User Definitions

A user in the WaterGate system represents a system with which you exchange messages. There are three different types of users, depending on the method you use the exchange messages with that user:

A FidoNet style user basically uses .PKT files, a UUCP user uses the UUCP mechanism, a Bag supplier only sends messages to you in .BAG files and SMTP interface uses two directories for message to and from the application that does the actually SMTP transport.

You can add or remove users using the "User definitions" option from the main menu. After pressing the Enter key to select the option from the main menu, you will be presented with a list of all the currently defined users. Depending on their type, their UUCP name or Fido address will also be shown.

You can add a user by pressing the Insert key, or delete a user by pressing the Delete key. Pressing Escape returns you to the main menu.

When adding a user to your system, you are asked what type of user record you want to add. After having selected the type of user, you will be presented with a screen where you can enter all the user's settings. Since these screens differ quite a bit from each other, they will be described separately.

FidoNet style user

As stated before, a FidoNet style user exchanges mail with you via .PKT files. These files may also be archived and compressed.

Besides the normal FidoNet settings you might be used to, WaterGate also offers the capability to let the FidoNet style user transparently integrate with Usenet / Internet. That is, to receive and send e-mail and read and write news. If you want this user to be able to do that, you also have to fill in some or all of the fields that relate to UUCP.

The screen to edit the settings for a FidoNet style user looks close to the screen below. Notice that WtrConf uses different screen layouts, depending on the number of lines your screen can handle.

Fido Style User

Organization

The Organization field is common to all users. It is used when a UUCP message is created for the user--in this case, when a FidoNet message is translated into a UUCP message. The "Organization" header in that UUCP message will be filled in with whatever you type here.

If you leave this line blank, no "Organization:" header will be put in the UUCP message.

Allowed groups

This field shows you which groups this user is allowed in. Each group can contain a number of areas, so the groups filter effectively grants the user access to those areas. This is used by AreaFix and WtrConf.

If you want to connect this user to an area, WtrConf only shows you the areas that this user is allowed in. It is perfectly possible, though, to connect a user to an area that is not in one of these groups, by adding the group letter, connecting the area and removing the group letter again. (Future versions of WtrConf will warn you when a user is connected to an area without being allowed in a group that includes it.)

To edit the groups filter, press Enter on the field. You will now be presented with a list of groups this user is allowed in. You can use the Delete and Insert keys to change them.

Subscribed to

If you press Enter on this field, WtrConf will list all the areas to which this user is connected. You can use tagging (or not) and press the Delete key to disconnect one or more areas for this user. If you press Insert, WtrConf will list all the areas this user has permission to connect, but is not yet connected to. You can again use tagging (or not) and press Enter to connect the user to those areas. You can always press Escape to return to the previous list, or to the edit screen. While WtrConf is busy building the list, you can press Escape to abort it.

Passive

If a user will be going on an extended holiday, it might be unnecessary to pack echomail for him. If you set this option to YES, the user is considered on a holiday.

The user can change this option via AreaFix with the "%PASSIVE" and "%ACTIVE" commands (for more information, see the chapter on AreaFix).

Address

Type the user's FidoNet address here. You can use a full 5D address, like 2:280/802.33@bananas, although less will work perfectly fine as well. The minimum is zone, net, and node number.

If you want the 3D point address to be put in the archives that are created for this user, you have to define the user with the pointnet, instead of the full address!

SysOp

Enter the full name of the SysOp at this address here. If WaterGate wants to report special things to that site, it will use this name in the To: field of the FidoNet message.

Packet password

To increase security, you can enter a packet password in this field. It will be put in the outgoing packets that are sent to this user and, if "inbound security" is switched on, WaterGate will also check that packets from this user contain the correct password as well.

If the packet password is wrong, the packet is renamed to .PWD and a line is written to the logfile with both the expected and found passwords.

AreaFix password

AreaFix is a very powerful tool users can use to change settings or to (dis)connect areas. To make sure an authorized user is using it, a password is required. You can enter this password here. If you want to block somebody from using AreaFix, you can type something funny here.

AreaFix special

You can set this option to YES for co-sysops. They will then be allowed to change their identify in AreaFix with the %FROM command and change settings for other users. This option is currently disabled in AreaFix (version 0.18) because of a rewrite of the AreaFix code.

