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1996-05-30
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W...W
W.W.W
.W.W.
WaterGate
Version 0.91
Mail processor for Fidonet and Internet/Usenet
Documentation 30/05/96
(c) Copyright 1993-1996 Waterline Software Development V.O.F.
All Rights Reserved
Development by Ramon van der Winkel
Martijn Dijksterhuis
Michel van der Laan
(we have removed all the graphics and high-ASCII from this
file, so it can be printed on any kind of printer in any kind
of non-proportional font)
WaterGate manual [page i]
Table of contents
-----------------
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Features. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Requirements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Welcome to WaterGate. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Contacting the authors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Support site, newsgroup and the mailing list. . . . . 4
Disclaimer, legal stuff, license, money and you!. . . 5
Installing WaterGate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Program description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
The distribution system. . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
The gateway system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
UUCP for beginners. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
About UUCP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Spool directory. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Compressed news and batch headers. . . . . . . . 9
UUCP Name and Domain addresses . . . . . . . . . 9
WaterGate terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
User types. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Step by step installation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
System settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
SysOp. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
System path. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
AreaFix and NewsFix. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Duplicates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Max. open handles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Cache .TDB files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Oversized path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Log file path. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Use swap file? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Swap file path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Swap file size . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Time slicing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Setting up the Fido system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Fido AKAs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Fido Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Inbound directories. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Outbound directory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Origin lines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Fido system. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Rescan file. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Max length settings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Default groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
ArcMail names. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Fido MessageBases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Auto Link. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Strip SEEN-BY. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Replace Tearline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Default number and days. . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Netmail messagebase. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Dupes messagebase. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Fido Compression Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Fido AreaFix Forwarding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
WaterGate manual [page ii]
Setting up the UUCP System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
UUCP settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
The spool directory system . . . . . . . . . . . 30
UUCP name. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Domain addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Smart host . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Backbone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Default groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Time zone. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Maximum bundle size. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Undeliverable mail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Bounce small . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
UUCP Compression Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
UUCP newsfix forwarding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
Gateway Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Gateway AKA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Gateway User. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Gateway TO. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Kill gated netmail. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
FSC-35 kludges. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Fido From:. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Copy Headers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
ASCII conversion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Name separator. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Small addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Other system menu options. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Private mail settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Logfile settings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Administrator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Creating Areas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Area name . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Comment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Area type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
In groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Subscribers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Allow passive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Passive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Origin. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Custom. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Origin AKA. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Add SEEN-BY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Moderated and Moderator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Fido base and path. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Fido age and limit. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Decode files. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Files path. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Adding Users . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Fidonet style user. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Organization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Allowed groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Subscribed to. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
WaterGate manual [page iii]
Passive. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Address. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
SysOp. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Packet password. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
AreaFix password . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
AreaFix special. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
New Area-create. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Compression. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
Send format. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
Max PKT length . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
UUCP name. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
Domain addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
World Registered . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Allow sub-domains. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
UUCP style user . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Remark on the use of "New Area-create" . . . . . 59
Bag supplier. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
Return system. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
WARNING about the return system. . . . . . . . . 61
The List Server. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Subscribing to a mailing list . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Setting up a mailing list . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
List name. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
Description. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
Welcome file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
Private list . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Only known . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Active . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
AKA. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Area name. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Echo to list . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
List to echo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Subscribers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Forwarding a mailing list you receive into an area. . 66
The Gateway. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
The echomail<->news gateway . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Gating echomail to news. . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Gating news to echomail. . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
The netmail<->mail gateway. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Using the gateway with netmail . . . . . . . . . 69
Fidonet address to e-mail address translation. . 70
Creating UUCP message headers in the netmail . . 74
Using the gateway with mail. . . . . . . . . . . 76
The ROUTE.TDB file and its options . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
ROUTE-FIDO: Route Fido messages . . . . . . . . . . . 78
ROUTE-UUCP: Route UUCP messages . . . . . . . . . . . 79
About bangpaths. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Routing things you cannot do in ROUTE.TDB. . . . 81
A few last remarks about UUCP routing. . . . . . 82
MAP-FIDO: Mapping fido netmail messages . . . . . . . 83
Order of precedence for MAP-FIDO . . . . . . . . 83
MAP-UUCP: Mapping UUCP mail messages. . . . . . . . . 84
Order of precedence for MAP-UUCP . . . . . . . . 85
FORBID-FIDO/ALLOW-FIDO: Restricting the gateway . . . 85
MAP-AREA: Receive a mailing list in a message base. . 86
WaterGate manual [page iv]
SIGNATURE: Adding signatures to a message . . . . . . 87
NEWSFILTER: Auto-created newsgroups filter. . . . . . 89
Logging information. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
SENDFILE: a simple file robot . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
BOUNCE: Send mail back with a reason. . . . . . . . . 91
SAVE: Write messages to disk. . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
MAP-UUCP and BOUNCE, SAVE, SENDFILE . . . . . . . . . 92
GZIPBATCH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
FORCENOBITMASK. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Using AreaFix / newsfix. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Automatic file encoding / decoding . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Customizing messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
The language file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
The text files. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Filenames . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
Tokens. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Using a secondary tosser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
Statistical information. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
Format of the WTRGATE.STA file. . . . . . . . . . . 101
The WtrStat program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
Possible graphs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
Command line options. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Translating from other programs. . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
Adding information from Gecho v1.02 . . . . . . . . 104
Adding information from Waffle. . . . . . . . . . . 104
Adding Information from Squish. . . . . . . . . . . 105
Commandline parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
WTRGATE.EXE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
WTRCONF.EXE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
WTRUTIL.EXE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Groups filter option . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
WTRSTAT.EXE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
Appendixes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
Appendix A: Message Bases . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
Fido *.MSG . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
Squish . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
JAM. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
Appendix B: Error codes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
Appendix C: TradeMarks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
WaterGate manual [page 1]
Introduction
------------
WaterGate is a message processing system. It can handle
netmail and echomail in Fidonet Technology (FTN) format and
Internet e-mail and Usenet news in UUCP format. It can
distribute and gate the messages from and two the formats
supported. It works by processing files and is thus not
capable of transferring files.
Speaking in Fidonet terminology, it is a tosser that can
handle Internet and Usenet as well.
As far as Internet and Usenet are concerned, WaterGate can
only process files that have been transferred using the UUCP
protocol. There is no support for SLIP or PPP connections or
SMTP and NNTP protocols. We intend to support this in the
future though.
The terms Fidonet and UUCP will be used to differentiate
between the two systems. Fidonet refers to both netmail and
echomail, where UUCP refers to both Internet e-mail and Usenet
news.
Features
- Fidonet message processing: netmail and echomail
- Internet/Usenet message processing: e-mail and news
- Gateway between Fidonet and Usenet
- Supports 65,000+ areas and nodes
- Support for *.MSG, Squish, and JAM message bases
- Built-in Remote Area Manager for Fidonet and Usenet(!)
- Utility program to perform messagebase maintenance
- Built-in Mailing List Server
- Built-in File Robot
- Configuration program with friendly user interface
- Context sensitive online help "everywhere"
- The fastest, most complete and most user friendly around!
Compatible with
- FrontDoor/InterMail
- BinkleyTerm/TIMS
- d'Bridge
- Waffle's UUCICO/FX-UUCICO
Requirements
- An IBM Compatible computer (XT/AT/386/486/Pentium)
- MS-DOS, OS/2, Windows '95, Windows NT or compatible
Operating System
- At least 500Kb of available memory
- Optionally some XMS/EMS memory
- Enough hard disk space depending on your configuration
WaterGate manual [page 2]
To operate effectively, you probably need a Fidonet compatible
mailer such as FrontDoor or BinkleyTerm. Also, if you want to
exchange mail with a the UUCP mechanism, a program such as
UUCICO or the faster FX-UUCICO is needed. These programs
should be available on any large BBS or FTP site.
We would like to thank the following users for testing the
beta versions of WaterGate, finding bugs, sending problem
reports and test files, and making suggestions for
improvements:
Miguel Lupi Alves, Mitchell Baker, Anthony Barlow, Gerrit
Brinkman, Christiaan von Busse, Glen Chambers, Thomas Charron,
Troy Engel, Richard Fairhead, Sue Fairhead, Frans van Geene,
Guus Goos, Christopher Henderson, John Halbig, Erik Kolodziej,
Phill McKenna, Jim Meijer, Steve Milstead, John Mudge, Pete
Rocca, Bob Ross, Jan Ruys, Robert Stark, Peter van der Steen,
Joop Stokvis, Pat Trainor, Michel Voorn, Rene Vreeman, Remco
Vrolijk, Rob Waite, Jurgen van der Wilk
and anybody else who we forgot to mention!
Special thanks to Rob Szarka.
Explicite NO thanks to Jon Greaves and Colin Taylor for
disappearing as credit card sites, without telling us.
WaterGate manual [page 3]
Welcome to WaterGate,
The demand for electronic mail is increasing daily, as is the
number of people reading and writing electronic messages.
There is Fidonet, connecting thousands of Bulletin Board
Systems and their users on all continents, and there is
Internet, to which almost every university and major company
has a connection. Then there are numerous other networks,
using technology similar to the ones mentioned.
WaterGate is a mail processing program capable of processing
both messages that were created by a Fidonet Technology
compatible program, and messages created by a program that
supports RFC822, the protocol widely used within Internet for
e-mail. Finally, it supports a variant to the RFC822 protocol
that is used for the over 10000 newgroups within Internet,
also known as Usenet.
From now on, the term UUCP will be used for both Internet e-
mail and Usenet news, just like Fidonet refers to both netmail
and echomail.
WaterGate was written to simplify the process of connecting
both Fidonet and UUCP compatible systems by integrating the
four steps needed to build a Fidonet/UUCP message host:
1) Process and distribute UUCP messages, for us and other
systems.
2) Process and distribute Fidonet messages, for us and other
systems.
3) Translate (gate) messages between the two formats.
4) Import either style message into message bases.
So, no matter if you are a Fido point, node, hub, zonegate, or
UUCP node or hub, WaterGate is the program to use for
processing all your netmail, echomail, mail and news.
In addition to that, it is loaded with tools and features like
AreaFix for both Fidonet and UUCP(!!), mailing list server,
read-only areas, file robot and options to import data from
your previously favorite programs. We plan to support other
transport mechanisms and mailers in future as well. It was
designed to do this.
We hope WaterGate achieves its design goals: ease of
configuration of both WaterGate and your complete mail
processing system, speed of operation, computability, and
stability.
The authors
WaterGate manual [page 4]
Contacting the authors
----------------------
The authors can be contacted at the following addresses:
Ramon van der Winkel
Internet: ramon@wsd.wline.se
Fido: 2:200/111.15
Martijn Dijksterhuis
Internet: martijnd@htsa.hva.nl
Michel van der Laan
Internet: michel@nijenrode.nl
Support site, newsgroup and the mailing list
--------------------------------------------
The wsd (Waterline Software Development) system at
wsd.wline.se is our support site, operated by Ramon van der
Winkel. Mail your problems and requests to ramon@wsd.wline.se.
The latest patches are always requestable from our file robot.
Send a message to watergate-info@wsd.wline.se to get a text
file with a description of all the files you can request.
There is also a newsgroup: ALT.BBS.WATERGATE.
Unfortunately, there are some distribution problems, apart for
the continuous spam postings. Everything seems to work
properly from the USA side, but posting in europe doesn't make
it far.
Finally, there is the WaterGate mailing list. To subscribe,
write a message to listserv@wsd.wline.se and put the following
command in the body of the message: "connect watergate"
(without the quotes). After the reply from the listserver, you
can send your problems to watergate@wsd.wline.se to have them
distributed to everybody else that is connected to the mailing
list. The main use of the mailing list is for annoucements by
the authors.
WaterGate manual [page 5]
Disclaimer, legal stuff, license, money and you!
------------------------------------------------
"WaterGate" refers to all executables and documentation
included in the package that was released.
WaterGate is (c) Copyrighted material by Waterline Software
Development V.O.F. in The Netherlands. By using this software
you accept the terms of the license agreement stated below.
- WaterGate is released as Shareware, you may use the
unregistered version of this program for a trial period
of thirty (30) days. After this period you MUST either
register WaterGate or stop using it.
- WaterGate is provided 'as is', without warranty of any
kind, neither expressed nor implied. Waterline Software
Development only guarantees that WaterGate will occupy
disk space.
- In no event is Waterline Software Development liable to
you or anyone else for any damages, including lost
profits, lost savings or other incidental or
consequential damages arising out of the use of
WaterGate.
- In no way is Waterline Software Development obliged to
you or anyone else to provide future versions of
WaterGate.
- All mentioned products and packages are copyrighted by
and trademarks of their respective holders. If you are
using WaterGate in a Non-Commercial environment refer to
the REGSITES.DOC file for information on how to register.
Commercial users have to contact the authors for more
information.
A Commercial environment is any of the following:
- Business - Government
- Organization - Foundation
- School - Any other form of juridical person
- Any form of system where WaterGate is used to make a
profit, direct or indirect.
Remember that WaterGate is currently in a BETA phase. This
means it needs extensive testing by YOU! Most parts of it are
currently used by a number of larger sites, but this doesn't
mean it is trouble-free all through! Stay up to date with the
latest release. We try to release a new version at least every
two months, so read ALT.BBS.WATERGATE or connect to the
mailing list for release announcements.
Please do support the Shareware concept.
WaterGate manual [page 6]
Installing WaterGate
--------------------
Before you go through the step-by-step installation, please
read this chapter first. After reading it, you will know about
the basic issues that are involved with WaterGate and
understand the big picture when installing the smaller parts.
Program description
-------------------
WaterGate supports the Fidonet and UUCP technologies.
Throughout this chapter we will assume you need support for
both of them. You can see them as two separate flows of
messages that only touch when messages are going through the
gateway. Have a look at the following two pictures that
describe the distribution abilities of WaterGate.
The distribution system:
+------+ +---------+ +-------+ +--------------+
| UUCP | |satellite| |Fidonet| |optional other|
|uplink| |receiver | |uplink | |Fidonet uplink|
+--+---+ +----+----+ +---+---+ +------+-------+
| \|/ | |
+----+------------+------------+--------------+-----------+
| W A T E R G A T E |
+--+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+---+------+
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
U P P P N P U P N P P P N U P P U U U U U U P |
+-----+-------+
U = UUCP-style user |local system |
N = Fidonet-style node |message bases|
P = Fidonet-style point |like BBS |
+-------------+
The pictures shows a few systems that provide the big message
traffic to you. The satellite receiver is optional, of course,
but is put here because WaterGate supports it. Whereas you can
be in more than one network with the Fidonet technology, there
is only one Internet and thus you have only one UUCP uplink.
On the bottom side you see the systems that receive their
messages from your system. WaterGate allows Fidonet style
systems to receive UUCP messages and vice versa. The messages
can also be imported into a message base for your BBS, or for
you to read.
Don't worry if your system is not as big as in the picture
above. You can use WaterGate as well if you are `just' a
Fidonet style node or point, with possibly a UUCP feed as
well.
WaterGate manual [page 7]
The next picture shows what WaterGate does to provide the
interchangeability of the messages between UUCP and Fidonet.
The top and bottom bars are the UUCP and Fidonet message flows
respectively and in the middle is the WaterGate program.
The gateway system:
------------------------- - - - -------------------------
mail UUCP news
-----+--------+-------+-- - - - ---+------+---------+----
| | | | | |
+---+---+ +--+----+ ++------------++ +---+---+ +---+---+
|newsfix| | mail | | mailinglists | | news | |message|
|AreaFix| |gateway| | server | |gateway| | bases |
+---+---+ +--+----+ ++------------++ +---+---+ +---+---+
| | | | | |
-----+--------+-------+- - - - - - +------+---------+----
netmail Fidonet echomail
------------------------ - - - - - ----------------------
The internal parts of WaterGate can be divided into the parts
described above. It can process mail, news, netmail, and
echomail to and from UUCP and Fidonet.
If it is necessary for a mail or netmail message to go to the
other network, it goes through the mail gateway. There is a
different gateway for the news, but that one is almost
invisible to the users. The mail gateway can be addressed from
both networks.
News flows in newsgroups, and echomail flows in echoes. Inside
WaterGate we simply call them areas. To connect and disconnect
areas, the users have to write a netmail or mail message to
AreaFix so the system operator (that's you) doesn't have to do
all that work manually.
On the far right side of the picture are the message bases.
Every message that flows through an area can be imported into
a message base as well. WaterGate supports the *.MSG, Squish,
and JAM message base formats. In fact, there is also a netmail
messagebase (not shown in the drawing).
The big box in the middle of the picture is not WaterGate's
heart, but is the mailing list server. A mailing list is like
a private newsgroup. If a message is sent to a mailing list,
all users connected to that list receive the message by mail
or netmail. So, the mailing list is just a list of receiver
addresses. It is also possible to connect the mailing list to
an area so you can connect a newsgroup or echo, but that is
mainly intended to import the messages into a messagebase.
This explains why the box in the middle of the drawing has so
many connections.
WaterGate manual [page 8]
UUCP for beginners
------------------
There are a lot "Fidonet people" that want to connect the the
Internet and receive e-mail and news. The "Internet related"
terms used in WaterGate are not always familiar to them. This
short chapter therefore explains how the "other" system works.
About UUCP
----------
To receive mail and news and process it with WaterGate, you
need a UUCP connection to an Internet Provider. These
providers mostly sell PPP and SLIP connections and give you an
account to login and a mailbox. After connecting to them and
using special software, you can read your e-mail.
The problem with these links is that you only have one mailbox
and thus one e-mail address. WaterGate was made to handle
loads of e-mail addresses, sub-systems (downlinks), so you
need a UUCP connection instead.
Once you have this connecting, your provider will store all
news you want to receive and all e-mail for your systems and
your downlink systems. When you connect to them, you pick up
all this mail and news using the UUCP protocol.
WaterGate cannot do this for you. WaterGate is a tosser and
not a mailer. You need a program like Waffle's UUCICO or the
FX-UUCICO program to send and receive your UUCP "batches" as
they are called.
Spool directory
---------------
These batches are stored in your "spool directory", which is a
subdirectory on your harddisk, for example C:\SPOOL\. Your
UUCP uplink system has a sub-directory there, as well as your
UUCP style downlink systems. Not your Fidonet style downlink
systems, they have the inbound and outbound directories.
In these spool directories you will find files with the names
*.X, *.D, *.XQT, *.DAT and *.CMD. The first two are incoming
(inbound, received) files. WaterGate processes these files.
The last three are outgoing (outbound, to be sent) files. The
XQT file will end up on the other system's harddisk like a .X
file and the .DAT file as a .D file. The .CMD file is used by
the UUCICO (UUCP mailer) program and tells it which files to
transfer.
The .X file is the so called "envelope" file and the .D file
the letter itself. Each e-mail file has a .X file in which
WaterGate finds the e-mail address of the recipient and a
reference to the .D file, amongst others. In case of news, the
.X file contains the recipient name "rnews".
WaterGate manual [page 9]
Each e-mail message has its own .X and .D file. The news is
bundled and you will find one .X file for each .D file with a
number of news message in it. The .D file is mostly limited by
size, not by number of news messages.
Compressed news and batch headers
---------------------------------
To reduce the transfer time, news batches are mostly
compressed. E-mail is never compressed. There are two forms of
compression used with UUCP: the older 12-bit or 16-bit
"compress" and the nowadays more common "gzip".
Because of this compression, you cannot read the .D files with
news directory. You have to decompress them first.
To make it easier for a script-based UNIX machine to detect
the compression format, a special "batch header" is added to
the start of the compressed file. When the file is compressed
with normal compress, you will find the header "#! cunbatch"
there. When it is compressed with gzip you will find the
header "#! gunbatch" or "#! zunbatch" there.
WaterGate automatically detects all these headers and
compressed formats and decompressed the .D files.
UUCP Name and Domain addresses
------------------------------
There are two key issues involved in addressing in the
Internet world: UUCP name and domain address.
The "UUCP name" is the is a name of maximum 12 characters that
identifies your system from your neighbours. The more
important "domain address" identifies your system world-wide.
My UUCPname is "wsd" and my domain address is "wsd.wline.se".
When you want to create UUCP downlinks, you have to give them
an (for your system) unique UUCP name. You only almost never
have to give Fido downlinks a UUCP name.
Your e-mail address is always <username>@<domain address>, for
example "ramon@wsd.wline.se", where the part before the @ is
called "user name".
WaterGate manual [page 10]
WaterGate terminology
---------------------
To configure the WaterGate system, you have to use the WtrConf
program. Inside this program you can create the areas, mailing
lists, receiving users, and uplink systems. Note that the
latter two are logically the same for WaterGate.
A message that is received from a user is sent to all other
users connected to that same area, no matter if that user is
an uplink system or not. Read that again, because all
WaterGate does is based on this!
