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CDRMAIL version 1.03 by Charles D. Gaefke Disclaimer ---------- The author of CDRMAIL is not responsible for any damaged, corrupted, lost, or otherwise harmful occurrences which may occur from the use or inability to use this program. This program has been tested and retested, and debugged, by myself and others. To the best of my knowledge, CDRMAIL has no bugs, and will not cause any corrupted or lost data on a properly configured BBS. To the best of my knowledge, it will not do anything more than what is documented herein. However, I guarantee NOTHING, except that this program will take up hard drive space. WARRANTY -------- NO WARRANTY IS GIVEN, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, AS TO THE FUNCTIONALITY OF THIS SOFTWARE PROGRAM. BY USING THIS SOFTWARE, YOU ARE AGREEING NOT TO HOLD THE AUTHOR, CHARLES D. GAEFKE, RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY DAMAGES EITHER CONSEQUENTIAL OR INCIDENTAL, WHICH ARISE FROM YOUR ABILITY TO USE OR MISUSE THIS SOFTWARE PROGRAM. YOU ARE FURTHER AGREEING, WITH YOUR USE OF THIS SOFTWARE PROGRAM, THAT YOU HAVE READ THIS ENTIRE DOCUMENT AND ARE FAMILIAR WITH ITS TERMS AND AGREE TO EXEMPT CHARLES D. GAEFKE FROM ANY AND ALL RESPONSIBILITIES IN THE EVENT OF ANY DAMAGES TO YOUR SYSTEM WHICH ARE CAUSED EITHER THROUGH DIRECT OR INDIRECT USE OF THIS SOFTWARE PROGRAM. Shareware Concept/Grant of License ---------------------------------- CDRMAIL is a fully-functional (non-crippled) Shareware utility. You are granted a license to use and CDRMAIL for as long as you wish. If you use CDRMAIL as your echomail processor, I request that you register it. Registration is only $10. Please see below for the registration form. I do *NOT* require registration. If you do not want to register it, or you can not afford it, that is fine. I also take trades (make an offer!) or just plain donations. Distribution ------------ Feel free to distribute CDRMAIL among your sysop friends. However, I do ask that you do so only in unmodified format, in the distribution CDRM103.ZIP archive, that contains the following files: CDRMAIL.286 CDRMAIL.386 CDRMAIL.486 CDRMAIL.586 CDRMAIL.DOC FILE_ID.DIZ TOBEDONE.TXT WHATSNEW.TXT Description ----------- CDRMAIL is a Renegade echomail processor. It converts .MSG files (created by your echomail tosser) to the Renegade message bases, and visa versa, in a very efficient manner, causing it to process mail EXTREMELY fast. Features -------- - Imports and optional purging of echomail in one pass. - Smart exporting of echomail. - Full netmail support, including kludge line support. - Creates summary of echomail activity on each run. - Handles ANSI very well. - Optional logging of all activities to a log file of your specification. - Max size of 64,000 byte message size for importing/exporting. - Optional tossing of 1.MSG. - Optional absolute scan for exporting of echomail. - Supports multiple configurations via command line and optional environmental variables. - Direct support for GEcho. - Support all versions of Renegade from 10-05-94 on. Requirements ------------ CDRMAIL requires Renegade version 10-05-94, 10-31-94, 04-05-96 or 05-11-96. Because CDRMAIL runs in conjunction with an echomail processor, such as GEcho, knowledge of configuring and running that echomail processor is also required. And, since BBS's are run by batch files, batch file knowledge is required as well. As for hardware requirements, CDRMAIL requires adequate hard drive space for the converted messages. The volume of messages you process will determine how much hard drive space you need. CDRMAIL requires a 80286 processor, or better, to run. Memory requirements are minimal (less than 250k). If you run it in the same sequence you run your echomail tosser/scanner, CDRMAIL should have plenty of memory to work with. CDRMAIL has been tested and it runs properly under DOS/DESQVIEW and OS/2 Warp. There should not be problems under Windows 95. I was unable to fully test it, so I can not guarantee it will work correctly. If you do run Windows 95, and you do have problems, please send me a detailed bug report, and I will do my best to fix it ASAP. Usage ----- First of all, rename the appropriate CDRMAIL.x86 to CDRMAIL.EXE for the CPU you are using. If you have a Pentium, rename the CDRMAIL.586 to CDRMAIL.EXE. If you have a 286, rename the CDRMAIL.286 to CDRMAIL.EXE, and so forth. Note that the 586 and 486 models require a math co-processor. I think you will find CDRMAIL extremely easy to use. I have provided below several examples of how to use CDRMAIL. Note that my examples use GEcho for an echomail processor, and that I assume that you have installed GEcho in \GECHO and Renegade in \RENEGADE. If using a different configuration of hard drive subdirectories and/or echomail processing software, please refer to the documentation that accompanied that echomail processor for information regarding its configuration and for tossing/scanning echomail. - For importing echomail: CDRMAIL