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IMAIL 1.21 -- Questions and Answers Version 1.06 (04.11.91) written by Andreas Klein (2:241/8002 @ FidoNet) (57:49/0 @ IntlNet ) 0. Introduction This text should help all people to install IMAIL, the best mailprocessor I ever seen. Although IMAIL is a well documented and supported product I noticed that some problems occur very often. I try to describe possible situations and solutions which could help you if you use IMAIL on your system. If you have a problem not described in this text and you cannot solve, use the IMAIL-support-echos (IMAIL_HELP). I try to maintain this text as actual as possible, if you have problems which should described here, please send me a netmail with your problem and your solution. Moreover known bugs (are there any? :-) will be described here, too. I'd like to thank Felix Kasza, Cliff Jones, Stefan Kaspar, Klaus Michael Ruebsam and all the others for their help and answers. Munich (Germany), 04.11.1991 Andreas Klein 2:241/8002 @ FidoNet 57:49/0 @ IntlNet 1. IMAIL in general Q: I have a path to IMAIL, but IMAIL doesn't find his configuration. A: Set the IMAIL-environmentvariable to the path, where IMAIL can find its configuration, like SET IMAIL=E:\FRODO\IMAIL Now, you can run IMAIL from everywhere without switching to the IMAIL-homedirectory, first. Q: IMAIL reports the following error if I try to call TOSS or PACK: *** ERROR *** Error in configuration file -> does not exist A: Check whether the filename for the reply-text is correct and whether this files resides in the IMAIL-hom-directory. Q: I am actually using TosScan and want to try IMAIL. Is it possible to transfer the TosScan setup into an IMAIL setup? A: Indeed, it is. Klaus Michael Ruebsam (2:247/816) wrote a program, which can transfer the whole TosScan setup into an IMAIL-setup. You only have to setup the additional features of IMAIL. Look for TS2IM120.* which should be at least available at the IMAIL-support- systems. Q: IMAIL TOSS/SCAN and ALNK always pack the temporary packets (created by FrontDoor and Intermail) into the arcmail packets (netmails, file-attaches, ...). A: Make sure, that IMAIL's outbound directory and FrontDoors and Intermails Packet-Directory are different. According to the FrontDoor-documentation, the packet directory should only be used for FrontDoor and nothing else. Q: What about Security? A: Security is a very important topic today, so IMAIL offers you several possibilities to prevent unauthorized people to originate echomail through your system. If you set the "secure" switch in the echo area manager of an echo to Yes, IMAIL checks before tossing a message into this echo whether the originating system (according to the information in the packet header) is mentioned in the export list of this echo. So, only people getting this echo from you can distribute their mail again via your system, mails from other systems were tossed into the badecho. Therefore you should normally set "secure" to Yes, except you use programs like RAID which cannot write a system adress in the messagehaeder which is in your export-list. In this case, set only the security of the echos used by RAID or other programs to No. Systems can only request echos at your system if they are defined in the nodemanager and if they present their password in the subject-line of their request. If you set no password, they will never be able to invoke AreaLink. Moreover, they can only request echos of the groups you set in the nodemanager. This is the main reason for using groups of echos. You can specify which node will get which group of echos. Q: What's the Capability Word? A: The Capability Word (CW) is a part of each PKT-header. It is used to determine whether a packet is a Type 2+ or a Stone Age-packet. This is very important, the Type 2+ is newer and contains much more information than Stone Age. Only Type 2+ packets are use 4d-addresses, together with a Stone Age mailpro- cessor, you have to use a fakenet. Type 2+ is an extension of the Stone Age-packets, using free space in the header. The CW itself is a bitfield where each of the 16 bits is used as flag which show the capabilities of the program which created the PKT. It indicates whether the extended data in the header is valid. Moreover, it makes it possible to support several other, non Type 2+ packets. From FSC-0038: Actually, only the first six bits of the CW are used: Node Supports ---FTSC Type Supported -- 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2+ 2+,3, and 7 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 1 2+,3, and 5 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 1 2+ (this Doc) 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 Stone Age 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 