You also use the WtrConf program to configure all the other
system related items. An exception is the ROUTE.TDB ASCII
configuration file that contains the routing information,
mapping commands, and gateway restrictions. You don't need
this file right away when you start to set up your system.
Most of these items will be moved into the WtrConf program
some day.
Groups
------
WaterGate allows you to separate the areas from the different
networks into 26 groups. An area has to be in at least one
group, but can also be in more than one group. That way you
can give one or more users access to a certain group in which
they can only connect to some of the areas you have. You can
also easily divide the UUCP and Fidonet networks into groups.
And it is also possible to make a group read-only so that
users subscribing to areas in that group cannot post messages
in it, but only receive messages from it.
If a message is received in an area that is not defined in
your system, you can have WaterGate create that area
automatically (and optionally a message base as well). You can
enable this for your uplinks and save yourself a lot of typing
work.
WaterGate manual [page 11]
User types
----------
There are a few different user types that you have to be aware
of before you start creating users. The big difference between
the users is the way they communicate with your system: with
the UUCP protocol or in FTN (Fidonet) packets. Aside from
that, you can assign UUCP addresses to Fidonet users. That
way, a user with Fidonet address 2:280/802 can have an
Internet domain address like bbsw.wlink.nl. If a user on that
system sends a message to Internet, his address will be a nice
Internet address instead of something like
user@f802.n280.z2.wlink.nl.
Resuming, there are plain UUCP users and plain Fidonet users,
but you can extend the Fidonet users by filling in some of the
fields to 'upgrade' them and allow transparant access to
Internet and Usenet, just like a UUCP user.
Apart from giving systems a nice domain address, you can also
assign nice name to Fidonet users for sending messages into
the Internet. The user Martijn Dijksterhuis at 2:280/802.6 can
be given the nice name and address martijnd@dijkline.wlink.nl
using a mapping statement.
The last thing you have to do before you start setting up the
system is think about the addresses and names the system will
be known as. This is very important, because a lot of errors
are made with the assignment of addresses. Try to write down
the addresses of your uplink(s), the addresses and names of
your WaterGate system, and some of the addresses of your
downlinks (users). This will make it a lot easier to configure
the system.
Note that users who receive UUCP and Fidonet messages need not
be defined twice in the userbase, but if the same user
receives messages from two different Fidonet networks, you do
have to define him/her under both addresses in the userbase.
An exception to this can be made for points. You can freely
mix networks and assign only one address to them. WaterGate
will make sure the nets are kept separated. You can't do this
with nodes, because the messages, SEEN-BY lines, and PATH
lines will then contain invalid node numbers for that network!
WaterGate manual [page 12]
Step by step installation
-------------------------
The following pages describe the installation of WaterGate by
going through all the possible entries in WtrConf. After that,
we assume that you have become familiar with the system and
explain several complete installations. This chapter will also
teach you to use the user interface.
During this documentation, the term WaterGate refers to the
entire package and the terms WtrGate, WtrConf and WtrUtil
refer to separate programs of this package.
To start, unpack the archive containing the program files into
a new directory on your harddisk, for example C:\WTRGATE. At
least the following three executables should be present in the
archive:
WTRGATE.EXE
WTRCONF.EXE
WTRUTIL.EXE
You might want to set a environment variable called WTRGATE to
this directory so WaterGate knows where to find its
configuration files when not started from its home directory.
Add this line to your autoexec.bat file:
SET WTRGATE=C:\WTRGATE
Then run the configuration program, WtrConf, to create new
configuration and database files. If you don't run it from the
installation directory, make sure the WTRGATE environment
variable is set, as indicated above. You might want to reboot
or set it manually before continuing.
You don't need the DPMI version (in DPMI.ZIP) or the .TXT
files (in DIJK_TXT.ZIP and RENE_TXT.ZIP) yet.
After starting WtrConf, you will see the following menu:
+-------------------------+
| Main Menu |
+-------------------------+
| System configuration |
| Area definitions |
| User definitions |
| List Server definitions |
| Group descriptions |
| Import/export menu |
| About WaterConf |
| Exit program |
+-------------------------+
You can select a menu line with the cursor keys up and down.
To select one of the options, press enter. You can also exit a
menu by pressing escape. In this case, pressing escape will
present another menu, asking if you really want to quit the
program. Select Yes and press enter to quit, or press escape
WaterGate manual [page 13]
again to return to the main menu. You can also exit the
program by selecting the bottom menu option. To get there, use
the cursor keys or press PgDn (page down).
To get back at the top of the menu, press PgUp (page up). You
can also use the Home and End keys. You can always use
function key F1 to get context sensitive help. Try pressing F1
in the Main Menu.
To remove the help window, you have to press escape. It is
sometimes possible to use special keys in the help screens,
like PgUp and PgDn. The help screens will tell you when.
Last remark before we start. Have a look at the bottom line of
the screen. It shows most of the keys you can use throughout
the program and will change to reflect the keys you can use at
a certain point.
We start with System Configuration, so select the top option
from the Main Menu and press enter. You are now presented with
a new menu, which looks like this:
+---------------------------+
| System configuration menu |
+---------------------------+
| System settings |
| Fido AKAs |
| Fido Settings |
| Fido Messagebases |
| Fido Compression programs |
| Fido AreaFix forwarding |
| UUCP Settings |
| UUCP Compression programs |
| UUCP newsfix forwarding |
| Gateway Settings |
| Private mail options |
| Logfile settings |
| Administrator settings |
+---------------------------+
The System configuration menu is split into several parts,
starting with general system settings, followed by five
options that have to do with Fidonet settings, followed by
three options for UUCP configuration settings. The last
separate options are to setup the gateway and the private mail
scanning system, to tune the logfile and to setup the
administrator.
WaterGate manual [page 14]
System settings
---------------
Let's start with System settings. Press enter to get the
screen:
+-------------------------------------------+
| SysOp Ramon van der Winkel |
| System path C:\WTRGATE\ |
| AreaFix name AreaFix |
| Newsfix name newsfix |
| Dupe checking OFF on |
| Dupe checks 10000 |
| Max. open handles 8 |
| Cache .TDB files OFF on |
| Oversized path C:\WTRGATE\TOOBIG\ |
| Log file path C:\WTRGATE\WTRGATE.LOG |
| Use swap file? off ON |
| Swap file path C:\WTRGATE\WTRGATE.SWP |
| Swap file size 2 |
| Time slicing no YES |
+-------------------------------------------+
This is a window with fields where you can enter data. You can
use the cursor keys up and down to go through the fields.
There are a number of different type of editing fields, but
they all have one thing in common: press enter to edit the
contents.
SysOp
-----
The first field in this window is "SysOp". You have to put
your name there. Since this is a text field, you can either
press enter and edit away or you can start typing at once,
without first pressing enter. This will clear the current
contents of the field. So, press enter if you want to change
its contents, or just start typing to completely replace it.
When editing a text field, you can always press escape to stop
editing and restore the old contents. If you are satisfied
with the new contents, you have to press the enter key to
accept the changes. Inside the field, you can use the cursor
keys left and right to move the cursor through the field. The
backspace and delete keys work as expected. Insert mode is
always on, though.
You can clear the contents of the field from the cursor
position to the end of the field, by using the WordPerfect
method: ctrl+end. To jump to the following or previous word,
you can hold down the control key (ctrl) and use the cursor
keys again. Finally, the home key brings you to the beginning
of the field and the end key to the last character of the
contents.
The SysOp field is used when WaterGate has to write special
replies, for example for AreaFix. More about that later. Let's
go to the next field.
WaterGate manual [page 15]
System path
-----------
You have to enter the path to the WaterGate databases here, in
our example C:\WTRGATE. This path information is stored in the
WaterGate configuration database. It finds this database by
looking at the environment variable WTRGATE. The path in this
field will be used to find the other databases after having
read the configuration file. So:
WTRGATE=C:\WTRGATE ->
WTRCFG.TDB ->
System Path ->
The other *.TDB files
AreaFix and NewsFix
-------------------
The next two fields are the names for AreaFix and newsfix,
programs integrated in WTRGATE.EXE. A user can write a message
to these programs to connect and disconnect areas and to
change settings that are personal to that user. The names you
enter in these fields are the names your users have to use
when writing a message to them. AreaFix is used for Fidonet
and newsfix is used for UUCP. It is conventional to use mixed
case names for Fidonet ("AreaFix") and flat, lower case names
for UUCP ("newsfix"). We will get back to these names later
and assume you are using the default names, so there is no
reason to change them here.
Duplicates
----------
On to the next two fields that have to do with dupe checking.
WaterGate is able to identify two messages as being identical
(duplicates) and then only distribute the first. This prevents
wasting disk space and transport time.
At this moment, the method used to identify duplicates inside
the WaterGate program is not very robust. We therefore advise
big systems to disable duplicate checking until we have
implemented a better algorithm. (At this moment, one database
with a maximum of 16000 entries is used to keep track of all
Fidonet and UUCP messages. No way is this enough for a system
receiving packets via satellite. Future algorithms will not
only separate Fido and UUCP dupes, but also do message/reply
id bridging and allow a bigger duplicates database).
The first field you can set for the duplicates checking is a
"toggle" field. Toggles are used to select from two or more
predefined options, in this case ON and OFF. You can only use
enter to toggle the setting. The one in upper case is the
current selection.
WaterGate manual [page 16]
The next field is a numeric input field, where (in this case)
you can input the number of duplicates WaterGate has to
"remember". The number in our example window is 10000, which
means WaterGate will identify two duplicates, even if 9999
messages are sent in between. The maximum number you can enter
here is 16000.
When a duplicate message is found, it will be destroyed by
default. Later in the configuration, you can also create a
message base to put the duplicates in.
Max. open handles
-----------------
Because opening and closing a file takes a lot of time,
WaterGate tries keep an outgoing mail bundle open as long as
possible. If you allow it to use more file handles, you can
drastically reduce the number of open/close actions.
By default, WaterGate tries to open up to 8 handles for
outgoing mail packets. If you don't export mail to other
computers, then you can reduce this setting to 1. If you do
export mail, try increasing this number by 1 for each node.
WaterGate is capable of using up to 100 file handles. If you
have more nodes than handles, files are closed in a priority
order: the more mail a node receives, the less often its
packets are opened and closed.
Depending on its configuration, WaterGate needs up to 10 file
handles for its own use, the system will use a few too, so
make sure you have a matching number in your CONFIG.SYS:
FILES=20+Nodes+10
Cache .TDB files
----------------
WaterGate is able to copy its databases containing users and
areas into XMS memory, decreasing disk access during a run. To
activate this option, toggle "Cache .TDB files" to ON.
At startup, WaterGate will copy its databases into XMS memory,
up to the amount of available memory. WaterGate has no other
use for XMS memory besides caching its databases and shelling.
Oversized path
--------------
When WaterGate encounters a message bigger than it can handle,
it will use the 'Oversized' path to store it for the SysOp to
look at. The maximum size of a message is limited by the
amount of free memory, which should be approximate 200
kilobytes.
If you use a swapfile (see below), WaterGate will only use the
oversized directory if the swapfile gets full as well.
WaterGate manual [page 17]
Log file path
-------------
Use the 'Log file path' to specify a complete path and file
name for WaterGate's logfile. This file is used by both
WaterGate and WaterUtil to log run-time actions.
This path is also used to write the statistics file. This file
takes the same name as the log file, but with the extension
.STA. So, if your logfile is called WTRGATE.LOG, the
statistics log is named WTRGATE.STA and put in the same
directory as the logfile.
Use swap file?
--------------
WaterGate is able to use a swapfile as additional memory. If
it runs out of normal memory to store a message in, it will
swap all lines out of normal memory into the swapfile. This
frees up a lot of normal memory, allowing another couple of
thousand lines to be read again. If it fills up again, it
flushes these lines to the swapfile as well, and so on. You
can limit this by configuring a maximum swap file size.
Since WaterGate is not capable of using XMS memory to store
messages, you might be able to setup the swapfile on a RAM-
drive and let the RAM-drive use XMS memory. In this case,
though, the swapfile is limited by the available memory. It
may be better to put the swapfile on harddisk, so you can
process those 1 megabyte+ news and FTP-mail messages easily.
You can use the toggle 'Use swap file?' to switch the swapfile
usage on and off. It is on by default.
Swap file path
--------------
Since you might want to put the swap file on a RAM-drive, you
can enter the complete path plus filename for the swap file in
this field. WaterGate will create the file by itself and
delete it after running.
Swap file size
--------------
To set a maximum size for the swap file (you don't want it to
use up all of your harddisk space, do you?), you must enter a
limit in megabytes here. The default is 2 megabytes. WaterGate
will not use the space unless necessary. You can check the
swap file usage in the log file.
The main use for the limit is when putting the swapfile on a
RAM-drive. Depending on your mail configuration, between 1 and
2 megabytes should be enough for the swapfile. Let us know if
you ever have to process bigger files (FTP-mail).
WaterGate manual [page 18]
Time slicing
------------
WaterGate supports Windows, OS/2 and DesqView by giving up
time slices to make sure it WtrGate.exe or WtrUtil.exe doesn't
hog the CPU.
If you are experiencing problems with the time slicing
support, then you can switch it off by setting this toggle to
NO. Otherwise leave it to YES.
WaterGate manual [page 19]
Setting up the Fido system
--------------------------
This part tells you in detail how to set up the fido side of
your WaterGate system. Other chapters will teach you how to
add users (uplinks, nodes, points, etc.) and areas (echomail
and netmail).
Fido AKAs
---------
Because WaterGate needs to know who you are, enter the "Fido
AKAs" submenu from the "System Configuration" menu. Here you
can enter up to 20 different Fido addresses. The following
screen will be presented to you.
+ 20 ----------------------------+
| Fido AKAs |
+--------------------------------+
||2:280/803 1017 |
||60:100/1 0 |
||0 0 |
||0 0 |
||0 0 |
||0 0 |
||0 0 |
||0 0 |
||0 0 |
|v0 0 |
+--------------------------------+
We call these screens "Select Lists". They look very similar
to menus and the little difference is the number in the top
left corner of the window and the arrows on the line at the
left (it was changed to a "v" here). The number tells you how
many items are in the list. If there are more items in the
list than fit in the window, you can scroll through the list.
The arrows at the top and bottom of the line will tell you if
there are more items in a certain direction. Because you can
only see an arrow at the bottom of the line, we must be near
the top and there are more items below.
You can use a lot of keys to scroll through the list,
including the cursor keys Up, Down, PgUp, PgDn, Ctrl+PgUp, and
Ctrl+PgDn.
Some lists contain wider lines than fit in the window. In that
case, you can also scroll horizontally using the cursor keys
Left and Right and the Ctrl+Left, Ctrl+Right, Home, and End
keys. There will also be arrow indicators on these oversized
lines. We will get to some of these lists later. Let's get
back to the AKAs.
In this list you enter all the fido addresses (AKAs) this
system must be know as. Don't start typing all the AKAs at
once, but add some more as you configure more and more
networks.
WaterGate manual [page 20]
The first AKA you enter here will be your main fido address.
Normally, the program will try to use a system AKA that
matches closely to the network it has to send a message to.
The main AKA is used when it is not possible to find a proper
match, or on other occasions, such as when the system has to
send a message to you, the SysOp.
Optionally, you can specify a Fakenet or Pointnet number. Only
use this if you have (or are) a point using old 3D Fidonet
software, which can't handle complete point addressing
directly.
For those of you who don■t know what a pointnet is: if a
mailer is incapable of handling 4D (zone:net/node.point)
addresses, but only 3D (zone:net/node) addresses, it would be
very inconvenient to have to use node numbers for your points
instead. Pointnets have been invented to solve this. A point
with an address 2:280/802.33 would then be translated to
2:1017/33 if your pointnet for that AKA is 1017.
Note: if you want WaterGate to use the pointnet for a certain
point, you have to define that user in the userbase with the
pointnet address as his AKA. More on this later. Once again
back to the list.
The left side contains the AKA and the right side the pointnet
number. If you want to change a line, press Enter and you will
be presented a little (two line) window. You can change the
AKA at the top line and enter the pointnet number at the
bottom line.
Since WaterGate supports 5D addresses, you can enter your fido
AKA as zone:net/node.point@domain. The minimum is
zone:net/node, though.
WaterGate manual [page 21]
Fido Settings
-------------
The next option from the System Settings menu brings you to a
screen like this:
+-----------------------------------------------------+
| Inbound dir 1 C:\INBOUND\ |
| Security on OFF |
| |
| Inbound dir 2 |
| Security on OFF |
| |
| Outbound dir E:\NODE\OUT\ |
| |
| Origin 1 Life at the end of the impossible |
| Origin 2 |
| Fido System binkley FrontDoor D'BRIDGE |
| D'bridge queue E:\DBRIDGE\QUEUE\ |
| Rescan file E:\DBRIDGE\DBRIDGE.RSN |
| Max *.MSG length 12000 |
| Max Squish length 12000 |
| Max JAM length 12000 |
| Max *.PKT length 0 |
| Default groups A |
| Arcmail names ARCMAIL hex all |
+-----------------------------------------------------+
Inbound directories
-------------------
When Fidonet mail bundles arrive at your system, by use of a
Fido mailer such as FrontDoor or Binkley, they are put in a
special holding directory, also known as the "Inbound"
directory.
WaterGate supports up to two such directories. Each directory
has a switch to toggle security on or off. When security is ON
for an inbound directory, mail bundles are only decompressed
if they were sent by a system that is configured as a user on
our system. Second, decompressed mail bundles are checked to
ensure they contain the same password as defined for the user
sending the bundle. If no password is defined for a node, the
password within the mail bundle is ignored.
A mail bundle from an unknown node will be renamed to *.UNK
and logged. Mail bundles with a wrong password are renamed to
*.PWD and logged as well.
Outbound directory
------------------
New mail bundles created for Fido style nodes that this node
sends mail to are put in the "Outbound" directory. For
BinkleyTerm systems, this is a Binkley 2.50 5D compatible
outbound directory, with support for Binkley point
directories.
WaterGate manual [page 22]
WaterGate tries to create Binkley subdirectories when needed.
For FrontDoor systems, all outgoing mail bundles are stored in
this directory.
Since The TBBS mailer TIMS also uses the Binkley outbound
style directories, you can have WaterGate and TIMS operate on
the same directories as well. WaterGate does not _yet_ check
for TIMS busy files yet, nor does it create them. It does do
this for Binkley, though.
Just as TIMS and BinkleyTerm are almost the same, you can
select FrontDoor if you are using InterMail.
Warning: always make sure that WaterGate's primary system AKA
(the first one in the list) is also the primary AKA that the
mailer uses! If you fail to do so, the wrong users can get the
wrong archives!!
Origin lines
------------
You can define up to two default Origin lines, which are
attached to messages exported from your local messagebases
without one, or when messages are converted from UUCP to
Fidonet. You can define a custom origin line for each area, or
choose to use one of these default lines.
Fido system
-----------
Choose the type of mailer you are using. Possible systems
include BinkleyTerm 2.50 and up, FrontDoor, and D'Bridge. All
three of these programs employ a different way to store
information on outgoing files. BinkleyTerm expects information
files in its outbound directories; FrontDoor uses the netmail
messages directory; and D'Bridge has a special queue path
where it looks for its information. If you are using D'Bridge,
specify that path in the "D'Bridge Queue" option.
Note that this selection changes WaterGate's behavior
drastically. Don't forget to set this switch properly, or you
will have a very hard time processing your inbound and
creating a proper and compatible outbound!
Rescan file
-----------
Your mailer will have to rescan its list of outgoing files and
messages after new mail has been set ready by WaterGate. To
inform the mailer of this, WaterGate can create or 'touch' a
special flag file. All you have to do is enter the proper path
plus filename. The following files are used for the different
systems:
d'Bridge DBRIDGE.RSN
FrontDoor FDRESCAN.NOW
InterMail IMRESCAN.NOW
WaterGate manual [page 23]
Max length settings
-------------------
Because old Fido mail processors have trouble processing
messages over 12Kb in size, WaterGate can split messages that
exceed some maximum message length. Set this limit using the
"Max *.MSG length" option. This limit is used to split
messages when importing into the *.MSG messagebase and when
exporting to a .PKT file!
Although both the Squish and JAM specifications allow for
unlimited message sizes, most editors have trouble reading
messages that are over 64Kb in size. If you want WaterGate to
split the messages when importing them, enter a maximum
message size, or use 0 to ignore the message size and disable
message splitting.
Note: These are approximate values. WaterGate checks them
after having added a line of text, so there might be a slight
deviation in the final message size.
When packing outgoing messages for other nodes, WaterGate will
group them in .PKT files. You can specify a maximum size for
those .PKT (Max *.PKT length) files before WaterGate creates a
new one. During buildup, these .PKT files are named *.QQQ. At
the end of the run they are renamed to .PKT one at a time and
then added to the final archive.