runs after you run your echomail processor. This example will import all tossed messages, and purge them when done: :mail_in rem Tossing messages with echomail processor. cd \gecho gecho toss rem Importing messages for Renegade. cd \renegade cdrmail -t -d - For exporting echomail: CDRMAIL runs before you run your echomail processor. Example: :mail_out cd \renegade rem Exporting messages for processing by echomail processor. cdrmail -s rem Running echomail processor. cd \gecho gecho scan rem Deleting previously exported messages. cd \renegade cdrmail -d Note: If you ARE using GEcho, I recommend you use the -G parameter when tossing (-T) mail. It will speed things up significantly. Parameters ---------- CDRMAIL 05-11-96 Renegade Echomail Processor ∙ Registered version Copyright (C) 1994-96 by Charles D. Gaefke. All rights reserved. Commands: -T Toss inbound messages -S Scan outbound messages Options: -D Delete .MSG files -N No netmail -O Only netmail -Pxxx Sets point threshold(def=999) -1 Starts at 1.MSG -A Absolute scan -L Logging enabled -X Xtended logging enabled -G Path to GEcho directory -V Display version number Parameter Description --------------------- Unless otherwise specified, these parameters can be used with one another in any combination you see fit. -T (Toss Inbound Messages) Imports any inbound messages, including any inbound netmail unless otherwise specified with "-N". -S (Scan Outbound Messages) Processes any outbound echomail messages, including netmail unless otherwise specified with "-N". -D (Delete .MSG Files) Causes CDRMAIL to purge all message files (*.MSG) found in your echomail paths. If used with "-T", CDRMAIL will purge them IMMEDIATELY after importing them. -N (No Netmail) Causes CDRMAIL to -not- process netmail when importing or exporting. Can not be used with "-O". -O (Only Netmail) Causes CDRMAIL to -only- process netmail when importing or exporting. Can not be used with "-N". -Pxxx (Point Threshold) According to certain standards (Fidonet), the point field of the address is not required to be specified when creating netmail. Because of this, Netmail sometimes has a "garbage" point address on it. CDRMAIL compensates for this by checking the point address, and attempting to read any kludge lines (hidden data lines) in the message. If CDRMAIL can not find the data in the kludge lines, and the point address is larger than 999, it assumes it is meaningless, and sets it to 0. If, for whatever reason, you want to change the threshold (default is 999), that is what this parameter is for. Most systems will not need this parameter. -1 (Import 1.MSG) When importing echomail, CDRMAIL will look for 1.MSG, and if found, will import it. This is an option because 1.MSG is usually used for what is called a high message pointer for echomail tossers. Use at your discretion. -A (Absolute Scan) By default, CDRMAIL does "smart" exporting. That is, Renegade leaves a "trace" for echomail processors so they know which bases contain messages to be exported. By default, CDRMAIL scans for this "trace" and processes an echomail base only if that "trace" is found. With the "-A" parameter, the trace is not searched for; CDRMAIL will scan every message of every base looking for unsent messages. Note that if a message gets corrupted before exporting, the "trace" is usually not activated, and will not be exported. Using absolute scan will create garbled messages (that your moderator will love, I am sure) if corrupted messages exist. Use at your own discretion. -L (Logging Enabled) By default, CDRMAIL does not do any logging functions. If you want it to log, use the -L command. -X (Xtended Logging) By default, if logging is specified, CDRMAIL records only the time it was run, the parameters used, and summary of processing. If detailed logging is specified, CDRMAIL records all default logging information plus activity/actions for each base. For systems that handle a large amount of mail, this can take up a significant amount of hard drive space and slow system performance rather quickly, hence its optional status. The parameter -L is not necessary if -X is used. You may wish to use -X during your initial tests of CDRMAIL from the command line to learn exactly what CDRMAIL is doing with your mail and to verify its correctness and efficiency. Then please remove its use for day-to-day operation with your system to really see CDRMAIL in action! -G (Path to GEcho directory) GEcho versions 1.00 to 1.20/Plus create a SUMMARY.LOG after each mail toss that contains the areatags of the areas mail was received in. If this parameter is used, GEcho will read the SUMMARY.LOG and ONLY scan those areas with new messages. This makes CDRMAIL *EXTREMELY* efficient and fast. Take note that GEcho 1.11 and below (I do not know if 1.20 does or not) does NOT include the areatag of "personal" mail areas. A personal mail area is an area that GEcho would copy messages addressed to a certain name. On my system, I run CDRMAIL once without the -G parameter to import my personal mail. A