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[About The Guide]
RemoteAccess is a "fully-blown" remote bulletin board
package. It may be used as a stand-alone system or with a
front-end mailer if you wish to interface it to a mail
network such as FidoNet. It offers fully definable menus
with a unique template system which provides not only a
massive degree of flexibility in making your BBS look
different from any other, but also the lowest possible
maintenance. AVATAR screen control is built in, making
possible extremely efficient and complex colour and cursor
control at the user's end if an AVATAR terminal program is
used.
Access to the 200 available message areas is controlled by
your menu structure, along with a sophisticated security
system which incorporates over 64,000 security levels with a
set of user-definable flags. For each security level you can
specify maximum download limits for different log-on speeds,
daily time limits, and optionally activate the built-in file
ratio system, limiting downloads by ratio to uploads by
either number of files or kilobytes. In addition it's
possible to assign a user to one of 255 separate groups, and
in so doing segregate groups of users from each other.
Other security features include the disallowing of downloads
during peak hours, disallowing low speed callers at certain
times, and disallowing ANSI graphics at low speeds. You can
disallow one-word "pseudonyms", and optionally configure
the system to force a user to change passwords every x log-
ons. Undesirable user names and passwords are also definable
for maximum security. If you're unlikely to want to call
your own system, remote sysop access can be disabled, making
it virtually impossible for your account to be "hacked".
Direct support for high-speed modems up to 38,400 baud is
available, and RemoteAccess will optionally answer the phone
automatically to ensure that the modem will answer if your
BBS is "alive and well".
RemoteAccess supports as many as 99 lines simultaneously.
Full system access to all file and message areas is
available to each line (at your discretion), as are all
doors. Several "multi-node specific" features are provided
to augment multi-line operation. You can configure the
system to disallow one person logging on to more than one
line at a time. A "who else is on-line?" and "today's
callers" function is available to you, along with separate
system logs for each line. Logging is selectable between
either Opus or FrontDoor styles to aid integrated log
readability. Some basic user-to-user on-line messaging,
to be expanded at a later date, is also available.
RemoteAccess does NOT do its own internal multi-tasking. To
this end, we have attempted to make it as well-behaved as
possible. It has built-in time-slicing and screen-handling
support for DESQview, TopView, MultiLink, DoubleDOS and
PC-MOS/386. It is fully overlaid and occupies approximately
190k of memory when fired up. What do you do if you have say
a 300k DESQview window and want to run TradeWars in a shell?
No problem! Simply by specifying a control character on the
command line, you can instruct RemoteAccess to swap itself
lock, stock and barrel to EMS and/or disk leaving only 20k
resident.
A comprehensive file transfer system is also part of the
package. Six of the most popular protocols, including
Zmodem, Ymodem batch and Xmodem are built-in, and fifteen
slots for external protocols are available for you to add
any others. All protocols may be made available on an
"error free" connect basis at the your discretion. The
protocol interface system is extremely flexible, and
has been tested with DSZ, Kermit (an Opus compatible
protocol), and BiModem. There are of course many others we
haven't tested, but most should work. Support for CD-ROM and
other mass read-only media is another invaluable feature.
The file transfer system is further enhanced by
comprehensive file search and locate functions along with
the ability to tag any file or group of files as "free" and
or password protected. A large selection of transfer options
include global downloads and the ability for specific files
to be attached to a file transfer menu option.
Interactive EMSI session support is an exciting new first
for RemoteAccess! Read the section on IEMSI in the reference
section at the end of this document for details on this
revolutionary new set of features.
Extensive on-line facilities are available to the sysop. An
optional set of status bars provide a wealth of information
about both the person currently on-line and the system.
Several "hot-keys" are also available to perform a wide
range of functions, amongst which is a full screen user
attribute editor, a "sysop on next" key, shell to DOS, hang
up, lock out, and local snoop.
As an added bonus, we have decided to use the QuickBBS-style
user and message database formats. This means that you can
continue to use your favourite QuickBBS utilities with no
need to convert to another format. Any incompatibilities in
the configuration files is taken care of by an upgrade
utility. We make no apology for the similarity between
RemoteAccess and QuickBBS. QuickBBS had many features that
we wanted, and compatibility gives the added bonus of
offering the sysop ease of installation and a familiar
environment.
To cater for both Opus and QuickBBS users alike, each user
has (at the discretion of the sysop) the option of using
hot-keyed menus or command stacking. Comprehensive
messaging, file search options and support for a wide range
of "doors" ensure that your BBS will be a hit!
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Written by Dave Pearson