OS/2 Shareware BBS: 2 BBS

home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search

/ OS/2 Shareware BBS: 2 BBS / 02-BBS.zip / va210.zip / VUUCP.DOC < prev next >

Wrap

Text File | 1997-02-05 | 31KB | 739 lines

VUUCP ═════ VUUCP.EXE is the UUCP network software provided with Virtual Advanced software. It allows for UUCP type network operations with the world-wide Internet. It might even be used to connect to alternative and/or private UUCP type networks. VUUCP is complete -- there is no other mailer or software needed, and set-up couldn't be simpler. VUUCP will even let your site be a UUCP server to other sites. Virtual Advanced features an extremely sophisticated version of VUUCP.EXE which can gate email between the Internet and the other networks, gate newsgroups between the Internet and other networks, and can even toss (unpack) mail in the background, so it doesn't tie up a serial port/modem. With VUUCP, it's easy to gate email and messages: Internet <--> VirtualNET-type Internet <--> FIDOnet (messages only) Internet <--> QWK type net (messages only) VUUCP.EXE COMMAND LINE USAGE ════════════════════════════ Note that <ch> refers to Virtual Advanced Channel Number, and that if the NETWORKID= is omitted, NETWORKID=9 is assumed. VUUCP <ch> /U NETWORKID=9 Update any outgoing mail. Automatically called by VME as needed. VUUCP <ch> /R NETWORKID=9 Pull in data received by remote. (Automatically run when data is received after a net call.) VUUCP <ch> /D<full system name> NETWORKID=9 Dial into the specified system. VUUCP <ch> /A NETWORKID=9 Used to handle an incoming UUCP call-in. Use of this option requires script programming. VCONFIG SET-UP FOR VUUCP ════════════════════════ When setting up a UUCP based network using VCONFIG, you will be given the following choices: 1) System Address: This is where you enter your full Internet address. (Example: mybbs.myhost.com) 2) Spool Directory: This setting specifies the directory to be used by this network for storage of outgoing mail, and temporary storage for incoming data. (Example: C:\SPOOL) Directories will be created beneath this directory automatically, on an as-needed basis. 3) Max Receive Packet This sets the maximum size for UUCP data packets to be received by your system. You should always set this value to 2048. 4) Allow Newsgroup Refeed If you plan on refeeding newsgroups to downstream sites, then this setting must be set to Yes. If you don't plan on refeeding newsgroups to downstream sites, then tossing is optimized by setting this parameter to No. 5) Strip RFC822 Header Data If set to Yes, then RFC822 Header Data will automatically be stripped from messages before they are written to your Virtual Advanced databases (email/message areas). If set to No, then the header data is left intact. This setting does not affect email or messages being rerouted or refed to other sites. 6) Suffix Address Solution This setting should always be left at "Not Used" unless you are specifically directed to put something here by your UUCP provider *and* your UUCP provider is another Virtual Advanced BBS running VUUCP 3.00 or higher. D) Edit Remote List This choice lets you edit the list of systems you are connected to. Many of you will only have one system in this list -- this one system being your Internet Service Provider. However, you may have up to 200 systems listed in your remote list. IMPORTANT NOTE: The very first system listed in the remote list must be your main hub for Internet email -- usually your main ISP. There are 5 settings for each remote system you connect with: 1) System Address The full Internet address of the remote system. 2) Phone Number The data phone number, as it needs to be dialed, to call this system. 3) Wait-For #1 Send #1 4) Wait-For #2 Send #2 Typically this sequence is used to complete the "Login:" part (Wait-For #1/Send #1) and "Password:" part (Wait-For #2/Send #2) of the login process during an outgoing net call to a UNIX-based host. If you connect to a UNIX or Waffle-based UUCP site, you'll need the "Wait-For" and "Send" fields to "login" to the remote site when you place a net call, sort of like a regular user. The difference is that UNIX will detect your account as being a systems mail account, and will automatically start-up the UUCP mail session as soon as you're logged in. (Your account login ID and password are provided to you by your Internet Service Provider, and are not related to your Internet system address. Provider's require logins/passwords to prevent unauthorized use of your systems mail account, and to facilitate billing.) Example: Wait-For #1: ogin: Send #1: mybbs Wait-For #2: word: Send #2: mybbspw Waits for the word "ogin:" (as in "Login:" or "login:") and then sends "mybbs" plus a carriage return. Then, waits for the word "word:" (as in "Password:" or "password:") and then sends "mybbspw" plus a carriage return. NOTE: The above login provisions will be sufficient for the vast majority of the users of this software. If you need something more complex to login to your Internet/UNIX host, an optional login "macro" capability is provided. See section ADVANCED OPTIONS for more information. 