Mail Tunnel

The Mail Tunnel functionality in WaterGate allows you to forward outbound archives for a FidoNet style user to an e-mail address and the other way around. The outbound archives are uu-encoded and put in an e-mail and sent to a system that could be on the other side of the world. That system then extracts the archive from the e-mail and processes it by putting it in the inbound. An identical path is used from the other system back to you.

Using this, you can exchange echomail with a system on the other side of the world, without the expensive telephone costs.

Most important, this allows me, the author of WaterGate, to participate with several support echos without being a FidoNet system myself. Both systems simply use WaterGate (for full automatism) and send e-mail messages between them.

How do I set it up?

Both systems use an identical setup, but with different e-mail addresses and FidoNet node numbers. You define the remote user as a normal FidoNet style user in WaterGate and connect it to the areas you want to send, and set the compression to use. You don't need to fill in a UUCP name or domain addresses.

You then put a TUNNEL-TO statement in the ROUTE.TDB file to tell WaterGate to send outbound archives for that user to a certain e-mail address. This information is used during the PACK phase. A TUNNEL-TO statement looks like this:

TUNNEL-TO wsd2brazerko-tunnel@brazerko.com 2:200/111.15 wsd2brz

There are three parameters to this statement. The e-mail address is the address where the e-mails will be sent to. To make it easier to keep all the tunnel addresses apart, you could use a format like above, but your don't have to. Notice that this is the e-mail address at the other end, so don't put your own domain address after the @.

The second argument is the node number as defined in the user record in WtrConf for the user you are tunneling the archives for. The Packer checks the .PKT files for this address.

The third and last argument is the archive base filename. This name will be used instead of some cryptic number. The archives are created in the outbound directory and the normal tracking of .SU0, SU1, etc. will be used. You can configure this filename for a number of reasons: so it doesn't collide with other archive names, so it remains useful and you can extract what it is for and last because the name is put in the e-mail and extracted like that on the other side.

So far for outgoing Tunnel Traffic. The next section explains how to process incoming traffic.

Incoming Tunnel Traffic

To complete the Mail Tunnel, you need to process incoming e-mail messages, extract the archives and put them in your inbound. You configure WaterGate to do this with the TUNNEL-FROM statement in the ROUTE.TDB file as follows:

TUNNEL-FROM brazerko2wsd-tunnel@wsd.wline.se c:\inbound\

This fairly simple statement tells WaterGate to check for messages address to the specified e-mail address, to discard the e-mail itself, but to extract the message in the e-mail and store them in the specified directory.

Notice that the e-mail specified must be on your own system, so after the @ you have one of your system domains. You have to specify the directory because you can have more than one inbound directory.

Once the archive is in your inbound directory, WaterGate will decompress it (assume it is compressed) and process the .PKT file. This requires that you configure the sender in under User Definitions in WtrConf as a FidoNet style user and connect that user to the areas you receive messages in.

A complete picture

Following is a complete picture of how a bi-directional Mail Tunnel can be set up between two systems.

System wsd.wline.se: System AKA 2:200/111
User Definition for 2:200/111.20
TUNNEL-TO wsd2brazerko-tunnel@brazerko.com 2:200/111.20 wsd2brz
TUNNEL-FROM brazerko2wsd-tunnel@wsd.wline.se c:\inbound\
System brazerko.com: System AKA 2:200/111.20
User Definition for 2:200/111
TUNNEL-TO brazerko2wsd-tunnel@wsd.wline.se 2:200/111 brz2wsd
TUNNEL-FROM wsd2brazerko-tunnel@brazerko.com d:\inbound.sec\

A few notes

The Packer completely ignores the System Mailer (FrontDoor etc.) and everything related to that like file attach netmails, flow files, correct outbound sub-directories, alternative outbound directories, send format set in the user record, etc.
If you try to let a secondary tosser create the .PKT files, then you have to route them to WaterGate's node number so WaterGate gets the .PKT files in the archive from the other tosser, where after everything goes on as planned.
It is possible to exchange archives with netmail as well, although WaterGate doesn't pack netmail automatically when running in FrontDoor mode. You have to use the FORCEPACK statement in the ROUTE.TDB file to tunnel netmails in that case.
Be careful with echomail to other zones. WaterGate cannot handle zone gating (yet!) and will not correctly handle inter-zone echomail.
Make sure you set up AreaFix and Packet passwords because anybody can send an e-mail to you and fake a Mail Tunnel! If you have defined the user in your mailer, then make sure you use a Session password as well, even if the user is never going to dial in.

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Comments or questions? Send an e-mail to editor@wsd.wline.se.

Last updated 13 October 1996