Beijing Paradise BBS Backup

home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search

/ Beijing Paradise BBS Backup / PARADISE.ISO / software / BBSDOORW / RAMAN201.ZIP / RAMAN.DOC < prev next >

Wrap

Text File | 1992-12-29 | 53.9 KB | 1,356 lines

┌─────────┐┌──────────┬┌────────────┐┌──────────┬───────┬───┐ │ ┌───┐ ││ ┌───┐ ││ ┌─┐ ┌─┐ ││ ┌───┐ │ │ │ │ │ │ ││ │ │ ││ │ │ │ │ ││ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ └───┘ └┤ └───┘ ││ │ │ │ │ └┤ └───┘ │ │ │ │ │ ┌────┐ │ ┌────┐ ││ │ │ │ │ │ ┌────┐ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ ││ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ └──┘ └──┴──┘ └──┴┴──┘ └──┘ └───┴──┘ └──┴───┴───────┘ RAMAN - RemoteAccess Manager v2.01 Copyright (C) 1991-1992 By David Hickey, All rights reserved TABLE OF CONTENTS Features 1 License 1 Registration 2 System Requirements 3 Installation 4 Setup 4 Configuration/Features 5 Running RAMAN 16 Parameter Listing 17 Multi-Node Operation 18 Credits 19 Bug Reports 19 Beta Testers 20 This and That 20 Registering RAMAN 21 RAMAN Remote Access Manager December 29, 1992 1 FEATURES * DESQview, Windows, CD-ROM, and Multi-Line aware * Alphabetize file listings * Update download counters for downloads and file requests * Add download counters to file descriptions * Add headers to file listings * Clean up the location field in your user file * Create up to 5 allfiles listings * Create up to 5 newfiles listings * Archive up to 5 logfiles by date * Scan files for viruses * Re-archive files * Back up your user files * Generate a bulletin of message base usage * Generate a file area overview bulletin * Generate 'Top X' user bulletins * Generate a bulletin of daily uploads * Generate a bulletin of daily downloads * Add comments to ARJ and ZIP files * Perform daily, weekly, and monthly maintenance * Remove files X days old * Remove files X days old if they have not been downloaded * Pick random screens/menus * Make backups of file listings * Post message to users who drop carrier * Post message to users who upload * Post message to new users * Remove orphaned entries in file listings * Add orphaned files to file listings LICENSE The term "RAMAN" refers to the files contained in the RemoteAccess Manager distribution archive (RAMAN201.ARJ), and released by David Hickey. The following must be read, understood, and agreed upon BEFORE you use RAMAN: * RAMAN is Shareware. It is not FreeWare or Public Domain. * This program and the accompanying documentation are copyrighted material by David Hickey. * This program is provided AS IS! I have taken a great deal of precautions insuring RAMAN will work as this documentation states, but there is always the unknown. I provide NO warranty whatsoever. 1 RAMAN Remote Access Manager December 29, 1992 2 * The author, David Hickey, is not liable to you or anyone for, but not limited to, any direct, indirect, incidental, or consequential damages, including, but not limited to, any lost profits, damaged hardware or software, or loss of money resulting from the inability or abilitiy of this program to perform as stated. By using this program, you agree to these terms and release the author from any liablility or litigation whatsoever. * I am in no way obligated to provide future versions of or support for RAMAN. * You are hereby granted a limited license to use RAMAN up to 14 days before registering. After 14 days you are required to register this program as described at the end of this documentation. You may use and distribute this program provided it is not modified, reverse engineered, or in any way altered. REGISTRATION As stated in the license agreement, you are required to register RAMAN if you use it past the 14 day trial period. All options work in the unregistered version, but there are a few extra features within some options that will only work when registered. For example, header and footer text will not be added to Allfiles listings when unregistered, but the Allfiles listings WILL be created. When unregistered, RAMAN will remind you of this. It has no annoying pauses like 1.00 did, and it will not whistle Dixie while running. It will also stamp a nice UNREGISTERED message on things like the Allfiles listings, file headers, etc until you have registered. The end of this document contains registration information. If you like this program then please register. 