Media Share 9/MEDIASHARE_09.ISO/network/wnos4doc.zip/WNOS4DOC.EXE/WNOS4UPD.TXT

Text File | 1992-05-29 | 23KB | 781 lines

                DB3FL WAMPES NOS (WNOS) Version 4 Update Guide


                              Mike Chace (G6DHU)

                      Document Version 1.0 (April 1992)


       WNOS4 is the latest version of  the  TCP/IP  NOS  software  from
       DB3FL.

       It features Data Compression, a more friendly User Interface and
       Mailbox,  AX.25  Autorouter  and a Chat node that can be used to
       connect IP hosts  together  to  form  a  multinode  Conferencing
       system.

       WNOS supports the usual range of TNC drivers  (KISS,  DRSI,  SCC
       etc)  as  well as all the well established TCP services; Telnet,
       FTP, POP, SMTP, NNTP, and TTYlink (Chat).

       It has no need for the RSPF and RIP routing protocols since  the
       WAMPES  front-end deals with the auto-routing at the link layer.
       WNOS periodically saves all routing information (IP, ARP,  AX.25
       and  NET/ROM)  to  all  known  hosts  making  it a truly dynamic
       system.

       This manual is a quick guide to the new features in WNOS4.  Most
       of  the basic concepts remain as in WNOS3, the documentation for
       which is included in this release pack.

       WNOS3 documentation has been continually updated by me and so if
       you had an early version of WNOS3, please re-read the WNOS3 User
       Guide in case new features were added.

       THIS DOCUMENT *MUST* BE INCLUDED IN ANY COPY YOU  MAKE  OF  WNOS
       AND GIVE TO SOMEONE ELSE.
























1.  What's New in WNOS4 ?


1.1.  The User Interface

If you liked WNOS3's user interface, you'll like WNOS4's even better!

There are now TWO status lines at the top of the screen.  The  uppermost
line  displays  dynamic  session  parameters  according  to  the type of
session selected. The lower line shows the  "overview"  status  of  each
session.

Both status lines remain on screen in whatever window is selected.

Since the lower status line operates just as  in  WNOS3,  you  can  read
about  that  in the WNOS3 documentation. I will concentrate on the upper
status line.


1.1.1.  The Session Status Line


1.1.1.1.  Command and Trace Mode

When in the Command or Trace windows, the upper status  line  shows  the
following information.

WNOS4 | Coreleft 100000 | Attended | Command            |   | | 20:20

Coreleft varies with the amount of free memory (in bytes)  available  to
WNOS.  You should see this reduce when sessions are opened, and creep up
again when they are closed, as the memory manager cleans up.

When the amount of  free  memory  drops  to  that  set  by  the  "memory
threshold" command, the "WNOS4" icon changes to "PANIC" and the whole of
the upper status line flashes. This is to warn you of impending doom!

Next comes the stations "attended"  state,  as  set  by  the  "attended"
command.   If you set "attended no", the status line icon will change to
"Unattended".  This is a useful feature, since I often forget to  switch
to  attended  when I sit down at the console or, even worse, I forget to
switch to unattended when I go to bed. I don't like connect bells waking
me at 3am in the morning!

Finally, we have the session mode "Command" or "Trace"  as  appropriate,
followed by the time in the very last field.


1.1.1.2.  Telnet Sessions

The session status for Telnet based connects (Chats,  Telnets,  and  the
Local BBS) display the following information.

WNOS4 | g6dhu   | Telnet | Backoff 0 | TxQ 120 | RTT 12/29 |   | | 20:20











Ignoring the program name, the  first  field  is  the  hostname  of  the
station  connected  to,  followed  by the session mode, "Telnet" in this
case.  If the local BBS has been connected to (the  "bbs"  command)  the
hostname displays as "LocBBS".

Backoff varies as the connection progresses and shows how  much  TCP  is
backed off.

