Cream of the Crop 12/Cream of the Crop 12 (Part II)/Cream of the Crop 12 (Part II).iso/BBS/WG960214.ZIP/WTRGATE.FAQ

Text File | 1996-02-14 | 8.9 KB | 183 lines

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     WaterGate FAQ
     30/10/1995

This is the first version of the WaterGate FAQ. It was compiled from
the latest messages I sent for support by Ramon van der Winkel. You
will find two sections in this FAQ: Informational and Operational.
The first has information about WaterGate itself and where you can
get it and go for support. The second part has answers about
questions that raise when you use WaterGate.


INFORMATIONAL

Q: What is WaterGate?
A: WaterGate is a message processor. In Fidonet terms, it is a tosser
   that can handle Internet mail and Usenet news as well. Apart from
   distributing messages in Fidonet technology format, it can also do
   the complete distribution of UUCP mail and news. Next, it is a
   gateway between the two formats, allowing Fidonet users transparent
   access to UUCP mail (Internet mail, e-mail, etc.) and all the
   newsgroups.

Q: Where can I go for support?
A: You can send e-mail to [e-mail].

Q: What is the latest release?
A: At the time of this writing, the latest release is 0.20. But, you
   can always send an e-mail to [e-mail] to request
   a text-file with the information about the latest release, the
   patches you can get and other files you can request via e-mail.

Q: Where can I get the latest release?
A: There are several Fido systems where you can file-request it and
   an attempt is made to keep it available at certain FTP sites as
   well.
   The magic name WTRGATE can be used at these Fido sites:
   2:200/111 (SE), 2:280/802 (NL), 1:320/42 (USA), 1:373/26 (USA),
   3:362/15 (Portugal), 2:244/1195 (Germany), 2:2501/307 (UK).
   Anonymous FTP: ftp.nijenrode.nl /pub/watergate,
                  ra.uti.com /sys/sys/bbs/incoming.
   WWW: http://www.nijenrode.nl/~michel/wsd/wsd.html,
        http://www.htsa.hva.nl/~martijnd/WaterGate

Q: How do I know when a new version is release?
A: Announcements are made on the mailing list [e-mail].
   To connect, write a message to [e-mail] with nothing
   in the body of the message, except "connect watergate".


OPERATIONAL

Q: I am connected to 10 newsgroups, but when WaterGate runs, it
   creates areas for more than 50 newsgroups! And it creates more
   every day!
A: One of its fine options that keeps you from typing a lot! The
   problem is that a news message is always crossposted in more than
   one newsgroup. And WaterGate does not know which of these is the
   one you are connected to. So... it checks all the newsgroup names
   and if they don't exist, they are automatically created. Look at
   the flag "New Area-create" in the user record of your uplink.

Q: The logfile says "Allowing all new newsgroup names"
A: This is because you have not installed a "New newsgroups filter
   file", or there is no ROUTE.TDB file, or there is no NEWSFILTER
   statement in your ROUTE.TDB file, or it could not find that file,
   or that file contains no filter statements.

Q: Log: Allowing ALT.INTERNET.SERVICES (line 0)
A: The "(line 0)" means that it found the rule that allowed it to
   create this area in line 0 of the new newsgroup names filter
   file. It is line 0 because this file is not present.

Q: Log: Incomplete to-address in .X; Using To: header from .D
        Jaap_Aap -> [e-mail]
A: Your provider does NOT put the full e-mail address of the
   receipant in the .X file, which is basically the enveloppe of the
   message. Therefore, WaterGate has to search the .D file for the
   complete receipant address in the To: header. Which takes
   processing time that could have been avoided. Amongst others...