2 RAMAN Remote Access Manager December 29, 1992 3 REQUIREMENTS To date, this program has been tested with the following hardware configurations: 1) Packard Bell 80286 with 1Mb RAM under MS-DOS v4.01 2) 80386 SX Clone with 2Mb RAM under MS-DOS v4.01 3) 80286 with 1Mb RAM under MS-DOS v3.3 4) IBM XT clones with 640k RAM under MS-DOS 5.0 and 3.3 5) 80386 with 8Mb RAM under MS-DOS v5.0 6) 80486 clones 7) Lantastic network 8) IBM XT clone with 640k under DR-DOS 6.0 Memory requirement is about 200k for options which do not require an external program to be called, and around 300k if something such as ARJ.EXE needs to be called. When swapping, RAMAN swaps approximately 150k of itself out of RAM which leaves only about 7k resident. The 300k figure will vary depending on which external program needs to be called, with ARJ.EXE apparantly requiring the most memory (about 290k). The swapper used was written by Kim Kokkonen of TurboPower Software. A copy of RemoteAccess v1.10 or v1.11 is required. This program is RemoteAccess specific and uses CONFIG.RA, FILES.RA, MESSAGES.RA, and your RemoteAccess logfile. For some of the functions, you will need to have a copy of some of the different compression and decompression programs. You will also need a copy of a virus scanner. All of these external programs MUST be in your path statement. For example: SET PATH=C:\UTILITY; This will include your C:\UTILITY directory in your path statement. RAMAN makes repeated calls to access the disk drive, and works extremely well while running under a disk caching system. This is not a requirement, but it significantly speeds up RAMAN's execution. 3 RAMAN Remote Access Manager December 29, 1992 4 INSTALLATION You MUST have the COMSPEC environment variable set to point to where COMMAND.COM is located, and your RA environment variable set. To do this, put the following line in either your AUTOEXEC.BAT file or your BBS batch file: SET COMSPEC=C:\DOS\COMMAND.COM SET RA=C:\RA Edit these examples to suit your own system. Next, copy all the files in the distribution archive into any directory you want. This directory will become your RAMAN system directory. SETUP A setup program called RAMANCFG.EXE has been provided to configure RAMAN. The configuration file is a binary file and may NOT be edited with a simple text editor. To use, simply run: RAMANCFG <config file> Where <config file> is the name of the configuration file you wish to change. If the file is not present, RAMANCFG will ask you if you want to create one. 4 RAMAN Remote Access Manager December 29, 1992 5 OPTIONS.File_Area_Options ALPHABETIZE FILE LISTINGS - With this option enabled, the file listing of each selected file area will be alphabetized A-Z. A side-effect of this option is that it strips any headers that may be present in the file listing. If you are using a program other than RAMAN to add headers in your FILES.BBS files, you will have to run that program after RAMAN is done. RAMAN adds file headers AFTER this procedure, so there is nothing to worry about if you use RAMAN to add headers. RAMAN will first attempt to load your file listing into the available memory to do a very fast sort. If that fails, RAMAN will fall back to a disk-based sort which will take about 3 times longer, but can handle file listings of infinate length (I tried a 350k listing here and it worked). ADD DOWNLOAD COUNTERS - Will add a download counter type of your choice in each of the description fields in the file listings. UPDATE DOWNLOAD COUNTERS - This function will read your RemoteAccess logfile and pick out the files that have been downloaded. RAMAN will then update the download counter for each file that was downloaded. If a download counter does not exist in the file description to be updated, RAMAN will automatically add one. RAMAN will remember where it left off in your RA logfile and will know whether or not it is a new logfile. UPDATE COUNTERS FOR FREQS - Same as the above, but operates on your mailer's logfile and updates the counters of any files that were sent from your system. Currently, RAMAN recognizes FrontDoor, D'Bridge, and Binkley logging formats. ADD HEADERS TO FILE LISTINGS - This option will add a header to your file listings. The header contains your name and bbsname (if you are registered, hint, hint), the file area name and number, the total number of files in that area, the number of bytes, and the number of downloads from that area. In v2.01, the headers are not user configurable. This will be addressed in a future release. REMOVE ORPHANED DESCRIPTIONS - This option will search through your file listings and make sure that each file listed actually exists on disk. If it is not found, the entry will be removed from the file listing. 