TxQ shows how much outstanding data  this  session  has.  This  is  data
either  waiting  to  be sent or waiting to be acknowledged by the remote
end. When TxQ drops to zero, you know that all data has arrived  at  the
remote end and has been ack'ed.

RTT dynamically shows the value of the  TCP  retransmission  timer.  The
higher  the value after the slash, the longer the round trip time to the
remote end. Each time  it  counts  down  to  zero  with  data  still  to
acknowledge, TCP will backoff (so the Backoff counter increases) and the
retransmission timer will increase. If the connection is stable,  ie  no
data  to  acknowledge  or send, a "-" is shown before the slash denoting
that the timer has stopped.

The next field is unused in Telnet type connections.

The one character field before the time shows  the  upload  or  download
(record)  flag.  If  a  file  is  being  uploaded to the remote end (the
"upload" command) you will see a flashing "U"  in  this  field.  If  the
session  is  in record mode (see the "record" command) an "R" will flash
in this field.


1.1.1.3.  AX.25 Session Status

The session status for AX.25  type  connections  display  the  following
information.

WNOS4 | GB7IMB-2   | AX25 | Retries 0 | Unack 1 | T1 12/29 |   | | 20:20

The callsign of the remote end appears first, followed  by  the  session
type (AX.25).

Retries shows the number of times we have resent the current I-frame.

Unack shows the number of outstanding, unacknowledged I-frames.

T1 dynamically shows the value of the Ax.25  T1  (retransmission)  timer
(in  seconds). WNOS adjusts the value of the T1 timer in accordance with
the round trip time for the connection and so the value after the  slash
gives  a  good  indication  of RTT. A hyphen "-" before the slash, shows
that the connection is idle, with no frames outstanding.

The next field is normally blank but sometimes displays  "RNR"  to  show
that  the remote end has sent an RNR frame. This denotes that the remote
end is temorarily choked and has asked you  to  stop  sending  any  more
data.  When  it  has  processed  the  data  and unblocks, the "RNR" will
disappear.










Again, the last field shows upload or record status.


1.1.1.4.  NET/ROM Session Status

The session status for Level 4 NET/ROM  type  connections  displays  the
following information.

WNOS4 | GB7ZZ | NET/ROM | Retries 0 | Unack 1 | SRTT 12/29 |   | | 20:20

Session status  fields  are  almost  identical  to  those  of  an  AX.25
connection.   Except  of course, that the Retries and Unack counters now
apply to NET/ROM Level 4 (Transport Layer) information frames.

SRTT shows the Smoothed Round Trip Time for the connection with the  "-"
before the slash again denoting an idle link.

Where an AX.25  type  session  would  display  "RNR",  NET/ROM  sessions
display "CHK", informing the user that the remote end has sent a "CHOKE"
packet.  This packet has the same effect for NET/ROM Level 4 as  RNR  in
AX.25 (Level 2).


1.1.1.5.  FTP Session Status

The FTP session status line changes according  to  whether  or  not  the
session is in command or file transfer state.

In FTP command mode, the session status line  is  exactly  as  that  for
Telnet  type sessions except that "FTP" replaces "Telnet" in the session
type field.

In file transfer mode (ie either a "put" or a "get" is in progress), the
FTP status line shows the following information...

WNOS4 | g6dhu   | FTP-DATA | Rx 10000 | Tx 0 | RTT 12/29 |   | | 20:20

The session type field changes to "FTP-DATA" and  the  Backoff  and  TxQ
fields  are  replaced  by  "Rx"  and  "Tx". Rx shows the number of bytes
transferred from the file being got from the remote end. Tx denotes  the
same thing when a local file is being put onto a remote host.


1.1.1.6.  More and Dir Session Status

These sessions display the following information...

WNOS4 | autoexec.nos | More                            |  | | 20:20

The file or directory name is displayed along  with  the  session  type,
which is always "More".














1.1.1.7.  Ping Session Status

This type of session is created when a repetitive ping command is issued
(eg  "ping 44.131.20.0 100 600 y"). This is often used to check how many
hosts are alive in a local sub-network. The information displayed is  as
follows....