Default groups
--------------
You can give each node access to a number of groups. You will
soon decide which groups will contain the echomail areas and
which will not.
When creating a new fido style user, you have to set the
groups he or she is allowed to access. Because you don't want
to set these every time, you can enter a default list of
groups in this screen.
After pressing enter, you are presented with the standard
group editing method. The groups are listed on the left side
of the screen (complete with description and read-only flag).
You can press the Insert key to add new groups, or use the
Delete key to remove one. After pressing Insert, a new list
pops up on the right side of the screen. Select the group you
want to add with the cursor keys and then press Enter. If you
change your mind and don't want to add a group, simply press
Escape. When you are done changing the groups, you have to
press Escape or F10 to return to this screen again.
WaterGate manual [page 24]
More advanced users can also use tagging to add or remove more
than one group at a time. Use the F5, F6, and F7 keys for
tagging. F5 selects or deselects one item; with F6 you can
select all the lines that match a certain search string (an
empty string matches all); and F7 deselects all lines that
match a certain search string.
ArcMail names
-------------
When creating outgoing fido mail archives, WaterGate can
create mail bundles that use the following name extension
conventions:
(day of week) + 0..9 ArcMail
(day of week) + 0..9, A..F Hex
(day of week) + 0..9, A..Z All
Ensure that the software your up- and downlinks are using can
handle the format you specify. The default setting is ArcMail,
which results in archive bundles with names like .SU0, .TH2,
.FR4, etc.
WaterGate keeps track of the digit or letter it last used for
each user. If the .SU0 file has been sent, for example,
WaterGate will create a .SU1 file instead of a new .SU0 file.
WaterGate manual [page 25]
Fido MessageBases
-----------------
If you select the Fido Messagebases option from the System
Settings menu, you will be presented a screen that looks like
this. This screen contains all the important settings related
to the local message bases.
+-----------------------------------------+
| Auto link OFF on |
| Strip SeenBy off ON |
| Replace Tear off ON |
| |
| Default number 200 |
| Default days 5 |
| |
| Netmail type MSG squish jam |
| Netmail path D:\NODE\NET\ |
| Decode files no ON IMPORT |
| Files patch D:\DECODED\NET\ |
| |
| Badmail type NONE msg squish jam |
| Badmail path |
| Dupemail type NONE msg squish jam |
| Dupemail path |
| |s
| Auto Create Type NONE msg squish jam |
| Default new path E:\NODE\NEW\ |
+-----------------------------------------+
Auto Link
---------
Toggle "Auto Link" to ON if you want WaterGate to link
messages in all areas that received new mail during the mail
toss. You might want to turn this off and save time if you
toss a lot of small mail bundles containing only a few new
messages. To link your message areas, you can then use
WaterUtil's 'Link All' option.
Strip SEEN-BY
-------------
Toggle "Strip SeenBy" to ON if you want to save harddisk space
by NOT importing SEEN-BY lines into your message base.
Remember that re-exporting messages with incomplete SEEN-BY
lines is often considered a capital crime.
Replace Tearline
----------------
The "Replace Tear" option is only available for registered
users, the setting is ignored for the unregistered version. If
you set to ON, the program will replace all tear lines it
finds in locally generated messages with its own. Tear-lines
are also added to messages that are converted by WaterGate
from UUCP to Fidonet.
WaterGate manual [page 26]
The result is something like:
--- WtrGate v1.00 Unreg
--- WtrGate+ v1.00
Default number and days
-----------------------
When a new area is created, these two values are put in the
"Fido limit" and "Fido age" fields. The first is the maximum
number of messages you want to have in a messagebase and the
second is the maximum age of a message. If the message is
older, it will be removed when cleaning the messagebase.
Netmail messagebase
-------------------
Since a Netmail message base is required by WaterGate, enter a
full path to it under "Netmail path". You can choose to make
it a *.MSG, Squish, or JAM base. Use "Netmail type" to choose
your preferred type.
If you set it to *.MSG, the path has to point to a directory.
If you set it to Squish or JAM, the path has to include the
messagebase name without an extension.
If you're using FrontDoor as your Fido system type, then a
*.MSG directory is required! Also, for compatibility with
many other programs, usage of a *.MSG netmail path is advised.
Notice that you DO NOT have to create an Area Record (Area
definitions from the main menu) for the netmail area, nor the
badmail or dupes message areas! Doing so might result in
operational problems.
Decode files
------------
If an e-mail messages contains an UU-encoded, XX-encoded or
MIME encoded file, then WaterGate can automatically decode
this file, save it on your harddisk and store the remainder of
the message. This option is currently only available for *.MSG
bases.
If you set this option to ON IMPORT, then WaterGate will
decode files from messages that are imported into you *.MSG
netmail area and are addressed to one of your system AKAs. All
messages for downlinks are left as they are for the moment.
Decoding those files means routing them as well and this is
not built in yet.
The decoded files will be written to the path given in "Files
path".
WaterGate manual [page 27]
Badmail messagebase
-------------------
If you want to keep track of messages that somehow go wrong,
then enable the Badmail message base. Use the "Badmail type"
option to enable this option or select NONE to disable it.
Make sure you enter a correct path under "Badmail path".
WaterGate uses the "Default Number" and "Default Days"
settings to clean up your Badmail.
Dupes messagebase
-----------------
If WaterGate finds a duplicate message, it deletes it by
default. If you want to keep track of these messages, you can
setup a messagebase to put them in. Just as with netmail and
badmail you have to set a type and enter a path.
Auto create type and default path
---------------------------------
If a message arrives in an unknown area and the user that sent
it has the "Create new areas" option in his user record set to
YES, WaterGate automatically creates an area record in the
areabase.
If you want that area as a messagebase later on, you have to
enter the path to the messagebase and set the correct type.
The path might be a lot of typing work, so you can enter the
default path for the messagebase in the "Default new path"
field.
If you also want to have a messagebase created for it (very
handy for small systems, like points, where you know that the
new areas are OK), you can set the messagebase type for these
areas in the "Auto Create Type" field.
Because you need a messagebase name for Squish and JAM,
WaterGate automagically creates one for you. Since the first
eight characters of an area are not unique (and completely
useless for Usenet areas like ALT.BBS.SOMETHING, where you
have the dots), WaterGate creates a magic number. This is the
CRC32 value of the complete string that represents the area-
name, padded with spaces to the maximum length. This number is
used as the filename (Squish, JAM) or directory name (*.MSG)
for that messagebase.
The only disadvantage of this magic number is that the real
areaname cannot be determined from the base-name, other than
by consulting the configuration program. You can manually
change the name of the message base afterwards, although
WtrConf will not (yet) rename the message base files
automatically. But if you use WtrConf to export a Squish
config file (also good for JAM bases!) and feed that to your
editor, you don't have to know the messagebase name at all!
WaterGate manual [page 28]
Fido Compression Programs
-------------------------
Select "Fido Compression Programs" from the System Settings
sub-menu to enter a screen that looks like this:
+-----------------------------------------+
| ARC PKPAK -OCT A |
| UNARC PKUNPAK /R |
| ARJ ARJ A -E |
| UNARJ ARJ E -N |
| LZH LHA A /M |
| UNLZH LHA E |
| PAK PAK A |
| UNPAK PAK E /WN |
| ZIP PKZIP -A |
| UNZIP PKUNZIP -O |
| ZOO ZOO -Add |
| UNZOO ZOO -Extract |
| OP1 |
| GUS |
| Default arc ARJ lzh pak zip zoo op1 pkt |
+-----------------------------------------+
WaterGate is capable of recognizing 6 of the most widely used
compression programs within Fidonet: ARC, ARJ, LZH, PAK, ZIP,
and ZOO.
When it encounters compressed Fidomail bundles, it tries to
start the correct decompression program. If it is unable to
recognize the compression method, it checks whether a GUS
(General Unpack Shell) is defined and lets the GUS have a try
at it.
Use this screen to enter the correct program names and options
for each compression and decompression program. A special
option is 'OP1', which you can use to compress your mail using
a program unknown to WaterGate. There is, of course, no way
for WaterGate to recognize and decompress this sort of
archive.
Use the last line to select a Default type for WaterGate to
use in situations when it has to pack messages for an
undefined node, for example when sending crash mail messages.
This is also the default type for newly created user records.
WaterGate manual [page 29]
Fido AreaFix Forwarding
-----------------------
WaterGate is capable of AreaFix forwarding for both Fidonet
and UUCP. When a user requests an area that is not available
at your system, WaterGate can ask one of your uplinks to start
sending that area.
When WaterGate does this, the area is created automatically
and both the requesting user and the uplink system are
connected at once.
The areas that can be requested dynamically are stored in one
or more listings on disk. You tell WaterGate what the node
number for your uplink is and which file to check for area
names. You can define up to ten (10) listings for Fidonet and
also ten for UUCP.
You can configure the Areafix forwarding by selecting Fido
areafix Forwarding from the System Configuration menu. You can
then select one of the ten entries and press enter to edit it.
You will see the following screen to edit an entry.
+------------------------------------------+
| Address : 2:280/801 |
| Unconditional : yes NO |
| Arealist path : C:\BBS\AREALIST.BBS |
| Arealist type : AREAS.BBS name list |
| Area manager : AREAFIX |
| Password : highbrazil |
| Group : A |
| Add "+" : yes NO |
+------------------------------------------+
Specify the Fido address of each uplink system in the
'Address' field. When you flag an uplink as 'unconditional'
the request is always forwarded to this node, and WaterGate
makes no attempt to search the specified area list.
Specify the full path to the area listing in the "Arealist
path". Then select the type of listing: the AREAS.BBS type
follows 'standard' areas.bbs convention, while for the 'Name
list' each line in the file has to contain a single area name.
Select the program name of the Area Manager program on your
uplink system. Most should be capable of understanding the
default 'AreaFix'. The password is used when writing the
AreaFix message.
Specify to which group the new area is to be added. WaterGate
will only scan the lists for groups to which the requesting
user has access. Adding a '+' is used to support AreaFix
programs that need one for each requested area. Instead of
just listing the requested areas, each one has a '+' added in
front.
NOTICE: The current implementation (v0.91) only writes
requests to FIDOREQ.LST.
WaterGate manual [page 30]
Setting up the UUCP System
--------------------------
This chapter explains in detail how to set up the UUCP side of
your WaterGate system. Other chapters will teach you how to
add systems (users) and newsgroups (areas).
If you don't have a UUCP connection, you can still use this
program perfectly well without entering any options in this
section.
UUCP settings
-------------
If you select "UUCP settings" from the System Settings menu,
you will be presented with the following screen:
+----------------------------------------------------+
| Organization Waterline Software Development |
| UUCP SPOOL path C:\SPOOL\ |
| System UUCP name water |
| World registered NO yes |
| Smart host seunet |
| Backbone Berkeley.EDU |
| System domains wsd.wline.se |
| admin.wline.se |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| Default groups |
| Time zone GMT+1 |
| Maximum .DAT length 200000 |
| Undeliverable mail netmail BOUNCE |
| Bounce small no YES |
| Mail grade A |
| News grade Z |
+----------------------------------------------------+
First of all, who are you? WaterGate will append an
"Organization" line to all messages it sends into Usenet. This
can be a message gated from Fidonet or a message created by
the system itself. You can enter a short line describing your
organization or company.
Organization: Sweet Bug & Company, Holland
The spool directory system
--------------------------
The spool directory is a place to store outgoing and incoming
files for UUCP systems. Each system requires its own spool
subdirectory to store the files destined for or received from
that system.
The UUCICO program searches for .CMD files in this directory.
A .CMD file holds the names of the files to transfer.
WaterGate manual [page 31]
News and mail is sent in .DAT files, where multiple news
messages go in one file (called a batch) and mail messages are
put in separate files.
The news batches can also be compressed using COMPRESS,
COMP430D, or GZIP and can have a special header on top of
that, called a "cunbatch" header.
The .DAT files contain all the data and the .XQT files contain
the processing statements and tells us whether it is a mail
message or a news batch. A program called XQT will then run
the correct program to process these files.
Since WaterGate is compatible with the spool directory
structure and has to create mail and news batches for systems
that process them as described above, WaterGate creates .DAT,
.XQT, and .CMD files.
The UUCICO does one thing more with .DAT and .XQT files when
sending them: the receiving system renames them to .D and .X,
so they can't overwrite any outgoing files. Since the .CMD
file is only a command file for UUCICO, it is not transferred.
When WtrGate (the program) runs, it searches the userbase for
UUCP style users, then checks if there is a subdirectory in
this spool directory for that user and creates one if it
doesn't exist already. It then searches for .X files and reads
these. According to the contents of the .X file it then
processes the .D file.
If something goes wrong during processing, or if it can't file
the .D file, it renames the .X and .D files to .BAX and .BAD.
You have to put the spool directory path in the second field
of the screen. Don't append any UUCPname whatsoever, just
enter the path up and until the directory that is usually
called SPOOL, as you can see in the example screen grab.
Note that the TBBS option module "PIMP" is not compatible with
this spool directory structure, although it is capable of
transferring files using the UUCP protocol.
UUCP name
---------
The next field to fill in is your system's UUCPname. You don't
have to create yourself in the userbase (just as you don't
create a fido style user with your AKA), but WaterGate needs
to know your UUCPname during processing and it puts it in the
files it creates in the spool directories.
In our case, our UUCPname is "wsd", which has to be typed in
using the correct case (capital letters or not). The maximum
length of this name is 12 characters, of which only 7 are
significant.
WaterGate manual [page 32]
Domain addresses
----------------
Next are your domain addresses. This is the last part of your
e-mail address, behind the @ sign. For me (ramon@wsd.wline.se)
it is "wsd.wline.se". You can fill in up to 10 different
domain addresses.
WaterGate uses these names to see if a message is addressed to
itself, for example for newsfix or for the listserver.
If you have a world wide registered UUCPname, you are also
allowed to use the .UUCP convention, as in "wsd.UUCP". Don't
enter this if you don't have a world wide registered UUCPname!
The first domain address should be your primary (most
important) domain address. WaterGate uses this when it has to
write messages. The list server, for example, will always
advertise itself as listserver@<your first domain name> and
there are loads of other places where this first domain name
is used. Make sure this is your most important domain name.
The other domain names are just used to detect that a message
is for this system.
Examples of domain addresses:
UUCPname: rubbish
Domain names: rubbish.linknet.nl
rubbish.thehost.linknet.nl
rubbish.UUCP
In this example, WaterGate accepts mail addressed to
'rubbish', 'rubbish.linknet.nl', 'rubbish.thehost.linknet.nl',
and 'rubbish.UUCP' as addressed to itself.
Smart host
----------
If WaterGate receives a mail message that is not addressed to
any node it knows, it will try to send it to your smarthost,
UNLESS this mail message already came from there. In that
case, the message will be bounced to the original sender,
since the smarthost assumed the addressee (which can be a
subnode as well as a point) should be known at our site but,
since we don't know the addressee, it does not exist.
Your smarthost is usually the system from which you receive
your mailfeed. Even if that system is not capable of smart
routing, it should be able to transport the message to a
system that is. Enter the UUCP name of your Smarthost in the
'Smarthost' field. Important! Make sure you define a UUCP
style node for the system you assign as your smarthost.
Smarthost: wtrlnd
WaterGate manual [page 33]
Backbone
--------
When sending messages in moderated newsgroups, you either know
the moderator, or it is sent to a backbone site capable of
transporting it to the correct moderator. THIS IS USUALLY NOT
YOUR SMARTHOST. If you don't know a backbone site closer to
you, leave the setting at its default.
Backbone: Berkeley.EDU
Default groups
--------------
When new UUCP style users are created, you can connect them to
a default combination of area groups. Just select the groups
you want using "Def. Groups". See the fido style default group
setup for a complete explanation of how to select and deselect
groups.
Time zone
---------
Messages created by WaterGate contain a time field that is
created using the system date and time, and the "Time Zone"
string added to it.
Time zone: GMT
results in:
Fri, 19 Nov 1993 04:12:50 GMT
According to the RFC regulations, this field should contain an
official TimeZone identifier. Many sites in Europe tend to use
'CET' here, for 'Central European Time', commonly used by
European cable and satellite stations such as MTV-Europe.
However, this is NOT an official TimeZone!
Instead, European sites should indicate their relation to
Greenwich time by using the timezone identifier, GMT, plus an
adjustment. For the European mainland, this is GMT+1 in
winters, and GMT+2 in summers (this is a direct result of the
phenomenon 'daylight savings').
Some people like to put phony timezone identifiers here; this
may be tremendous fun, but, although it won■t bother
WaterGate, correct mailhandling by your smarthost or other
mail systems involved cannot be guaranteed. There are some
systems that seem to have a lot of CPU time left and they
check to make sure this time zone is a valid string. If it is
not, they simply trash the entire message! RFC1036 advises
using the GMT timezone.
WaterGate manual [page 34]
Maximum bundle size
-------------------
By default, WaterGate will append news messages to the same
outgoing mail bundle for each UUCP node during one toss. Mail
messages are always put in a separate file.
If you have downlinks that have trouble with large UUCP *.DAT
files you may want to set the ".DAT length" option. WaterGate
will then check whether a UUCP message bundle exceeds that
limit. If so, it closes it and creates a new one. A setting of
"0" disables this option. The default is "200000" (200k)
bytes; remember that this is before compression!
Undeliverable mail
------------------
When a message is sent to your system, but it cannot be
delivered because the target system does not exist, then
something has to be done with that message. For example, when
a message is sent to my system for "somehost.wsd.wline.se",
then this message cannot reach it destination because the host
"somehost" does not exist as a sub-domain of my system.
In that case, there are two options. First, the message could
be sent back to the originator, which can then take
appropriate actions. Second, it can be written to the netmail
area, so the administrator can have a look at it.
Bounce small
------------
When a undeliverable mail message is sent back, then you want
to be able to control how big that message is. For example, it
is no use to send an undeliverable UU-encoded mail message of
100kb back to somebody. Instead, only the headers and perhaps
the first part of the message should be sent back. This is
enough for the originator to find out what was wrong.
If you don't care about your telephone bill, then set this
option to NO, in which case the entire message will be sent
back to the originator.
Mail and news grades
--------------------
The second letter in the filenames created in the spool
directories indicates a "grade" to your UUCP mailer (UUCICO).
You can tell it to only transfer file up to a certain grade.
For example to transfer news in the cheap hours only.
You can set the grades for mail and news here. You normally
don't have to worry about this setting, unless you want to
change the grades (= letters in the filenames) used.
WaterGate manual [page 35]
UUCP Compression Programs
-------------------------
Outgoing UUCP news batches have to be compressed with either
the COMPRESS/COMP430D program or GZIP. WaterGate can detect
the compression method used for incoming news batches and will
automatically spawn the correct decompression program.
You can enter the details and arguments of these programs in
this screen.
+----------------------------+
| COMPRESS COMP430D -v |
| DECOMPRESS COMP430D -dv |
| ZIP GZIP -v |
| UNZIP GZIP -dv |
+----------------------------+
For use with COMPRESS it is wise to define a decompressor here
that can handle (and recognize) both 12 and 16 bit
compression. WaterGate will usually be able to free up enough
memory to perform 16 bit compression and decompression when
shelling out to the (de)compressor by swapping itself to
XMS/EMS/Disk.
Make sure you have the correct compression programs. You can
find these on the Simtel 20 CD-ROM. On the September 1994
release it was on disc 2 in the directory \DISC2\COMPRESS.
BBS's might use the description for this directory, which is
"MS-DOS port of UNIX compress, gzip; and compression pgms".
The names of the files are:
COMP430D.ZIP
GZIP124.ZIP
Don't use PKZIP for GZIP compression or decompression because
this will not work!
WaterGate manual [page 36]
UUCP newsfix forwarding
-----------------------
Newsfix forwarding is exactly like Areafix forwarding, but
then for UUCP areas. When a user requests a newsgroup that
your system currently doesn't have, you can have WaterGate
scan a list of all available newsgroups.
But, since there is no 'standard' AreaFix alike program for
UUCP mail processors, WaterGate is unable to forward a request
for such an area. To aid in the development of utilities that
can interface with your UUCP host it is capable of creating a
text file named UUCPREQ.LST on disk that contains the name of
the requested area, and the system it has to be requested
from.
You can define up to ten (10) listing files and uplink
systems. Normally there will only be one UUCP uplink, so you
can ulitize the ten entries to split the listing of
newsgroups.
To configure the newsfix forwarding, select UUCP newsfix
forwarding from the System Configuration menu. You will then
be presented with the following screen:
+------------------------------------------+
| UUCP Name Filename |
| seunet |e:\newsgrps |
| | |
| | |
| | |
+------------------------------------------+
In the column "UUCP Name" you fill in the UUCPname of the
uplink system. This name will be writting to the UUCPREQ.LST
file.
