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Text File | 1990-08-05 | 17KB | 859 lines

AA ChgAddr V1.0 Network Mail Re-Addresser for RemoteAccess by Marc A. Shannon, 129/45 August 5, 1990 Chapter 1 Introduction ChgAddr is a program which can be used with your RemoteAccess system to "correct" the source or destination Network Mail address of any message in your RA message base in the first board listed as being for "NetMail". (See page 26 of the RemoteAccess documentation for information on setting up a message area for use with Network Mail.) Using a simple configuration file, you can tell ChgAddr what messages you want "altered" to suit your network setup. You can include multiple rules to suit as many changes as you need. There is no limit on the number of rules you can include in the configuration file except for the limit of your system's (or window's) memory size. As with most, if not all, other software products available on FidoNet, no guarantee is given to the stability of this program. It might trash your message base, but it probably won't. All I know is that it works on my system. The archive as sent out on SDSRA includes five files: CHGADDR.EXE The actual executable program SAMPLE.CFG A sample configuration file which shows use of the different possible rules CHGADDR.DOC The documentation formatted for any standard printer CHGADDR.EPS The documentation formatted for Epson printers (or those which emulate standard Epson MX-80 codes) README A brief summary of what ChgAddr does This program is somewhat ShareWare. If you use it and you like it, you don't owe anything. If you would like me to know that you really like it, you may send in a small amount of money (no more than $5 please) to: Marc Shannon ChgAddr Donation CMU P. O. Box 257 Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3890 If you do send $5, I will, first of all, be interested in writing future programs that work with RemoteAccess, and also will make sure that I send you any new versions of ChgAddr as well as any new RA support programs that I write. Alternatively, if you would like, just send me a NetMail message and I'll be happy with that. - 2 - Chapter 2 Requirements and restrictions ChgAddr was written on a 80386-SX system running MS-DOS 3.3 and RemoteAccess 0.04a, but should work on any MS-DOS 3.x system with RemoteAccess 0.03 or later (not including 1.00 which may require a rewrite of the message-base structures). ChgAddr is written in C using the Turbo C 2.0 compiler. (If you're interested in seeing my RASTRUCT.H file, you can FREQ it from 129/45.) In order to run ChgAddr, you only need to follow the standard setup procedures for RemoteAccess and then create your configuration file, CHGADDR.CFG. ChgAddr will check your environment for the RA variable. If found, it will use this to find your RemoteAccess configuration and then use your message- base path listed in there. If the RA environment variable is not found, ChgAddr will do all its work from the current directory. You should place your CHGADDR.CFG file in the directory that the RA environment variable points to. (If it is not found in that directory, the current directory is also checked.) ChgAddr is only 16K and should work fine in even the smallest memory configuration. (You may need more memory for ChgAddr to run if you have zillions of rewrite rules, though.) At its peak, ChgAddr only opens 4 files concurrently, which is less than RemoteAccess opens. ChgAddr will tell you, however, if it is unable to open a file needed for proper operation. When running, it always opens the files with sharing options so it, theoretically, could be run in a multi-line situation. Standard DOS locks are taken out on the records being modified to prevent accidental conflicts. This EonlyF works if any other programs with access the message-base use these locking routines. It should be mentioned that this release of ChgAddr EDOES NOTF do anything with respect to points. Any point values specified in the configuration file are flagged as invalid. - 3 - Chapter 3 Configuration (rules) file This is where the guts of the ChgAddr configuration file are explained. First off, your configuration file should be placed either in the directory where you plan to run ChgAddr during your normal batch file processing of exporting NetMail messages or in your RemoteAccess system file directory (as defined by, and I'll say it again, your RA environment variable). The ChgAddr configuration file is a "free-format" file with one small exception. You may include comments on any line when you use a semicolon (;) in front of your comment text. The exception to the "free-format" is that blank lines have a special significance. Your configuration file can contain many "rules", each of which can specify a certain address match with certain rewrites for those matches. Between each rule, you need to have a blank line. You may include as many rewrite rules in the configuration file as you need or want. In processing, ChgAddr will only apply the EFIRSTF rewrite rule which matches the particular message. Each rewrite rule can include up to four clauses: Old-From, Old- To, New-From, and New-To. The "old" clauses may contain one or more network addresses while the "new" clauses should only contain one address. A fully specified rule could be shown as: [Old-From addr-list] [Old-To addr-list] [New-From addr] [New-To addr] where the "addr-list" would be one or more addresses, possibly including the use of "All" or "Except" phrases. The format follows (as closely as possible) the format used by many mailer programs which allow for multiple address specifications. "addr- list" may span multiple lines provided that there is no clause - 4 - keyword in the middle and that there isn't a blank line separating the addresses. You'd probably better check out the