creative person could make a program that would automatically insert the areatags of those said areas into the SUMMARY.LOG, but I have not taken the time to do so as of yet. -V (Display version) I added this just so you know exactly what version of CDRMAIL you are using. Generally, CDRMAIL has the same version as the most recent version of Renegade. Unfortunately, though, there may be more than one version of CDRMAIL released for one version of Renegade (for example, version 1.01, 1.02, and 1.03 are for 05-11-96). So, if you want to know what version of CDRMAIL you have, run CDRMAIL -V. :) Logging ------- By default (if logging is enabled), CDRMAIL writes to a log file called CDRMAIL.LOG in the LOGS path specified in your Renegade configuration. You can override this default behavior by using the environment variable CDRMAIL. To do this, use the DOS command SET, as follows: SET CDRMAIL=d:\path\filename.ext where "d:" is the drive letter, "path" is the pathname, and "filename.ext" is the name of the file into which you want CDRMAIL to write its statements. For example, in your AUTOEXEC.BAT, put: SET CDRMAIL=c:\logs\cdrmail.log Then, every time CDRMAIL is run, the file C:\LOGS\CDRMAIL.LOG will be appended with new log information. Note that you can use any valid DOS path and filename you desire - but the path, if specified, MUST exist. Otherwise CDRMAIL will exit with an error and -will not- process your mail! Speed ----- On my system, CDRMAIL _FLIES_. With 2 nodes running in the background, plus whatever else I may be doing, I typically get 30+ messages tossed a SECOND. My system is a Pentium 90 with 16 megs of RAM, and I run OS/2 Warp. If your messages/sec is much slower than mine, and you have a system comparable to mine, there may be an internal problem with CDRMAIL, or you could do some optimizing of your system. All mail tossers, CDRMAIL included, LOVE a disk cache. A disk cache helps IMMENSELY when tossing mail - especially a write-behind disk cache. For DOS, Smartdrv (in your DOS directory) or HyperDisk (by HyperWare) are excellent disk caches. For OS/2, mail tossing works best on a HPFS drive with a fairly large CACHE specified (I have a 2 meg cache). Please see your manuals for installation of this software. BE FOREWARNED - A write behind (lazy-write) cache is not for everyone. There are hazards to a write behind cache. They function by storing recently written data to memory, and it is eventually written to disk. If your system is unstable - or if you have frequent power outages (without a UPS), I do not recommend using a write-behind cache. !!!USE THEM AT YOUR OWN RISK!!! If you decide not to use a write-behind disk cache, a "normal" cache will help immensely as well. Time Estimation --------------- CDRMAIL calculates the local time from the DOS environment variable TZ. Most BBS's should have this variable set already, since several popular programs make use of it. If you do not currently use TZ, and are not located in the eastern time zone (see note #2), the TZ environment variable is not very difficult to add. The TZ variable is in the following format: xxxNyyy Where xxx is your time zone (ex: EST), N is the time zone difference between your zone and Greenwich, and yyy is the your time zone initials if/when you observe Daylight Savings time. The yyy is not necessary - if it is omitted, it simply means you do not observe Daylight Savings time and the time will not be adjusted. Set the variable in your AUTOEXEC.BAT, by adding: SET TZ=xxxNyyy substituting xxxNyyy with your settings, of course. For example, in my AUTOEXEC.BAT, I have: SET TZ=EST5EDT Note 1: If you are unsure what amount of time zone difference there is between your location and Greenwich, consider that the setting for Eastern Standard Time is EST5EDT. If you live in California, you are three hours behind EST, so you would use PST8PDT. Note 2: If TZ is not present, CDRMAIL assumes TZ=EST5EDT. Error levels ------------ CDRMAIL does support DOS error levels. They are listed in the following table: ERROR LEVEL Meaning ============================================================================= 0 Normal Completion - No errors encountered. 3 Insufficient memory to process mail. Mail was NOT processed. 5 File not found. A file CDRMAIL was searching for could not be found. Some mail processing may have occurred before this error. This could be a user problem or an internal problem with CDRMAIL. 