280 lines
13 KiB
HTML
280 lines
13 KiB
HTML
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<META http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO 8859-1">
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<META http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css">
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<META name="author" lang="en" content="Michiel Broek">
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<META name="copyright" lang="en" content="Copyright Michiel Broek">
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<META name="description" lang="en" content="MBSE BBS Manual">
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<META name="keywords" lang="en" content="MBSE BBS, MBSE, BBS, manual, fido, fidonet, gateway, tosser, mail, tic, mailer">
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<TITLE>MBSE BBS Programs - mbfido - The Fidonet mail and files processor.</TITLE>
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<LINK rel=stylesheet HREF="../manual.css">
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<BODY>
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<BLOCKQUOTE>
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<h5>Last update 01-May-2002</h5>
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<P> <P>
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<H1>mbfido, the fidonet mail and files processor.</H1>
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<P>
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<h3>Synopsis.</H3>
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<P>
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<code>mbfido [command(s)] <options></code>
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<P> <P>
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<H3>Description.</H3>
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<P>
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<strong>mbfido</strong>
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is the program to process fidonet mail and files. In order to run mbfido
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you must first start <strong>mbtask</strong>,
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this is the deamon which controls all bbs activities. To prevent that
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<strong>mbfido</strong> will run more than once at the same time a lock
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is placed in the protected inbound with the pid of the running
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<strong>mbfido</strong> program. The gateway to and from internet is also
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handled by <strong>mbfido</strong>.
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<P> <P>
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<H3>Specifications.</H3>
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<p>
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The recognized mail packets are type 2+ following the FSC-0039 standard with
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a fallback to the old stone age packets.
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Can handle messages of maximum 429467295 bytes, or less if you have less
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memory available, the practical limit is about 1 Meg. Note that most mailprocessors
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are only guaranteed to work to maximum 16 KBytes.
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Recent experiments in the LINUX echo show that this is still true,
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although most tossers seem to process mail up to 32 KBytes.
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<P> <P>
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<H3>Tossing Mail.</H3>
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<P>
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First make sure you have the necessary message areas in your setup. At least
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you need the badmail and dupemail areas and a netmail area for each network
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you participate in. If you don't create badmail and dupemail areas then
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bad (unknown area etc) and dupes are lost and you cannot check the reason why.
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If you don't create the netmail areas for each network, then netmail to your
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system will dissapear. It is not possible to "retoss" the badmail yet after
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you have created any missing echomail areas.
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<P>
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To prevent .pkt name collision the toss of incoming mail is done in parts.
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The first run is to process all uncompressed mailpackets and add mail to the
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outbound. Then each compressed ARCmail archive will be uncompressed and
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processed and mail will be imported and forwarded as necessary. During all
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these passes all filenames are sorted by date and time, the oldest files are
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processed first.
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<P>
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The recognized mail packets are type 2+ following the FSC-0039 standard with
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a fallback to the old stone age packets. The packets are checked for being
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addressed to one of your own aka's and for a correct password. The
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password check may be switched off in the nodes setup. After all the packet
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header checks the messages will be extracted from the packet file.
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<P>
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When messages are extracted from the packets, the date format is checked for
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Year2000 bugs from other tossers. Several checks are done by ideas of Tobias
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Ernst of 2:2476/418. It is also possible to run the <strong>pktdate</strong>
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utility before each packet will be processed. Whatever date format us used in
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the original message, <strong>mbfido</strong> will always rewrite the date
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field in the right FTS-0001 format.
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<P>
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If the message is a netmail the message is checked for DOMAIN, INTL, FMPT and
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TOPT kludges so that full 4d or 5d addressing will be possible. Then a check
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is done if this netmail is addressed to one of our aka's. If it's addressed to
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"sysop" or "postmaster" the name is replaced with the sysop's name. If the
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message is addressed to one of the names defined in the service setup, that
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mail will be handled by the service manager, ie. given to areamgr, filemgr or
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send further as email to your local system.
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<BR>
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Then the message is checked if it is addressed to an existing bbs user, and if
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so it will be imported into the netmail area of the main zone of the bbs.
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If it's not addressed to a bbs user, the message will be readdressed to the
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sysop. If the message is not for one of our aka's the message will be put in the
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mailqueue for further routing.