There are some other maintenance commands in AreaFix that are enabled for users with this option set to YES. See the AreaFix chapter for more details.

Please be very careful with this option, because it can be a big security gap if it is set to YES for the wrong person!

New Area-create

To save yourself a lot of typing, you can tell WaterGate to automatically create a new area when this user sends you a message in an area that is not yet present on your system. This new area will always be created in Group Z. You can then move the area to another group to allow other users to connect the area.

It is more than useful to enable this option for your uplink systems, because new areas will be created as soon as a message is received in them. If you also enable the automatic creation of a message base, you won't miss a message.

Be aware that this can create a lot of new areas when you enable this for your UUCP uplink. See the NEWSFILTERoption of the ROUTE.TDB file for a solution.

Compression

This setting selects the way one or more .PKT files are archived in the outbound directory. The first six options speak for themselves. The option OP1 is your custom defined archiver and if you set it to PKT, the .PKT will not be archived.

Send format

There are different priorities for delivery of an archive to a system. You can select a priority in this field:

Normal If you regularly call this node, set it to Normal. The archive will be sent when you call this system or this system calls you.

Hold
Hold for Pickup. If you set it to this option, this system must call you to pick up the archive.

Crash
If you want your mailer to call this system as soon as a new archive has been created, set it to this option.

Direct
If you set it to this option, you don't want to route this mail bundle via another node.

Of course, you will have to configure the way your mailer software (such as FrontDoor) responds to these flags.

Export AKA

You can use this option to select the system node number to use when sending messages to this uses. If you set it to automatic, then WtrGate will pick the best matching AKA by itself.

There are situations though where you want to select an AKA yourself. In that case, you can select it using this option.

Decode files

This is not implemented yet, but will work like the other Decode files options in the system and route the file to the user.

Max PKT length

It is possible to limit the size of a .PKT file. WaterGate checks the length of the .PKT after writing a message to it. If the size of the .PKT is bigger than this value, the .PKT file is closed and a new .PKT will be started. You can disable this option by setting it to 0.

UUCP name

This field and the following three fields all relate to the UUCP side of this user. You might not need these.

The UUCPname is the name of this system. The name can be 12 characters long, but only the first seven characters are used. You must fill in this field if this system will be involved in UUCP, because all UUCP actions are based upon this name. The name must be unique within your system.

World registered

If the UUCP name entered above is World Wide Registered, you are allowed to use it in addresses. If this is not the case (most likely!), then leave it at NO. If you set it to YES, WaterGate will use the UUCP name in the From and Path: header lines.

Allow sub-domains

If you want a user to be able to define sub-domains of his own domain, you need to set the 'Allow sub-domains' switch to YES. By doing so, you allow a user to process mail for his own set of sub-systems.

If you set this option to NO, WaterGate will only send messages to this system that are addressed to one of its domain addresses (or to its UUCP name, if it is world registered).

If you set this option to YES, WaterGate will also route messages for sub-domains of this system. This has the same functionality as adding the following line to your ROUTE.TDB file (example for the wsd system):

ROUTE-UUCP .wsd.wlink.nl wsd

Notice the dot in front of the domain name. The last part of this line is the UUCP name as defined in the user record.

You can also just add the domain address with the dot in front in the domain addresses list. This or a ROUTE-UUCP statement makes the switch useless! Future versions of WaterGate will also block messages from this system if this switch is set to NO.

Domain addresses

Apart from a UUCPname, the system must have one or more domain addresses as well. The first domain address is the most important one and WaterGate uses it when it has to have a domain address for this user. The other five addresses you can enter here are just aliases. If five are not enough, you can also use ROUTE-UUCP statements in the ROUTE.TDB file.

UUCP style user

A UUCP style user is a system with which you exchange messages via the UUCP protocol. You need a program like Waffle's UUCICO or the FX-UUCICO program to transfer the files. These files are set up in the spool directory structure, where every system has its own sub-directory named after its UUCP name.

UUCP Style User

Most of these fields have been described in the "FidoNet style user" chapter. The NewsFix system is the same as the AreaFix system with a different name, but it lists the UUCP name of the area.

The only two new fields are Compress and Batch header.

Compress

With this option you select how the news bundles (.DAT files in the spool directory) have to be archived, if at all. Mail bundles (also .DAT files) are never archived.