The column "Filename" must contain the full path to the
newsgroups listing. This can be a Waffle newsgroup listing
compatible file with both the newsgroup name and the
description. When the area is create, the description is put
in automatically.
WaterGate manual [page 37]
Gateway Settings
----------------
The gateway is the path messages take when they have to be
sent from UUCP to Fidonet or vice versa. The message body is
translated to the new format and the headers (from, to,
subject, date, etc.) have to be translated as well. WaterGate
does this all automatically.
There are a few settings you can tune, almost all of which
have to do with addressing the gateway and translating
addresses. "The Gateway", below, will explain how to use the
gateway and how to set up mappings, which are address
translation helpers.
You can reach the Gateway Settings screen via the System
Settings menu. That screen looks like this:
+------------------------------------------------+
| --- Fido-only --- |
| Gateway 2:280/802@joho |
| Gateway User UUCP |
| Gateway TO no YES |
| Kill gated netmail NO yes |
| |
| --- UUCP to Fido --- |
| FSC-35 kludges? no YES |
| Fido From: e-mail address FULL NAME |
| Copy headers <press enter to edit> |
| ASCII Conversion <press enter to edit> |
| |
| --- Both directions --- |
| Name separator _ |
| Small addresses no YES |
+------------------------------------------------+
The screen is split up in three parts, related to Fidonet
addressing, Fidonet to UUCP translation, and translations in
both directions.
Gateway AKA
-----------
To address the gateway from within Fidonet, you need to send
the message to the AKA of your system you have selected as the
Gateway AKA.
Gateway User
------------
In order for WaterGate to know that a message must go through
the gateway, you have to tell it what username will appear in
the To: field of messages destined for the gateway. The
default is UUCP, a common choice, but it can be changed to
anything.
WaterGate manual [page 38]
Then you can put the UUCP address (of the person to whom you
want to send your message) on the first line of the netmail
message body, preceded by "To:" (case in-sensitive).
Gateway TO
----------
If the option "Gateway TO" is set to YES, WaterGate also scans
the To: field of the netmail for a UUCP address. In that case,
you don't have to put the UUCP address on the first line of
the body of the message, but you can then simply put it in the
To: field of the Fidonet message.
Kill gated netmail
------------------
If you write a message in the netmail area that has to be sent
to UUCP, you may want it to remain there after it has been
sent so you can move it to another area (history, for
example). If you don't want it to stay in the netmail area
after gating it, you can put the Kill/Sent flag on it with
your editor.
If one of your points or downlinks sends a netmail to the
gateway and he or she does not put a Kill/Sent flag on the
message, this message will remain in your netmail area after
it has been gated. After a while, these messages pile up.
If you set this toggle to YES, all netmails that were gated to
UUCP are automatically given a Kill/Sent flag, so WaterGate
deletes them after gating. This keeps your netmail area free
of already gated messages.
FSC-35 kludges
--------------
If a message is translated from UUCP to Fidonet, you have to
be able to reply to it from within your editor. This can be
done in several ways. The newer editors support FSC-35, which
makes replying to a message from UUCP very simple. Two kludges
are added to the message: REPLYTO and REPLYADDR. The first
contains the AKA and username of the gateway and the second
holds the internet address of the sender of the message
(that's where the reply has to go).
If there are more than one possible reply address, then
WaterGate creates one or more REPLYALSO kludges as well.
Fido From:
----------
If your editor does not support FSC-35, you have to reply to
the message by manually putting the UUCP address on the first
line of the message. But since WaterGate is also capable of
finding the recipient■s address in the fido To: field, it
would be handy if it was in the From: field of the message you
are going to reply to. Your editor will then automatically
setup a message from you to whatever was in the From: field.
If this is the complete internet address, you are done and
WaterGate manual [page 39]
don't need to type anything more. Set this option to "e-mail
address" if you want this.
If the e-mail address does not fit in the To: field of the
message, WaterGate automatically puts the address of the
sender in the body of the message, preceded by "Message
Sender:".
If your editor does support FSC-35, you don't need the UUCP
address in the From: field of the message. Some addresses are
very ugly to look at and it would be much nicer if the full
name of the sender of the message was in this field, as with
normal Fidonet messages. If you set the option "Fido From:" to
"full name", WaterGate puts the full name of the sender of the
UUCP message in the From: field.
If you want the full name of the sender in the From: field and
the address in the body of the message, you have to use Copy
Headers.
Copy Headers
------------
A UUCP messages contains several "header" lines. If a message
is gated to a Fidonet message, these headers are lost, unless
you use this option. You have to put the cursor on this field
and then press Enter to change the settings. You will then see
the following screen:
+---------------------------------+
| Header name Copy whereto |
| |
| From: not KLUDGE text |
| To: not KLUDGE text |
| Subject: not KLUDGE text |
| Date: not KLUDGE text |
| Message-Id: NOT kludge text |
| Organization: not kludge TEXT |
| From NOT kludge text |
| Path: not kludge TEXT |
| Newsgroups: not kludge TEXT |
| NOT kludge text |
+---------------------------------+
You can put the header name (case insensitive) in the left
column and select the way it shows up in the Fidonet message
in the right column.
If it is on NOT, it will not be searched for at all, if it is
on KLUDGE, it shows up as a kludge line and if it is on TEXT
it is put in the Fidonet message body as clear text.
The left column has some default header lines filled in, but
you can edit each of them. WaterGate searches for the header
line with a space appended to it. This is important, because
"From" and "From:" are different headers and we don't
necessarily want to match both. Also, don't forget the
terminating colon (':') after the header name!
WaterGate manual [page 40]
ASCII conversion
----------------
High ASCII characters (values >128) are widely used within
Fidonet, but are illegal within UUCP. WaterGate will replace
those characters when converting a message into UUCP format
using a conversion table.
You can specify an appropriate Low ASCII value for each High
ASCII value. For example, characters with an umlaut can be
replaced with their equivalent without the umlaut. To support
computers that are using a different high ASCII table than the
Latin one used in most American and European computers, you
can use the 'ASCII conversion' option to re-define the default
table.
WaterGate cannot convert one-letter characters to two letters.
Future version will support different character sets and these
translation options.
Name separator
--------------
The name separator is used to convert Fido names to names
compatible with UUCP systems. It replaces all spaces in the
Fido user name with the character you configure here.
Examples:
"Jaap Aap"
-> Jaap_Aap@...
"Ramon van der Winkel"
-> Ramon_van_der_Winkel@...
"Michel van.der.Laan"
-> Michel_van.der.Laan@...
The default is to use the underscore ('_'), because some BBS
users still use dots ('.') to separate the parts of their
names, as in the last example. The problem with those names is
not the translation TO UUCP, but FROM UUCP. If the last
example was translated with a dot, it would be
"Michel.van.der.Laan". If that is translated back, you get
"Michel van der Laan", instead of "Michel van.der.Laan".
WaterGate manual [page 41]
Small addresses
---------------
The small addresses option is used to keep Fido addresses in
UUCP messages as small as possible. If WaterGate has to put
the sender■s Fidonet address in a UUCP address, it creates an
address with this format:
z<zone>.n<net>.f<node>.p<point>.<first system domain address>
For example: 2:280/802.33 -> z2.n280.f802.p33.wlink.nl
But a lot of this information is actually unnecessary if your
gateway AKA closely matches this address, for example
2:280/802.
If "Small Addresses" is set to YES, WaterGate removes all the
parts of the Fido address that match, so the result would then
be:
p33.wlink.nl
Your system■s points are just
user@p<pointnr>.wlink.nl
and that is a lot better-looking than the complete, big
address.
When a message is received from UUCP in the form above, the
gateway AKA is again used to reconstruct the full Fidonet
recipient■s address.
Note that if your gateway AKA contains a point number, this
point number is ignored when constructing the complete
address. Otherwise the point number would always be in the
recipient■s address (also if that is a node), if it was not in
the UUCP address. So, you can safely use a point number for
your gateway.
WaterGate manual [page 42]
Other system menu options
-------------------------
Private mail settings
---------------------
Scanning through your mail areas, wondering if anybody wrote
you a message can become quite a tedious job if you subscribe
to lots of areas. And then there all the areas that pass
through your system but aren't imported, so you'll never know
if somebody isn't desperately trying to give you that "change
of a lifetime <tm>" (Starting to feel a little paranoid?)
Well fear no more! Simply select "Private Mail Options" from
the "System Settings Menu". Choose what kind of messagebase
you want to use to store those private messages, or select
NONE to disable all private mail copying. Make sure you enter
a correct path for the base! You need to enter a directory
name for *.MSG or a complete path plus filename (without
extension!) for JAM and Squish.
WaterGate is capable of scanning for messages TO or FROM a
certain user, or with a certain SUBJECT. Comparisons are case-
insensitive, so 'Spock', 'SPOCK' and 'SpOcK' should all work
OK.
The search strings you enter don't have to match what you■re
searching for completely. For example, "Ramon" will find all
messages, either to my e-mail address ramon@wsd.wline.se, or
my munged address Ramon.van.der.Winkel@p33.wline.se, or even
when somebody uses my name (even misspelled) in a subject,
like "What I think about Ramona". If the search string you
enter can be found in the searched lines, then you have a
match.
The matching messages are completely copied into the
messagebase, preceded by a short notice that the message was
copied.
The private mail scan searches incoming netmail, echomail,
mail, and news. Messages that are leaving your message bases
are not scanned, although certain constructions might cause a
hit on those messages as well.
It is also possible to decode files from messages written to
the message base connected to this private scan area. This is
currently limited to *.MSG only though.
WaterGate manual [page 43]
Logfile settings
----------------
WaterGate is capable of logging a lot of things. Not only
error messages, but also progress of tossing for both Fidonet
and UUCP. These progress log lines can take up an awful lot of
logfile and you might not even be interested in them at all.
If you select "Logfile settings" from the "System Settings"
sub-menu of WtrConf, then you can toggle various logging
information generators on and off.
If you want to debug your WaterGate configuration, you can
choose to set the Debug option to YES, which will
automatically enable all other options you can set.
Currently, you can disable a number of 10 or so of the logfile
information generators, but more will be added in the future.
WaterGate manual [page 44]
Administrator
-------------
The administrator user maintains the WaterGate program and the
flow of messages. In case of trouble, the administrator should
solve things.
To support a "remote" administrator, the administrator address
was built in. You can either have a UUCP style administrator
or Fidonet style administrator, which require different
addresses.
Following is the configuration screen for the Administrator
Settings.
+-----------------------------------------------------+
| Administrator Settings |
| |
| Address type disable FIDO uucp |
| |
| Fido username WaterGate Administrator |
| Fido address 1:2/3.4 |
| |
| E-mail address |
| |
| Send log? no YES |
| |
| (more to come in future releases) |
+-----------------------------------------------------+
At this moment, you can only use the administrator to send it
a copy of the part of the logfile that was last added by the
wtrgate.exe or wtrgated.exe program.
In future, it will be possible to use the administrator to
help WaterGate in its decisions on where to send mail
messages, and possible to edit the configuration.
WaterGate manual [page 45]
Groups
------
Before discussing message area setup, it is important to know
about groups.
If you have a lot of areas, there might be a few that you
don't want all the users to read, for example the SysOp areas.
Because users can connect and disconnect areas themselves,
using AreaFix or newsfix, there has to be a way to
differentiate these areas from each other.
If you are in more than one network, it is also important to
keep the areas of the different networks separated. Every
network has its own AKAs that have to be used in messages
written in those networks. If you connect some of these areas
to UUCP, the correct AKA has to be used when a message is
gated from UUCP.
WaterGate uses "groups" to keep the areas separated. The
groups are named A through Z, where Z is a special group for
automatically created new areas. You can enter a description
for each of the groups, so it is easy to tell them apart, and
you can select a "Default origin AKA" for every group.
You can then select which areas belong in which groups. It is
also possible for an area to be in more than one group at a
time.
You can give your users access to some of the groups. They can
then use AreaFix or newsfix to connect areas that are in those
groups and nothing else.
It is also possible to make a group read-only. This means that
users can connect to an area in that group and receive
messages from it, but cannot write a message back. If you only
want this for some of your users, you can put these areas in
two groups: one read-only and one read/write. If you put an
area in a read-only group, you have to put it in a read/write
area as well or your uplink will not be able to deliver any
messages to this area.
You can edit the group descriptions, default origin AKA, and
read-only flag via the "Group descriptions" option in
WtrConf's main menu.
WaterGate manual [page 46]
Creating Areas
--------------
This section explains in detail how to create an area. An area
can be either a Fidonet echomail area or a Usenet newsgroup.
It is possible for both Fidonet style users and UUCP style
users to be subscribed (as we call it) to the same area. If a
message has to be sent to both UUCP and Fidonet style users,
WaterGate automatically translates the message.
So, if you want to give your points access to newsgroups, then
just create the areas and subscribe the points to them. It
works the same the other way around: if you want a UUCP system
to receive Fidonet echomail, then just create the area and
connect the UUCP user.
This has two advantages. First, you only have to define an
area once and, second, WaterGate can bundle the message very
quickly. If it is an echomail message, WaterGate first bundles
it for all subscribed Fidonet users, then translates it (if
there are any connected UUCP users), and finally bundles it
for all the UUCP users. (In fact, WaterGate can even be
extended to use another formats in the future and was designed
with that in mind).
To create a new area, select "Area definitions" from WtrConf's
main menu. You will then be presented with a list of all 26
groups (A to Z). Select one group (or more, using tagging)
that you want to see all the areas from. Then press enter.
If you have a lot of areas (1000+), it might take a while
before the list with all the areas names has been constructed.
It is possible to abort this by pressing Escape. But in the
end, you will have a sorted list with all the areas and the
header line of the lists will show the groups you selected.
You can now press Insert to add a new area, or press the
Delete key to remove one. If you want to look at one or edit
it, highlight it and press the Enter button. If you want to go
back to the previous menu, just press Escape.
After pressing Enter or Insert, you are presented with the
screen on the following page. It contains all the settings you
can change for a certain area. You can use the up and down
cursor keys to move through all the fields. If you want to
change a field, you have to press Enter first.
If you want to exit the screen, you can press Escape or F10
(escape is more like abort, but they act the same). If you are
creating a new area, you are asked if you want to save the new
area. If you select Yes, certain fields have to be filled in
correctly and WtrConf checks that for you.
WaterGate manual [page 47]
Some of the fields contain the text "<press enter to ...>". If
the cursor is on one of these fields and you press enter to
edit it, you will be presented another screen. The same thing
happens when you edit the "In groups" field.
+---------------------------------------------+
| Fido name ALT.BBS.WATERGATE |
| Usenet name ALT.BBS.WATERGATE |
| Comment WaterGate support area |
| Area type ECHO net local |
| In groups A |
| Subscribers <press enter to see list> |
| Allow Passive no YES |
| Passive NO yes |
| Origin BOFH is watching you! |
| Custom |
| Origin AKA 2:280/802 |
| Add SEEN-BY <press enter to see list> |
| Moderated NONE use |
| Moderator |
| Fido base none msg squish JAM |
| Fido path W:\MSGS\ABWG |
| Fido age 5 |
| Fido limit 200 |
| Decode files no ON IMPORT |
| Files path D:\DECODED\ABWG\ |
+---------------------------------------------+
Area name
---------
The first two lines of the screen hold the area names for
Fidonet and Usenet. Normally these names will be the same, but
is possible to change the name of an area. We could change the
Fido name to "WTRGATE.028", for example.
If you enter a name in the "Fido name" field, and there is no
name in the "Usenet name" field, it is automatically copied.
The same thing happens if you enter an area name in the Usenet
name field and the Fido name field is empty. This saves you
some typing and prevents errors.
Comment
-------
You can use the Comment field to describe the message flow in
this area. This line is put in lists that AreaFix or newsfix
create, to make it is easy for your users to see which area
might be interesting to connect.
WaterGate manual [page 48]
Area type
---------
There are three types of areas: echo, net, and local. "Local"
is an area that is connected to a message base on your
harddisk (more on that later), "net" stands for netmail. This
way you can define other-than-the-primary netmail areas. The
usual setting though is "echo", which stands for Echomail.
Echo is also the option if you want to say "passthrough",
although all areas are passthrough until you connect them to a
message base (explained below).
In groups
---------
This field shows all the groups to which this area belongs. If
you press Enter to edit this field, the line turns into a list
with not only the group letter, but also the full description.
To add another group, press Insert and select (with Enter) a
group from the other list that pops up. To remove the area
from a group, select the group and press the Delete key. You
can also use tagging to add or remove more than one group at a
time.
Subscribers
-----------
If you press enter on this field, you will be presented with a
list of the users connected to the area. You can use the
Insert key to add a user or the Delete key to remove a user;
you can also tag lists of users to add or remove. If you try
to remove a user, WtrConf asks you to confirm your choice.
If you want to add a user, WtrConf scans the configured users
and only lists the users that are allowed to connect the area.
These users must be allowed in a group that contains this
area.
If you are finished editing the list of subscribed users, you
can press Escape to exit the list and return to the area
screen.
Allow passive
-------------
If nobody is subscribed to an area anymore, you can let
WaterGate send a message to the provider (uplink) of the area
and have it disconnected, thereby saving you transmission
costs for an area that nobody reads.
If this options is set to NO, WaterGate will never disconnect
the area. This is especially useful for local messagebases.
WaterGate assumes that the last person connected to the area
(when everybody else has disconnected it) is the provider.
WaterGate manual [page 49]
Passive
-------
This field shows the current state of the area. If it has been
disconnected from your uplink, WaterGate sets it to YES. If it
is still connected, it is on NO. You can toggle this setting
manually, but no message will be sent to your uplink. (Future
versions will do this, after asking for confirmation.)
Origin
------
You can select which system origin line will be used for this
area. You can also select Custom and enter a special origin
line for this area in the next field.
The origin line is put at the bottom of a message when
WaterGate translates a message from UUCP to Fidonet, or when
it exports a message from a messagebase and no origin line is
present.
Custom
------
You can enter a custom origin line for this area in this
field. To activate it, you also have to set the previous field
to "Custom".
Origin AKA
----------
Every area belongs to a certain network. Here you can select
your system AKA for the network this area belongs to. When you
create a new area, the AKA is copied from the "Default origin
AKA" of the first group that includes this area. This AKA is
also put at the end of an origin line.
Add SEEN-BY
-----------
If your system has more than one AKA in a network and you want
other AKA■s to be added to the SEEN-BY list, you can select
them in this list. You have to press Enter first to see the
list. The Origin AKA for this area is always added to the
SEEN-BY line and doesn't need to be put in this list.
Moderated and Moderator
-----------------------
These two fields relate to Usenet. If an area is moderated,
then all new messages for an area have to be sent to the
moderator first. If the moderator approves the message, it is
then sent to the newsgroup.
WaterGate manual [page 50]
If a new message arrives in a moderated area without an
■Approved:■ header, WaterGate converts the message into a UUCP
e-mail and sends it to the moderator. If no moderator is
defined for the newsgroup, it is sent to the backbone defined
in the System configuration section, which defaults to
"berkeley.edu". For example, a message in ALT.BBS.XYZ is sent
to ALT-BBS-XYZ@Berkeley.edu.
If you are unsure about any of this, DON'T USE THIS OPTION;
let another system upstream take care of it. If someone you
know moderates the area, enter his address in the "Moderator"
field.
Fido base and path
------------------
If you want all messages in the area to be put in a
messagebase as well as being passed on to subscribers, you can
select the type of the message base in the "Fido base" field
and fill in the path to the message base in "Fido path". You
can select a message base type from *.MSG, Squish, and JAM.
For a *.MSG area you need to fill in the complete directory
name; for Squish and JAM you also need to include a filename
(without extension).
Fido age and limit
------------------
You can use WtrUtil to automatically clean the messagebases.
If certain messages are too old or there are too many messages
in an area, they can be removed automatically.
You can enter the maximum age of a message (in days) in the
"Fido age" field and the maximum number of messages that can
be in an area at any one time in "Fido limit".
Note that when there are too many message in an area, the
oldest messages are deleted first. The deletion is not
automatic: you have to use WtrUtil to remove them.
If you don't want to remove messages by age or limit, you can
set the field to 0.
WaterGate manual [page 51]
Decode files
------------
WaterGate can automatically detect and decode UU-encoded, XX-
encoded and MIME encoded files from messages. It extract the
file and saves it to disk.
It does this when the messages is imported into a message
base. This prevents the messages from being split in numerous
smaller parts which you otherwise had to put together and
decode manually.
Using this option you can enable and disable the automatic
decoding of files from messages that are imported into this
message base.
Notice that WaterGate currently only support extracting files
from messages that are imported into a *.MSG base. JAM and
Squish support will follow in a future version.
