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1991-01-02
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EchoMail Tracker - version 1.10 Documentation
December 31, 1990
EMT
by Blane M. Amy
The Philosopher's Corner
GT NET/NODE: 087/001
BBS: (904) 472-1860
Voice: (904) 472-6072
Revisions:
Version Release Date Comments
------- ------------- --------------------------------------
1.0 Beta July 11,1990 Not for distribution. Beta Test Only.
1.01Beta N/A NOT RELEASED
1-Made code more easily readable.
1.02Beta July 15,1990 Not for distribution. Beta Test Only.
1-Fixed bug with reading Echolist.bbs. (Dennis Ivy)
1.03Beta July 16,1990 Not for distribution. Beta Test Only.
1-Added: /B: option (Jerry Havnar)
2-Added: Retired, Renumbered, Down Echo Recognition.
3-Re-wrote docs properly.
4-Changed name of Error log EMTERR.LOG
1.04Beta July 23,1990 Not for distribution. Beta Test Only.
1-Time date comaparison problem fixed. (Jerry Havnar)
1.05Beta July 25,1990 Not for distribution. Beta Test Only.
1-Fixed problem - deleting consecutive echos no
longer carried. (Discovered when Louis
Moritzky's echos were all retired).
Fixed problem with lower case letters in
Routing.bbs file. (Richard Snow)
1.10 Dec. 31 1990 1-EMT.BBS file now written in .BBS directory (default).
2-EMTERR.LOG file now written in .LOG directory.
3-EMTERR.LOG no longer appended too, written each run.
4-Year turnover fixed. Program will now run unlimited
time. (Roy Salisbury)
5-File inclusion now supported. (Mark Street)
6-Ranges in Echo ACCEPT statements supported.
7-F files checked also.
i
Legal Notice
------------
Ok, let's get the Legal nonsense out of the way first.
The user of Echomail Tracker (EMT), by Blane M. Amy, agrees that
Echomail Tracker and this documentation, are provided as is without
any warranty, expressed or implied, including but not limited to
fitness for a particular purpose. Blane M. Amy specifically disclaims
all warranties. In no event shall the user hold the the author liable
for any loss of profit or any other commercial damage, including but not
limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages
resulting from the use of this product. Your use of Echomail Tracker
constitutes acceptance of this limited warranty.
EchoMail Tracker is not placed in the Public Domain. The copyright
is retained and the software is provided on licence.
Registration
------------
If you use EMT for more than a 30 day trial period, or you just plain
like EMT and will continue to use it, please register EMT.
Send $5.00 (Check or Money Order, NO CASH please) to:
Blane M. Amy
Rt.2 Box 471
Newberry, Fl.
32669
You probably spend more than $5.00 a day running mail, so please
register EMT. Besides, I need the money.
The following people are exempt from paying a registration fee for
allowing me the use of their software without a fee. I found it and still
use it.
Author Software
----------- --------
Bob Camp Logtime.
Mark Shasby MSGT.
Ken Thompson Fixbbs, PUTID, Readarc.
Stephen De Plater Change Password, Genhist.
Steve Thompson Sedit, Daytime, CHKACC.
John Delle-Torre GTPWGEN, SayGday (No longer using with GT 16.00).
B.J.Guillot BGTOP, BGPCK
Files with v1.10
--------------------
With this release, EMT and its associated files should be in a file
named EMT110.ZIP, and there should only be two files contained in this
ZIP file: EMT.EXE and EMT.DOC. Any deviation from this and the
possiblity exists that someone took it upon themselves to rename the ZIP
file or add stuff. Please disgard this package if the above is not
true.
-1-
Purpose
-------
The purpose of Echomail Tracker is to track slow echos, and/or
problem echos. A Daily report will be generated showing what echos have
not come in, how many days since the echo has been recieved, and other
associated data.
As an aside, Echomail Tracker will inform you of problems with your
routing.bbs file such as:
1- Duplicate instructions in your Routing Instructions,
indicating two sources for an echo.
2- Ensure there are entries in the Message Distribution Section for
all Routing Instructions.
3- Duplicate instructions in your Message Distribution section.
4- Ensure there are entries in the Routing Instructions for all
Message Distribution entries.
5- Echos listed in your ROUTING.BBS that are shown as Retired.
6- Echos listed in your ROUTING.BBS that are shown as Renumbered.
Usage
-----
EMT can be run anytime, anywhere, as many times as you want to run
it, and it takes only about a minute to run (On my 10 mHz XT, with a 225
echos, initialization takes just over 1 minute). The only effect you can
have as of this release, is reguarding the number of days since an echo
has come in, in the EMT.BBS report (See /D: option in command line options
section). Of course, when errors are detected in your ROUTING.BBS file,
EMT will be very helpful.
I suggest running EMT after your normal daily mail run, and any
other time you would possibly get new mail (GTCrash.bat, Crash.bat,
etc...) for most recent information. Also, you might want to run it anytime
changes are made to your routing.bbs to detect errors.