WNOS4 | 44.131.20.0 | Ping                            |  | | 20:20


1.1.1.8.  NNTP News Reader Sessions

Reading or posting a news  article  uses  a  "More"  type  session.  The
session type names are "NNTP Post" and "NNTP Read".



1.2.  NET/ROM Route Save

If NET/ROM is configured in your WNOS4 executable, NET/ROM route  saving
is  now  implemented.  The  feature is controlled by the command "netrom
route save [yes|no]".

If "netrom route save" is set to "yes", at each tick of the "save" timer
(see  the  "save"  command),  the complete current NET/ROM routing table
will be saved to disk. The file written to is "NRROUTE.DAT" in the  WNOS
root.

The next time WNOS is started, and if you have set "netrom  route  save"
to  "yes", the NET/ROM routing table will be read from disk and the node
table will be rebuilt. This means that you don't have to wait  for  your
local node(s) to send a routing broadcast before your node table fills.



1.3.  Data Compression

LZW data compression has now been extended to the NNTP  system  and  the
convers cluster links.

1.3.1.  NNTP Message Compression

This is implemented in much the same way as SMTP message compression and
is  selected  by the "nntp lzw" command. Both NNTP client and server can
operate in LZW data compression mode.


1.3.2.  Convers Cluster Interlink Compression

Convers Cluster links can  now  operate  with  LZW  compression  on  all
traffic.

So that new systems can still  interlink  with  WNOS3  and  WAMPES  non-
compressed convers nodes, a new server has been added to WNOS4 to handle
compressed interlinking. The new server is called "xconvers"  and  lives
on TCP port 3601.









To link to other convers nodes in compressed mode, the  following  steps
are required....

1) autoexec.nos must contain the line

     start xconvers

2) The convers interlink file, convers.cfg specifies
   "xtelnet" as the connect method eg


     # This is a non-compressed interlink
     g4otj telnet
     # This is a compressed interlink
     g4wrw xtelnet



1.4.  Mailbox Changes

There are not many user visible changes  to  the  mailbox.  Changes  are
mainly to the AX.25 BBS mail forwarding system.


1.4.1.  Mailbox Error Message Formats

All mailbox error messages  (except  for  "Already  Have  It")  are  now
prefixed  with  "***"  instead of "NO -". This stops the problem whereby
the sysop switches 3rd party mail off, an unknown  mailbox  connects  to
forward  personal  mail  with  "SP  DC0HK@DC0HK"  and  the  WNOS mailbox
responded with

     NO - Permission Denied

The forwarding mailbox interprets any message  with  "N"  in  the  first
column  as  "I've  already got that message" and deletes it! The mailbox
now returns the safer

     *** NO - Permission Denied

error message instead. I gather that most  mailbox  software  (eg  G1NNA
etc)  understands  that  "***"  denotes  a forwarding error and responds
accordingly.


1.4.2.  Forwarding Mail with Hierarchical Addresses

WNOS3 had a bug inherited from old  NOS  code  which  stopped  the  WNOS
mailbox   from   forwarding  using  Hierarchical  Addresses  unless  the
forwarding box's SID banner contained "H$". Since most  boxes  now  have
many  features,  it  is rare to find the "H$" together (eg G4YFB Mailbox
has [YFB-3.42-BHR$]).

The WNOS Mailbox now looks separately for an "H" and a "$"  in  the  SID
banner  and  if  it  finds  them, it uses an Hierarchical Address if the
message was sent with one.









1.4.3.  Mailbox Prompt

The UK version of WNOS4 now restores the current message number  to  the
mailbox prompt. The prompt format is now...

(Msg #123: AMSAT) DB3FL de G6DHU>

That is, the current message number is 123 within the folder AMSAT.