5) Knows *Us* As: When you call into an Internet site to pickup your mail, after the login/password sequence, your system must identify itself to the host. Some systems require the full Internet address (eg "mybbs.win.net"). Most systems, particularly UNIX ones, want to see only the first part of our name up to the first period, maximum 7 characters, eg "mybbs.win.net" -> "mybbs". This field, therefore, controls how *your* system identifies itself to this particular remote system during a net callout to the remote system. By default, VCONFIG will try to "guess" the proper data to put into this field whenever you add a new remote system to the remote system list. VCONFIG should guess correctly about 90% of the time. The important thing to remember is that different UUCP hosts are going to have different requirements for logging into the system and then for system identification during the actual network identification handshake. You should try the VCONFIG-supplied default for this field. However, if you receive the message: "You are unknown to me" during a net-callout, this might be an indication that you need to fiddle with this field. (It could also be an indication that your service provider hasn't set-up your UUCP mail account yet!) The important thing to remember is that different UUCP hosts are going to have different requirements for logging into the system and then for system identification during the actual network identification handshake. If in doubt, contact your service provider; they should be able to tell you what is proper to enter for this field. 6) News Server Alias: This field is very important! Often times, the system name of your Internet Service Provider's news server is different than their main name. For example, a provider might have you calling into isp.net, but the news server computer is actually called something else such as news.isp.net. Also, some providers don't even run a news server on premises but rather they "job it out" to someone else. If you look at a Newsgroup posting, at the top of the message in the header data, you'll see a line that starts out "Path:" and on the line will be a list of systems such as: Path: news.alt.net!news1.alt.net!news.u.washington.edu In the above example, "news.alt.net" is the News Server Alias we are interested in. If this were the Path: line received, then news.alt.net would be the proper News Server Alias to configure in this field. IF IN DOUBT, TRY TO RETRIEVE A LIMITED NUMBER OF MESSAGES FROM YOUR PROVIDER, AND EXAMINE THE PATH: FIELDS. THE FIRST SYSTEM LISTED IN THE PATH: LINE IS WHAT MUST GO IN THIS FIELD. FAILURE TO DO THIS PROPERLY WILL CAUSE YOUR SITE TO RELOOP ALL RECEIVED MESSAGES BACK ONTO THE INTERNET, WHERE THEY WILL LIKELY BE THROWN AWAY BY YOUR ISP BEFORE THEY DO ANY REAL HARM. If the system being set up here is another Virtual Advanced system running VUUCP 3.00 or higher, then this field can be left blank, because for Virtual Advanced/VUUCP, the sites' main address is always the same as the sites' news server address. 7) Options: (a) Default News Server Setting this to Yes indicates that this site is your only upstream source for Newsgroup postings. By enabling this setting, you do not need to include this site in NEWSFEED.LST. If you get your news from multiple upstream sources, then you must set this field to No. (b) Automatic Dialout Option This controls how VME automatically dials this site for UUCP-type network calls. The possibilities are: Disabled - No Automatic Polling Daily/LD - Long Distance, Once Per Day Daily/Local - Local Call, Once Per Day Hourly/Local - Local Call, Once Per Hour Note that "Long Distance" implies that dialouts should occur only during cheap long distance periods, such as 11 pm to 7 am. Local calls, on the other hand, are permitted at any time of day, however only once per day or per hour as set by the sysop. SETTING UP EMAIL ON YOUR BBS ════════════════════════════ There is nothing extra you need to do, beyond the initial VUUCP set-up described above, to be able to send and receive Internet Email. There is nothing further you must do to be able to GATE email to other networks, either. Each user, though, must send an initial email to "fire up" their Internet email handle. In other words, the first time someone sends mail through VUUCP, a unique handle is generated for them so that return replies will find them. It is recommended that they send mail to: mailid@your.address where your.address is replaced by your actual Internet address. This mail will be loop-ed back to your BBS