Files path
----------
The automatically decoded files can be stored in a different
location (download area?!) for each message base. You can
enter the path to that directory in this field.
WaterGate manual [page 52]
Adding Users
------------
A user in the WaterGate system represents a system with which
you exchange messages. There are three different types of
users:
- Fidonet
- UUCP
- Bag supplier
The difference between the three users is the message
transport system. A Fidonet style user basically uses .PKT
files, a UUCP user uses the UUCP mechanism, and a Bag supplier
only sends messages to you in .BAG files, which are usually
Usenet messages received from a satellite.
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 UUCPname 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 whether the
user is a Fidonet, UUCP, or Bag supplier style user. 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 three screens differ quite a bit from each other, they
will be described separately.
WaterGate manual [page 53]
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 interact with UUCP. 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
almost like this (three lines where moved to the left to make
it more readable)
+-[Fido style user]---------------------------------+
| Address 2:200/112.15 |
| SysOp Ramon van der Winkel |
| Organization Waterline Software Development |
| Allowed groups ABC OP |
| Subscribed to <press enter to see list> |
| AreaFix password verysecret |
| AreaFix special NO yes |
| Create new areas NO yes |
| Passive NO yes |
| PKT password wsdpkt |
| Compression arc arj lzh pak ZIP zoo op1 pkt |
| Send format NORMAL hold crash direct |
| Max. PKT length 0 |
| Export AKA Automatic |
| UUCP name wsd |
| World registered NO yes |
| Allow sub-domains no YES |
| Domain addresses wsd.wline.se |
| admin.wline.se |
| |
| |
| |
| |
+---------------------------------------------------+
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.
WaterGate manual [page 54]
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!
WaterGate manual [page 55]
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 authorised
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.
WaterGate manual [page 56]
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 NEWSFILTER option 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.
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.
WaterGate manual [page 57]
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.
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.
World Registered
----------------
If the UUCPname 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 UUCPname 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 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 UUCPname, 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. As you can see,
the last part of this line is the UUCPname. That is why it is
so important to set the UUCPname.
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.
WaterGate manual [page 58]
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 UUCPname.
+-[UUCP style user]---------------------------+
| Organization CyberSpace AB |
| Allowed groups AB JKL |
| Subscribed to <press enter to see list> |
| Passive NO yes |
| NewsFix password verysecret |
| NewsFix special NO yes |
| New Area-create NO yes |
| Compress none compress ZIP |
| Add batch header no YES |
| UUCP name cyber |
| World registered NO yes |
| Allow sub-domains NO yes |
| Domain addresses cyberspace.wline.se |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
+---------------------------------------------+
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
--------
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 ZIP
(better know as 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.
WaterGate manual [page 59]
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 mayby 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 crossposted, WaterGate
checks for the existence of all the areas to which the message
was crossposted. If they don't exist, it creates the area.
Unfortunately, messages are not only crossposted 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.
WaterGate manual [page 60]
Bag supplier
------------
A BAG supplier is a system that creates files with the names
NEWS0001.BAG, NEWS0002.BAG, etc. These files are just like
UUCP .D files.
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!
+-[BAG supplier]---------------------------------------+
| Organization WSD brings you news from a dish! |
| Allowed groups A |
| Subscribed to <press enter to see list> |
| New Area-create no YES |
| Return system wtrlnd |
| UUCP name satdish |
| World Registered NO yes |
| Allow sub-domains NO yes |
| Domain addresses satdish.wsd.wlink.nl |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
+------------------------------------------------------+
All fields in this screen have already been described in
"Fidonet style user" and "UUCP style user". The only new field
in this screen is the 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 a user of a system and
enter the UUCPname of that system in this field.
Why it works like this is because of the basic way WaterGate
uses to distribute messages. When somebody posts a messages in
an area, everybody connected to that area receives the
message. To be able to post in an area, you have to be
connected to it. So, the BAG system has to be connected to the
area in order to deliver messages. But postings from other
users will then be sent back. The return system user is used
to send messages back to the real system, in stead of via the
satellite.
WaterGate manual [page 61]
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!
WaterGate manual [page 62]
The List Server
---------------
The List Server is an automatic message distribution part of
WaterGate that handles mailing lists. A mailing list is a list
of e-mail and netmail addresses of people that are interested
in that particular mailing list. If a message is distributed
by the list server, everybody on that list receives a copy of
the message.
So, you can see a mailing list as a more private echomail area
or newsgroup. The advantage is that all the intermediate
systems don't need to define that particular echo or
newsgroup, and users who can receive mail but not news can
also participate. WaterGate can handle up to 65000+ mailing
lists.
The biggest advantage of mailing lists is the control of who
can posts messages to it and not having to read all the spam
postings that you find in the newsgroups nowadays.
Subscribing to a mailing list
-----------------------------
To subscribe to a mailing list, a user has to send a message
to the list server, which can be addressed as "listserv" or
"listserver", at any of your system AKAs or at any of your
system domain addresses, for example:
ListServer at 2:280/803
or
listserver@wsd.wlink.nl
You can request the list server to perform certain actions for
you, just like AreaFix. It doesn't matter if you send a
message to the list server via e-mail or via netmail. You use
the same commands and you put them in the body of the message.
The end of the message is indicated by a tear-line, so don't
put any other lines in the message, like "Hi!" or "Bye,",
because the list server will try to interpret them as
commands.
The following commands are available:
LIST Request the list server to send a list of all
possible mailing lists available at this system.
HELP Ask the list server to send you information on using
the list server. This information is also sent
automatically if a user sends an unknown command (or
something like "Hi!").
(continued on the next page)
WaterGate manual [page 63]
CONNECT listname
SUBSCRIBE listname Two commands that both put the
sender's address on the requested
mailing list.
DISCONNECT listname
UNSUBSCRIBE listname Two commands that remove the sender's
address from the requested mailing
list.
Notice that the sender's address, or more accurately the reply
address, is very important for the list server, as it is put
on the mailing list! This is especially important for a UUCP
e-mail message, which has to have a proper Reply-To:, Sender:,
or From: header (in that order).
As soon as a user receives a reply from the list server
indicating that he has been put on the list, he can send a
message to the mailing list to have it distributed. Since your
system might have more than one mailing list, the message must
be sent to the name of the mailing list, on one of your system
AKAs or system domain addresses, for example:
WaterGate@wsd.wlink.nl
or
WaterGate at 2:280/803
Names of mailing lists are commonly given the extension -L, to
indicate that it is a mailing list and not a normal user. Our
own mailing list doesn't have a name like that yet, but if it
did, the name would be WaterGate-l@wsd.wlink.nl.
Notice that you MUST NOT put the domain address in the name of
the mailing list. Just "WaterGate-L" is all you have to enter.
The first system domain address is added automatically.
Setting up a mailing list
-------------------------
To create your own mailing list, select the "Mailing list
definitions" option from WtrConf's main menu. The names of all
the mailing lists that are currently defined on your system
will then be listed.
You can add a list by pressing the Insert key, or remove a
list by pressing the Delete key. The Escape key returns you to
the main menu. If you want to edit a mailing list definition,
you have to press the Enter key.
WaterGate manual [page 64]
When editing a (new) mailing list definition, the following
screen is used:
+-----------------------------------------------+
| List name : WaterGate |
| Description : WaterGate Support mailing list |
| Welcome file: c:\wsd\wtrgate\wg_hej.txt |
| Private list: yes NO |
| Only Known : yes NO |
| Active : YES no |
| AKA : 2:280/803 |
| |
| Area name : WLINK.WATERGATE |
| Echo to List: YES no |
| List to Echo: YES no |
| |
| Subscribers : <enter to edit> |
+-----------------------------------------------+
List name
---------
Enter the name of the mailing list here. This name has to be
unique on your system, so make sure there are no users with
the same name! You might want to put -L at the end of the
name, to indicate that it is a mailing list and reduce the
chance of it being the same as a user's e-mail address.
You MUST NOT type in a domain address here. The first system
domain address is added automatically when sending to a UUCP
system. Remember that the mailing list is accessable from
within Fidonet as well, so don't type in a domain address!!
Description
-----------
You can use the description line to describe this mailing
list. This line is used in the lists the list server sends in
response to the LIST command.
Welcome file
------------
The welcome file is sent when someone connects to this list.
It should contain some information about the mailing list: the
purpose, the language to use, and how to disconnect from it.
The welcome file is a normal ASCII textfile and can contain
tokens, just like the AreaFix and newsfix .TXT files. See the
chapter "Installing the .TXT files" and appendix A for more
information on tokens.
WaterGate manual [page 65]
Private list
------------
This toggle defines whether the list is private or not.
Private lists do not show up in the list of public mailing
lists that people can connect to using the list server. You
have to maintain (connect/disconnect people) private lists
manually.
Only known
----------
If you set this toggle to YES, only systems that are defined
in your userbase can connect to the list. This is a middle way
between public access (Private list to NO) and complete manual
access (Private list to YES).
Active
------
This toggle determines whether this list is currently active.
A disabled list is completely ignored and hidden by your
system.
It won't show up in the lists and users can neither connect to
nor disconnect from it.
AKA
---
Select a system AKA for messages sent into Fidonet. This AKA
is used as a From address for all messages sent by this list.
This will be changed in a future release, because the List
Server is addressable on all your system AKAs. It will then
use the most closely matching system AKA when replying to the
message sender. This AKA will then be used when a message is
sent to the list from UUCP and has to be translated to
Fidonet. It is currently also used when a message is
translated to an echomail message, but that will change also,
since areas have an Origin AKA.
WaterGate manual [page 66]
Area name
---------
It is possible to connect a mailing list to an echomail area.
This gives you several extra abilities, such as connecting a
messagebase to a mailing list.
Echo to list
------------
This toggle determines whether WaterGate allows message that
were written in the area (or messagebase) to be sent out on
the mailing list.
List to echo
------------
If you set this option to YES, WaterGate will copy all the
messages that were distributed via the mailing list to the
area as well (and into the messagebase, if it is connected to
one).
Subscribers
-----------
If you press Enter on this field, you will be presented with a
list of addresses of all the users that are currently
connected to this mailing list. You can edit the list manually
with the Insert, Delete, and Enter keys.
WaterGate differentiates between UUCP and Fidonet users. UUCP
users need an e-mail address; Fidonet users need a full name
and an AKA.
Forwarding a mailing list you receive into an area
--------------------------------------------------
Some people are connected to one or more mailing lists and
want the messages that are received from that mailing list to
end up in an echomail area, so people can read it on a BBS,
for example.
To do this, you will set up an mailing list and an area and
connect the two. All messages received from the mailing list
go into your own mailing list and are distributed there. You
don't connect anybody, but just link it to the area.
There are two ways to get this two work. The first way is to
create a mailing list with the same name you receive the
messages as. The second is to create whatever mailing list
name you like and use a MAP-UUCP statement to map the incoming
messages to the mailing list name. Both are explained below.
In our example, we are receiving messages as from the mailing
list daily-weather@seismic.com and we have subscribed as
daily-weather@wsd.wline.se. If you have subscribed using your
normal e-mail address, then you are in trouble, because it is
not possible to extract the mailing list messages from your
WaterGate manual [page 67]
normal mail flow. You will have to change the e-mail address
you receive your messages at.
We want to get these messages into an area which we have
created, called DAILY_WEATHER.
The first step is to create a new mailing list. Go to the
Mailing List definitions in WtrConf and press the Insert key
to add a new mailing list. Give it the name "daily-weather".
We now have a mailing list that is connected to the e-mail
address
daily-weather@one-of-your-system-domain-addresses, where the
part after the @ can be any of your system domain addresses.
In my case wsd.wline.se.
All we have to do now is link the mailing list to the area.
Type in the name of the area in the "Area name" field. In our
example DAILY_WEATHER. Then set "List to echo" to YES and you
are done.
In the case where you receive the messages from the mailing
list with an different address as then name you want to use
for your mailing list, then simply add a MAP-UUCP statement to
the ROUTE.TDB file that translates the incoming e-mail address
and changes it into an other.
For example, you receive the messages as "dailyrain" and you
want to call your mailing list "daily-weather", then use the
following mapping statement:
MAP-UUCP dailyrain daily-weather
And you are done.
Leave the option "Echo to list" to NO, or messages posting in
the area will be sent to the mailing list! And if you don't
want anybody else to connect to the mailing list using the
list server, then set "Allow remote" to NO.
WaterGate manual [page 68]
The Gateway
-----------
This chapter describes the operation and use of the gateway.
The chapter "Gateway settings" (loads of pages back) describes
how to configure it.
The gateway is where messages are translated between the
Fidonet and UUCP formats. There are different gateways for the
echomail<->news translation and the netmail<->mail
translation.
The echomail<->news gateway
---------------------------
This gateway is used automatically when a message is sent in
an area from the Fidonet side and a UUCP style user is also
connected to that area; or the other way around, when a
message is sent to an area from the UUCP side and a Fidonet
style user is connected to the area.
The message is then translated into the other format and sent
out. When distributing a message in an area, the message is
first sent to all connected users in the same style and if any
users in the other style were found, the message is translated
and then sent to all those users.
Gating echomail to news
-----------------------
When an echomail message is translated to a news message, a
number of actions are performed on the message. For example,
all the kludge lines are removed, the high-ASCII values in the
body of the message are translated using the ASCII conversion
table, the date format is converted and the day-of-the-week
and a time-zone are added, all addresses are translated, a
valid UUCP header is put at the beginning of the message, the
tear-line, origin-line, PATH and SEEN-BY lines are removed,
and a signature might be added.
Gating news to echomail
-----------------------
When a news message has to be translated to an echomail
message, a number of actions are performed on the message. Not
as much as when translating in the other direction, but in
short the header lines are removed or copied to the fido
message as kludge lines or body text, the date format is
converted, the addresses are converted, the body text is
copied without change, special kludge lines are added, and a
tear-line, origin line, PATH line, and SEEN-BY line are added.
What is important to know about this gateway is that it works
automatically when it has to be used.
WaterGate manual [page 69]
The netmail<->mail gateway
--------------------------
This gateway handles the translation between the Fidonet
netmail style of messages and UUCP style mail messages. The
translation is more complex than the echomail<->news
translation.
What is important to know about this gateway is that it does
not always work automatically. If you use certain settings and
addressing formats, it works automatically. If you don't use
them, you have to send your messages to a specific address and
username to have it translated.
Using the gateway with netmail
------------------------------
If you are on Fidonet and you want to send a message to
someone via UUCP, you have to know the address. Say that I am
"Ramon van der Winkel" at 2:280/802.33 and I want to send a
message to martijn@dijkline.wlink.nl. I will have to write a
netmail message; it is then sent to the gateway (WaterGate),
which translates it and forms it into a mail message, and then
it is sent out on the UUCP side.
You can put the UUCP address in the To: field of the netmail
message. WaterGate will recognize it as a UUCP address and
then automatically gate the message. The "Gateway TO:" option
has to be set to YES to enable this.
There are occasions when the complete UUCP address does not
fit in the To: field, for example when using QWK, which has a
shorter To: field, or when the address is simply too long. In
that case, you have to send the netmail to the WaterGate
program and put the UUCP address on the first line of the body
of the message, preceded by "To:", like this:
To: martijn@dijkline.wlink.nl.
The AKA to which the netmail must be addressed is set in the
Gateway Settings screen. The first field contains the AKA you
want to use for the gateway. The second field holds the name
of the user to which the netmail should be addressed. This
defaults to "UUCP" and your first system AKA.
To return to the example above, the complete netmail message
header would then be:
From: Ramon van der Winkel 2:280/802.33
To: UUCP 44:230/40
Subj: Test
---------------------------------------------------------
TO: martijn@dijkline.wlink.nl
Hi Dijk!
...
WaterGate manual [page 70]
The name "UUCP" and the AKA are configured like this in the
Gateway settings screen.
If the UUCP address fits in the To: field, I still have to put
in the AKA of the gateway (44:230/40 in this example). The
netmail would then look like this:
From: Ramon van der Winkel 2:280/802.33
To: martijn@dijkline.wlink.nl 44:230/40
Subj: Test
---------------------------------------------------------
Hi Dijk!
...
Fidonet address to e-mail address translation
---------------------------------------------
When a message is translated by the gateway, the Fidonet
address of the sender of the message must be translated to a
valid UUCP address.
Remember that a Fidonet address consists of the full name of
the user (for example "Ramon van der Winkel") and an Fidonet
address, also known as an AKA (for example 2:280/802.33).
The UUCP address consists of two parts: the username (for
example "ramon") and the domain part (for example
"wsd.wlink.nl"), which are added together to form the full e-
mail address user@domain (for example ramon@wsd.wlink.nl).
When a netmail is received at your system that has to be
gated, there are five possible situations:
1 - The user and his AKA are both unknown to your system.
2 - A Fidonet style user record exists for this AKA, without
the UUCPname and domain addresses filled in. The full
name of the user does not matter.
3 - A Fidonet style user record exists for this AKA, with the
UUCPname and domain addresses filled in. The full name of
the user does not matter.
4 - A mapping statement exists in the ROUTE.TDB file for this
AKA. The full name of the user does not matter.
5 - A mapping statement exists in the ROUTE.TDB file for this
AKA and this particular full name.
Each of these situations will be described below, with
examples of the e-mail address. Remember that the most
important thing about the e-mail address is that it can be
used to reply to the message. When somebody replies to the
message, then all the required information has to be available
in the UUCP address to translate it back to the full Fidonet
address and user name.
WaterGate manual [page 71]
Unknown AKA and full name
-------------------------
If the fido user is not known to your system, or in other
words, there is no fido style user in your database with this
AKA and there is no mapping statement in your ROUTE.TDB file,
then WaterGate uses the most ugly form possible for the e-mail
address.
The full name and the AKA of this user have to be reflected in
the e-mail address. For example:
---------------------------------------------------------
Gateway AKA: 2:280/802
1st system domain address: wsd.wlink.nl
Full name: Ramon van der Winkel
AKA: 2:512/10.5
After translation:
Ramon_van_der_Winkel@z2.n512.f10.p5.wsd.wlink.nl
Or with small addresses set to YES:
Ramon_van_der_Winkel@n512.f10.p5.wsd.wlink.nl
---------------------------------------------------------
User record, without domain address
-----------------------------------
If the AKA of the sending user is present in your userbase,
that is, the user has sent the message from one of your
neighboring systems, for example a point or node, but this
record has no UUCPname and domain address, then the
translation is just like the first situation, in which the
user was not known to your system at all.
---------------------------------------------------------
Gateway AKA: 2:280/802
1st system domain address: wsd.wlink.nl
Full name: Ramon van der Winkel
AKA: 2:280/801
After translation:
Ramon_van_der_Winkel@z2.n280.f801.wsd.wlink.nl
Or with small addresses set to YES:
Ramon_van_der_Winkel@f801.wsd.wlink.nl
---------------------------------------------------------
WaterGate manual [page 72]
The only difference is that the address of the user is
probably closer to your address, because it is one of your
neighbor systems. This can shorten the e-mail address.
User record with domain address
-------------------------------
In this case, a record exists in your userbase with the
sending user's AKA, and you have defined a UUCPname and domain
address for this user.
This improves the translation, because the AKA does not have
to be put in the domain address anymore. The domain address
from the user record is used instead.
Some examples:
---------------------------------------------------------
Gateway AKA: 2:280/802
1st system domain address: wlink.nl
Full name: Ramon van der Winkel
AKA: 2:280/803.33
Domain address: wsd.wlink.nl
After translation:
Ramon_van_der_Winkel@wsd.wlink.nl
---------------------------------------------------------
The same situation occurs when a local netmail is created with
one of the system AKAs. WaterGate then uses the first system
domain address. For example:
---------------------------------------------------------
Gateway AKA: 2:280/802
1st system domain address: wlink.nl
Full name: Ramon van der Winkel
AKA: 2:280/802
After translation:
Ramon_van_der_Winkel@wlink.nl
---------------------------------------------------------
Notice that the only "ugly" thing about this address is the
full name that has been translated. It is perfectly possible
to use a full name like "ramon", though, instead of "Ramon van
der Winkel".
WaterGate manual [page 73]
Mapping statement, without full name
------------------------------------
In this fourth situation it doesn't matter whether the user is
known to your system. A MAP-UUCP statement in the ROUTE.TDB
file tells WaterGate to translate the AKA to a domain address,
just as if a user record existed with the UUCPname and domain
addresses filled in.
This should be used for non-neighboring systems that you want
to give special domain addresses for use in UUCP. Don't put
bangpaths in the MAP-UUCP statements!
Example:
---------------------------------------------------------
Full name: Ramon van der Winkel
AKA: 2:512/10.5
Mapping statement in the ROUTE.TDB file:
MAP-UUCP faraway.wsd.wlink.nl 2:512/10.5
After translation:
Ramon_van_der_Winkel@faraway.wsd.wlink.nl
---------------------------------------------------------
Notice that the gateway AKA is no longer important for the
address translation, and neither is the system domain address.