1.4.4.  Forward Commands

The WNOS3 UK version "forward nic" and  "forward  info"  have  now  been
integrated into the mailbox commands. In WNOS4 they can now be found as

mbox fnic
mbox finfo

These commands are used to set fields in a BBS standard R: header  which
is  applied  to all messages (Personal and Bulletin mail) forwarded from
your system to a mailbox. "forward nic" is  used  to  set  your  mailbox
Hierarchical  Address  and  "forward  info"  can  be used to add a small
comment (usually your location eg [Bath, Avon, UK]). The  WNOS4  Command
Reference explains the R: line in more detail.

Please note that a full R: header is only generated if BOTH "mbox finfo"
and  "mbox  fnic" have been set. Otherwise, a shorter version is applied
to outgoing messages instead.

The mailbox forwarding kick command "mbox kick" has also changed name to
"mbox fkick".


1.4.5.  SMTP Header Stripping

Also something that was formerly only in the  UK  version,  but  is  now
included in the standard distribution.

SMTP message headers (Reply-To:, Date:, Received: etc) will be  stripped
from  mail  that  you  deliver  to  a non-SMTP host eg Mailboxes, PMSes,
PBBSes etc. This helps in reducing message  sizes  on  the  BBS  network
where SMTP headers are redundant in any case!


1.4.6.  New Mailbox Commands

There are two new mailbox related commands -  "mbox  remote"  and  "xr".
"Mbox remote" is the 'console equivalent" of the mailbox "xr" command.

Both these commands take an argument which is a hostname.  When  set,  a
user  logging  into  the mailbox and typing the "chat" command will have
their chat session redirected to the Chat port of the host specified.

The command is therefore  useful  if  the  machine  is  remotely  sited,
remains  unattended  for  long  periods  or  functions as an intelligent
gateway. (Internet/AMPRNet gateway operators please note!)









When used from the mailbox, the "xr" command can only be executed  by  a
user possessing "SYSOP" privilege ie they have bit 64 set in FTPUSERS.



1.5.  IP Auto Router Changes

It is now possible to define special routes which do not get updated  by
the IP/ARP autorouter. It is sometimes desirable for stations to respond
to other nodes on an interface or via a protocol different to that  used
by  the  incoming  path. This often happens when a node can be heard but
not worked direct but may  be  reached  across  a  NET/ROM  network  for
example.

If such "split routes" are needed, the IP route  to  that  host  may  be
added  with  "route addprivate" instead of "route add". Routes marked as
private will NOT be overwritten by the IP autorouter. Other  non-private
routes still get updated dynamically if they change.



1.6.  The "swap" Command

WNOS4  adds  a  new  command  "swap  [yes|no]".  This  controls  WNOS4's
behaviour  when  the  user  performs a shell-to-DOS like command (either
"!", "shell" or "mail").

If "swap" is set  to  no,  the  usual  behaviour  takes  place  and  the
resulting  shell  or mailer has to run in whatever memory WNOS left over
(ie that shown by Coreleft in the status line).

If however, "swap" is set to yes, a shell  related  command  will  cause
WNOS4  to  first  write its program image to either Hard Disk or XMS RAM
(if enough available) before performing the shell. The advantage is that
the  shell  or  mailer  then  gets  a complete 640k of memory to operate
within. The small penalty to be had from this feature is  that  invoking
the shell or mailer may take a bit longer whilst the image is written.

This means for instance, I can now run the PCElm mailer program from the
WNOS4 "mail" command and edit mail with my favourite editor (GNU Emacs).
I  couldn't do this before because WNOS3 only left its 'coreleft'  worth
of  memory  for  the mailer to operate in which was never enough to load
Emacs. I can now use other, bigger and better mailers too, such  as  the
excellent "View".

Swapping to hard disk does not take long, typically some 5 or so seconds
on my 12MHz 286 machine.


1.7.  Domain Server Changes















1.7.1.  The Domain Cache

Frequently used domain names are now  stored  in  a  cache  holding  the
domain  name  and  corresponding  IP address. This speeds up domain name
searches  because  WNOS4  looks  in  the  cache  before  consulting  the
DOMAIN.TXT  file  when  resolving  domain names to IP addresses (see the
"domain cache" sub commands).

