Subj : FidoNews 31:45 [02/08]: Ftsc Information To : All From : FidoNews Robot Date : Mon Nov 10 2014 00:31:31 ================================================================= FTSC INFORMATION ================================================================= FTSC standing member elections, call for votes ============================================== Voting for FTSC standing members commences on Sunday, 9 November, 2014, 20:00 UTC. All RCs are entitled to vote. Each voter may cast one "yes" or one "no" vote for each candidate. Voters need not vote for all can- didates, a non vote will be regarded as "abstain" for that candidate Candidates must receive more "yes" than "no" votes to be elected. Although not required, voters are encouraged to consult their constituency before casting their votes. Debate with the candidates is also encouraged. No need to hurry. Voting ends on Sunday 23 November 2014, 20:00 UTC. The status of RC's will be determined by nodelist.313 for Zones that issue a daily nodelist. For other zones by nodelist.311. In both cases by the list as issued by the ZC in the zone where they reside. This is the list of candidates: Name Node nr. Nmntd by Accepted Ivan Agarkov 2:5020/848 RC50 Yes Stas Degteff 2:5080/102 RC16 Yes Andrew Leary 1:320/119 RC28 Yes mark lewis 1:3634/12 RC16 Yes Fred Riccio 1:132/174 RC16 Yes Carol Shenkenberger 1:275/100 RC16 Yes Alexey Vissarionov 2:5020/545 RC16 Yes Voters are requested to copy and paste the form below, mark a cross for each candidate in the "yes" or the "no" column for all candidates they wish to cast a vote for and post it in FTSC_PUBLIC addressed to "Election Coordinator with a subject of "vote". Once again, voters need not vote for all candidates. ---------------------------------------------- | Name | Node nr | Yes| No | |----------------------|-------------|----|----| | Ivan Agarkov | 2:5020/848 | | | | Stas Degteff | 2:5080/102 | | | | Andrew Leary | 1:320/119 | | | | mark lewis | 1:3634/12 | | | | Fred Riccio | 1:132/174 | | | | Carol Shenkenberger | 1:271/100 | | | | Alexey Vissarionov | 2:5020/545 | | | ---------------------------------------------- Michiel van der Vlist FTSC Election Coordinator 2:2/20 ----------------------------------------------------------------- Publication: FTS-5005 Revision: 1 Title: Advanced BinkleyTerm Style Outbound flow and control files. Authors: Igor Romanovsky Administrator and FTSC members Date: 2014-11-09 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Contents: 0. Status of this document. 1. Introduction. 2. Definitions. 3. Flow files. 4. Control files. 5. References. 6. Contact Info. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 0. Status of this document -------------------------- This document is a Fidonet Technical Standard (FTS) - it specifies the current technical requirements and recommendations for FTN software developers, coordinators and sysops of the Fidonet network and other networks using FTN technology. This document is released to the public domain, and may be used, copied or modified for any purpose whatever. The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in FTA-1006. 1. Introduction --------------- BinkleyTerm Style Outbound (BSO) flow and control files have been used for a long time but still are not fully documented. This has led to software developers using different approaches that make changing the mailer on a FTN station rather sophisticated. This document combines the original ideas, introduced by Vince Perriello and Bob Hartman (BinkleyTerm), and Andy Elkin (T-Mail). 2. Definitions -------------- Filename case sensitivity - the case of the BSO filenames depends on the OS file system. Lower case filenames are prefered if supported by the file system. If the OS file system supports lower and upper case filenames, the software should be able to handle both for maximum compatibility. That behaviour might be controlled by a configuration option. Outbound directory (outbound) - directory where flow and control files are stored. Outbound directory names will have the format [.zzz], for example F:\Mailer\Out.002\ for the zone 2 outbound. Default Outbound - The Outbound directory for your zone. In this case a directory generic name without a quasi extension is functionally equal to a directory with a quasi extension equal to your own zone number. If we consider node 1:234/5, the default zone is 1, thus "outbound" and "outbound.001" are both valid directories for storing flow and control files and it is recommended to check both of them but create flow and control files only in first, "outbound". For supporting point systems an outbound sub-directory is created with name ".pnt", where - name of flow file as described below. In this directory flow and control files are created with name formed from point number as 8 hexadecimal digits zero-padded on the left. Thus information concerning to point 104/36.45 is stored in subdirectory "outbound\00680024.pnt" in flow and control files with the name"0000002d.*". For supporting communications with systems from a different zone, a number of directories are created with the same generic name chosen for the default directory, plus a quasi extension equal to the zone number expressed as 3 hexadecimal digits zero-padded on the left. If the zone number > 4095 then 4 hexadecimal digits are used in quasi extension. The last can be implemented *only* with a modern OS. Thus information concerning node 2:104/36 is stored in directory "outbound.002" in flow and control files with name "00680024.*". "outbound" is assumed to be a generic name. Domain Addressing - is an extended method of designating various FTNs as compared with the zone-only method previously used. Domain addressing adds an additional "layer" to address designation that represents a particular FTN. Within that FTN, zones and nets can be specified without conflicting with identical zones and nets in other FTNs. Domain Addressing is only needed if you operate in two or more Fido Technology Networks (FTNs) using the same Zone numbers, or you wish to keep different Domains' compiled nodelists separate. How should Outbound Areas be named when domains are used? As always, the outbound area for your primary address (including domain) is the default outbound. Separate Outbound Areas are needed for each Zone in each Domain. These take an identical stem path to the primary outbound, except that the name of the last sub-directory is changed to the parameter, plus the zone extension. For example, if your default outbound is C:\BINKLEY\OUTBOUND for the outbound holding area (and you are in FidoNet), Alternet (zone 7) outbound mail would be held in the C:\BINKLEY\ALTERNET.007 directory instead. Note that outbound areas for