without going out over the Internet, but will accomplish the task of assigning the user a unique handle. SETTING UP INTERNET NEWSGROUPS ON YOUR BBS ══════════════════════════════════════════ Newsgroups can be quickly and easily set-up using the included VMB utility program. Make sure you have ASCII file NEWSGRP.9 installed in your DATA directory for VMB to function properly. NEWSGRP.9 is the file containinng the newsgroup listings. An alternative method to newsgroup set-up is to use VCONFIG to manually set-up/edit each database entry. In this case, you would use the DATABASE CONFIGURATION portion of VCONFIG to display/edit a DATABASE CONFIGURATION ENTRY. At this point, selecting the field "(G) Networks Configuration" would let you manually do what VMB does automatically. A typical newsgroup name looks like: alt.bbs biz.comp.hardware comp.sys.ibm-pc To GATE an Internet newsgroup, you merely set-up its DATABASE COFIGURATION ENTRY to show that the field "(G) Networks Configuration" shows multiple networks -- Internet, and the other network(s) you want to GATE to/from. For example, you might see: Internet=alt.bbs VirtualNET=100000 This means that this particular message base is a gateway between Internet's alt.bbs newsgroup, and VirtualNET's message sub number 100000. REDIRECTING INTERNET EMAIL TO A PUBLIC MESSAGE BASE ═══════════════════════════════════════════════════ From time to time, it may become necessary to redirect email to a certain userid on your system to a public message base instead of to the email database. You must use VCONFIG to manually set up this feature. (See the section previous SETTING UP INTERNET NEWSGROUPS for more info on manually editing Database Network Configuration.) A typical configuration entry in this case might be: specialdata,virtual.win.net Email addressed to user "specialdata" will instead be directed to the message base. Replies posted to the message base by BBS users will be sent to the host specified ("virtual.win.net"). Our example would send the new posts (replies) to specialdata@virtual.win.net. Tip: If you desire that no replies be sent, then set the host part to none, example: specialdata,none SETTING UP DOWNSTREAM CONNECTIONS ═════════════════════════════════ Once you are comfortable with VUUCP networking with your ISP(s) (your upstream connections) sending and receiving email and newsgroups on your BBS, you may decide to offer the service to other sites (your downstream connections). In order to host other sites for email, your site must have either a registered domain name (ex: yoursite.com) of its own, or hang off the registered domain of your Internet Service Provider (ex: yoursite.isp.com). For purposes of a simple example, let us assume you have a registered domain name of "yoursite.com" and that you want to carry two downstream connections: joesbbs.yoursite.com ourowndomain.com joesbbs.yoursite.com is an example of hanging a site off of your own domain name. This is where you have control to assign systems names, based on your domain. The only limitation is that the first part of the address (up to the first period) is limited to 7 characters or less, and all names must be unique (ie no two systems can have the same first 7 characters in their system name). ourdomamain.com is an example of a site you feed which has its own domain name. For another example, let's assume your site is hanging off your provider's domain, with an address of "yoursite.isp.com" and you want to carry two downstream connections. This is how it might be done: joesbbs.yoursite.isp.com ourowndomain.com You may have up to 200 systems in the remote list. With one of those used for your ISP, that means you can set-up up to 199 downstream connections. The procedure for adding a new downstream connection is as follows: (1) Following the directions presented earlier in this doc, you must use VCONFIG to add them to your remote list. They must NOT be listed first in the list -- that is where the entry for your ISP goes. Note the "Short Name" assigned to the site by VCONFIG on the screen. (2) If they will be calling your BBS to transfer mail, create a user account for them on the BBS, using the "Short Name" as the Handle. Edit the account so that the User Flag "U" is Turned ON. Make sure to set an appropriate password. HOW DO I GET MY ISP TO RECOGNIZE DOWNSTREAM SITES ═════════════════════════════════════════════════ Internet Service Providers control the routing of email by use of MX records. MX is short for Mail eXchange. In order for mail destined for downstream sites to be routed to you, you must inform your provider to alter your MX record to include the addresses of sites who will be getting their email from you. Typically, this is accomplished by sending email to user "hostmaster" at your ISP. Once the mail is being routed to your site, VUUCP will then re-route it as necessary to the destination address via the rules of email routing. THE RULES FOR EMAIL ROUTING ═══════════════════════════ When mail comes in from any source, VUUCP will use the following rules to determine which system to pass the mail to next in order for the mail arrive at its proper destination: 1. Direct Match The system addresses in the remote list are checked against the "TO" information. The first site to match exactly gets the mail. For example, mail to anyuser@joesbbs.yoursite.com would be routed to joesbbs.yoursite.com for delivery. Mail to anyuser@ourowndomain.com would be routed to ourowndomain.com for delivery. 