The netmail still has to be sent to the gateway AKA, of
course.
WaterGate manual [page 74]
Mapping statement, with full name
---------------------------------
All the examples up to now still had the original full name of
the sender of the message as the user name of the e-mail
address. This can be changed by using an extended MAP-UUCP
statement in ROUTE.TDB.
Notice that it is not possible to use a MAP-FIDO statement to
change the name of the sender, because MAP-FIDO statements
only work on To: fields of a netmail message, not From:
fields.
The extended MAP-UUCP mapping is actually the most common way
to give a Fidonet user an e-mail address. An example follows:
---------------------------------------------------------
Full name: Ramon van der Winkel
AKA: 2:512/10.5
Mapping statement in the ROUTE.TDB file:
MAP-UUCP ramon@wsd.wlink.nl "Ramon van der Winkel"%2:512/10.5
After translation:
ramon@wsd.wlink.nl
---------------------------------------------------------
Once again is the gateway AKA not important for the address
translation.
Notice that the mapping statements we have used so far are
working in both directions. What other options you have with
these mapping statements will be explained later.
Notice that if you only use a mapping statement for a user
with a user record and you don't fill in the UUCPname and
domain address fields, this user can only be addressed with
this e-mail address.
If you put a UUCPname and domain address in the user record,
all mail to whatever user at that domain will be sent to the
user's AKA (think about spelling problems). You might want to
use a combination.
Creating UUCP message headers in the netmail
--------------------------------------------
WaterGate allows you to put header lines in the netmail
message, which are then copied to the UUCP message. An example
could be "X-Info: Oh coolness!".
The headers have to be in the netmail messages as the first
lines. If you have a To: line in the message, then this must
be the first line of the message.
WaterGate manual [page 75]
WaterGate only copies header lines up to an empty line or an
invalid header line. All other lines go in the body of the
UUCP message.
An valid UUCP header line start with a capital, has no spaces
in it, ends with a colon (":") and a space and is followed
with at least on line of text. The header line itself (before
the colon) has to be two characters at least.
Further, WaterGate does not allow the following system header
lines. These will be ignored.
To:
From:
Path:
Message-ID:
Newsgroups:
Subject:
Date:
But it is very valid to use any other header line, for
example:
Reply-To:
Sender:
Approved:
References:
etc.
It is advised that you put "X-" before the headerlines that
you make up yourself.
Apart from just copying all the header lines and removing them
from the body of the message, WaterGate now also deletes the
first empty line it finds at the start of the message, or just
behind the header lines. Usually, when you write a netmail to
a UUCP receipant, you keep an empty line between the TO: and
the "Hi!" line. This line used to show up in the mail message
as an extra empty line after the empty line that separates the
header lines and the body of the UUCP message. Not anymore.
Personally, I find that this hides even more the fact that the
message was created on a Fidonet system!
WaterGate manual [page 76]
Using the gateway with mail
---------------------------
If you are on UUCP and you want to send a message to somebody
on Fidonet, you have to send it to his address. There are two
general options for this. (In fact there are five options, as
mentioned in "Using the gateway with netmail").
In the first case, the user has a mapping statement on a
WaterGate system, which means that you can send the message to
a UUCP address and let WaterGate takes care of the
translation. Easy.
In the other case, where you know only the user■s full name
and a Fidonet address, for example "Ramon van der Winkel" at
2:280/802.33, you have to use a special e-mail address that
WaterGate will detect, after which it translates the message.
This address looks like this:
Ramon_van_der_Winkel@z2.n280.f802.p33.wlink.nl
The full name has been put in front of the of the @-sign and
the spaces in that name have been converted to underscores.
This underscore can be configured, so don't be surprised if
someone sends you a message from a WaterGate system with
different characters there.
The part after the @-sign is the destination address. The
Zone, Net, Node, and Point number have been coded in a special
form, as above. The last part of the address has to be one of
WaterGate's system domain addresses. This part is the address
of a system you know that runs WaterGate.
Some systems also allow "fidonet.org" as the last part of the
address. This only works if the UUCP provider and the
smarthost in the neighborhood of that system know that it
handles mail for that address. If this is not the case, the
message will be sent to a site somewhere in the world (such as
1:1/31) that handles fidonet.org as well, after which it is
translated to a Fidonet message and then has to travel all the
way through Fidonet to get to its destination. That is not
what you want.
Please talk to your UUCP provider if you want to be a public
UUCP <-> Fidonet gateway for your neighborhood. You have to
add "fidonet.org" to your list of system domain addresses to
get this to work.
The best way to find out the e-mail address of a Fidonet user
is to let him send a message to you first, so you can see the
address.
WaterGate manual [page 77]
The ROUTE.TDB file and its options
----------------------------------
Although you can set a wide range of options in the
configuration program, there is also a wide gray area of
things it can't control. The ROUTE.TDB file is not only used
to configure your system■s routing, but has some additional
functions. You can use it to:
- Make routing exceptions for certain systems.
- Add signatures to Usenet news messages
- Map certain messages to other people.
- Allow special addresses for yourself or other people.
- Put restrictions on the use of the gateway
All this and more can be configured in the plain ASCII
textfile called ROUTE.TDB, that you can edit with MS-DOS's
"EDIT", for example.
In this ROUTE.TDB file, you can use the following commands:
ROUTE-FIDO This command is used to route fido netmail
messages through certain systems.
ROUTE-UUCP This is nearly the same, but for routing UUCP
mail messages through different UUCP up- and
downlinks.
MAP-FIDO When a netmail message is received for a
certain user, you can map it to another user,
possibly at another fido system.
MAP-UUCP Besides mapping UUCP mail messages to other
systems, this command is also used to assign
different sender addresses to fido users.
FORBID-FIDO You can forbid a certain fido user, a group of
users, or everybody to use the gateway.
ALLOW-FIDO After forbidding a group of people to use the
gateway you can make an exception for one or
more users or systems.
SIGNATURE Most UUCP messages have a small signature part
with some general (brag) information about the
person writing the message or the service
provider. Use this command to automatically add
signature files to all messages created by a
user or a system.
NEWSFILTER Name of the file that contains the newsgroup
names that you want to create automatically or
not.
SENDFILE You can use this statement to let WtrGate reply
with the contents of a file, when somebody send
a message to specific address. It is a simple
file robot.
WaterGate manual [page 78]
SAVEIf you want to store messages that were sent to
a specific address to a directory, then use
this statement. You can use it to make some
automatic mechanism where a program processes
the messages that were saved.
BOUNCE If a system closes down or you don't want
people to send mail somewhere, you can use this
statement to block their path. The messages
will be sent back with a specified reason.
GZIPBATCH This can be used to set the first letter of the
header that is added to news batches that
compressed with GZip.
FORCENOBITMASK Forces WaterGate to use the old style spool
filenames.
The following pages contain an long explanation of each of the
statements.
ROUTE-FIDO: Route Fido messages
-------------------------------
WaterGate currently implements only a very simple form of Fido
routing:
ROUTE-FIDO <System_We_Route_Through> [<addresses> [...]]
ROUTE-FIDO 2:285/1 2:285/*
ROUTE-FIDO 2:280/802 2:* 140:*
ROUTE-FIDO 60:100/1 60:*
The destination system must be defined in the userbase.
WaterGate will report an error if the system is unknown.
When a netmail message is encountered, WaterGate will check
whether it is capable of transporting a message to its
destination address. In the above example, a message for
2:255/1000 would be sent via 2:280/802, as would a message for
140:1000/100. However a message for 2:285/500 would be routed
via 2:285/1
If WaterGate is incapable of routing a message, to 133:100/1
for exaple, an attempt is made to bounce the message to its
sender.
If more than one routing statement can be used for a certain
address, the routing statement with the highest address match
will be used. For example 2:285/1000 will be routed to 2:285/1
(two matches) and not via 2:280/802 (one match only).
If the system is in FrontDoor compatible mode, the routing
statements are not used. Instead, everything is put in the
netmail directory, where FrontDoor/InterMail will take care of
the routing.
WaterGate manual [page 79]
ROUTE-UUCP: Route UUCP messages
-------------------------------
The routing of UUCP mail can be implemented in two different
ways. One is by configuring routings using the WTRCONF.EXE
program; the other is by using statements in the ROUTE.TDB
file.
Usually, this is a proper way of setting up the system:
First, define your UUCP neighbors in the userbase. This is
mandatory; if your neighbors are not defined here, you cannot
route messages to or through them.
In these user records, you can also define their domain
address and aliases, if any. There is a limit of 6 domain
addresses for each neighbor.
Note that logically it does not matter if your neighbor is
physically a Fidonet style node. This only affects the format
of output created for your nodes, but is not of any importance
for the names and routing of mail.
Next, define the systems that are more than one 'hop' away,
i.e., not your neighbors, in your ROUTE.TDB file. The format
of a UUCP-routing line in the ROUTE.TDB is:
ROUTE-UUCP <UUCP-name> <System-address>
where <UUCP-name> must be the UUCPname of one of your
neighbors as defined in your userbase.
<System-address> can be:
- The UUCPname of a system more than one hop away
- The complete domain address of a system
- A domain address with wildcards
If nodes under you have a world-registered UUCPname, you can
use this UUCPname in bangpath addressing. If the name of the
system through wich a message should be routed is missing from
the bangpath, a UUCPname routing statement can enable the mail
to arrive anyway.
By using a complete domain address, you specifically route
mail for that domain to one of your neighbors. The domain
address must match 100% for it to work. This is the most
widely used form of UUCP routing.
Note that this method can be used to add more domain names to
one of your neighbors that is defined in the userbase, where
you have space for only six domain addresses. On the other
hand, you can also use those six lines as ROUTE-UUCP
statements. Although it does work, we don't recommend using
it, as you loose the complete view and control rather quickly.
WaterGate manual [page 80]
Wildcards in the <System-address> allow you to route a
complete hierarchy of domain-addresses to a certain neighbor
without having to define each sub-node of that system
separately. This allows your nodes to have sub-nodes of their
own and they can create as many as they want. This is very
useful when you or one of your nodes uses fido-style addresses
like "user@z2.n280.f802.p10.hisnode.wlink.nl".
You can then 'wildcard' the fido segment of the complete
domain address, so you won't have to define each fido-style
address he wants to use.
There are currently two types of wildcards:
1) .yournode.wlink.nl
2) *.yournode.wlink.nl
There is a very slight difference: Type 1 will route ALL
addresses that end in 'yournode.wlink.nl', including
subdomains and the address "@yournode.wlink.nl" itself. Type 2
will ONLY route subdomains, and will NOT route addresses like
"user@yournode.wlink.nl".
Here are some example ROUTE-UUCP statements:
ROUTE-UUCP picard enterprize.space.nasa.gov
This ROUTE-UUCP line will route all mail for domain
"enterprize.space.nasa.gov" to the system with the UUCPname
"picard". This system must be defined in your userbase.
E.g., addresses like "Mr.Spock@enterprize.space.nasa.gov" or
"enterprize.space.nasa.gov!Mr.Spock" will be sent to the
system named "picard". Subdomains are not allowed here and the
domain-address will have to match 100%.
ROUTE-UUCP nixon *.WaterGate.wlink.nl
This line will route all mail destined for all subdomains (and
subdomains only!) of "WaterGate.wlink.nl" to the system with
UUCPname "nixon". Once again, "nixon" must be defined in the
userbase.
For example:
"operator@phonetaps.WaterGate.wlink.nl"
or
"oval.office.WaterGate.wlink.nl!president"
will be routed to that system. It will NOT route addresses
like "first.lady@WaterGate.wlink.nl" or
"WaterGate.wlink.nl!authors".
ROUTE-UUCP rspca .rodent.net
This line will route all mail to users with domain addresses
ending in "rodent.net" to the system with the UUCPname
"rspca". For example, "mickey.mouse@rodent.net" as well as
WaterGate manual [page 81]
"rabbits.rodent.net!bugs.bunny" or "sylvester@cats.rodent.net"
are routed to the "rspca" system, which has to be defined in
your userbase.
ROUTE-UUCP picard xs4all
This last example routes all mail sent to "annie.user@xs4all"
or "xs4all!xs4no1!mary.helen" to the system with UUCPname
"picard". Because "xs4all" does not appear to be a domain
style address, it makes us suspect this routing line is used
to alias another UUCPname or to be able to route a UUCPname of
a system that is not our neighbor.
About bangpaths
---------------
Any system that is defined on UUCP has a bangpath, but not all
systems have domain addresses. Therefore, bangpath addressing
is always possible. Bangpaths are usually built up from
UUCPnames (to keep them short), but a bangpath can also
contain a domain addresses.
Internally, WaterGate converts all addresses to bangpaths.
Then, for routing, it only looks at the part of the address
that is in front of the first bang (bang = !). If that part of
the address turns out to be its own UUCPname, and the address
contains more than one bang, it looks at the part between the
first and the second bang. This algorithm allows a very
powerful and flexible way of UUCP mail routing and, knowing
this, you may find some ingenious and creative ways to perform
all the routing you want.
Don't use bangpaths in MAP-UUCP statements where you use a
username as well, because there is no way for WaterGate to
find out if the last part of the bang-path is a username or
the name of a system. Use domain addresses instead.
Routing things you cannot do in ROUTE.TDB
-----------------------------------------
You cannot put more than one <System-address> on a ROUTE-UUCP
line. If you do this anyway, the line will be ignored. If you
want more routings to the same UUCPname, then simply use as
many lines as you need to route all system addresses and have
them start with the same UUCPname.
You cannot chain the routing of UUCP-names. E.g.:
ROUTE-UUCP picard nixon
ROUTE-UUCP nixon *.watergate.wlink.nl
This will NOT cause mail for *.WaterGate.wlink.nl to be routed
to system "picard". WaterGate will try to route it directly to
"nixon", even though "nixon" is routed to "picard". Instead,
use something like this:
ROUTE-UUCP picard nixon
ROUTE-UUCP picard *.watergate.wlink.nl
WaterGate manual [page 82]
The reason is obvious: to prevent routing loops.
You cannot 'wildcard' bits and pieces of domain addresses.
E.g.:
ROUTE-UUCP picard *gate.wlink.nl
This will NOT cause mail for "WaterGate.wlink.nl" or
"water.gate.wlink.nl" to be routed to "picard". In fact, this
may cause funny routing behavior.
A few last remarks about UUCP routing
-------------------------------------
If mail addresses contain capitalization, it will be kept
intact, but will be ignored for routing. Capitalization in
your routing statements (make them wolverine if you wish) will
also be ignored. In other words: the routing in WaterGate is
case-insensitive.
All routing techniques discussed here about the ROUTE.TDB file
also apply to the domain addresses defined in the userbase.
Whatever you fill in there will have the same effect as
defining just as many ROUTE-UUCP lines that all start with the
<UUCP-name> of that user. However, it is wise to stick to the
structure as proposed above.
If the format of your ROUTE-UUCP statements are incorrect,
then this may (and often will) cause unpredictable routing
behavior. So make sure that all your routing statements are
correct. Keeping the definition structure as proposed above
will help to keep things clear and obvious, so you can almost
immediately locate the problem if any problem occurs.
WaterGate manual [page 83]
MAP-FIDO: Mapping fido netmail messages
---------------------------------------
The MAP-FIDO command is used to map received fido netmail
messages to a different destination. For example, you can use
this option to map messages for users that also have a point
address to their point, or you can map messages for a fido
user to a different system, or even a UUCP system. Note: It
only works on the To: address of netmail messages.
There are two forms of this command:
MAP-FIDO "username"%fidoaddr "username"%fidoaddr
and
MAP-FIDO "username"%fidoaddr user@domain
Examples and an explanation of all the options follow:
1. MAP-FIDO "username" "username"
MAP-FIDO "jaap aap" "SysOp"
Map netmail messages for a user on your system to a different
user on your own system. All your system AKAs are accepted.
2. MAP-FIDO "username" "username"%2:280/803
MAP-FIDO "username"%2:280/802 "username"
MAP-FIDO "username"%2:280/802 "username"%2:280/803
This is the same as for the first example, except that in the
first line the message is now mapped to 2:280/803 instead of
to your own system. The second line shows how a message
passing through your system can be mapped to a local user, and
the third shows how that message can also be re-addressed to
another system.
3. MAP-FIDO "username" user@domain
MAP-FIDO "username"%2:280/802 user@domain
MAP-FIDO "jaap aap" jaap.aap@network.nl
Received netmail can also be mapped to an Internet domain
address; this is a one way conversion. Messages for
jaap.aap@network.nl are not mapped back to the "jaap aap" fido
user! Neither can you specify a domain address for the first
parameter!
Order of precedence for MAP-FIDO
--------------------------------
When more than one MAP-FIDO statement could be applied to a
netmail message, the mapping statement that will be used is
selected as follows:
When only the address matches, the last mapping statement will
be used. If a mapping statement exists that both matches the
address and the user name, then that mapping is used and the
search is stopped.
WaterGate manual [page 84]
MAP-UUCP: Mapping UUCP mail messages
------------------------------------
Mapping received UUCP mail messages is a little more
complicated, as there are quite a lot of possible options. It
is possible to map a message for a user to another user, or
map all messages for a system to another system, or even to
one user. Besides that, you can use the information BACKWARDS
to allow mapping of fido addresses into domain addresses.
If you want these commands only to work from Fidonet to UUCP,
you can use the prefix -FU. If you only want them to work from
UUCP to Fidonet, you can use the prefix -UF. If you want them
to work in both directions, then don't use a prefix at all.
The prefix has to be put on the line right after the command.
Note: unregistered users can only have five (5) MAP-UUCP
statements in their route.tdb file. Extra MAP-UUCP statements
are ignored and an error message will be logged.
The two basic formats of this command are:
MAP-UUCP user@domain user@domain
MAP-UUCP user@domain "username"%fidoaddr
Examples and an explanation of each of the options follow
below:
1. MAP-UUCP user@domain user@domain
MAP-UUCP jaap.aap@network.nl sysop@network.nl
MAP-UUCP jaap.aap@network.nl aapwork.nl
MAP-UUCP jaap.aap@network.nl jaap.aap@aapwork.nl
The simplest map is to send all message from one user to
another. Use this, for example, if you use multiple usernames,
but like to have all replies to 'SysOp'.
The last two options are equivalent, and will both deliver all
messages for jaap.aap@network.nl to jaap.aap@aapwork.nl
2. MAP-UUCP domain user@domain
MAP-UUCP oldserver.network.nl sysop@newserver.network.nl
Use this combination to send all messages for a complete
domain to a single user at another system. This may come in
handy when one of your downlinks changes its name or is
temporarily offline.
3. MAP-UUCP domain domain
MAP-UUCP oldserver.network.nl newserver.network.nl
This will map all messages for all users of a domain to the
same users at another domain address.
WaterGate manual [page 85]
4.MAP-UUCP user@domain "username"
MAP-UUCP user@domain "username"%fidoaddr
MAP-UUCP user@domain fidoaddr
MAP-UUCP jaap@aapwork.nl "jaap aap"
MAP-UUCP jaap@aapwork.nl "jaap aap"%2:280/802
MAP-UUCP jaap@aapwork.nl 2:280/802
To map all messages for "user@domain" to a fido system, simply
specify the username at your own system, or the name of a user
at another fido system.
5. MAP-UUCP domain fidoaddr
MAP-UUCP domain "username"%fidoaddr
MAP-UUCP aapwork.nl 2:280/802
MAP-UUCP aapwork.nl "sysop"%2:280/802
This combination will send all messages for an entire domain
to a fido system. The user names will be correctly translated
into an acceptable fido form. (Jaap_Aap -> Jaap Aap)
Order of precedence for MAP-UUCP
--------------------------------
When more than one mapping statement can be applied to a
particular message, then only the first mapping statement is
used.
FORBID-FIDO/ALLOW-FIDO: Restricting the gateway
-----------------------------------------------
Acting as a public gateway may be a really rewarding thing for
your soul, and a great thing for mankind; but it's not going
to pay your monthly phone bills. By default, WaterGate will
allow everyone to gate messages between a fido and a UUCP
network.
Add the following command to your ROUTE.TDB file:
FORBID-FIDO *
Now nobody, including yourself, is allowed to use the gateway;
probably not exactly what you intended. Now relax this a
little by giving some people access rights:
ALLOW-FIDO 2:280/*
ALLOW-FIDO 2:281/*
ALLOW-FIDO 2:280/802 Maarten User
ALLOW-FIDO 2:280/802 SysOp
ALLOW-FIDO 2:280/18.*
FORBID-FIDO 2:280/18 Jaap User
This allows everyone within the nets 280 & 281--except a
special case, "Jaap User" at 2:280/18--to use the gateway.
Plus 2:280/18 and its points, and "Maarten User" and "SysOp"
at the system 2:280/802, are allowed to use the gateway.