If the only the first bit of the CW is set, the packet was created by a Type 2+ mailprocessor and the extended data (for example zone and point-information) is valid. The CW also a solution for the TosScan-problem. The CW was introduced after TosScan 1.0 was released, so Joaquim Homrighausen had to find another solution to determine whether a packet was Type 2+ or not. He did it by checking the productcode and implemented only the programs which were type 2+ capable at this time, TosScan and D'Bridge. IMAIL was programmed later, so TosScan isn't able to recognize the 4d-structure of the packetheader. TosScan 1.0 was released, the CW Q: I want to convert my IMAIL-configuration into FOLDER.FD, MESSAGES.RA, CONFIG.BBS or an AREAS.BBS. A: Look for IMCONV from me. It is capable to convert your IMAIL-config into all these config-types. Moreover it can creates configurable AREAS.BBS-like files. It was hatched into IMAIL-fileecho and you can request it here under magic IMCONV. 2. IMAIL on a point Q: My bossnode sends all my echomail back to my system. A: You are configured as a 3d-point at your bossnode or send your echomail with your fakenet-adress, although you are configured as a 4d-point. Q: TosScan tosses all my echomail into the badmail-echo. A: This is a TosScan problem. IMAIL is fully 4d-capable (according to FSC-0039 and FSC-0048). All mailpocessors use a unique product-code (according to the FTSC-productcode-list). TosScan was developped before these definitions were published and it accepts only packets with the product- code of D'Bridge or with its own productcode as 4d-packets. If you use IMAIL (without such programs like TWIST), TosScan uses only the net/node-information of the packets and thinks, that these packets were coming from itself. Therefore, they were tossed into badmail. Until a new TosScan-release is available, you have to switch back to fakenet or use one of the TWIST-programs. These programs change the productcode of the packets (which is not a very good solution). 3. IMAIL on a node Q: I want to have points, how must IMAIL be configured. A: There is nothing special, you enter each point in the nodemanager (with password and groups). You can either setup them as 3d- or 4d-points whereby 4d-points should be taken whenever possible. But there is some software which requires fakenet-adresses. The most point-software (including IMAIL) is 4d-capable, so there is normally no need for a fakenet. Q: I must use a fakenet and IMAIL should strip the fakenet from the PATH-line. A: Set the POINTNET-environmentvariable, like SET POINTNET=18002 in your autoexec.bat (or at that place, where you set all your other things). IMAIL will now strip your fakenet-adresses. Q: I use IMTHINGS IMPORT to import the netmail for my BBS-users. But I can't find an export-function. A: IMTHINGS needs no special export-function, this will be done by the usual IMAIL SCAN call. IMAIL SCAN exports the netmail from all boards which are defined in the setup. Note, that you can setup one netmail-board for each aka. Q: All messages of a new echo were tossed to the badmail-echo, moreover the board cannot be requested by anyone. A: This is correct, if IMAIL creates a new echo in his config- files, it hasn't all information which are necessary for a complete definition of an echo. Therefore, the echo cannot be accessed by your downlinks. The mails must be tossed into the badmail-echo, because there is no boardnumber defined. IMAIL gives you the chance to see all these new mails instead of deleting them immediatly. Q: I set up the new echo, but the mails which reached me before were only moved into the new board, my downlinks didn't get them. A: IMAIl cannot export these mails again, because it cannot determine from which system they came. If IMAIL would export these mails to your downlinks, this would probably cause a great number of dupes. Q: Mail-packets from my points and from nodes of other zones are not recognized as 4d-packets and tossed into badmail. A: Your downlinks use software which does not handle the CW according to FSC-0048 (like TosScan 1.0, D'Bridge 1.30 or ScanToss <1.34). They produce 4d-packets but the CW-word is not set to 1, so IMAIL cannot determine whether this is a 4d-packet or not. Look at the IMAIL logfile, you will find something like 28F25666.PKT from 57:31/1.0 to 57:49/0.0 (004B [2+]) ^^^^^^^^^ 4B is the product-code of IMAIL (and the [2+] indicates that IMAIL creates type 2+-packets). If your up/downlink has a mailprocessor which creates 2+-packets without setting the cw-word, you can setup the product-code and IMAIL treats all packets with this product-code as type 2+-packets. 