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Text File | 1988-05-27 | 15.2 KB | 385 lines

The PE1CHL version of NET by KA9Q by R.E. Janssen, PE1CHL. last update: 27-May-1988. This document describes some changes I have made to the NET program (by KA9Q) after porting the program to the Atari ST. These features are now also available in a PC version. Current program version is 871225.12.PE1CHL AX.25 callsign handling The 'mycall' variable and command have been replaced by a more powerful set of commands, that allow more complex ax.25 use of the package. The callsign to use in IP and NET/ROM is now specified as an extra parameter to the attach command. This change allows a different callsign-ssid to be used on different bands, a requirement in some countries. Also it is the basis of some cross-band digipeating features. A problem occurs when the same station can be contacted on 2 bands, and the routing tables in each station indicate a different band to be used. The other station incorrectly assumes the same callsign is valid on both bands. ARP can be fixed to include the interface in the table, and keeping separate callsigns for each IP address- interface pair. This has not yet been implemented. The digipeater functionality and command have been enhanced. It is now possible to switch digipeating on and off independently for each interface, and as an extra option it is now possible to have a digipeater gateway between 2 or more bands. To use this feature, set a different callsign-ssid on each band (in the attach command), and use "ax25 digipeat <interface> gate" commands for each interface participating in the gateway. Packets arriving on an interface, and requiring to be digipeated by the call of another interface, will be sent out on the digipeat interface with the digi call replaced by the call of the interface where the packet arrived. (a known trick to implement a multi-band digipeater gateway). Example: If the callsign on 2m is PE1CHL-2, and on 70 it is PE1CHL-7, someone qrv on 2m can connect a station on 70 by connecting "via PE1CHL-7". This results in a transmission on 70 cm specifying PE1CHL-2 as a digipeater. When the destination station replies, the packet will be digipeated on 2m with digipeater callsign PE1CHL-7. MHEARD The familiar "MHEARD" command has been added. It is now only implemented for ax.25, but it could be used on any network. It is possible to set the number of different addresses to remember using "mheard <interface> number". The default is 0, i.e. no recording of heard stations. Use the command "mheard 144 23" to keep the last 23 heard stations in the list (i.e. one screenful). The command "mheard 144" will then list the heard stations, in this format: May 25 21:25:34 PA0GRI-1 to PE1CHL-2 May 25 21:25:20 PI8CIK to MAIL via PI8HOB >(PI8VRZ) In the second line, a station was heard using a digipeater. The part of the digipeater list in brackets indicates the digipeaters that did not yet relay the packet when it was last heard. So in the example, PI8VRZ was not heard digipeating the packet. The ">" sign indicates that the input of the digipeater was heard, in this case the transmission by PI8HOB to PI8VRZ. If the 2nd line reads: May 25 21:25:20 PI8CIK to MAIL via >PI8HOB >(PI8VRZ) this means that PI8CIK was heard DIRECT and via PI8HOB, but not via PI8VRZ. The most common use of this feature is to determine if a station can be heard direct and/or via a digipeater, as in: May 25 21:38:10 PI8RNI-7 to PI8ESA-7 via >PI8HOB This indicates the station can be heard both direct and via the digipeater. SOURCE The "source" command has been added to read a commands file, like the autoexec.net file. The syntax is "source <filename>" This command can also appear within the autoexec.net file itself, making it possible to subdivide this file in some logical parts (e.g. setup and routing commands). This allows you to structure the autoexec.net file into different parts, like attach of interfaces, parameter setting, routing commands etc. Now, it is possible to share some of these files between different setups to be used by NET. ROUTE The "route" command hast been extended: when you enter "route add <host> via <ipgate>", the existing route to <ipgate> is stored in the routing table. This means that if you change the route to <ipgate> in your autoexec file, all the routes that are via this gateway will automatically be updated when you start NET. (especially handy when you change the interface at which a gateway can be reached, and still more important when you want to run different configurations of you local machine(s) using a cleverly built autoexec.net using the "source" command to read routing tables from separate files.) Example: route add pa0gri 144 route add bbs.pa0gri via pa0gri