WaterGate manual [page 86]
MAP-AREA: Receive a mailing list in a message base
--------------------------------------------------
Quite some users on a BBS will subscribe to a mailing list and
receive this as netmail on the BBS. There is quite some flow
in some of these mailing lists, so that means a lot of
messages in your netmail area.
Also, if more users on your BBS want to receive the same
mailing list, you will receive more than one copy of these
messages and they will all have to be stored in the netmail
area until the users have read and deleted them.
It is not possible to set up a local mailing list and feed all
incoming messages into that list, because the sender of the
message must be connected to the local mailing list. And in
most cases, the sending will be the original sender of the
message that was distributed by the mailing list server. It is
impossible to have all these names in your local mailing list
setup.
If you don't like all these messages in your netmail area, or
want to provide a mailing list for all your users, so you only
have one copy of them, you have to take a look at the MAP-AREA
statement.
Basically, what the MAP-AREA statement does is convert
incoming e-mail into news. The news is then distributed, gated
to echomail and stored in your message base.
When you receive e-mail from a mailing list, you always
receive that to the same name. Because the MAP-AREA statements
takes all incoming mail to a certain address, you have to
subscribe to the mailing list with a special "receiver"
address, or else all your e-mail will be mapped.
For example, you are connected to the mailing list WaterGate,
which is watergate@wsd.wline.se. You receive the mailing list
messages as wg-receiver@bravo.com and you want this to be put
in the area you created with the name WG-LIST. You then use
the following statement in your ROUTE.TDB file:
MAP-AREA wg-receiver@bravo.com WG-LIST
Where WG-LIST can be either the Fido or UUCP name of the area.
Notice that this statement looks at the e-mail address that
can be found in the .X file in your spool directory. Only MAP-
UUCP statments are processed before the MAP-AREA is checked
against that address.
WaterGate manual [page 87]
SIGNATURE: Adding signatures to a message
-----------------------------------------
Most messages found on UUCP have some kind of signature at the
end, usually containing some information about the writer, the
fact that whatever he or she wrote wasn't done with all senses
intact, and that his employer would be most surprised if
someone took it seriously. Of course, this can be done in a
million unique ways, and as long as the message isn't
irritating (try to keep it at four lines or less), nobody will
bother.
Since most Fido style BBS programs are unable to add
signatures to a message by default, or aren't capable of using
different ones for different users, you can have WaterGate do
it automatically. All you need for each signature is a small
text file containing the signature, and a definition in the
ROUTE.TDB.
SIGNATURE filepath fidoaddr {username}
SIGNATURE D:\BBS\SIG\DEFAULT.SIG 2:280/802
SIGNATURE D:\BBS\SIG\SYSOP.SIG 2:280/802 Jaap Aap
SIGNATURE D:\BBS\SIG\NEOLINK.SIG 2:280/801
This will add DEFAULT.SIG to all messages gated from Fido to
UUCP originating from 2:280/802, except that user "Jaap Aap"
will get the SYSOP.SIG signature instead.
An example signature file:
,----------------------------.------------------------------.
| Martijn Dijksterhuis | Kids! Bringing about |
| martijnd@dijkline.wlink.nl | Armageddon can be dangerous. |
| martijnd@htsa.aha.nl | Do not attempt it at home |
`----------------------------.------------------------------'
For automatic processing, the signature will be preceded by a
tear-line, just as in fido messages. This tearline consists of
two dashes followed by a space. WaterGate automatically adds
this tearline, so there is no need to put it in the signature
file.
On the next page is an excerpt about signatures from a classic
article (the article is regularly posted to
news.announce.newusers by Gene Spafford):
WaterGate manual [page 88]
Q: Dear Miss Postnews: How long should my signature be? --
verbose@noisy
A: Dear Verbose: Please try and make your signature as long as
you can. It's much more important than your article, of
course, so try to have more lines of signature than actual
text.
Try to include a large graphic made of ASCII characters, plus
lots of cute quotes and slogans. People will never tire of
reading these pearls of wisdom again and again, and you will
soon become personally associated with the joy each reader
feels at seeing yet another delightful repeat of your
signature.
Be sure as well to include a complete map of UUCP with each
signature, to show how anybody can get mail to you from any
site in the world. Be sure to include Internet gateways as
well. Also tell people on your own site how to mail to you.
Give independent addresses for Internet, UUCP, and BITNET,
even if they're all the same.
Aside from your reply address, include your full name, company
and organization. It's just common courtesy -- after all, in
some newsreaders people have to type an *entire* keystroke to
go back to the top of your article to see this information in
the header.
By all means include your phone number and street address in
every single article. People are always responding to UUCP
articles with phone calls and letters. It would be silly to
go to the extra trouble of including this information only in
articles that need a response by conventional channels!
WaterGate manual [page 89]
NEWSFILTER: Auto-created newsgroups filter
------------------------------------------
The NEWSFILTER statement points to a file that WaterGate uses
to decide whether an area should be created automatically when
a unknown newsgroup name is detected.
If you have "New area create" enabled in the user record of
your UUCP uplink, then you might have noticed that WaterGate
creates a lot of new areas with funny names. Most of these
areas you don't want to have at all.
The new newsgroups filter file allows you to tell WaterGate
which newsgroups you want to have auto-created and which you
do not. By default, WaterGate doesn't auto-create a newsgroup
at all, until you install the NEWSFILTER file.
In this file, you can enter the complete or partial names of
the newsgroups. There are special characters and wildcards
that save you a lot of typing. People that are familiar with
the Waffle FEEDS file will find some resemblances.
ALT.*
COMP.*
!COMP.OS.*
This file tells WaterGate that you don't want any newsgroups
unless they start with ALT and COMP. But, you don't want the
newsgroups that start with COMP.OS.
The exclamation sign (!) is a "NOT" operator.
The extension dot plus asterisk (.*) means that you want all
the newsgroups that start with that text, but not the
newsgroup that starts with that name itself (for example
"ALT").
Here is a somewhat more complicated example:
ALT.*
!ALT.BBS.*
ALT.BBS.WATERGATE
!ALT.BBS.WATERGATE.D.
This file basically tells WaterGate that you want all the
newsgroups that start with ALT, but not the newsgroups that
start with ALT.BBS, except newsgroups that start with
ALT.BBS.WATERGATE, which you do want, but not that one special
ALT.BBS.WATERGATE.D newsgroup.
The extension dot (.) means that you want the newsgroup with
that name and only that newsgroup, not the newsgroup with
names that start with this. If the exclamation sign (!) is in
front, it means that you don't want that specific newsgroup.
You can also put comments in the filter file on any line you
want by putting in a semi-colon (;) before the comment.
WaterGate manual [page 90]
A special case is when the NEWSFILTER statement is not present
in the ROUTE.TDB file, or the news filter file could not be
opened, or it is empty, or the ROUTE.TDB file is not present.
In that case, no new newsgroup names filter statements are
present. WaterGate then allows all new newsgroup names. That
way, you don't have to setup the filter file at once. This is
reported in the logfile at startup of WtrGate with the line
"Allowing all new newsgroup names".
Logging information
-------------------
When your filter file gets big, it might become troublesome to
find why a certain newsgroup name is rejected by WaterGate,
while you want it, or why a certain newsgroup name is allowed,
while you don't want it.
If you enable the "New newsgroup names check" logfile option,
WaterGate will tell you when it accepted or rejected a certain
newsgroup and which line in the logfile caused the decision.
For example,
ALT.*
!ALT.BBS.*
ALT.BBS.WATERGATE
!ALT.BBS.WATERGATE.D.
The newsgroup ALT.BBS.WATERGATE is accepted, because of line
three. If line three was not there, then line two would have
caused WaterGate to reject it. When WaterGate processes the
filter file, it looks at every single line; if that line
applies to the newsgroup name, the decision to accept or
reject the newsgroup can be changed.
SENDFILE: a simple file robot
-----------------------------
You can let WaterGate reply to a message automatically. You
prepare the reply in a file that is put in the body of the
reply message. If you want to send a file, you have to UU-
encode it yourself first.
The sendfile statement works from both the UUCP side as the
Fido side.
The format of this statement is:
SENDFILE <user name> <path to file>
For example:
SENDFILE watergate-info c:\wsd\wginfo.txt
SENDFILE wtrkit-req c:\wsd\wtrkit.txt
WaterGate manual [page 91]
The e-mail address where people have to send their message to
is the <user name> at any of your system domain addresses, for
example watergate-info@wsd.wline.se.
For fidonet, people have to send a netmail message to <user
name> at one of your system AKAs, for example watergate-info
at 2:200/111.
BOUNCE: Send mail back with a reason
------------------------------------
You can use the bounce option for more than one purpose, but
it is mostly used to inform people that certain e-mail
addresses or even a whole system cannot be used anymore.
The e-mail address you have to put in the statement has to
match only partitially. Or in other words: the search string
you put in the statement must appear in the e-mail address
that is checked.
Not only is the message returned to the sender, but you can
supply a reason as well. To support multiple languages, you
have to put "Reason: " in front as well, if you which.
The format for this statement is:
BOUNCE <partitial e-mail address> "Reason"
For example:
BOUNCE wsd.wlink.nl "Reason: moved to Sweden"
BOUNCE ftpmail "Reason: ftpmail option is blocked!"
BOUNCE erik@wsd.wlink.nl "Reason: Account is closed!"
SAVE: Write messages to disk
----------------------------
With the SAVE statement you can save messages that were
received at a specific e-mail address to a file on disk. The
contents of the messages are completely saved in the file.
You can use it to let an external program process the message
and send a reply, although there are no posting options in
WaterGate yet.
The e-mail address that is check has to match exactly. So, it
is not possible to save all messages for a complete domain in
a directory. This is to protect systems.
After the message has been saved, it is destroyed and not sent
along.
The format of the SAVE statement is:
SAVE <e-mail address> <directory>
WaterGate manual [page 92]
For example:
SAVE ftpmail_receiver@wsd.wlink.nl c:\saved\
MAP-UUCP and BOUNCE, SAVE, SENDFILE
-----------------------------------
The MAP-UUCP statement is processed before the BOUNCE, SAVE
and SENDFILE options are checked. This way, you can "route"
messages that are sent to different addresses all to one
address and then use one bounce, save or sendfile statement.
Of course, it is perfectly possible to use more that one
bounce, save or sendfile statement that have the save reason,
use the same directory or point to the same file.
GZIPBATCH
---------
This option can be used to set the first letter of the header
that can be added to news batches that have been compressed
with GZip. The header is used on UNIX systems to find out that
the batch is compressed. Actually, it is a command that
executes a script.
This script is called "cunbatch" when the batch is compressed
with normal compress. The names of the script for gzip
compressed batches is differing though. Normally, it is
gunbatch, but it can also be zunbatch.
To overcome this difference, you can set this letter system-
wide (for all your UUCP users that you compress with gzip for
and have the "Add batch header" option set to YES).
The format of this line is:
GZIPBATCH <letter>
for example:
GZIPBATCH z
You normally don't need this statement.
FORCENOBITMASK
-------
You can use this statement to force WaterGate to create spool
directory files in the old format, without the bitmask digit
in front.
Some software cannot cope with the new format and has to use
the old format. If you experience problems with UUCICO or
mail/news not processed by your provider, then try this
option.
WaterGate manual [page 93]
Using AreaFix / newsfix
-----------------------
WaterGate has a built-in Area Manager to allow your users to
easily maintain the areas in which they receive messages.
A Fido user has to send a netmail message to "AreaFix" at one
of your system AKAs. A UUCP user has to send a mail message to
"newsfix" at one of your system domain addresses. For both,
the password has to be in the subject line.
Examples:
[Fido Netmail]
From: Jaap Aap 2:280/802.67
To : AreaFix 2:280/802
Subj: MyPassword
--------------------------------------------
+ARENA
-POINTS.028
%QUERY
[UUCP mail]
From: Jaap@TheNode.Network.Nl
To : NewsFix@HostNode.NetWork.Nl
Subj: MyPassword
--------------------------------------------
+ARENA
-POINTS.028
%QUERY
The following commands are available:
AREANAME This will connect the area with the name
"AREANAME" for the requesting user, if the area
exists and the user has access to that area (it
has to be in a group to which the user has
access). Optionally, you can use +AREANAME.
-AREANAME This will disconnect the user from the area
with the name "AREANAME". A user can always
disconnect an area, even if he no longer has
access to connect it.
%+ALL This will connect the user to all the areas to
which he has access.
%-ALL This will disconnect the user from all the
areas to which he is connected.
WaterGate manual [page 94]
%PASSIVEThis will stop WaterGate from sending messages
to this user. This is especially useful when
the user goes on a holiday, for example, and
doesn't want to have messages pile up. This
will not affect netmail or mail messages.
%ACTIVE If a node is ready to receive messages again,
he can issue this command, after which
WaterGate will resume preparing mail for this
user.
%FROM <addr> If a user is allowed to do remote maintenance
(see User Configuration), then all
modifications following the %FROM line, will be
made to the user specified in <addr>. Multiple
%FROM lines may be used in messages. If
anything goes wrong (e.g., a user with <addr>
does not exist), all further commands are
ignored until the end of the message or another
%FROM line.
Note: this option is currently (version 0.18)
disabled.
%HELP The user can issue this command to request
help. WaterGate will send a short list of all
the commands that the user can use. If the user
is allowed to use a special AreaFix command, it
will also be shown.
%LIST This will send a list of all the areas to which
the user is currently connected. The areas will
be grouped and sorted, and the list will also
indicate whether a group is read-only.
%QUERY WaterGate will create a list of all areas
available to the node and send it. The areas
will be grouped and sorted, with the
descriptions of the areas from the Comment
field in the area record.
See the chapter "Installing the .TXT files" for information
about the .TXT files you can use to override the standard help
message and the headers and footers of the lists.
You can also use the old style query and list requests:
putting -Q or -L after your password, with a space in between.
WaterGate manual [page 95]
Automatic file encoding / decoding
----------------------------------
To send files to other users in Fidonet, you can use file
attaches. To send files to other users on the Internet or
attached to an article in a newsgroup, you encode file file
and store it in the body of the message.
An encoded files in a message can look like this:
begin 666 wtrutil.dif
M1$E&7U8U5U12551)3"Y%6$4@\"@"`.'(W\2=A(@@`0```/__```!`/____\!
<etc>
>`/$H`````````(`=`6,#`@#E`6(#`@"M`6$#`@``
`
end
This is a so called "UU-encoded" file. This is done because
news articles and e-mail messages can only contain 7-bit
characters and no control characters or high-ascii. A binary
files contains a lot of 8-bit codes so this cannot be put into
a message directly.
How it works
------------
UU-encoding takes a group of three 8-bit codes and converts it
to four 6-bit codes. These 6 bits are then encoded in the
message using 64 (2^6) characters, amongst which A-Z, 0-9 and
some others.
The difference between UU-encoding, XX-encoding and MIME
encoding is basically the set of 64 characters used.
Encoding files
--------------
To help you send files along to other users on the Internet,
WaterGate has to ability to automatically UU-encode an
attached file when it gates an netmail message to an e-mail.
All you have to do is write a netmail that will be gated and
attach the file to that netmail (using a file attach).
WaterGate currently never deletes the gated files.
Automatically gated files from your downlinks will be deleted
in the future though.
WaterGate manual [page 96]
Decoding files
--------------
WaterGate can detect an extract an encoded file from a message
when it writes the message to a message base. This is
currently only implemented for *.MSG areas, but JAM and Squish
will follow in the near future.
Decoding files is only done when you have specifically told
WaterGate to do it for that area. For netmail it only decodes
files for messages addressed to your system. It will never
decode files for your users. This requires some more support
that will follow in the future.
Each area can be configured to have its own path where the
decoded files will be stored. This way you can keep the
decoded files nicely separated per area.
Notice that decoding takes place when the message is imported
into the message base, thus not when the message is gated from
e-mail to netmail or news to echomail. This was done with
several reasons in mind: the same message will be sent to
several users, imported into an area and possible distributed
via a mailing list. Not all "targets" want this file
extracted, so it is extracted when the message is imported.
This means that an echomail or netmail message that contains a
valid encoded file, but did not arrive via the Internet, can
be decoded by WaterGate when that message is imported. If you
are a FTN style user underneath some gateway, then you can now
decode the files from messages you receive from that gateway!
Look for the options "Decode files" and "Files path" in the
Area definitions and Fido message bases setup to enable the
automatic decoding.
Tip: I have disabled decoding of files for my primary netmail
area, but I have set up a Private Scan for my personal mail
and connected it to a *.MSG base and enabled decoding on that
message base.
WaterGate manual [page 97]
Customizing messages
--------------------
Most of the responses WaterGate creates can be configured with
a language file and several text files. The language file
contains single-line replies and the text files can contain
entires explanations.
The language file
-----------------
This is the WTRGATE.LNG text file in your WaterGate system
directory. Each "language line" contains a number, followed by
text. Apart from that, you can have empty lines and comment
lines, which start with a semi-colon (;).
The numbers in the language file are fixed and all numbers
must be present, or else WaterGate won't start. Unknown
numbers or duplicate entries are reported in the logfile.
The text part of the language line can contain tokens that
will be replaced with the real item when the line is used.
These tokens are @1@, @2@ and so on.
There is no complete description of each language line, when
it is used and what the tokens will be replaced with. Most of
the lines are self-explanatory and the tokens can be guessed.
You will find helping comments where the tokens are not
directly clear.
The text files
--------------
Text files are optional. They have special names and the
extension .TXT and are stored in the sub-directory TXTS of the
WaterGate System directory, for example C:\WTRGATE\TXTS\.
When present, these special files are used by WaterGate
instead of the standard internal response messages, which are
most of the time just one line.
With these text files you can customize WaterGate's responses,
put in more details about the response and of course translate
them to your own language, if you which.
Apart from text, you can use special so-called "tokens" in
these text files. WaterGate replaces these tokens with special
items, like the current date, etc. But before getting to the
tokens, let■s have a look at the different .TXT files.
WaterGate manual [page 98]
Filenames
---------
Currently, the following .TXT files are supported. Everywhere
you see "AreaFix", you can also substitute "newsfix".
File Description
AFLSRHDR.TXT AreaFix LiSt Request HeaDeR.
Sent as the header of an AreaFix %LIST request
reply-message.
AFLSRFTR.TXT AreaFix LiSt Request FooTeR.
Sent as the footer of an AreaFix %LIST request
reply-message.
AFQRRHDR.TXT AreaFix QueRy Request HeaDeR.
Sent as the header of an Area Manager %QUERY
request reply-message.
AFQRRFTR.TXT AreaFix QueRy Request FooTeR.
Sent as the footer of an Area Manager %QUERY
request reply-message.
BNCFIDO.TXT BouNCe FIDO.
Sent when WaterGate is unable to transport a
Fido message.
BNCGATE.TXT BouNCe GATEway.
Sent when WaterGate is unable to transport a
message through the gateway, such as when a
FORBID-FIDO statement in the ROUTE.TDB file
prevents this user from using the gateway.
UNKAFUSR.TXT UNKnown AreaFix USeR.
Sent when an unknown user sends a message to
AreaFix. A user must be defined in the userbase
to use AreaFix.
WRNGAPWD.TXT WRoNG AreaFix PassWorD.
Sent when an invalid password was found in a
message to AreaFix. This is not sent back to
the sending user, but to the SysOp of that
system.
LISTHELP.TXT Help file for a HELP command in a message to
the List Server.
LISTHDR.TXT LIST HeaDeR.
The header of the message created in response
to a LIST command in a message to the List
Server.
LISTFTR.TXT LIST FooTeR.
The footer of the message created in response
to a LIST command in a message to the List
Server.
WaterGate manual [page 99]
The following two files are not shared by AreaFix and newsfix;
each has a separate file, so you can explain how to address
AreaFix or newsfix and use the terms "echomail" and
"newsgroups".
AREAFIX.TXT Sent as a response to a %HELP request for
AreaFix.
NEWSFIX.TXT Sent as a response to a %HELP request for
newsfix.
Tokens
------
Each .TXT file may contain any of the tokens listed below,
although some may be empty when used. PASSWORD, for example,
will be an empty string when not used in conjunction with
WRNGAPWD.TXT.
Token Description
FirstUserName Message sender's first name
LastUserName Message sender's last name
UserName Message sender's full name
Subject Subject of sent message
Password AreaFix password found
Date Current system date
Time Current system time
WeekDay Current day of the week
FromAddress Address used by the original sender
ToAddress Address used by us for the reply
SysOp SysOp name found in the configuration
SysopFirst Sysop's first name
AreaName Current message area
PID Our program ID (WaterGate)
Version Current program revision (0.91 beta)
To use a token, put it between @ characters. For example, if
you want to use the SysOp token, put the string @Sysop@ in
your textfile.