domains other than your primary will ALWAYS have a zone extension, and that zone extensions are always specified in Hexadecimal, up to .FFF (4095). The outbound holding areas (for Zone 1 FidoNet) would then be as follows: c:\bink\outbound (Default Outbound) c:\bink\outbound.002 (FidoNet Zone 2) c:\bink\outbound.003 (FidoNet Zone 3) c:\bink\outbound.004 (FidoNet Zone 4) c:\bink\outbound.005 (FidoNet Zone 5) c:\bink\outbound.006 (FidoNet Zone 6) c:\bink\alternet.007 (Alternet Zone 7) c:\bink\alternet.059 (Alternet Zone 89) c:\bink\eggnet.063 (Eggnet Zone 99) Flow file - a file with specific name and various extension that contains extension specific information to be sent to remote side. The name of flow file is formed from network and node number of the remote system, expressed as 4 hexadecimal digits each, zero-padded on the left. Thus information concerning node 104/36 is stored in flow and control files with name "00680024" but with different extension. Control file - same as flow for file but usually does not contain any information inside. Its purpose is to control behavior all software dealing with BSO. A reduced flow file (file does not contain any information inside or is of zero length) also may be considered as a control file. Restrictions - time intervals when it is not desirable to call the remote system. Restrictions may be external, introduced, for example by nodelist's information or internal due to economical or organizational reasons. 3. Flow files ------------- Flow files contain references to information to be sent to remote system. The address of remote system and name of this file has one-to-one correspondence. Flow files are divided by type and flavour. 3.1. Types of flow file There are 3 types of flow files: netmail, file reference, file request. Netmail flow files are an FTS-0001 packet containing packed netmail as described in FTS-0001. This flow file has signature "ut" as 2nd and 3rd letters in extension. During a session this file must be dynamically renamed at the moment of sending to a remote system with a unique name and extension "pkt". The method of creating unique names is implementation dependent. This file must be transferred to the remote system at any successful session. If the session is terminated accidentally during sending, this file must be resent in the next session from the beginning. After successful transmission this file must be deleted from the outbound directory. Reference files consist of a number of lines (terminated by 0x0a or 0x0d,0x0a) each consisting of a one char directive followed by the name of the file to transfer to the remote system. It has signature "lo" as 2nd and 3rd letters in the extension. Reference files consist of a number of lines (terminated by 0x0a or 0x0d,0x0a) each consisting of the name of the file to transfer to the remote system. It has signature "lo" as 2nd and 3rd letters in the extension. The file name is optionally prefixed with a one character directive that indicates what to do with the file after a succesful transfer. The following directives are documented as a standard: "#" - Indicates that the files should be truncated to zero- length after successfully sending the file to the remote system. This is normally only employed when sending compressed mail (archived mail) to the remote. "^" - delete the file after successfully sending the file to the remote system. "~" - skip the line from treatment. It may be useful to mark an already processed line. - indicates that the file should be sent and neither be truncated nor deleted after sending. Listing the file with the full path circumvents problems with files that have a name starting with a character that is a known directive. Software may optionally recognise the following directives: "-" As an alternate for "^" "!" As an alternate for "~" "@" Send file, do not truncate or delete. It is recommended that for maximum compatibility new implemen- tations recognise the above directives as documented, but do not use them when creating reference files. If an indicated file does not show a path, the result depends on the implementation. The implementation may assume that it resides in the same directory as the flow file, the working directory or some other directory. Also, programs running in different tasks may make different assumptions about what is the default directory. Therefore it is highly recommended to always use the full path in reference files. If a file is not found, software must ignore the line and continue processing. Whether the mailer does or does not send the files listed in the reference file during the successful session depends on the flavour of the reference file. After successful transmission of the listed files the flow file must be deleted from the outbound. (But see below.) Should the session be terminated accidentally while sending the listed files, the flow file must be processed in the next session from the beginning. A file request has "req" as an extension. Information in request file is described in FTS-0006. File requests have the flavour "direct" with possible additional restrictions specific to the file request. Normally this file is deleted after receiving the requested files. Reduced request file has no meaning and must be ignored. 3.2. Flavours of flow file THe flavour of a flow file controls mailer's behavior. It can initiate a poll to a remote system. Especially it is useful with a reduced flow file. Creating such a flow file may force the mailer to execute actions that are not specified in normal mode of operation. It is recommended to use only reference files for reduced flow files and to use the method of "touch"ing a file; creating a new file if there isn't one already, or changing the file date to current if there is a file already. The difference in mailer behaviour for flow and reduced flow files is described later. There are 5 flavours. Immediate has "i" as the first char in the extension. Thus the full extension of a netmail file is "iut" and for a reference file is "ilo". If a flow file with such a flavour exists the mailer must try to poll a remote system without taking in consideration any external and internal restrictions. During a successful session files listed in "ilo" file must be sent to the remote system. It is assumed that information mentioned in "iut" and "ilo" will be sent to the specific system. Very often a reduced form is used only for making a poll. Continuous has "c" as the first char in the extension. Thus the full extension of netmail file is "cut" and for a reference file is "clo". If a flow file with such flavour exists the mailer must try to poll a remote system taking in consideration --- Azure/NewsPrep 3.0 * Origin: Home of the Fidonews (2:2/2.0) .