10 User Break (Ctrl-Break). The user has terminated CDRMAIL. Some mail may have been processed before the user break. Since every process in CDRMAIL is logged, if you check your log file you will see exactly what when wrong and when. I implemented the error levels just for those who may want them/are able to handle them in BATCH files :) Note that unlike Renemail, there is no error-level if CDRMAIL "chokes" on a message because CDRMAIL does not choke on messages. Nor does CDRMAIL "hang" either. (If it does either, there is an internal problem with CDRMAIL.) There is no easy for CDRMAIL to determine if a message is really garbled or not. So any garbled messages will be imported, as they are. Registration ------------ CDRMAIL is Shareware. Not the -normal- Shareware, because I do _NOT_ require registration. If you want to register CDRMAIL, I will be more than happy to accept it. :) However, until CDRMAIL is registered, it will display "UNREGISTERED" in a couple of places, and a seven second delay will occur upon successful completion of CDRMAIL. Registration of CDRMAIL costs only US$10.00. Considering the amount of time I have put into CDRMAIL, and how useful and efficient it is, I consider this to be a small price to pay for the performance gained. Upon registration: 1) You will receive a registration key; 2) You will be supporting the shareware concept; 3) You will be encouraging me to write more utilities; and 4) All unregistered "features" will be removed. To register, please print this form and mail it with your check or money order to: CHARLES D. GAEFKE PO BOX 257 CECIL, PA 15321 I will process your order for CDRMAIL upon receipt, and will deliver it immediately using the method you have specified. International orders welcomed! All personal checks, however, must be drawn in US funds on a US bank. Canadian residents may obtain a money order in US funds at their local bank or post office. Other countries please inquire at your local bank or postal office about an International Money Order (IMO). (cut here) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Registration form for CDRMAIL version 1.03. Your REAL name: Address #1: Address #2: City, State, Zip: Country: I can send you your registration key two ways: 1) I can crash it to you via Netmail if you have an address that I have a nodelist for. 2) I can call your BBS and upload it (please leave data phone #). Preference: These are not required, but I would appreciate you filling them out so I know exactly what types of systems CDRMAIL is running on. Hardware CPU: RAM: Why are you registering CDRMAIL? Enclosed is $____. [ ] Check [ ] Money Order [ ] International Money Order (IMO) By signing below, I agree that by registering this program, I am in no way purchasing and am in no way granted partial ownership or rights to CDRMAIL. I am paying for a non-transferable license to use CDRMAIL on my system indefinitely and to support the author and the shareware marketing concept. In return for my payment, however, I expect to receive a registration key which will disable any unregistered "features" of CDRMAIL. Signature: ______________________________ Date: __/__/__ Please make check or money order payable to Charles D. Gaefke. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bug Reports ----------- At the present time, there are no known bugs with CDRMAIL. Hopefully there will not be any more. :) In the event that a bug is found, however, please let me know! For me to fix it, I will require as much information as you can give me. So, when contacting me about a bug, please include: Your operating system and version; Version of Renegade you were using when the bug occurred; Command line parameters used when the bug occurred; Can you make CDRMAIL do this again? If so, how? If at all possible, the message(s) that caused the problem would help IMMENSELY. Any other information/comments you think will be helpful to me. Basically, give me a short text description of what happened. How It Works ------------ Special notes on how CDRMAIL functions, for those who may be curious, and are familiar with how Renegade works: Q. How does CDRMAIL distinguish what Netmail messages to import? A: First it checks the origin address of the netmail message to see if it is from one of your AKA (specified in your Renegade setup). If no match is found, it checks the destination address for a match against your AKA's. If one is found, CDRMAIL checks the destination name against your user database. If a match is found, it is imported for that user. If not, it is still imported, but for user #1. Q. What is the HI_WATER.MRK file in all of my echomail directories? A. CDRMAIL uses the HI_WATER.MRK file to keep track of what messages have been imported (so that it does not import them again). The HI_WATER.MRK file contains two things - the number of the last message imported, and the date/time stamp of that message. Q. How does CDRMAIL import messages? A: First CDRMAIL checks for a match to the filespec (*.MSG) for the area. If a match is found, CDRMAIL checks the HI_WATER.MRK file (see above), reading the number of the last message imported, and the date/time stamp of it. CDRMAIL then checks to see if that message exists and IF it has the same date/time stamp as the HI_WATER.MRK indicates. If a match is made, CDRMAIL starts importing at the next message (if it exists). If there is no match, CDRMAIL starts importing at 2.MSG (1.MSG if -1 is used; if -1 is used and 1.MSG is not found, it goes to 2.MSG). *IF* 1.MSG or 2.MSG is not the first message, THERE WILL BE AN ERROR! Mail tossers toss from 1.MSG or 2.MSG on - therefore