Re: fbb, progress and questions

From: Tomi Manninen (bufdw@storbase.com)
Date: Thu Jan 09 2003 - 12:55:57 EET

  • Next message: rjoe@millercopier.com: "Re: fbb, progress and questions"

    On Wed, 8 Jan 2003 terhi.victor@logonet.com wrote:

    > - when a message is "on hold", how do I get it "off hold"?

    RE(view)

    > - Why does killing a message not remove it? How DO I remove it?

    As Shane said, the actual removing is done during the nightly
    housekeeping. The kill command only marks the message for removing by
    changing it's status. A killed message is visible only to the sysop, a
    normal user can not list or read it.

    There are actually several stages of killed messages: expired, killed,
    archived. To be honest, I have never fully understood what these mean but
    they pretty much converge to one if you have epurmess.ini configured
    properly (no archiving, PK->PA delay 0 days etc.).

    See: http://www.f6fbb.org/fbbdoc/fmtepurm.htm

    > - Why do I have one password set with "EU" command and one in passwd.sys,
    > and never the twain shall meet?

    The EU command edits the user database and there a password that is used
    when a user logs in with telnet or a modem (FBB has a modem interface as
    well).

    Passwd.sys is for authenticating a remote sysop. FBB has three levels of
    users: normal, sysop and sysop after authenticating. A sysop user simply
    has the S-flag set in the user database (EU). When a sysop want more
    privileges he issues the "SYS" command and uses the passwd.sys password to
    authenticate him.

    See: http://www.f6fbb.org/fbbdoc/fmtpassw.htm

    > - ehy can I not use the "EU" command when telnetted in, but I can use it
    > when using the xfbbC app?

    Only the sysop can use the EU command. Apparently you haven't set the
    S-flag for yourself.

    When logging in with the remote console app xfbbC any user becomes a sysop
    with full privileges. That is why it needs the passwd.sys sysop password
    to authenticate.

    > - Many programming techniques that are used in fbb are extremely poor
    > (sorry! do not mean to be rude, but just wondering WHY). Like using
    > binary configuration settings (2, 4, 8, 16, 32, etc); or using setup files
    > that depend on exact numbers of lines, etc. Is this historical accident?

    I think so. The FBB sofware is more than 10 years old and originally
    written for DOS. The memory constraints in DOS are probably the reason for
    all this. As Shane said, this is (slowly) getting better.

    > - I guess fbb does its own ax25 thing - why not just use kernel ax25?

    It does use kernel AX.25. It doesn't use ax25d though, it listens for
    incoming connections by it self.

    Also FBB can handle certain types of TNC's directly, bypassing the kernel
    stuff. That was needed in DOS/Windows so why remove it in Linux? But you
    don't have to use this functionality.

    > As you see, my lack of understanding is so great that I wonder if I will
    > ever usefully use this. So rather than bore you with too many questions
    > about the detail, a few meta questions, namely: is this all part of the
    > normal learning process, or am I overlooking some good basic docs
    > somewhere? (Or am I too dumb)? Should I bother? And, if yes, what is the
    > best way to find info (not the docs, apparently).

    From the questions it seems like you have never even used a packet BBS.
    I mean as a normal user, not as a sysop. If that is the case then I think
    you need to start with reading some book or doc that describes the whole
    packet BBS network from the user point of view.

    -- 
    Tomi Manninen           Internet:  terhi.victor@logonet.com
    OH2BNS                  AX.25:     dersfh.ysbi@mari-el.ru
    KP20ME04                Amprnet:   ffsdcvyn.zoxbcri@arr.gov.pl
    

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