To be clear, EMT will ONLY check to make sure that echo entries found in
the Routing Instructions and Message Distribution have corresponding entries.
Further format checking is beyond the capability of EMT (At least as of
this release).
EMT will create the following files when run:
EMT.DAT - Located in your GTPATH directory, always!
File created for storage of information. If this file
is accidentally deleted, no great harm is done. This
file will be regenerated (EMT will run slightly slower
when intializing this file). The only damage will be
the loss of accumulated days since the echo has come
in. Only the current month will be represented when
initializing this file. (Of course you can always copy
several months worth of gbag.log's into one gbag.log
and run EMT. In testing I placed 6 months of logs into
one file (of course it took a little longer). Beware
though, that if you just ordered an echo, and it shows
up that it has not come in for 172 days, it is not
EMT's fault <grin>.)
-2-
EMT.BBS - Located in your BBS directory (Check /B: option below)
as defined in your GT configuration.
The report file created with all the information you
need to keep track of echomail. This file is
re-created each time you run EMT.
A typical report will look like this (excerpt):
EchoMail Tracker Date: 7-20-1990 Time: 06:56
Echos that have not been received.
No. Last
Days Echo ID Description Day Source Sponsor Net/Node
===============================================================================
3 E00/024 Ham Radio 1292 033/007 Dave Mccrory 033/007
1 E00/023 Adventures In Travel 1291 033/007 Bob Camp 006/013
19 E00/065 Antique Electronics - Tubes None 044/002 William Warren 077/001
19 E01/450 The Nintendo/Sega Game Conf REN 079/003 Gene Newcomb 044/003
19 E10/090 Echo W/O PC Pursuit RET 033/007 Bob Camp 006/013
19 E10/110 Paranormal & Fringe Science DOWN 015/002 Terry Mcfalls 010/006
Of 187 total echos, 104 echos were NOT received today.
55.6% of the echos were not received.
Check file EMTERR.LOG for errors found!
Hopefully, the headings are self-explanitory. However, a few comments.
The first column is the number of days it has been since the echo has been
received by you, not the number of echo days it has been (Check /D:
option in command line options).
The Last Day column is the last echo date of the echo received,
which will not necessarily correspond to the first column (notice lines
1 and 2 of the report).
The Last Day column could possibly have four other designations
besides the last echo date received.
None - You have yet to receive this echo (or, in the case of
initialization or loosing the EMT.DAT file, you have yet
to receive the echo in the current month).
RET - The echo has been listed as retired. Probably time to
delete this echo from your ROUTING.BBS (And be curteous,
send your .gq and inform your source of this possibility).
REN - This echo has for one reason or another been given a new
echo designation number. Same comments as RET.
DOWN - The sponsor of this echo is listed as being down for one
reason or another.
The Source is the Net/Node you have listed as your mail forwarder in
the Routing Instructions with the ACCEPT statement. This might not
necessarily correspond to your actual source if you get the echo from
one Net/Node and forward the B-bags of the echo to a different Net/Node.
And, of course, the Net/Node column is the Net/Node of the listed
sponsor.
The last 3 lines of report simply inform you of how many echos you
have received and a percentage received, along with a notice if any
errors were detected.
-3-
EMTERR.LOG - Located in your GT LOG directory, Always (at least
for the moment)!, (Oh no, not another log), as
defined in your GT configuration.
This file will be created only when any mistakes are
detected.
I hope the log entries are self explanatory. At the
moment, these are all the entries that are possible:
*******************************************************************************
EMT Error Report Date: 7-20-1990 Time: 06:56
*******************************************************************************
Routing Instruction Errors:
Duplications
Echo Source 1 Source 2
E02/102 046/000 079/003
E02/103 046/000 079/003
Echos in Routing Instructions not in Message Distribution
E01/450
E01/452
Message Distribution Errors:
Duplications:
E00/001
E00/002
Echos in Message Distribution not in Routing Instructions
E01/012
Echo Listing Errors:
Echos Listed as RETIRED still listed in Routing:
E02/250
E10/090
Echos Listed as RENUMBERED still listed in Routing:
E01/450 RENUMBERED to E01/657
E01/452 RENUMBERED to E00/090
F File Errors:
Garbage F Files in MAILIN Directory
F1274104.E10
F1310100.E00
F1327600.E01
F1445501.Q14 (Just what are these 'Q'files anyway?)
F1461014.E06
-4-
More Notes:
-----------
File Inclusion is supported starting with version 1.10. This is
limited however. If your main routing file is ROUTING.BBS, then you may
have one of two statements in this file. The '$' must be the first
character on a line and must be in the first row.
Valid Examples:
$ROUT1.RTE
$ ROUT1.RTE (Does not matter if there are spaces or not, or how many
spaces, although the example in the netmail docs does show
a space)
$C:\ROUTFILE\ROUT2.BBS
$ C:\ROUTFILE\ROUT2.RTE
The limitation with the file inclusion is that the second file, in the
above examples, ROUT1.RTE, cannot also have another file inclusion. EMT
not recognize nested file inclusion.