if *.MSG is found, CDRMAIL assumes the first message is 2.MSG (or 1.MSG). CDRMAIL keeps importing, as long as the next message exists. That means if you 2.MSG, 3.MSG, and 5.MSG in your directory, CDRMAIL will import #2, #3, see that #4 does not exist, stop there. The ONLY exception to this is when CDRMAIL processes Netmail. When CDRMAIL processes Netmail, it reads the numbers of all the messages (since they can vary in number), and sorts them out. CDRMAIL then processes them one at a time, in the order then exist. Note that if, by chance, one of the netmail messages is deleted (such as on a multi-node system that just sent/received a mail call) before CDRMAIL processes it, and after CDRMAIL acknowledges it is there, CDRMAIL will give an error, and abort. However next time CDRMAIL runs, things will proceed as normal with no data lost. Q. How does CDRMAIL purge messages? A. If -D (purging) is used with -T, CDRMAIL purges *ONLY* if messages are imported. If not, CDRMAIL does not check to see if there are messages to be purged. If -D is used by itself, CDRMAIL deletes any match it finds to the *.MSG specification, one at a time (unfortunately I have found no way to purge them all at once, such as "DEL *.MSG"), as it finds them. Q. How does CDRMAIL export message? A. This is relatively self-explanatory, but I have included it because I have the other 3 main functions in here. :) Unless the -A is used, CDRMAIL checks each base for the "marker" indicating it has messages that are not sent. When it finds one, it searches through all the messages until it finds one that is unsent (and validated), and exports it to the next .MSG number. That is, if you have 2.MSG-100.MSG in your directory when CDRMAIL exports, CDRMAIL will start exporting as 101.MSG, then 102.MSG, etc. If the -A parameter is used, CDRMAIL checks every base for any message that has not been sent (and is validated). Q. What is the CDRMAIL.DAT I have in my Renegade directory? A. The CDRMAIL.DAT contains all the data CDRMAIL needs from your message base info (MBASES.DAT). If you will compare the size of the two, you will see there isn't much from the MBASES.DAT that CDRMAIL needs. With this in mind, CDRMAIL can run faster because it doesn't have access everything in the MBASES.DAT (whether it read the whole thing into memory or if it "jumps" through it finding what it needs). In the CDRMAIL.DAT is a date/time stamp of the MBASES.DAT when CDRMAIL was last executed. When CDRMAIL runs, it compares that date/time stamp to the one on the MBASES.DAT. If it is different, CDRMAIL assumes the MBASES.DAT has been changed, and a new CDRMAIL.DAT is created with a new date/time stamp reflecting the new MBASES.DAT in it. If you are using the -G parameter, the CDRMAIL.DAT also contains the date/time stamp of your AREAFILE.GE plus all the info CDRMAIL needs from that data file. Miscellaneous Information ------------------------- This is the third 'official' release of a program for me. My first was GEMC, a program to keep a daily record of imported messages from GEcho. The second was RGNSHOW, a program to reflect the status of other nodes from the command line. There are more programs in the making, and still more ideas I have not started yet. In case anyone is wondering, CDRMAIL stands for CD's Renegade MAIL processor. I am in no way affiliated with any group or company. I author alone. CDRMAIL was compiled with Watcom C++ v 10.7. Source code (approx 1950 lines amounting to 79k) is NOT available for sale or study. If a new Renegade is released with modified structures, I will update CDRMAIL as soon as I get the structures for the upgraded Renegade. The latest version of CDRMAIL can always be FREQed as 'CDRMAIL' from 50:530/1 or 1:129/230, my BBS, Cott Lang's BBS, and on ftp.wustl.edu. I've had no luck whatsoever getting the guy at umanitoba to put my files up, but you may happen to find them at ftp.cc.umanitoba.ca. I plan on having a Web Page in the future that will have CDRMAIL on it. Credits ------- My thanks to Watcom for their IDE interface. Without it I would be lost. Many thanks to Cott Lang for Renegade - the best BBS around. (It's a shame the source is in Pascal though <G>). Merci beaucoup to my girlfriend Tasha for listening to all my gripes and complaints when things did not go the way they should while programming. Many thanks to my Beta testers, Robert Colbert (A.K.A. Linc) and Bill Thoma. They found a lot of my bugs in the beta versions and offered advice that helped the creation of CDRMAIL. Thanks guys! Suggestions, Questions, and/or Comments --------------------------------------- Questions, technical support and comments about CDRMAIL, or any of my software, may be sent to me via netmail at 1:129/230@Fidonet.org or 50:530/1@RGSNet. Currently my EMail address is cdgaefke@sgi.net, but that may change within a month from this release. I am also reachable in all of the RGSNet echos. Or, if you prefer, you can snailmail me at LOTL c/o Charles Gaefke PO Box 257 Cecil, PA 15321 -C. Gaefke, 31 August 1996