Some very minor changes in the doadd and dodrop routing functions now make it possible to use symbolic names in route commands, even when specifying the number of bits: Example: route add Belgium/16 via pa0gri TRACE Tracing can now be routed to a file. Use "trace to <pathname>" to enable tracing to a file, "trace to con" to switch back to console tracing. Always use an absolute pathname for the file (e.g.: trace to c:\net\tracefile), as it is sometimes closed and re-opened using the specified name. This could fail if you change the working directory. The date and time-of-day has been added to the first line of each trace output, which is useful when writing to a file. FLOW The "flow" command has been implemented, and works like in the TNC code. Incoming input is not printed when the user is typing input on an interactive connection, greatly enhancing the readability of keyboard-to-keyboard communications. The input will be printed when a RETURN is typed, or whenever you backspace to the beginning of the line. "flow on" enables this feature. Input Line Editing Input line editing has been enhanced, and a history of command lines (of more than 1 character) is kept. The arrow keys can be used to move through this history, and to edit input lines. An "insert" mode is recognized (insert key). Key functions are: left arrow nondestructive backspace through the current line. allows corrections in your input. right arrow to move towards the end of the line. when it is used at the end of the input, characters from the previous input line will be inserted. up arrow get the previous line in the input line history and show it. put cursor at end of this input line. down arrow get next line from input line history. delete when the cursor is over a character in the current input line, deletes that character. insert toggles between overtype and insert mode. in insert mode, anything typed when the cursor is not at the end of the input line will be inserted at the cursor position. ^H, backsp delete the character left from the cursor position. ^R redisplays the input line and puts the cursor at the end. ^U, ^X cancels the current input line. RETURN accepts the current input line. note that the cursor may be anywhere in the line, the complete line will always be accepted. AX.25 ports The "ax25 port" command has been added to allow ax.25 servers to run in the NET program, just like TCP servers. It is possible to define a callsign (and optionally an interface) that can be connected to, and a port number of a corresponding ax.25 server. The type "digi" can be specified, in this case the program will open a "fake" connection when the callsign appears in the digipeater field of an incoming packet. This allows interesting uses, like implementing net/rom-like digipeaters that operate transparently as far as the end-user is concerned, and that are probably more acceptable to some PTT administrations. The syntax of the ax25 port command is: ax25 port <number> conn <call> [<interface> [multi]] or: ax25 port <number> digi <call> [<interface> [gate]] "multi" specifies that the port can be connected from all AX.25 interfaces. This is also true when the interface is omitted. "gate" specifies that a digi port may be connected from, and can itself connect to other AX.25 interfaces. Interactive (TNC-like) connections now also can use this server concept. This allows immediate printing of "Incoming AX.25 session" upon connection, as the system does not have to wait for an information frame containing a Text PID. The "ax25 start/stop" commands can be used to start and stop ax.25 servers. Currently, the following port numbers have been defined for AX.25 servers that have been written: 1 TNC server. Allows interactive TNC-like connections 2 NetDigi server. A digipeater using 2 separate connections and independent error recovery. 3 MHEARD server. Allows other stations to read your MHEARD list. 4 Conference bridge server. Allows multi-station round- table QSO's. The TNC server emulates an old-fashioned TNC. Stations can connect to it, and will receive a connect text immediately (when defined). Also, the server will alert the operator with a message. ("Incoming AX.25 session # from <call>"). The connect text is given as a parameter to the ax25 start command: ax25 start tnc "Hello OM! Name is ROB, QTH is UTRECHT" When you issue a "connect" command to connect to another station, the program will use the callsign of a TNC port (conn port with number 1) if it is available. If not, it will use the callsign assigned to the interface with the attach command. The advantage is, that the callsign you use for outgoing connects is the same as the callsign other users can connect to. The "NetDigi" server (port #2) implements a clever digipeater that