2. Subdomain Match The system addresses in the remote list are checked against the "TO" information. The first site to match by domain gets the mail. For example, mail to anyuser@anysite.joesbbs.yoursite.com would be routed to joesbbs.yoursite.com for delivery. Mail to anyuser@anysite.ourowndomain.com would be routed to ourowndomain.com for delivery. 3. Routed To ISP (First System In Remote List) Any message not routable by Method 1 or Method 2 is routed to your main provider for further routing. NOTE: The very first system listed in the remote list must be your main hub for Internet email -- usually your main ISP. THE RULES FOR NEWSGROUP REFEED ══════════════════════════════ Newsgroup refeed is governed by a control file you set-up in your Spool Directory called NEWSFEED.LST. NEWSFEED.LST is an ASCII text file in the format: <newsgroup> <system address> <system address> ... <system address> Example: rec.humor.funny joesbbs.yoursite.com You may put in as many entries as you like to cover as many newsgroups as needed. Initially, you need only to enter in the newsgroup name on a line by itself. Example: rec.humor.funny alt.test alt.bbs If you've selected a system as your Default News Server (remote list configuration option described in an earlier section), it should NOT be listed at all in NEWSFEED.LST. The Default News Server is automatically assumed as connected to all newsgroups. This also includes newsgroups which you have on your BBS that aren't listed in NEWSFEED.LST -- so the messages posted by BBS users will be posted back upstream as appropriate. If you've not selected a system as your Default News Server (remote list configuration option described in an earlier section), then it should be listed in NEWSFEED.LST. Once the initial set of lines is put in, your downstream feeds can add/drop themselves from the file automatically without bothering you. To do this they must send email to user "newsfeed" at your site, and in the text of the message, put in subscribe and/or signoff commands: subscribe alt.bbs subscribe alt.test signoff rec.humor.funny The only sites allowed to alter NEWSFEED.LST are systems that are configured in the remote list -- in other words, your upstream/downstream connections. Newsgroup refeed is also governed by the "Path:" line of the incoming message. A message will not be fed to a site whose name already appears in the Path: line. In additon to checking the Path: line against the remote site's Main System Address, checking is also performed against the News Server Alias field. HOSTING INTERNET MAILING LISTS ══════════════════════════════ Internet Mailing Lists are like a way of hosting a special-interest discussion without the pain of creating a newsgroup. Email posted to the list are sent to all members on the list. Any member of the list can post to the list -- unless you set it up to be a read-only list. Anyone on the Internet can subscribe to your mail list. Anyone on your BBS can host the mail list. Mail List refeed is governed by a control file you set-up in your Spool Directory called LISTSERV.LST. LISTSERV.LST is an ASCII text file in the format: <listname> <email address> <email address> ... <email address> Example: VADV-L rdegraaf@virtualc.com rdegraaf@virtual.win.net You may put in as many entries as you like and host as many mail lists as desired. Initially, you need only to enter in the mail list name plus your email address on a line by itself. Example: VADV-L rdegraaf@virtualc.com Note: The first user on the list is considered the mail-list owner. Putting -R as the last two characters of the list name make the list a read-only list, where only the owner of the list can make postings. Example: VADV-R rdegraaf@virtualc.com Once the initial set of data is put in, users all over the world can add/drop themselves from the file automatically without bothering you. To do this they must send email to user "listserv" at your site, and in the text of the message, put in subscribe and/or signoff commands: subscribe VADV-R subscribe VADV-L signoff OLDLIST SETTING UP VUUCP FOR USE WITH VIRTUAL INTERNET SURVIVAL KIT ═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════ When used with VISK, VUUCP functions only to toss the outgoing