                      Transparent Gateways to and from FidoNet
                               Technical Considerations
                                        FSC-0035

                                Michael Shiels 22 June 89

    Copyright 1989, Michael Shiels.  All rights reserved.  The right to distribute
    for non-commercial use is granted to the FidoNet Technical Standards Committee,
    provided that no fee is charged.  This may be posted on FidoNet electronic BBSs
    which charge no fee for accessing this document.  Any and all other reproduction
    or excerpting requires the explicit written consent of the author.

    Gateways
    --------

    Gatewaying between Fidonet and other networks seems to be the latest feature
    which hopefully brings more benefits to the users of each network.  But there
    are some real problems with gatewaying and doing "transparent" replies.
    This proposal should allow for almost totally transparent gateways but requires
    the co-operation of BBS software writers to support this following protocol.

    Incoming Messages
    -----------------

    When a message is entered into fidonet from another network it will be entering
    through one machine (say 1/2).  The userid on the other network may not match
    very will with the 2 word 36 character userid on Fidonet.  So the following is
    done to store away the proper userid of the sender.

    Two (2) lines are added to the message (usually at the top of the text portion
    hidden by the infamous ^A KLUDGE).

    ^AREPLYADDR .....\r

    which signifies the FULL userid of the person on the other network.  The first
    36 characters or the full userid if less than 36 characters long, are stored
    in the FROM field of the message header.  When replies are done they use a
    second line of the following form.

    ^REPLYTO zone:net/node firstname lastname

    which is used to signify the "userid" which mail destined to this other network
    must be sent to and on which machine that userids resides.  Replies are sent
    to this zone:net/node and userid with the first line of the message being
    changed into 'TO: ....' where .... is the FULL userid from the ^AREPLYADDR
    line.

    Should you have constructive correction or criticism, please contact:

    Michael Shiels
    FidoNet: 1:250/410   michael.shiels@masnet.fidonet.org
    uucp: ?!tmsoft!masnet!michael.shiels
    Internet: michael.shiels@masnet.uucp

    ----------
    FidoNet is a trademark of Tom Jennings and Fido Software, to whom we all owe
            much thanks for the origin and spirit of FidoNet.

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