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<P>
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If the message is a echomail message it will be checked for being a duplicate by
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storing the CRC32 value of the AREA: line, message subject, origin line,
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message date and msgid kludge and testing if that CRC32 value exists in the
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echomail duplicate database. If there is no msgid in the message, the whole
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message body will be include to complete the CRC32 dupe check.
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Also the existance of the echomail area is checked and the node must be linked to that area.
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If the message is not in a passthru area and is not a duplicate it
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is finally imported in the message base.
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After that is the message will be forwarded to downlinks
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by adding the message to the mailqueue.
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<P> <P>
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<h3>Adding mail to the outbound.</h3>
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<P>
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Adding mail to the outbound is done in two passes. The first pass is to put all
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outgoing mail into the ~/tmp directory, these files are named z.n.n.p.ext
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The extension can be qqq for packed mail, nnn for normal unpacked mail, hhh for
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hold unpacked mail and ccc for crash unpacked mail. Adding mail to this tmp
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directory can allways be done, even if one of the nodes you are adding mail
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for is having a mail session with your system. This is a safe operation.<br>
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In the second pass, these temp files are really added to the outbound, but
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only if the destination node is not locked, ie. there is no current mailsession
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with that node. If there is a mail session going, these temp files will stay in
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the temp directory and are added to the outbound in a later run of
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<strong>mbfido</strong>. If adding the mail to the outbound succeeds
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the temporary file is removed.
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<P> <P>
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<H3>Alias file.</H3>
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<P>
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If the file /opt/mbse/etc/aliases exists, mbfido will try to fetch ftn-style
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aliases from there.
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If "from" address of a message from FidoNet matches <b>right</b> side
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of some entry in alias file, then the Reply-To: header is created
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in the RFC message with the name part taken from the left side of the
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sysalis entry and domain part taken from myfqdn (below). E.g., if a
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fidonet message comes from "John Smith of 1:234/567.89@fidonet" and
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there is an entry in the sysalias file:
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<pre>
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"jsmith: John.Smith@p89.f567.n234.z1.fidonet.org"
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</pre>
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and Domain name value is "mbse.nl", then the resulting message will
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contain a line: "Reply-To: jsmith@mbse.nl".
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<P> <P>
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<H3>Commands.</H3>
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<P>
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<code><strong>mbfido</strong> areas</code>
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This command will check all file and mail groups if areas files are defined and
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if the setting <b>Auto change</b> is set to Yes. Then the areafile is read and
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the areas in that file are compared with the defined areas. Missing areas are
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created and areas not in the areafile are removed or blocked depending if there
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are files or messages present in these areas. This is also a good command to
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create large bulks of new areas on your system.
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<P>
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<code><strong>mbfido</strong> mail <recipient></code>
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This command is used by your MTA to deliver email addressed to for example
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Michiel_Broek@f2802.n280.z2.fidonet.org
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<P>
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<code><strong>mbmail</strong> <recipient></code>
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This is the same as above.
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<P>
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<code><strong>mbfido</strong> notify <nodes></code>
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This command will send notify messages to all nodes in your setup which
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have the notify option set to on. If you enter nodes as option you may use
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wilcards, ie 2:*/* to send messages to all nodes in zone 2. If you specify
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exactly one node, messages will be generated even if that node has the
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notify function off. From cron you should not specify any nodes, this will
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just send to all your links the information about their setup. Each node
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will receive a status report for files and mail, and area list for all
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file areas and mail areas to each aka a node has, and a flow report for
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mail for each aka.
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<P>
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<code><strong>mbfido</strong> roll</code>
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This command will only do something if a new week or month has begun.
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If this is true the statistic records in several databases are updated.
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You should run this command each midnight from cron to be sure that this when it is
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time to do so. This command is always executed before one of the scan, toss or tic commands so
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if you don't do this in cron, it will still happen.
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<P>
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<code><strong>mbfido</strong> scan</code>
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Scan for new messages entered at the bbs or by other utilities. If the file
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~/tmp/echomail.jam or ~/tmp/netmail.jam exists,
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mbfido will only scan the messages in areas which are
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pointed at in this file. This is a lot faster then a full mailscan.
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If it is not present, all messagebases are scanned
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to see if there is a new message. If you specify
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<strong>-full</strong> on the commandline a full messagebase scan is forced.