and incoming mail and news. The UUCP transfer mechanism is not used, and instead SMTP & POP3 are used to handle the email, with NNTP handling newsgroups. Configuration of VUUCP is the same as usual; you will need to configure a dialing-entry for the Internet site that you will use for your SMTP/POP3/NNTP services, however, instead of entering a phone number, you will enter in directory path information. Note that either VUUCP UUCP -or- VISK SMTP/POP3/NNTP can be used to tie your site to your Main Internet Service Provider, with all other connections to other systems upstream and downstream being VUUCP UUCP. For more detailed instructions, please consult the VISK documentation. ADVANCED OPTIONS ════════════════ The features described hereafter are optional, and unneeded in most cases. * Setting Up A TWIT.LST File It is possible to have VUUCP optionally pre-screen your email and newsgroup postings, to prevent annoying or irrelevant data from taking up space on your hard drive. The ASCII text file, TWIT.LST, is where you can configure the pre-screening capabilities of VUUCP. TWIT.LST should be created in the Virtual Advanced DATA Directory. Each line of the text file is one entry, and you may put in up to 50 entries. An entry might be a senders address (email), or a word or phrase in the subject line (newsgroups). Email: For email, you can screen by the address of the SENDER. You may screen out specific user addresses: joeuser@somesite.com And even mask off entire sites: *@junkmailer.com SENDERs who have been screen out will have their mail returned to them, rejected. Newsgroups: Newsgroup postings can be screened by the SUBJECT line. You might use this feature to help screen out the many "Fast CASH" and "GET RICH" postings which now blanket the Internet daily. Example entries might look like this: fast cash cash fast get rich make money fa$t ca$h Newsgroup postings which are killed by SUBJECT content are simply thrown away into the proverbial bit bucket. An example TWIT.LST file might look like: joeuser@somesite.com *@junkmailer.com fast cash cash fast get rich make money fa$t ca$h * Extended Login Macro Script If you need more versatility to login to your Internet Service Provider you must create a text file called MACRO.TXT in the storage directory for that particular system. For example, suppose your Spool directory is set to C:\SPOOL, and your host is myhost.myprovider.com. The directory where you would place MACRO.TXT is C:\SPOOL\MYHOST (a directory VUUCP has automatically created for you already, assuming you've run VUUCP at least once since configuration.) The format of the MACRO.TXT file ASCII text with one commmand per line. Allowable commands are SEND, WAIT, and WAITFOR, and they use the following syntax: SEND <string to transmit> Examples: SEND ThisString SEND Hello{ The SEND command automatically replaces the "{" character with a carriage return. WAIT <number of seconds> Examples: WAIT 2 WAIT 4 Waits the number of seconds specified. WAITFOR <waitfor string>,<send string> Examples: WAITFOR prompt:,myname WAITFOR ogin:,mysystem With WAITFOR, the string to be sent will have a carriage return automatically appended at the end. When the last line of MACRO.TXT has been executed, VUUCP proceeds to the built-in Waitfor/Send pairs unless you've disabled them. * VUUCP /R command line option This function might be used to "import" standard Internet Message Format mesages received via a different source/method into the BBS. In other words, you'd copy the files you wanted to import into your SPOOL\TMP directory, and simply execute: VUUCP 1 /R NETWORKID=9 VME 1 /TOSS * Using VUUCP to import messages received via Planet Connect A special command line option has been added to make importing Internet newsfeeds received via Planet Connect as simple as possible. The Planet Connect software delivers to you a file with the name PCUSENET.xxx where xxx is a sequence number. Simply copy the received PCUSENET.xxx file to your VUUCP SPOOL directory, and from your main directory execute: VUUCP 1 /PC NETWORKID=9 IMPORTANT: The PCUSENET.xxx file is a 2.04g ZIP format file, and VUUCP will call upon PKUNZIP.EXE to unzip it for you automatically. Make sure you have an accessable 2.04g version (or newer) PKUNZIP.EXE! * Troubleshooting Still not able to make it work? Try adding either of the following lines to your DATA\NET.9 file. This is an ASCII file which contains your Internet main configuration information. You can edit this file with MSDOS EDIT or similar text editor or word processor in PLAIN TEXT mode. First try: debuglevel=2 And if that doesn't give enough information, try: debuglevel=3 Both will adversely affect program performance, but you will get more information in the VUUCP.LOG file for study in solving your problem. These lines should, of course, be removed once you've solved the problem.