WaterGate manual [page 100]
Using a secondary tosser
------------------------
This chapter explains how to use a second tosser together with
WaterGate, as I have received a lot of questions about this.
You might have a perfectly running Fido setup right now, with
a tosser that takes care of your complete distribution. Now,
you also want to connect to UUCP, and you want to use
WaterGate to do this, but you don't want to replace your
complete system. This is perfectly possible.
You can configure WaterGate to do all the translation work
between UUCP and Fidonet while your other tosser continues to
take care of the distribution to all your nodes and points.
The best thing to do is to use a different zone for the UUCP
newsgroups. The gateway will have its own address in this zone
and it will be very clear that netmail messages sent to that
one address are going to another network, in this case to
UUCP. Then create a user that represents your other tosser and
give it its own AKA. Connect the user to the areas that you
want to feed.
Next you need to connect WaterGate's outbound to the inbound
of your current tosser. Be careful not to set these to the
same directory! If you do, when WaterGate creates a .PKT file
it might overwrite an already present .PKT file in that
directory.
It is also dangerous to just copy all the .PKT files from
WaterGate's outbound to your tosser's inbound directory, again
because you might overwrite an already present .PKT file.
The best way to solve this is to let WaterGate archive its
outbound, then copy this file to the inbound of your tosser
and let your tosser extract the archive when it is ready for
it. If it is a good tosser, it first processes all the .PKT
files in the inbound directory and then starts to extract an
archive, process all the .PKT files again, etc.
I hear you saying: but archiving takes a long time. You could,
of course, force the compression factor to 0, so your archiver
just puts all the .PKT files together. ARJ has the option -m0
for this. And, since there■s no other point or node for which
WaterGate has to create archives (possibly archives with ARJ),
it is no problem to change the arguments for ARJ.
If you do want to use ARJ for a node anyway, you might also
use the OP1 option to compress for your other tosser and put
the special commandline arguments there.
On the way back, you could perfectly well copy the .PKT files
to WaterGate's inbound, but you probably don't know the names
of these .PKT files, because these are taken randomly. So, you
have to archive everything again.
WaterGate manual [page 101]
Statistical information
-----------------------
To let you know what passes through your system, WaterGate
keeps track of all mail that passes through your system. It
counts the size and amount of all messages - both received and
sent - and stores that information in a separate logfile,
called WTRGATE.STA by default. This file is located in the
same directory you choose for the logfile. It also uses the
name of the logfile, but with the extension .STA. New
information is appended to it after each run of WaterGate.
Format of the WTRGATE.STA file
------------------------------
A sample entry:
Statistics report of toss on Mon 05 Jun 1995 21:37:54
m 1952 dutchman@mbh.network.nl (Jaap Aap%2:280/802.6)
m 1210 sysop@waste.bin.network.nl (Jaap Aap%2:280/802.6)
n 894 Jaap Aap%2:280/802.6 (dutchman@mbh.network.nl)
u 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 49546 2:512/17@fidonet.org (Piet Hein)
v 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 14 2:512/17@fidonet.org (Piet Hein)
u 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2263 LOCAL
v 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 LOCAL
b 2263 1 WLINK.TEST
b 12778 3 HOLLAND.SYSOP
b 733 1 POINTS.028
b 3124 2 OVERIG.028
b 6328 5 FS.028
b 643 1 FDECHO.028
b 3309 2 ALT.BBS.WATERGATE
The first line contains the date and time of the run. When a
new statistics file is started, WaterGate will write a short
explanation of the different lines, so the first line could be
followed by a number of information lines, but these all start
with a space.
Each line that starts with the letter 'u' or 'v' contains
information about a user that sent or received messages during
the run. Only users that either sent or received messages are
shown. The 'u' lines holds the number of bytes sent/received
and the 'v' line holds the number of messages sent/received.
Each 'u' or 'v' line has the following fields:
MailTo UUCP mail sent to this node
MailFrom UUCP mail received from this node
NewsTo UUCP news sent to this node
NewsFrom UUCP news sent received from this node
NetTo Fidonet netmail sent to this node
NetFrom Fidonet netmail received from this node
EchoTo Fidonet echomail sent to this node
EchoFrom Fidonet echomail received from this node
Name User identification, plus SysOp name or
UUCPname between the braces. Messages that
originate from a messagebase are counted as
"LOCAL".
WaterGate manual [page 102]
The flow of messages in each area is shown in the 'b' lines.
The old 'a' lines are now obsolete and not produced anymore.
Every 'b' line contains the traffic in that area in number of
bytes and number of messages and the name(s) of the area.
Again, only areas that had any traffic are shown.
When an area has a different name for Fidonet and UUCP, then
the UUCP name is listed as second name as well. The exact
format of the 'b' line is:
"b" space <flow in bytes> space <number of messages> space
<fidonet area name> [space <uucp area name>]
Between the [ and ] is optional.
Each netmail and mail message passing through your system is
tracked in the 'm' (mail) and 'n' (netmail) lines. This is
information on netmail and mail messages and their size. The
MsgTo and MsgFrom field contain the destination and source
address of the message, for fido messages as username%fidoaddr
and for UUCP messages as user@domain.
The WtrStat program
-------------------
You can use WTRSTAT.EXE, included in the WaterGate archive, to
process the statistics file and make ASCII graphs of the
message traffic passing through your system. If you want
graphs number 1, 2, and 3 created, you can start the program
with the following command:
C:\MAIL\LOGS>wtrstat wtrgate.sta 1 2 3
WTRSTAT will create the files GRAPH1.TXT, GRAPH2.TXT, and
GRAPH3.TXT in the program startup directory.
Possible graphs
---------------
The program is capable of proceding eight different graphs:
Graph 1: Message traffic (in kilobytes) in each of the areas.
Graph 2: Size (in kilobytes) and a graphical overview of the
traffic from this system to each other system.
Graph 3: Size (in kilobytes) and a graphical overview of the
traffic from each other system to this system.
Graph 4: Flow in each area and the total flow in all of the
areas, for as far as there has been a flow in those
areas.
Graphs 5 through 8 are the same as graphs 1 through 4, but
hold the information in number of messages, instead of number
of (kilo)bytes.
WaterGate manual [page 103]
Command line options
--------------------
The program accepts a number of options as well. Options have
to be preceeded with a forward slash (/) or dash (-). The
following options can be used:
-D<n> "Days". Makes a report for the last <n> days,
starting to count with today=1. -D1 creates a report
over today, up to the last data added. -D7 creates a
report for the last week, including today.
-A "Amount". Sorts the area listing in graph 4 or 8 by
amount, in descending order. The area with the
highest number of messages or bytes is shown first,
and so on.
-N "Name" With this option you can tell WtrStat to use
the UUCP area name in graphs 4 and 8, instead of the
Fidonet areaname.
The WtrStat program will first get and check all the command
line options, then read the statistics file to gather all the
information and finally create all the requested graphs.
WaterGate manual [page 104]
Translating from other programs
-------------------------------
WaterGate is capable of adding information to its userbase and
areabase from other programs. Currently, it can directly
process information from GEcho, Waffle, and Squish. To do
this, start the "WTRCONF" program and select the
"Import/Export" menu option.
Adding information from Gecho v1.02
-----------------------------------
First select the "Import GEcho Nodes file NODEFILE.GE" option.
This will read all node information stored by GEcho and add
this information to the WaterGate userbase. You have to do
this first because without this node information WaterGate is
unable to add these nodes to the area lists when using the
"Import Gecho Areas file AREAFILE.GE" that you can use next.
Adding information from Waffle
------------------------------
First select the "Import Usenet newsgroups file", this file is
usually located in your waffle\system directory and contains a
listing of all the areas available on your system.
A typical file looks like :
# All Areas that I ever want to read (Not!)
#
COMP.BBS.PROGRAMS
COMP.BBS.NONEWBBS /mod=jaap@aap.network.nl
Next import the SYSTEMS file, containing the names of all
systems that are directly linked to your system.
A typical SYSTEMS file entry looks like:
steambt Any g modemx tosystem 02995-9111 myid password
All information about mail that needs to be sent through
another system is located in the PATHS file, usually located
in the "WAFFLE\UUCP" directory. Use "Import Usenet Paths" file
to import this information.
To add areas for certain users, select "Import UUCICO Feeds".
This file contains information about all users connected to
certain areas.
A typical entry is:
steambk /batch comp.bbs.*,alt.bbs.*
steambt /batch *
WaterGate manual [page 105]
Adding Information from Squish
------------------------------
WaterGate is capable of scanning a Squish configuration file
(usually SQUISH.CFG) for 'EchoArea' lines.
A typical Squish EchoArea entry:
EchoArea MUFFIN D:\WTRGATE\SQUISH\MUFFIN -$ -$m200 -$d5
EchoArea POINTS.028 D:\WTRGATE\SQUISH\PNT028 -$ -$m200 -$d5
WaterGate understands the -$, -0 and -F area types, to
indicate a Squish, passthrough and *.MSG area style. In
addition, the -J switch is also used to indicate JAM style
areas.
When using the "Export Squish like Area config", as a
non-standard addition, JAM areas are also exported using this
'-J' option, but each line is preceded with a ';' to make sure
other programs ignore those lines.
The "Import/Export" menu has another option, called "Import
AREAS.BBS file", which is useful if you want to delete a
certain node from a list of areas without using the normal
'tag & delete' options. You can use another program to prepare
a file containing a list of areas that have to be added or
deleted. When you select a file, you are asked for which user
you want to make these modifications.
The format of the input file:
+ARENA ; Add an area
+CHESS.INT ; Add an area
-POINTS.028 ; Delete an area
.... ; etc etc
Note: No '%' commands for normal AreaFix operation are
available.
WaterGate manual [page 106]
Commandline parameters
---------------------
WTRGATE.EXE
-----------
This is the main program. It must be correctly configured to
run; the program will exit if it is unable to initialize. To
create new configuration files, or modify an existing
configuration, use the WtrConf program.
You can start WaterGate using a commandline option or you can
start it without one and select an option from the menu. Only
a single commandline option is available for each run.
When scanning for outgoing Fido echomail messages, the program
will look for an ECHOTOSS.LOG or ECHOMAIL.JAM file in its
system directory, containing a listing of the areas it has to
scan.
Commandline Functions
? Display a short help screen.
TOSSFIDO Process any mail that is located in the inbound
directories.
SCANFIDO Scan the local message bases for unsent
outgoing mail.
TOSSUSE Process any new mail located in the spool
directories.
-NONETSCAN Skip the scanning of all netmail areas.
-NOECHOSCAN Skip the scanning of all echomail areas. A
shorter alias for this option is -NOES.
-NONETMAIL Do not route netmail messages; store them in
the local netmail area instead.
-NOEXPORT Do not export messages to other systems; only
import local messages.
-NOLOCAL Don't import local messages; only export them
to up and downlinks.
-NODUPE Force dupe checking off.
-NOCHECK Force WaterGate to ignore the directory check
at startup.
-NONEWSTOSS Do not toss Usenet news batches, only e-mail.
-KEEPFA Keep file attach netmail when the attached file
cannot be found. This can used for busy LANs
that report a file as "not found" when actually
the LAN is to busy.
WaterGate manual [page 107]
-MEMUSAGEReport in the logfile the amount of memory used
for each of the configuration table that are
loaded at start-up. This will help you
understand WaterGate's memory consumption.
Errorlevel returns 0 on success or >1 on failure.
WTRCONF.EXE
-----------
You will need this program to configure WaterGate; it is
capable of creating and modifying configuration files,
including the areabase and userbase files. For more
information see "Installing WaterGate"
Commandline Function
EXPORT_SQUISH [file] Exports a SQUISH.CFG file containing
all areas defined in the
configuration. Or use [file] to
specify another file name.
EXPORT_AREAS [file] Exports an AREAS.BBS file containing
all areas defined in the
configuration. Or use [file] to
specify another file name.
IGNORE_SYSTEMDIR WaterGate will ignore the System
Directory as configured in
WTRCFG.TDB. This allows you to use a
configuration in an other directory
than the orignal. Useful when
checking somebody else's databases.
Errorlevel returns 0 on success or >1 on failure.
WTRUTIL.EXE
-----------
WaterGate comes with a messagebase maintenance utility called
WtrUtil. It can link messages in all area types; remove
messages that are too old or over the maximum number of
messages in an area; create new index files for both Squish
and Jam bases; and renumber *.MSG areas.
You can start WtrUtil with commandline options, or start it
without one and simply select from the menu.
Commandline Function
? Show all commandline options.
DATABASE Removes deleted entries and unused links from
all WaterGate's configuration files, rebuild
the databases and sort the areabase for faster
access by WtrConf. Use -NOSORT to prevent the
areabase from being sorted.
WaterGate manual [page 108]
INDEXCreates new index files for all Squish and JAM
message bases.
LINK Links messages in all areas.
RENUM Renumbers all *.MSG areas.
RENUMJAM Renumbers all JAM areas.
PURGE Removes messages by number and date from all
message bases.
IMPORT This function imports messages from your *.MSG
main netmail directory into a JAM or Squish
netmail area.
IMPORT AREANAME [Address] [-NoKill]
AREANAME specifies the name of the netmail base
to which the messages are to be imported.
Address specifies the AKA to which the messages
have to be addressed to be selected for import.
This parameter is optional; if not specified
all your AKA■s are used.
The -NoKill parameter ensures that the imported
messages are not removed from your netmail
directory, which is the default.
SHRINKLOG n This function will clean the logfile and all
leaving only today■s plus n days of history, as
supplied on the commandline. For example,
SHRINKLOG 6 will keep a whole week in the
logfile.
-NOSLICE Use this option to disable the time slicing
support, in case it causes problems, or when
you want to speed up processing without giving
up time slices anymore.
Errorlevel returns 0 on success or >1 on failure.
Use the DATABASE option if you have removed large numbers of
areas or users from your configuration. Letting them stay in
the base only wastes memory and disk access time.
Since WtrConf has to sort the list of area names all the
times, you can speed up the editting work in WtrConf greatly
by sorting the areabase with WtrUtil on a regular basis, for
example every night.
WaterGate manual [page 109]
Groups filter option
--------------------
To limit the number of areas that WtrUtil processes during the
INDEX, LINK, PURGE, RENUM and RENUMJAM options, you can add an
extra command line argument to these options to tell WtrUtil
which groups to process only.
For example:
WTRUTIL LINK Links messages in all areas.
WTRUTIL LINK ABC Links messages in areas that are in one of
the groups A B and C.
Notice that the groups filter option only works when using the
five functions from the command line.
WaterGate manual [page 110]
WTRSTAT.EXE
-----------
WTRSTAT processes the statistics file and makes ASCII graphs
of the message traffic passing through your system. Since it
needs to read the statistics logfile, which is named
WTRGATE.STA by default, the first argument of the program is
the full path to this file.
Next, select the graphs you want the program to produce.
Currently, there are four graphs, numbered 1, 2, 3 and 4,
corresponding to output files named GRAPH1.TXT to GRAPH4.TXT.
You have to put the numbers on the commandline after the path
to the statistics file.
Example:
WTRSTAT C:\WTRGATE\WTRGATE.STA 1 2 3 4
The graphs contain the following information:
Graph 1: Message traffic (in kilobytes) to and from each of
the system.
Graph 2: Size (in kilobytes) and a graphical overview of the
traffic from this system to each other system.
Graph 3: Size (in kilobytes) and a graphical overview of the
traffic from each other system to this system.
Graph 4: Traffic in each of the areas in bytes, with the
total flow in all the areas at the end in bytes,
kilobytes and megabytes.
Graphs 5 to 8 show the same graphs as 1 to 4, but then with
the number of messages, instead of the flow in kilobytes.
WaterGate manual [page 111]
Appendixes
----------
Appendix A: Message Bases
-------------------------
If you receive messages, you will need a place to store them.
WaterGate has built in support for three different messagebase
types, each with its own characteristics. None of the
supported bases puts more than one area into the same base, so
if one area crashes for some reason, you won't lose more than
just that area.
Both the Squish base and the JAM base can be considered
successors to the Hudson Message Base. The HMB was a
replacement for the Fido *.MSG base, but its limit of 200
message areas and maximum size of 16Mb makes it somewhat
outdated compared to the huge message traffic produced by the
various networks today. The Hudson Message Base is not
supported by WaterGate.
Fido *.MSG
----------
This is the oldest format, and is defined by FTS-0001. This
format needs a sub-directory for each defined area. Every
message is put into a single file, so this format is not
recommended for areas that receive lots of messages,
especially when using standard DOS FAT formatted harddisks.
These become incredibly slow when the number of files in a
single directory exceeds 256.
This type of base is compatible with almost any piece of
software written for Fido. So you probably want to use it for
your netmail directory, to allow other programs to easily
insert messages.
If you create a Fido *.MSG area, make sure you enter a valid
directory name in the "Area path" field, with a terminating
backslash.
Example: C:\WSD\NETMAIL\
C:\WSD\NETMAIL\HISTORY
Squish
------
Squish was designed in 1990 by Scott Dudley, and it is used in
his Maximus BBS package and Squish mail processor. It uses 4
different files for each area: <name>.SQD contains the
messages and header information; <name>.SQI contains an index
to the messages in the SQD file; <name>.SQL contains lastread
pointers for BBS users; and <name>.SQB contains dupecheck
information. The SQB file is not used by WaterGate.
WaterGate manual [page 112]
A Squish base can contain up to 2^32 (2 to the 32nd power)
messages, which should be enough for anybody. (Don't quote me
on this one, please.) If it isn't, you probably have more
serious problems.
A Squish base can re-use space occupied by deleted messages
without needing repacking, so you don't need to pack a Squish
base as often as other types.
If you set a maximum number of messages for a Squish area,
WaterGate will automatically delete the oldest message. So,
the area never contains more than the set number of messages.
Don't set this number too low, because if WaterGate has to
delete large numbers of messages in each run, performance will
suffer. If you want maximum performance and don't care about
disk space, just set the limit to 0 messages.
If you use the Squish base for an area, the "Area Path" should
contain a valid directory plus an 8 character area name. Don't
use any extensions (.???) in the path and don't put a
backslash at the end!
Examples:
C:\BBS\SQUISH\ALTBBS for the area ALT.BBS
C:\BBS\SQUISH\ALTBMISC for the area ALT.BBS.MISC
etc.
JAM
---
JAM was designed in 1993 by Joaquim Homrighausen, Andrew
Milner, Mats Birch, and Mats Wallin. Like Squish, it is
designed to support up to 2^32 messages in a single message
area and uses 4 different files.
It uses a <name>.JHR file to store header information; each
header consists of a fixed part and a flexible part, depending
on the message. Storing only a small part in the fixed header
makes it relatively easy to add future enhancements to the
message base. Each header contains a pointer into the
<name>.JDT file, which contains the actual message. The
areabase is indexed in the <name>.JDX file and lastread
information is stored into the <name>.JLR file.
JAM has a (for Fido systems) new way of linking messages:
instead of simply linking messages with the same subject, each
message can have an unlimited number of replies to it, so that
each reply is a reply to the original message. This way you
can always see to which message a new message is a reply.
WaterGate manual [page 113]
Example:1 --- 2 --- 4 --- 5
| |
| +---- 8
|
+---- 3 --- 7
|
+---- 6
Messages 2, 3, and 6 are a reply to message 1. Message 4 and 8
are a reply to message 2. Message 5 is a reply to message 4.
Message 7 is a reply to message 3.
If you use the JAM base for an area, the "Area Path" should
contain a valid directory plus an 8 character area name. Don't
use any extensions (.xxx) in the path and don't use a
terminating backslash!
Examples:
C:\BBS\JAM\ALTBBS for the area ALT.BBS
C:\BBS\JAM\ALTBMISC for the area ALT.BBS.MISC
etc.
WaterGate manual [page 114]
Appendix B: Error codes
Below is a description for most of the error numbers that
WaterGate writes in the logfile. This helps you understand the
error better.
Code Description
2 File not found
3 Path not found
4 Too many open files
5 File access denied
100 Disk read error
101 Disk write error
150 Disk is write-protected
158 Sector not found
200 Division by zero
202 Stack overflow error
216 General Protection fault
WaterGate manual [page 115]
Appendix C: TradeMarks
All trademarks are owned by their respective owners,
ARC,ZIP PkWare, Inc
ARJ Robert K. Jung
Binkley Bit Bucket Software Co.
Fido Tom Jennings
FrontDoor Joaquim Homrighausen, Absolute Solutions
GEcho Gerard J. van der Land
JAM (mbp) Joaquim Homrighausen, Andrew Milner,
Mats Birch, Mats Wallin
LHA Haruyasu Yoshizaka
MS-DOS Microsoft Corporation
PAK NoGate Consulting
PC-DOS,OS/2 IBM
Pentium Intel
Squish,Maximus Scott J. Dudley
TimEd Gerard van Essen
Waffle DarkSide International