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It is wise to do this sometimes, on my bbs I run this once a day.
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<P>
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<code><strong>mbfido</strong> tag</code>
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The command will create tag- and areas files in the doc directory for each group of
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mail and files.
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<P>
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<code><strong>mbfido</strong> test</code>
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This is for testing of the mail routing. In the source "tracker.c" I have
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included a list of nodes that will be tested. This is for development only,
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but it might be handy for you to test your netmail routing.
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<P>
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<code><strong>mbfido</strong> tic</code>
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Process incoming files accompanied with .tic control files. Several actions can
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take place on the incoming file before they are imported in the BBS areas.
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Options are rearchiving, replacing banners (with your add), check for DOS
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viruses, running scripts for certain filename patterns, send these files to
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other nodes etc. All options can be defined for each area. If as a result from
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one of the actions there are new files hatched, for example after processing
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a nodelist difference file which created a new nodelist, the .tic processing
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will start again, until there is really nothing more to do.
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<P>
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<code><strong>mbfido</strong> toss</code>
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Toss incoming fidonet netmail and or echomail. By default mail in the protected
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inbound directory will be processed, uncompressed .pkt files and compressed
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arcmail bundles are recognized, filename case doesn't matter.
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<P>
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<code><b>mbfido</b> news</code> Scan all defined newsgroups for new newsarticles.
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New articles are fetched from the newsserver and stored in your messagebase and
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send to your up- and downlinks. This is for use with an NNTP gateway.
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<P>
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<code><strong>mbfido</strong> uucp</code>
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This will read a standard a newsbatch from stdin and gate the articles
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to Fidonet and the local message base. This is for use with an UUCP gateway, this
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mode should be called by uuxqt. The newsbatch may be compressed or uncompressed or
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a single news article.
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<P>
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<code><strong>mbnews</strong></code>
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This is an alternative to <strong>mbfido uucp -quiet</strong>.
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<P> <P>
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<h3>Options.</h3>
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<P>
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<code><strong>mbfido</strong> [command] -nocrc</code>
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Disable CRC checking of incoming TIC files. Only use this if you know what
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you are doing.
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<P>
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<code><strong>mbfido</strong> scan -full</code>
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Force scanning of all message bases for new entered mail. You need this if
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mail in entered with other editors then from mbse. Also, running it once a
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day is adviced to catch any missed messages.
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<P>
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<code><strong>mbfido</strong> news -learn</code>
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Scan the newsserver for news articles, and update the news dupes database only.
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Use this switch if you start using mbfido to gate news articles for the first time.
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Articles will not be gated with this switch, mbfido will just learn which articles
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already exist. Normally you only need to use this switch once.
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<P>
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<code><strong>mbfido</strong> [command] -nodupe</code>
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Disable checking for duplicate's. Normally you should not use this switch.
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This switch doesn't work with the news command, only for echomail and tic files.
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<P>
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<code><strong>mbfido</strong> [command] -quiet</code>
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Quiet mode, all output to the current tty is supressed. Use this flag if
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you toss mail from a script (started by cron) after mail is received.
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<P>
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<code><strong>mbfido</strong> toss -a</code> Toss mail and allow to autocreate
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new message areas. See the <A HREF="../setup/emareas.html"> message area setup</A>
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how to set this up.
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<code><strong>mbfido</strong> toss -unsecure</code>
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Toss mail without checking if the echomail is for your own system en without
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checking if the sending node is connected to your system. Nodes who are
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excluded from a certain echo, can stil not enter messages in that echo.
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<P>
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<code><strong>mbfido</strong> [command] -unprotect</code>
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Toss from the unprotected inbound directory. The default is to toss from the
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protected inbound directory.
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<P> <P>
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<h3>Environment.</H3>
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<P>
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In order to run the bbs you need to set one global environment variable
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<strong>$MBSE_ROOT</strong>
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This variable must point to the root of the bbs directoy structure.
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<P> <P>
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<h3>Bugs.</H3>
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<P>
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There are still bugs, this program is under development.
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<P>
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<A HREF="index.htm"><IMG SRC="../images/larrow.gif" ALT="Index" Border="0">Back to index</A>
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<A HREF="../index.htm"><IMG SRC="../images/b_arrow.gif" ALT="Main" Border="0">Back to Main index</A>
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</BLOCKQUOTE>
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