uses 2 fake connections for 1 standard ax.25 connection (only pid=Text allowed). Example: ax25 port 2 digi PE1CHL-3 144 gate ax25 port 2 digi PE1CHL-4 430 gate ax25 start netdigi It is possible to connect "via" PE1CHL-3 or PE1CHL-4, using the "NetDigi" feature (that uses ax25 port 2). This will access the clever digipeater, that uses separate connections for both links, each with separate retries and acknowledges. This "netdigi" will also function as a gateway between bands, but it can only serve ax.25 (pid=Text) users. The MHEARD server (port #3) returns the MHEARD list of an interface. Because this server needs to know which list it has to send, you should include an <interface> specification in the ax25 port command. Specify "multi" if you want the MHEARD list to be available on other interfaces as well. Another ax25 server has been implemented: the conference bridge. It uses ax25 port number 4 (connect mode), and can be started with the command "ax25 start bridge". It supports the connection of a number of stations, and will pass input from any of the connected stations to all others connected to the bridge. You can create several independent bridges by creating more than one ax25 port with number 4, e.g. "ax25 port 4 pe1chl-5" and "ax25 port 4 pe1chl-6" will create 2 independent bridges under the -5 and -6 calls. The bridge supports some commands that the connected users can enter by typing //command at the beginning of an input line. Commands are: //connect call [interface]: Will cause the bridge to attempt connection of the specified station, via the specified interface. //disconnect [call]: Will disconnect the specified station, or yourself if the call is omitted. //interface: Will print a list of available interfaces. //mheard [interface]: Will send the MHEARD list of the specified interface, or by default the interface at which you are connected. //users: Will print a list of users connected to the bridge. ///any text: Will pass //any text to the other users. Of course, it helps if the interface names are mnemonic to the users connecting from outside, e.g. "144" and "430", or "2m" and "70cm". I've found this more convenient than the suggested "ax0" etc, also for my own use. More AX.25 features AX25 loopback has been added to the code, using a separate axloopq structure analogous to the loopq used for IP datagrams. This allows you to connect to one of your local ax.25 ports using an interactive ax.25 session. Useful for debugging ax.25 servers, and also to be able to connect to your own conference bridge. AX.25 events are now logged in the NET logfile, if logging is enabled. An AX.25 timer T4 has been added. This timer is started whenever a packet arrives or a transmitted packet is acknowledged. When the timer times out, the link is disconnected. This feature is used to disconnect AX.25 connections set up by NET/ROM or by IP virtual circuit mode. The timer is automatically disabled for interactive sessions. NETROM Support for NET/ROM level 3 has been added to the package. I am working on level 4 and 7. Now, it is possible to route IP packets over the NET/ROM net, and to serve as a NET/ROM node capable of routing packets flowing between other "real" NET/ROM nodes. The connection to NET/ROM by AX.25 stations, and support for connections to other NET/ROMs is NOT YET FINISHED. [a lot of stuff still to be documented] EXIT The exit command now checks if TCP and/or AX.25 sessions are still open. If so, it gives a warning message, and the exit is not performed. You can use "exit !" to force an exit in this case. The open connections will be RESET, which means that open files will be closed and SMTP lockfiles removed. FTPUSERS file It is now possible to specify more than one directory/permission pair for each user in the FTPUSERS file. This allows better definition of the permissions for each user. The permissions are searched left-to-right for a match of the directory field, and the corresponding permissions field is used when a match is found. So, if you want to specify a different permission for a subdirectory, that subdirectory should be placed before the directory in which it appears. The "working directory" for a logged-in user will be the LAST directory named on the line in FTPUSERS. All entries in the file should be separated by exactly one space. On the Atari ST and MS/DOS, it is now also possible to include a drive specifier as part of the directory name. Example: guest * \net\files 3 \net\ftpusers 0 \net 1 rob myself! a:\ 7 b:\ 7 \ 7 user1 * g:\ 7 b:\ 3 In this example, guest can create files in \net\files, and read everything in \net except \net\ftpusers. This is because the match for \net\ftpusers will return permission 0, while \net\other will return permission 1. 73, de ROB PE1CHL.