Q: Log: Incomplete to-address in .X, but To: header from .D is
        unreliable! Adding 1st system domain: Jaap_Brother ->
        [e-mail]
A: Here it gets more serious with the problem I described above. In
   this case the To: header in the .D file did NOT contain a proper
   receipant address. This happens when a list server distributes a
   message to all mailing list receipants. All receipants simply get
   a copy of the message that was sent to the list. Because of this
   copying, the To: header will not contain the proper e-mail
   address, but something like "[e-mail]", while the
   .X file reads "Jaap_Brother".
   Fortunately, WaterGate does not take the To: line from the .D file
   and send the message there, because it would be sent back to the
   mailing list if it did that. With all disasterous results of doing
   that... so, the only solution left is adding your first system
   domain address and sending the message there.
   If this message was intended for one of your sub-domains (if you
   have any), then the message will not be routed properly, but will
   end up in your netmail area instead... nothing to do about that,
   except for manual routing with a MAP-UUCP statement. See the
   manual for more details about that.

Q: Log: Gating netmail for [e-mail] to mail
        Translation: "Ramon van der Winkel"%2:280/[e-mail]
        -> [e-mail]
A: This line is informational and tells shows you the translation of
   a Fidonet address to an e-mail address. If the result is not
   good enough, then you could install a mapping statement in the
   ROUTE.TDB file that overrides this default behaviour. Notice that
   the mapping statements are shown as well.

Q: How do I assign a nice e-mail addres to a fidonet user.
A: If you don't like the default behaviour, then you can install
   a MAP-UUCP statement in the ROUTE.TDB file. See the manual for
   details on this very complex and powerful statement.
   An bi-directional example:
   MAP-UUCP [e-mail] "Ramon van der Winkel"%2:280/802.33

Q: Log: Translating Mail -> Netmail
        Translating Netmail -> Echomail
A: These lines are informational. It shows you how a message is
   transported through WaterGate. This was probably a message to
   an mailing list. It came in as Mail and was distributed to
   everybody that had subscribed with an e-mail address. Next,
   it was translated to Netmail and distributed in Fido netmail
   format. Then, it was translated to Echomail and send out in
   the echomail area. When a UUCP user is connected to that area,
   it is translated to News as well.

Q: Log: Intelligently using old Mail header to build the News header
A: This is another informational log line that has to do with the
   distribution of a mailing list message. When WaterGate had to
   build a news message, it found the original message from the
   incoming Mail. It decided to use a number of the original header
   lines in the News message, instead of creating new header lines
   with system information.

Q: Log: [FidoPktExportMsg] Shrunk too long FromUser_F at export
        Created from FromUser_U: From:
        [e-mail] (gARetH baBB)
A: You configured the Gateway to put the e-mail address in the
   To: header. But, the maximum length of the Fido To: header
   is 36 characters, which is not enough to hold the e-mail
   address, which is 41 characters in this case. WaterGate will
   cut off the e-mail address and write an Sender: line in the
   body of the message.

Q: The messages I process are not that large, but the swapfile is
   used all the time. When I start WaterGate I have 100kb free.
   Why does WaterGate use the swapfile so "fast"? What can I do to
   reduce the swapfile usage?
A: WaterGate can only use the lower memory area (below 640kb) to
   store a message that it is processing. It only stores one message
   at a time. The DPMI version can use more memory.
   When the free memory runs below 70kb, WaterGate swaps out the
   message part that is in memory, so all memory becomes available
   again to read the next part of the message.
   The rest of the 70kb is used for building up a message when
   exporting.
   To reduce the swapfile usage, you have to reduce the amount of
   programs that are loaded in "low" memory. You can check which
   programs are loaded with the MS-DOS mem.exe program. If you
   run it with the argument /c, you can see exactly which programs
   take all the memory. You can either try to remove those program
   or to load them in upper memory with the loadhigh statement.

Q: What does the following line in the logfile mean:
   [JAM] Trying to work around SubFields length error in ABC (off by 1)
A: There are programs around that do not correctly set a variable in
   the JAM header which indicates the number of bytes of all the header
   lines that follow. If WaterGate detects this, it writes a line in
   the logfile about it and doesn't run into problems anymore. This
   log line means there is an other program around that doesn't update
   the JAM bases properly.

End of WaterGate FAQ