You can choose between the older COMPRESS or the newer GZIP (don't confuse it with PkZip!).

The setting of this switch is not important for extracting the archives in the spool directory. WaterGate uses a detection mechanism for that.

Add batch header

The batch header is a special header that can be added for UNIX systems, so they can easily find out that the .DAT file is compressed.

WaterGate will add the header "cunbatch" for compressed file and "gunbatch" for G-zipped files. It is possible to override this with the GZIPBATCH statement in the ROUTE.TDB file, so you can set it to "zunbatch" for GZip compressed news batches.

For reliability issues, it is better not to set any header at all, or maybe not even compress news batches at all (V42.bis modems will compress it for you anyway). Certainly not towards your uplink UUCP system. It is very easy to find problems between you and your downlinks, but not with your uplink.

Remark on the use of "New Area-create"

If you enable "New Area-create" for UUCP systems, WaterGate will create a new area as soon as it receives a message in a non-existent newsgroup.

But, since so many messages on UUCP are cross-posted, WaterGate checks for the existence of all the areas to which the message was cross-posted. If they don't exist, it creates the area.

Unfortunately, messages are not only cross-posted in the publicly know newsgroups, but sometimes also in local newsgroups. This means that you might end up with an area with a name like "buro.general".

WaterGate enables you to avoid the areas like "buro.general" by installing a proper "New Newsgroup Names Filter File". This will be described later in more detail, but this file basically consists of the newsgroup names that you do want to have created, or the first part of that newsgroup name, for example:

alt.
comp.
rec.

The file is more powerful, so a separate chapter will explain this in more detail.

Bag supplier

A BAG supplier is a system that creates files with the names like NEWS0001.BAG, NEWS0002.BAG, etc. These files are almost the same as UUCP .D files.

WtrGate supports BAG files with news, but also mail. WtrGate cannot create BAG files though.

They are used with systems that receive their Usenet news via a satellite link. It is possible to receive up to 600+ megabytes per day of news, without telephone costs!

There are also programs (like WinDis, Slurp and Changi) that download messages from an NNTP (news) server and store them in a BAG file. The created files do not necessarily have the extension "BAG".

BAG Style User

All fields in this screen have already been described in "FidoNet style user" and "UUCP style user". The only new field in this screen are the Search path and Return system.

Return system

Because the BAG system can only be used to receive messages, there has be a way to send messages back to the network. This is done via the "Return system". If a message is destined for the BAG system, it is sent to the Return system instead.

You have to create the return system as another user in the database (UUCP style users), fill in a UUCP name an enter the same UUCP name in this Return system field.

WARNING about the return system

The return system MUST NOT be connected to all the areas. If you do this, the return system will receive the entire feed from the BAG supplier. And since this return system is usually your real UUCP uplink, they probably won't take kindly to receiving all this news from you as well. You might create a nice duplicate loop if you do this wrong, and that might be disastrous! So, be careful!

SMTP interface user

The SMTP style user is used to interface two directories where messages to and from another application are stored. UUCP also works on a file basis, but this is different.

SMTP is short for "Simple Mail Transport Protocol" and is the backbone protocol to deliver messages directly to the target system on the Internet. Notice that it is used for e-mail only and not for news (NNTP is for news).

The deliver functionality is not built into WaterGate (just like UUCP isn't), so you need a special application to deliver the messages. Examples of these applications are WinDis and KA9Q. How to set up these applications is beyond the scope of this manual.

The following screen is used to set up the SMTP interface user.

SMTP Style User

Most of the fields have been described before. A few new fields and a few notes on the other fields follow below.

SMTP-In path

SMTP-In path is the directory where the other application stores received messages. This can be the RQUEUE directory (for routing e-mail), but also the MAIL directory, depending on the setup of the SMTP application.

SMTP-Out path

The SMTP-Out path is the directory where WtrGate will store messages for the SMTP application to pick up and transport. This directory is usually referred to as the MQUEUE directory.

Some notes

The UUCP name is only there because WtrGate refers to a user by the Fido address or UUCP name.

World registered, Allow sub-domains and Domain addresses are not used for your uplink, but are there in case you use it for downlinks and WaterGate needs to know which messages to queue up.

Back to Table of Contents or continue to the next section.

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

Last updated 13 October 1996