Subj : human-readable nodelist format To : All From : andrew clarke Date : Fri Nov 01 2002 03:44 am Document: nodelist.txt Revision: 001 Date: 2002-11-01 Human-readable (HR) distribution nodelist November 1, 2002 andrew clarke 3:633/285.4@fidonet mail@ozzmosis.com Status of this document ----------------------- This document is a FidoNet Standards Proposal (FSP). This document specifies an optional FidoNet standard protocol for the FidoNet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for improvements. This document is released to the public domain, and may be used, copied or modified for any purpose whatever. Rationale --------- With the advent of Internet-capable FidoNet nodes, the FTS-0005 nodelist format has now been rendered woefully inadequate to describe all the mail-delivery capabilities of each node. This document aims to describe an attempt to design a new nodelist format to rectify this situation with the aim of being able to translate back to FTS-5 format without difficulty. Human-readable (HR) nodelist format ----------------------------------- For simplicity and ease of use a human-readable (HR) ASCII text file format was chosen (in preference to, for example, CSV [Comma Separated Values] or XML [eXtensible Markup Language] formats). Of course this does not rule out the use of (or conversion to) these formats for future distribution of the FidoNet nodelist or segments thereof. Lines ----- Lines in the HR nodelist are separated by a single newline character (ASCII 10). Blank (empty) lines are permitted. Comments -------- All comments in the HR nodelist must begin with either a semicolon (;) or hash/hatch (#) characters in the first column of a line of text. The nodelist comment ends at the first newline character. Keywords -------- Keywords in the HR nodelist must begin in the first column of a line of text. If a keyword has a [data] portion, a space (ASCII 32) should be placed between the keyword and the data. Keywords are case neutral, ie. they may be all uppercase, all lowercase, or a mixture of the two. The following keywords are proposed: Domain [domain] Defines the FTN domain, [domain], that the nodelist applies to. This should be specified before any of the keywords below. Address [address] The [address] (in zone:net/node format) following the Address keyword defines the address of a node in the nodelist. Point addresses are not permitted. Each time an Address line appears in the HR nodelist, the information that follows it applies to that node only. Multiple Address keywords for the same node are permitted to describe nodes with multiple mail delivery methods with differing online times (refer to the Online keyword below). Status [type] The Status keyword defines the status "type" of a node. If no Status keyword is present the node is a normal node entry. The following status types may be used: Zone Defines a geographic zone and its coordinator. Region Defines a geographic region and its coordinator. Host Defines a local network and its host. Net The "Net" type is a synonym for "Host". Hub Defines of a routing sub-unit within a multilevel local network. The hub is the routing focal point for its child nodes. Private Defines a private node. Pvt The "Pvt" type is a synonym for "Private". Hold Defines a node which is temporarily down. Mail may be sent to its parent node and held there. Down Defines a node which is inoperational. Mail may not be sent to it. This keyword may not be used for longer than two weeks on any single node, at which point the "down" node is to be removed from the nodelist. Parent [address] The [address] (in zone:net/node format) following the Parent keyword defines the parent (or uplink) of a node. For Zone listings, no Parent keyword is allowed. For all other purposes it is mandatory. Uplink The "Uplink" keyword is a synonym for "Parent". Name [text] The [text] following the Name keyword contains the name by which a node is commonly known. This text may contain any alphanumeric or punctuation characters other than commas or underscores. Location [text] The [text] following the Location keyword contains the geographical location of a node. It is usually expressed as the primary local location (town, suburb, city, etc.) plus the identifier of the regional geopolitical administrative district (state, province, department, county, etc.). Wherever possible, standard postal abbreviations for the major regional district should be used (IL, BC, NSW, etc.). This text may contain any alphanumeric or punctuation characters other than commas or underscores. Operator [text] The [text] following the Operator keyword contains the name of the primary system operator of the node. SysOp [text] The "SysOp" keyword is a synonym for "Operator". Operating [text] The [text] following the Operating keyword describes the transport method, protocol and any other information required to contact the node using that delivery method and protocol. Multiple Operating keywords for the same node are permitted to allow more than one delivery method to be described. For nodes contactable via dialup modem, the following format is used: Operating [Dialup] [FTS-1] [at] [phonenumber][,flags] Where [Dialup] is "Dialup" or "Dial-up", case neutral. Where [FTS-1] is "FTS-1" or "FTS1", case neutral. Where [at] is the word "at", and is case neutral and superfluous. Where [phonenumber] is in the format described by FTS-0005 (or a superseding document). Where [,flags] is a comma-separated list of nodelist flags in the format described by FTS-0005 (or a superseding document). For nodes contactable via TCP/IP using the Binkp protocol, the following format is used: Operating [TCP/IP] [Binkp] [at] [host] Where [TCP/IP] is "TCP/IP" or "TCPIP" or "TCP" or "IP", case neutral. Where [Binkp] is "Binkp", case neutral. Where [at] is the word "at", and is case neutral and superfluous. Where [host] specifies the fully-qualified hostname or IP address of the node. Online [text] The [text] following the optional Online keyword lists the times that the node is online. The format of the [text] field is: [day] [start time]-[end time] Where [day] specifies the day of the week when the node is online, and is a three letter English abbreviation for the day of the week, ie. Sun, Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri or Sat. [day] is case neutral. Where [start time] specifies the time when a node begins operation. Where [end time] specifies the time when a node ends operation. Times must be specified in 24-hour HH:MM format in UTC, where HH is the hours elapsed since midnight and MM is the minutes elapsed in that hour. The hour and minute are to be expressed in decimal and must have a leading zero if their values are less than 10. Multiple Online keywords for the same node are permitted to allow multiple online times to be described. Contact [text] The [text] following the optional Contact keyword describes a method of contacting the operator of the node. Multiple Contact keywords for the same node are permitted to allow more than one contact method to be described for a node. Examples of Contact entries in the HR nodelist might be: Contact E-mail mail@ozzmosis.com Contact Fax +61-3-1234-5678 References ---------- [FTS-0001] "A Basic FidoNet(r) Technical Standard", Randy Bush. September 1995. [FTS-0005] "The Distribution Nodelist", Ben Baker, Rick Moore, David Nugent. February 1996. [FSP-1011] "Binkp - a protocol for transferring FidoNet mail over reliable connections", Dima Maloff, Nick Soveiko, Maxim Masiutin. July 2000. --- Msged/NT 6.1.1 * Origin: Blizzard of Ozz, Mt Eliza, Victoria, Australia (3:633/285.4) .