SAMPLE.CFG file for a better idea of what the address lists can look like. Let's examine the use of the Old-From clause. (The following examples are taken from the first rule in the SAMPLE.CFG configuration file provided with the ChgAddr V1.0 archive.) Old-From 1:1/6 This will match any message which has its NetMail origin address as 1:1/6. Old-To All Except 1:1/0 1 2 3 4 5 6 8 10 11 12 102 103 201 129/40 This will match any message which is not going to one of the specified nodes in net 1:1 or going to 1:129/40. Note that for a successful match of any message, both the Old- From and Old-To clauses must match successfully if they are both supplied. (A rule with no "old" clauses will never match as in the second example in SAMPLE.CFG.) New-From 1:129/45 This is an example of an action clause. If a message matched both the above Old-From and Old-To clauses, it's origin address would be changed to be 1:129/45. If we wanted to include other rewrite rules, they would follow this one after a blank line in a similar manner to this example. - 5 - Chapter 4 Method of operation Here's a play-by-play list of exactly what ChgAddr does. 1. ChgAddr finds out what your RA environment variable is set to. If it is undefined, the current directory is used for all the system file processing. 2. CONFIG.RA is then read to load the message-base directory name as well as your system's primary network address. 3. Then, MESSAGES.RA is checked for your systems NetMail board. Note that ChgAddr only looks to find the first message area which is marked for NetMail. Any subsequent ones are ignored! 4. At this point, your configuration file is read in. ChgAddr first checks the current directory and then looks in your RA system directory (as defined by the RA environment variable, not the directory specified in your RA configuration file). 5. Once your configuration file has been parsed and converted to internal rules, ChgAddr opens up MSGIDX.BBS (for reading) and MSGHDR.BBS (for reading and possible writing). MSGINFO.BBS is read in to get the statistics on how many messages are on the NetMail board. 6. MSGIDX.BBS is scanned for any messages which are on the NetMail board. When one is found, MSGHDR.BBS is read for that particular record. These conditions are checked to see if a message qualifies for an address rewrite: - The message is not deleted - The message is marked as "pending export" - The messages source and destination address match one of the rules listed in the ChgAddr configuration file - 6 - 7. If the message's address needs to be rewritten, the new addresses are loaded in and the message header is written back to the MSGHDR.BBS file. 8. Steps 6 and 7 are repeated until all the messages on the NetMail board have been checked. - 7 - Chapter 5 Error levels and messages Only three errorlevels are used by ChgAddr. They are described below. Errorlevel 1 indicates that a necessary system file could not be opened. A system error message is given with this showing the particular file and the reason why it could not be opened. Errorlevel 2 is used when an I/O error occurs during the reading or writing of one of the system files. Errorlevel 3 is for ChgAddr's errors. These are generally configuration errors. A message is printed on the screen explaining the problem. Since the first two errorlevels represent standard DOS errors, the error messages printed on the console should be fairly self- explanatory (or you can use your DOS reference manual for more information). Errorlevel 3 could include a number of errors including: Syntax error on line # While ChgAddr was parsing your configuration file, it could not understand something on the line number specified. Check your configuration file for possible typos or incorrect network address punctuation. Net address format error on line # A network address has not been completely specified. This could be from using something similar to "1:13" where no node number has been specified; you may have meant "1:13/All". ALL cannot be used here on line # You have used the "All" phrase in an invalid context. This could be in "1:129/45 All" where you should simply say "1:129/All". Also, you cannot use "All" in your new-rewrite lines (New-From and New-To). - 8 - Keyword missing or invalid ("keyword") on line # The keyword specified inside the quotation marks has been flagged as invalid. Check for misspellings and proper configuration file keywords. It's also possible that the keyword was specified at an incorrect time (such as using "All" without specifying which pattern it is to match). Unrecognized keyword ("keyword") on line # You have used a keyword in the right context, but it isn't one that ChgAddr knows about. Check the chapter on the configuration file to ensure that you are using the correct format. - 9 - Chapter 6 Support Support? You've got to be kidding! Ha ha ha ha ha! Well, actually, like most authors, I am interested in finding (and killing) bugs. If you do have problems with this program and just can't seem to get it to work for you, send a copy of your CHGADDR.CFG file along with a description of the error (or non-error) that you're getting and I'll see what I can do. (In order to prevent file name duplication, please rename your configuration when sending it to something that I will be able to identify with your node.) My system, 1:129/45, is reachable 24 hours a day running FrontDoor all that time. THIS BOARD IS NOT A SUPPORT BBS. If you send me, via NetMail, your question or problem, I will answer it to the best of my ability, but I don't have any suitable online conferences or files that will help you. - 10 - Table of Contents Chapter 1 Introduction 1 Chapter 2 Requirements and restrictions 3 Chapter 3 Configuration (rules) file 4 Chapter 4 Method of operation 6 Chapter 5 Error levels and messages 8 Chapter 6 Support 10 i