BBS Toolkit/BBS Toolkit.iso/gt_power/msr17.zip/MSROUTE.DOC

Text File | 1990-06-04 | 14KB | 266 lines

MSRoute - Mark Shasby's Route Tracer
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    This program produces a "Route:" line in messages produced by yourself and
updates any Route: lines passing through your system - hence providing a method
of tracing the route taken by messages as they go through a GT network.

Example
~~~~~~~
    If Oliver at 050/030 was to send a message to April at 004/005, the message
would be created at Olivers board and the MSRoute program would insert a line...

  Route: 050/030 050/007

...as Oliver's system knows that it is passing it on to 050/007.
This is subject to change when new ideas arrive or whatever, it could possibly
collect such details as delay times at each node or something - ideas welcome!

    Anyway, to continue with the story, the above Route: line, when it gets to
050/007 my system knows to pass it on to Andrew so will update the line to...

  Route: 050/030 050/007 050/022

...then pass it on as normal.  Hopefully Andrew will be running this so his
system will update it to...

  Route: 050/030 050/007 050/022 004/005

...which is what April will see when she reads the message.

Day and Time notation
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    MSR10 introduces day & time notation to the Route: line, this is the first
letter (or two) of the day of the week and the hour number appended to your
net/node, for example...

  Route: 050/007m2 050/030

...would signify a message that MSR first routed on Monday at 02:xx (time).
Sometimes it is necessary to use two letters of the day name to differentiate
between Saturday and Sunday, or Tuesday and Thursday.

    The use of this is to spot where a difference of one hour could delay your
mail by a full day, for example...

  Route: 123/001 234/000 345/003

...and...

  Route: 123/001 456/007 345/003

...may be two working routes that look the same length, but with the timings
included...

  Route 123/001m2 234/000m5 345/003tu4     (123/001 contacts 234/000 at 05:00)
                                           (234/000 contacts 345/003 at 04:00
                                            so the message got delayed until
                                            tuesday morning)

  Route 123/001m2 456/007m3 345/003m4      (123/001 contacts 456/007 at about
                                            03:00 so the message is available
                                            at 456/007 for pickup by 345/003
                                            during 345/003's calling time at
                                            04:00 ON THE SAME DAY!)

    This is obviously a simplified example, in practice it could involve trial
and error of a few different routes, and what happens one day may not be the
norm, for example the late contact between 123/001 and 234/000 may have been
because of several retries due to someone doing a one-off .FA of 200K or
something!  Please don't start changing routings every day - that will make the
network very unstable - this kind of tuning takes months and much careful
monitoring - and remember to see if other nodes on the route agree with your
findings before you start affecting their mail!

Where & when to run MSRoute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    The MSRoute program is simply run after EVERY MBAGGER run, including when
it is called from G_UNPAK.  There are no parameters required as of yet and no
config file, but please remember to insert in every .BAT file you may have that
currently calls MBAGGER.

Logging
~~~~~~~
    MSRoute creates a MSROUTE.LOG in your GTPATH - this can grow quickly so if
you are short of disk space you could erase/archive it or something in your
nightly housekeeping.  It is worth trying to keep a day or two's log just in
case it is required for queries or debugging.

MSRoute environment strings
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    There are two optional environment strings to allow your own placing of the
MSROUTE.LOG and the MSROUTE.DAT files.  If these strings are not set MSRoute
uses the GTPATH as in earlier releases.  As MSRoute can be called from several
.BAT files in a complex system I chose environment variables so that changes
can be made at a single point rather than digging through several .BAT files.
An example of placing the log somewhere other than GTPATH...

    (In AUTOEXEC.BAT or wherever you set your environment strings...)

         SET MSRLOG=D:\JUNK

Help
~~~~
    I will be glad to help in any way - please feel free to call Shasby's Lair
on [phone] and page me between 0700 and 1530 on working days (GMT).  I
would be very happy to receive a voice call during these times on [phone]
(ask for Mark) or ANY TIME WHATSOEVER on [phone].  That number is next to
my bed so even the strange hours that people are awake in the US can get through
to me on that - and I don't mind being woken up!

Whatware?
~~~~~~~~~
    This program is shareware verging on freeware - I will accept any spare
Ferrari F40s sent my way - and even money at a stretch - but feel no obligation
to part with anything - the main thing is that a lot of people run this!

Modifications, new functions, bodges etc.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
<--date--> <tim> <-suggestor--> <v#> <------ brief description of change ------>
1989/12/19 10:55 Oliver Bell      2  Added route line info to MSROUTE.LOG (lives
                                     in GTPATH).

1989/12/19 14:23 Andrew Leeder    3  More specific check for word "Route:" than
                                     before, doesn't match with message text!
                                     Speeded up some too by ignoring downstream
                                     echo bags until required.

1989/12/22 10:53 Mark Shasby      4  Added MSROUTE.CTL file, this holds details
                                     of bags already processed so it knows not
                                     to process them on the next run - this
                                     speeds up the run considerably.  If you
                                     didn't like running this because of the
                                     time taken - please try it now!  (The first
                                     run of this version will scan all bags and
                                     could take some time - successive runs will
                                     be far faster)

1989/12/22 12:28 Durk Ellison     5  Fixed run time error 2 at 0000:0218 which
                                     occured when MSROUTE.CTL didn't exist.
                 Gill Cobley         Now handles NET= and NODE= (SCHEDULE.BBS)
                                     with less than 3 digits.

