNCRASH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.2.21 ZONEGATE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.2.22 Reading BINKLEY.CFG . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.2.23 Example of a RBBSMAIL.CFG file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2.2.24 Example of an AREAS.BBS file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.3 Setting up for POINT operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
3. Running RBBSMail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
3.1 MARK mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
3.2 SCAN mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
3.3 TOSS mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
3.4 MAINT mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
4. A word on RBBS-PC MESSAGES files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
4.1 Filesizes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
4.2 Filenames for CONFERENCES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Table of Contents 39
4.3 Filenames for SUBBOARDS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
4.4 Filenames for FIDO style subdirs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
5. How to set up your mail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
5.1 What you need . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
5.2 A quick overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
5.3 Enhanced setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
5.4 Zonegate Operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
5.5 Error determination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
5.6 Other stuff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
6. The RBBSNet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
7. Future enhancements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
7.1 Planned for new releases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
7.2 Comments & Suggestions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Appendix A. Changes to RBBS-PC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Appendix B. DBCS operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Appendix C. Update history . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
Table of Contents 40