4. IMPACK Q: My netmail is not packed. A: Did you changed your batch-files when installing IMAIL 1.20. The former IMAIL PACK call is now done by an own program, called IMPACK. Did you define the packrouting in IMSETUP before you called IMPACK. Otherwise you have to define the pack- routing via commandline (according to the docs). Q: How can I route all my netmail to one system except the mails for another system. Does IMAIL know an EXCEPT statement. A: Actually not, but you can use another construction to manage this situation. You want for example route all your netmail via 2:241/8000 except the mails for 2:246/18. Your setup should look like A 2:246/18 for 2:246/18 B 2:241/8000 for ALL With this method, you can exclude single nodes or whole networks or zones from a default pack-routing. Q: My netmail is packed into the wrong packets, if I use IMPACK. A: IMPACK packs your netmail according to the following rules. The definitions in IMSETUP, Pack routing are processed top-down. Therefore, it might be, that you already qualified another node for netmail. Example: A 2:241/8000 for 2:241/ALL B 2:241/8005 for 2:241/8005 This will never work. IMPACK reaches "A" and packs all netmail for net 241 into a packet for 2:241/8000. After that, it looks at "B", but there is no more mail for 2:241/8005 because it was already packed while processing "A". The correct order would be: A 2:241/8005 for 2:241/8005 B 2:241/8000 for 2:241/ALL You should define first the exceptions and later the general rules. 5. IMAIL Arealink Q: IMAIL does not process local entered Arealink-requests. A: IMAIL Arealink does not process requests if the local bit is set, therefore you have to use an editor like GoldED to clean this bit. Some Editors (like FrontDoor 1.99c) never show the existence of the local bit, but it is always set if a message is entered local. The registered version allows you to execute arealink functions locally from the commandline. 6. IMAIL in a network Q: Since I updated my NOVELL from 286 to 386-rel 3.11 I get the following Novell-error-message while tossing: "You have reached your outstanding NCP directory search limit". A: by Felix Kasza, 2:310/11@fidonet.eur: The above error message has a rather simple background: Every time a station starts a dir search with "findfirst", an NCP dir status record is allocated. It contains information about the current state of the search. Whenever Novell returns error 2 (?), "no more files match", the NCP is deallocated. If the application finds the file it needs and then FAILS to issue the remaining findnext calls until the file-not-found error pops up, the NCP is not deallocated. Result: you use up your quota. After the "You have reached ..." message appears, all NCPs are freed, in the hope that the app does not try to come back to a previously started search (nested recursive dir searches are a problem case), since any access to a deallocated NCP will erroneously return "no more matching files". As a quick fix use "CASTOFF ALL" in your batch file. It suppresses those nasty one-liners which require you to press Enter. 7. IMAIL (registered version) Q: I registered IMAIL and got my key, but IMAIL still says "Unregistered Evaluation Copy". A: You must rename the keyfile to IMAIL.KEY, your name and your system-adress (you gave as you registered IMAIL) must be set up correctly. The name (IMSETUP, Other Parameters, Sysop Name) must be spelled the same way than you spelled it when you registered. The system-adress must be one of your akas. If you don't call IMAIL from its homedirectory, you should set the IMAIL-environmentvariable to this directory, otherwise IMAIL can't find his config and key. 8. How to check if a problem is caused by IMAIL. It is not easy to determine exactly the reason of problems which can occur when you use computers. But it is helpfull, more neccessary to get as much information as possible. Before you ask your question in the IMAIL-support-echos, try to determine whether it is really a bug of IMAIL or whether it is a configu- rationproblem or a problem of another program. First of all, check the docs (and this text) which describe possible problems and their solutions. Second, try to ask one of the support sites mentioned in the docs. There are several programs which can examine the packets produced by mailprocessors (like my PKTVIEW). If you can't find a solution, try collect all the information (PKT-header, logs or setup) and send them to the support sites which would try to help you. If you use the support echo, your mail should contain all neccessary information so other people can help you. Normally it is usefull to check older mails of the echo, perhaps your problems was already discussed. I would try to publish such problems and solutions in updates of this text, so look for the newest version (which is always available at my system under the magic IMAILQA). 9. Known bugs or problems Actually none.