1990/01/08 18:47 Mark Shasby      6  MSROUTE.CTL now obsolete, please delete
                                     from your GTPATH - replaced by more human-
                                     readable MSROUTE.DAT on the first run, I
                                     would recommend running it now so it
                                     doesn't impact tonight's more than
                                     necessary!
                 Perry Alexander     This new file now stores details of bags
                                     within bags that have already been
                                     processed - hence speeding up program
                                     quite considerably.

1990/01/10 14:25 Mark Shasby      7  Added duration and a few other stats to
                                     the end of the report.  Gaps in routings
                                     now indicated by "*/*".  Now realises when
                                     routing from your node has changed, e.g.
                                     if you erase a .DX and a bag flows as
                                     normal.

1990/01/23 10:31 Mark Shasby      8  Now tidies up work directories from
                                     previous failure if necessary, also
                                     displays message to that effect.  This
                                     release also includes some code to allow
                                     for future improvements in the information
                                     on the Route: line, please pass on to as
                                     many MSR users as possible - I can't
                                     activate the new features until everyone
                                     is using this release!

1990/02/02 11:00 Cory Wright      9  Modified to take account of Cory's
                                     encryption used in PowerVote! (still ß).

1990/02/21 15:37 Mark Shasby     10  Day & hour appended to net/node on Route:
                                     line the first time your MSR sees it.
                                     This can give an indication of delays
                                     between nodes and could show that two
                                     routes that look the same length are
                                     not the same timewise!

                                     *** THIS FORMAT WILL CAUSE ERRORS WITH MSR
                                     RELEASES  BEFORE 8 - PLEASE INFORM  ANYONE
                                     YOU  MAY KNOW USING MSR7 OR  EARLIER - SEE
                                     UPDATE INFO FOR RELEASE  8  ABOVE  -  THEY
                                     *HAVE* BEEN WARNED! ***

                                     (See "Day & Time Notation" section above -
                                      but only if you don't get brane-fade too
                                      easily <grin>)

1990/02/23 12:20 Mark Shasby     11  Version 11 fixes a minor bug in the
                                     MSROUTE.LOG.

1990/03/05 10:25 Ken Isacson     12  Version 12 fixes a bug causing a hang
                 Jim Rash            when an M*.* file was found in \MAILOUT,
                                     now reports such a file and continues.

1990/03/07 09:27 Ken Swenson     13  Environment strings "MSRLOG" and "MSRDAT"
                                     added to allow sysop control over location
                                     of MSR files.  Both optional and default
                                     to GTPATH.
                 Mark Shasby         I have introduced the code to suppress
                                     leading zeros from net/node numbers, this
                                     was necessary as Route: lines were
                                     beginning to overflow one line regularly
                                     and I don't want complaints from the
                                     line conservationists!  Anyone running
                                     MSR before release 10 could have problems.
                                     Sorry but it had to be done!

1990/03/15 09:47 Cory Wright     14  Runtime error 200 when all messages were
                                     encrypted - fixed.
                 Mark Shasby         Now reports files in bags that have been
                                     scrambled by PKARC or PKZIP, a method used
                                     by JD software.

1990/03/28 09:23 Mark Shasby     15  Support for PKZIP 1.10 added.

1990/05/08 07:22 Frank Sullivan  16  Fixed hangs caused by some encrypted bags,
                                     very sorry about any hangs, especially
                                     those hitting hubs!

1990/06/04 15:07 Chris Smith     17  MSR now adds a Route: line to any message
                                     it can, regardless of whether the
                                     originating board was running MSR or not.
                                     My original thoughts were that I had no
                                     right to update messages without the
                                     consent of the originator (given by the
                                     originator adding the first Route: line).
                                     However, as Chris convinced me, the Route:
                                     line is just like a postmark added to all
                                     mail to help the hubs to do their jobs
                                     efficiently.  Sorry to anyone who disagrees
                                     with this thinking - if you strongly
                                     disagree please mail me and I will get an
                                     idea of what the net as a whole wants.

Work In Progress
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    If Route: lines are still so long that they overflow a line regularly, I
have code available to only write out the Net number if it isn't the same as
the previous Net on the line, for example...

    Route: 50/30 50/7 50/22 4/5 4/0 32/1

  ...would become...

    Route: 50/30 7 22 4/5 0 32/1

  ...What do you think of that notation to save a few more characters?

    Several people have asked why echo numbers (Exx/yyy) sometimes appear in
the route line, this occurs when a board is passing an upstream echo bag onto
the next node without putting it in a Gbag.  A solution would be for MSR to
start reading the ROUTING.BBS, this would require a "/R:" parameter as used by
Paul's netmail programs - do you think this may put people off running it?

    Also, further information could be obtained if MSR was also run before
MDIST, as well as after MBAGGER as now.  I would obviously make this run as
short as possible if people want it?  Extra functions would include better
chance of plugging gaps caused by people not running MSR, and the Route: line
could also have an indicator to say who sponsors an echo; a replacement for the
existing SPONSOR: line but on the Route: line, hence saving lines in messages.

    If you have any thoughts on any of this please netmail me at 050/007,
messages routed via Paul Meiners or John Cavanaugh hit me quickest.