Subj : Proper way to "freq"
To   : Nick Andre
From : ogg
Date : Thu Mar 02 2023 13:30:08

On 02 Mar 2023, Nick Andre said the following...
 
 NA> On 01 Mar 23  21:02:50, Ogg said the following to All:
 NA> 
 NA> O> In some of the network echos, I've seen several messages that report you

 NA> O> "freq" files.  I understand what the file request means.  I've just neve

 NA> O> able to find any documentation on how to properly format a netmail to
 NA> O> accomplish this task.  Can anyone point me to any documentation or a "ho

 NA> O> on freq'ing?
 NA> 
 NA> Freq means file-requesting and can mean two different things. A "bot"
 NA> which  answers your Netmail and sends you the file, or the functionality
 NA> of a Fidonet mailer that supports Bark or Wazoo style requests.
 NA> 
 NA> I am not familiar with systems that have Netmail bots to send files
 NA> because this could have potential for abuse and several systems may not
 NA> have file attachment-routing enabled in their mailers by default. By the
 NA> time one sends a Netmail to a bot and wait for a reply, they could
 NA> "Google it". It appears  that often there must be a special routing
 NA> arrangement involved in the Sysops who run systems with file-bots.
 NA> 
 NA> What you will likely find is the latter, and there is no Netmail
 NA> involved - A system generates a ".REQ" file containing the filenames or
 NA> magic-names of files to request. A magic-name is simply an alias for a
 NA> file. For example, magic-name MICRONET could mean to request the latest
 NA> Micronet nodelist. In  some cases, special requests to
 NA> password-protected directories can be made.
 NA> 
 NA> The mailer then directly connects / Crash calls the other system via
 NA> dialup modem using Emsi, Wazoo or FTS-0001... Or in some cases Internet
 NA> BinkD. The .REQ file is sent and the mailer waits usually between 30
 NA> seconds to 2 minutes for the other system to fulfill the request and
 NA> send back the desired files.
 NA> 
 NA> The real fun is watching what happens to that .REQ file when it gets
 NA> received on the desired BBS that desired file is on.
 NA> 
 NA> The desired BBS must first make sure only certain files may be sent,
 NA> sometimes requests can be denied as most mailers have sets of rules and
 NA> security policy that are often applied to stop abuse or "leeching"
 NA> everything from that  person's BBS. How many times did the caller Freq
 NA> today, how much KB's or MB's  worth of files were transferred... how
 NA> often does he Freq restricted files.
 NA> 
 NA> The mailer must also take into account what happens if the request is
 NA> for a file that is on a network share, CD or DVD drive; multiple
 NA> requests spanning multiple directories may need to be indexed or staged
 NA> so the Freq request completes in the short turn-around time allowed. In
 NA> some cases a BBS Sysop may choose not to put his whole file collection
 NA> up for access because his mailer  simply cannot crawl through a large
 NA> collection in time... unless the mailer  uses a complex set of
 NA> database/index tables to speed things up for him.
 NA> 
 NA> You will not find many BBS's today that support FREQ's by BinkD because
 NA> the BinkD system on the desired BBS must invoke an external process to
 NA> read the generated SRIF (System-requesting information file) and read
 NA> the received .REQ to figure out what files to send back in that same
 NA> session. This is called an external SRIF or FREQ processor and these
 NA> programs often are beyond the scope of most Sysops to make then run...
 NA> except for the sadomasochists.
 NA> 
 NA> The simple act of Freq-ing files involves a LOT of logic and programming
 NA> in  the software supporting it. It is almost as complex as handling BBS
 NA> callers.
 NA> 
 NA> D'Bridge can do all of this with just one menu command.
 NA> 
 NA> Nick
 NA> 
 NA> --- Renegade vY2Ka2
 NA>  * Origin: Joey, do you like movies about gladiators? (618:500/24)

Thanks Nick.  After perusing the FTSC doc's, it was obvious that the
automation was significant.  Having done some file requesting via fidonet in
the mid 90's, I was familiar with what it did, not with the complexity.  

My main interest was seeing some bbs's advertise the capability to do it
recently, but not the how. I could not find any authoritative articles
describing how "I" should do it.  Thanks for the info. I'm gathering much
data and may have to consolidate it.

Scott

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A49 2023/01/28 (Windows/64)
 * Origin: Altair IV BBS (618:200/54)

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