5 RAMAN Remote Access Manager December 29, 1992 6 ADD ORPHANED FILES TO LISTINGS - This option will compare reality to the entries in your file listings. If a file is found that has no entry in your file listing, RAMAN will add it to the file listing. If you have allfiles listings from other boards online, RAMAN can look through them and try to find a description for the files it is appending to your file listing. If an entry is found, RAMAN will use its file description. If it is not found, RAMAN uses the 'Missing Description' string defined in the configuration file. The format of LISTINGS.CTL is: <filename> <filename> ... Example: C:\LISTS\170-400.TXT C:\LISTS\FIRE.LST MAKE BACKUPS OF FILE LISTINGS - This option will simply create backups of your file listings. If it is a normal listing, the backup will be named FILES.BAK. If it is a CD-ROM listing, the backup will be name FILESnnn.BAK where nnn is the area number. REARCHIVE FILES - This function re-archives all files in a given directory into an archive format of your choice. RAMAN recognizes and will convert an infinite number of nested archives (archives within an archive). This option will not work for CD-ROM areas. ADD COMMENTS TO ARJ AND ZIP FILES - This function will add a comment to archives compressed in either the ARJ or ZIP type. The comment is NOT added to any nested archives within the primary archive. RAMAN will look for a text file called COMMENT.TXT and if found, the text in that file will be used as the comment. RAMAN also creates and maintains a file called RAMAN.CMT in the RAMAN system directory. This file is identical in function to the RAMAN.SCN file described in the previous section. 6 RAMAN Remote Access Manager December 29, 1992 7 KILL OLD FILES WHEN NEW ONES ARRIVE - This option is only of use to people who receive files via a .TIC file attach. If a new file arrives and the .TIC file has a 'REPLACES' string in it, RAMAN will look in the proper directory for that file. If it is found, it will be deleted. This is useful for people with large SDS areas who do not have time to look through them for old files. For example. If a .TIC that just came through says REPLACES RA_111.ARJ, RAMAN will look for the file called RA_111.ARJ. If it is found, it will be deleted. REMOVE FILES AFTER X DAYS - This option will simply remove files that are X days old from your file areas. The number of days old is defined in the configuration file. You have the option of either having these files deleted, or moved to a storage directory for you to look at later. If you want them deleted, specify the keyword KILL in the configuration file, or MOVE if you want them moved. The comments in the configuration file will make this clearer. If you have specified MOVE, the files will be moved to the directory you have defined as the Storage directory in the configuration file. This option will not work on file areas on CD-ROM drives since you cannot delete a file from a Read-Only device. REMOVE FILES AFTER X DAYS IF NOT DOWNLOADED - This is almost identical to the above option. With this option, the file will only be deleted/moved if the download counter in the file description indicates that the file has never been downloaded. This option also will not work on CD-ROM drives. MOVE FILES INSTEAD OF KILLING THEM - If this is enabled, files that would have been killed in the previous two options will be moved to a temporary directory instead. OPTIONS.Messages/Maintenance POST MESSAGE TO USERS WHO UPLOAD - Does just that. RAMAN will scan the RA logfile and post a message to any user who has uploaded a file to your BBS. Only one message per user per logfile will be posted however. So if the current RA logfile shows that one particular user has uploaded 15 files, only one message will be posted. RAMAN maintains a list of users it has already posted to in a file called RAMAN.UL in the RAMAN system directory. When a new logfile is started, this file is reset. The message RAMAN posts is contained in a text file called UPLOADS.TXT in the RAMAN system directory. RAMAN supports the RA 1.10 HMB locking specification. 