Subj : BSO .try files
To   : Michiel van der Vlist
From : Pavel Gulchouck
Date : Mon Jan 25 2016 06:48 pm

Hi Michiel!

25 Jan 16, Michiel van der Vlist ==> Pavel Gulchouck:

 WvV>>> Is FTS-5005 not correct? Or does binkd have its own idea about
 WvV>>> try files?

 PG>> Yes, binkd is not compatible with FTS. Thank you for the finding.

 PG>> I have no idea why FTSC published a standard which is not complies
 PG>> widely-used software. Files *.try and *.csy in BSO initially created
 PG>> by binkd many years ago as its private flags which did not conflict
 PG>> with any other BSO files.

 MvdV> The standard as published by the FTSC is based on older documents. 
FTS-5005 is mainly based on FSP-1034 which in turn is
 MvdV> based on the T-mail and Bibkleyterm manuals.

AFAIK neither BinkleyTerm nor T-mail use *.try and *.csy files in BSO. This 
would cause inconsistency on systems with both t-mail/binkleyterm and binkd.

 PG>> These are not informational flags, they contain technical information
 PG>> and are not intended for reading by people or by another software.
 PG>> FTSC documents which describe these files (in fact, another files with
 PG>> the same names) appeared much later. I do not think that binkd have to
 PG>> change its behaviour to comply FTS. IMHO FTS should be fixed according
 PG>> to practice.

 MvdV> Just tell us how binkd deals with the .try en .csy files and we will 
adjust the documentation accordingly.

*.csy are used a similar way to *.bsy but they set on start calling node, 
before handshake. It prevents simultaneous calls to the remote node by several 
binkd processes.
I'm not sure it's good to standardize this due to two reasons: it's senseless 
to call a node by two binkd processes, but it may make sense to call a node by 
different protocols (i.e. binkd and ifmail or binkd and pstn). Then, binkd may 
use for this purpose another kind of IPC such as named semaphores in the 
future.

Files *.try used for prevent infinite call to undialable nodes. Its format:
16 bit: nok, number of good connects (bigendian)
16 bit: nbad, number of consequent bad connects (bigendian)
8 bit: comment length in bytes
N bytes: comment

nbad resets to zero on success outgoing connect.
If nbad reaches some configurable value, node status set to undialable, created 
..hld flag, and both nok and nbad counters reset to 0.
File .hld contains line with single number: unixtime until the node is on hold.

I do not think that these files can be shared between mailers, because node 
undialable by one protocol can be available by another. These semaphores are 
private for binkd. May be it was not a good idea to create private mailer flags 
in common BSO.

              Lucky carrier,
                           Pavel
                           aka  gul@gul.kiev.ua
--- GoldED+/LNX 1.1.5
 * Origin: II:CDLXIII/LXVIII (2:463/68)

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