While EMT is running, several comments could possibly be seen. All
errors noted while EMT is running will be logged in the file EMTERR.LOG
and a notation made in the EMT.BBS file that errors were found.
The GTPATH must be set in your environment using the SET command in
DOS or EMT will terminate.
Also, the following files must be located in your GTPATH directory,
or EMT will terminate:
1-ROUTING.BBS (See /R:, /I:, and /M: options below)
2-ECHOLIST.BBS
3-GBAG.LOG
NOTE: The Gbag.log is where EMT gets its much of its information from.
This was done because the log is there as a useful tool and provides lots
of useful information. Using the Gbag.log is much more useful than just
using the control files the netmail suite produces.
In the netmail 2.00 and above, you must not be using the /NL on Mbagger
and Mdist command lines to suppress Gbag logging. Also, you cannot use the
/V option for verbose logging on the Mdist command line. The default mode is
normal Gbag logging which is what is required to use EMT.
If your using netmail programs prior to v2.00, I can't help you.
I cannot remember the command line swithes to force Gbag loging, or if the
Gbag logging was the same format (Noone should be using anything prior
to netmail 2.00, At least I hope not, but it is not unexpected).
I have no idea where else the files could be located, even in a
network environment. (Someone will correct me if I am wrong).
EMT does not recognize networking with this release.
-5-
One last important note. All of your routing instructions must be
in one file. The same must be true for the message distribution section.
For instance, your routing instructions might all be in a file called
ROUTE.RTE, and your message distribution section in a file called
MESSAGE.RTE. However, the sections can NOT be split between one or more
files. This is related to only the echo entries, not the netmail
directives.
Command Line Options
--------------------
There are only five command line parameters that can be used.
Notice the colon after each one. The colon MUST be there if shown, or
the command line option will not be recognized. Oh, one last note.
Although the below commands and examples are in upper case, case does
not matter. Lower case is fine to use, or if you really like to be strange,
like myself, cases can be mixed, it simply is not a factor.
/B: The option to have the EMT.BBS file made as a bulletin.
Without this command line, EMT wil make the EMT.bbs file and
place it in your GTPATH directory.
Example: /B:5
This would make the EMT.BBS file, bulletin number five in
your default directory.
/D: Command line switch for the EMT.BBS file.
Below are typical entries in the EMT.BBS. Using the /D:
switch, you can control what is reported as far as how many
days since you recieved a particular echo.
It has been 3 days since E00/024 has been received, 1 day
for E00/023, and 19 days for E00/065.
3 E00/024 Ham Radio 1292 033/007 Dave Mccrory 033/007
1 E00/023 Adventures In Travel 1291 033/007 Bob Camp 006/013
19 E00/065 Antique Electronics - Tubes None 044/002 William Warren 077/001
Using the command line switch, /D:3, would eliminate E00/023 from the report
and all others not received in 2 or less days. This will give you some form
of control in case you don't care if echos show up for less than a certain
amount of time. The Default is 1 day.
/I: Informs EMT of an alternate file containing ALL of the Routing
Instructions. The default file is ROUTING.BBS.
Example: /I:ROUTE.RTE
/M: Informs EMT of an alternate file containing ALL of the Message
Distribution Section. The default file is ROUTING.BBS.
Example: /M:MESSAGE.RTE
/R: Informs EMT of an alternate name for your ROUTING.BBS file.
The default file is ROUTING.BBS.
Example: /R:ROUTE1.BBS
-6-
General Comments
----------------
EMT was written entirely in Turbo C, using only the standard libray
funtions that come in the Turbo C library.
Future Revisions
----------------
I have planned to add the capability of sending the EMT.BBS to
whatever message area the SYSOP would like so as not to have to look at
a file everytime.
Checking for receipt of duplicate echos from more than one source is
also on the list. This is the main reason I chose the Gbag.log as the
MAIN source of info. Just checking the control files could not give you
this info, at least to the best of my knowledge.
Somehow, someway, I am going to include support for people who use
the verbose listing in the Gbag.log. At the moment, any echos listed in
the Gbag.log under the verbose listing will not be recognized. With
EMT, you shouldn't have to use this option anymore.
I also envision adding the capability to have EMT automatically send
netmail to your source for the echo and the sponsor, to inform them of
problems, and to possibly enter a message directly in the echo to test
routing. Actually, when first planned, these features were number one
on the list. I strayed slightly <grin>.
There are only about a bizillion things you could do wrong in the
ROUTING.BBS file, and I am sure that all of us at one time or another,
have found one or two. More checking would be added to detect other
mistakes, any mistakes, I do lots of typos myself.
Final Comments
--------------
I can be contacted at:
GT Net/Node: 087/001
Voice Number: (904)472-6072
BBS Number (The Philosopher's Corner): (904)472-1860
Mailing Address: Rt.2 Box 471
Newberry, Fla
32669
Please direct any comments, questions, suggestions, winning lottery
tickets, swiss bank accounts, etc., to one of the above.
Enjoy!
-7-