1.7.2.  Domain Translation

WNOS4 can now translate IP addresses to domain names for display in such
things  as the status line entries (see the "domain translate" command).
If "domain translate" is set to "yes", incoming TCP/IP sessions look  up
the domain name corresponding to the IP address of the remote end.

Therefore, if an IP station connects to your chat port for example,  the
status  line  entry for that session opened will display the domain name
of the connected host, rather than the IP address eg  sys2.g6dhu  rather
than 44.131.20.14.

If domain translation is on, all IP addresses are  converted  to  domain
names wherever they are displayed too. For example, the ARP table output
and trace window will show domain names rather than IP addresses.


1.7.3.  Domain Commands Withdrawn

The commands

domain load
domain nslookup
domain save

have been withdrawn from the standard executable. They are generally not
needed by most users since there are very few users who operate a domain
name service (DNS). They can however be restored in special versions for
users running DNS by defining the symbol ENH in CONFIG.H.


1.8.  New NNTP Services

For those of you that use NNTP (Network News Transfer Protocol) to  send
and  receive news articles, WNOS4 retains all the NNTP services of WNOS3
plus a few extra enhancements. I have already mentioned  that  NNTP  now
supports data compression in both server and client.


1.8.1.  NNTP2 Compliance

WNOS4's NNTP implementation (both client and server) match that  defined
by  the Draft RFC for the 2nd generation NNTP protocol, NNTP2.  This RFC
is included in the WNOS4 distribution documentation  if  you  have  NNTP
configured (not the standard distribution).












1.8.2.  The IHAVE Command

As part of NNTP2 compliance, WNOS4's NNTP client routine implements  the
IHAVE  command. This improves the speed of distribution of news articles
through the NNTP network.

The basic idea behind IHAVE is as follows. A client polls a  server  for
new  news  and retrieves articles as desired. If the client has received
new articles of its own since last speaking to the  current  server,  it
can  offer  them to the server using IHAVE. The server can either reject
the articles (it may have them already) or it can accept them, in  which
case,  the client posts them to the server. For further details, see the
NNTP2 RFC and the "nntp ihave" command in the WNOS4 Command Reference.


1.8.3.  News Reader

A simple news reading routine is now included in WNOS4. A  news  posting
program  was  already  implemented  in  version 3 and so WNOS4 now has a
completely integrated set of tools for reading, replying to and  posting
new news articles.



2.  Source Code

Source code for the UK version of WNOS4 will be available from  me.  You
are  in  no  way  restricted  in passing the source code on to others. I
would however ask users passing source code to others to mail me with  a
message  informing  me of who the code was given to. Better still, don't
pass the source code on and get the interested party to contact me. That
way,  I  know  where  sources are and always the latest source code pack
goes to those who require it.



3.  Bug Reports

As with all good software, it's hard to  test  100%  and  so  there  are
likely to be a few bugs about.

If you find a bug please contact me with the details and I  will  do  my
best  to pass them onto Mike (DB3FL). WNOS has had a good reputation for
a fast response to bug reports and subsequent fixes.

Send me a good explanation of  the  bug  and  as  good  a  grip  on  the
environment  (both  machine  and the outside world) and circumstances in
which it takes place. Example autoexec.nos and any DOS batch  files  are
often useful too.

Please note that neither I nor Mike (DB3FL) will entertain  bug  reports
on executables that have not been built by me or him.

I can be reached in the following ways.











          NTS Mailbox - G6DHU @ GB7IMB.#41.GBR.EU or GB7WRW.#41.GBR.EU
          Internet    - [e-mail]
          AMPRNet    - [e-mail] [44.131.20.3]
          Snail Mail  - Mike Chace,
                    84 Frankland Close
                    Bath,  Avon
                    BA1 4EL


73 and enjoy WNOS4!

Mike - G6DHU





















































4.  Change Log

v1.0  29th April 1992 (WNOS4a6)