7 RAMAN Remote Access Manager December 29, 1992 8 POST MESSAGE TO USERS WHO DROP CARRIER - Identical to the above but posts a message to any user the RA logfile has logged as 'Lost carrier' instead of a normal logoff. The tracking file created and maintained is RAMAN.LC, the text file containing the message is CARRIER.TXT, both of which are located in the RAMAN system directory. POST MESSAGE TO NEW USERS - Posts a message to any user the RA logfile has recognized as a new user and has initiated the new user procedure for. The tracking file created and maintained is RAMAN.NU, the text file containing the message is NEWUSER.TXT, both of which are located in the RAMAN system directory. PERFORM DAILY MAINTENANCE - This is a fairly straightforward feature. Instead of having all of your maintenance programs execute via a normal batch file, you can list them in a file called DAILY.CTL in the RAMAN system directory. The commands in this file will be executed each time RAMAN is run with this option enabled. The format of this file is simple: <path to change to> <program, command line> ... The number of entries is unlimited, and this is a simple text file. Lines may be commented out by using a ';' as the first character of the line. The <path to change to> is the drive/directory RAMAN should change to before executing the program. Some utilities require their configuration file to be in the same directory as the executables, so it is certainly a good idea if RAMAN switches to the appropriate directory first! The <program, command line> is just that. Whatever you have in your batch file is what should be placed here. Example of DAILY.CTL C:\RA\MBUTIL Mbutil Purge -File RemoteAccess C:\RA\MBUTIL Mbutil Pack -Force -Renumber -Delete C:\RA Rauser -s D:\DOORS\TW2 Extern -qbbs C:\FD\INBOUND Erase *.bad After all the programs are executed, RAMAN will return to the directory it was started from. Besides having a less cluttered batch file, executing your maintenance this way will let you know what happened when the program executed. If the program executes 8 RAMAN Remote Access Manager December 29, 1992 9 successfully, it is noted in the RAMAN logfile. If the program returns an errorlevel, that too is recorded in the RAMAN logfile. You can also see by the last line that any of DOS's commands are valid as well. Examples are erasing, copying, and renaming files. You must remember that if you put a line like: C:\BAD Del *.* DOS will sit there with the familiar 'Are you sure' message until you come by and press either 'Y' or 'N' to continue. As a sidenote, a way around this is: C:\BAD ECHO Y | DEL *.* Having the 'ECHO Y | DEL *.*' (must be all capital letters) will cause a 'Y'es answer to be echoed to the DEL command. PERFORM WEEKLY MAINTENANCE - Same format as the daily maintenance, but the commands are found in WEEKLY.CTL. If this is turned on in the control file, RAMAN will only execute this file if it is the first day of the week (Sunday). You can override this by using the command line parameter, the usage of which is explained later. PERFORM MONTHLY MAINTENANCE - Same as the weekly maintenance, but the commands are found in MONTHLY.CTL and is executed on the first day of every month unless the command line parameter is used. OPTIONS.Other CLEAN UP USER RECORDS - This makes the location field of each user's location field look better. For example: BaLTImoRE, md -----> Baltimore, Md lONDON, eNGLAND -----> London, England In addition to this, RAMAN also cleans up fields such as the 'Subscription Date.' For some reason or another, some of these fields end up with garbage characters that the Sysop can't edit. RAMAN would take a field like this: 09{23=92 and turn it into this: 09-23-92. 9 RAMAN Remote Access Manager December 29, 1992 10 SCAN FILES FOR VIRUSES (A) - This function calls a virus scanner to scan files for viruses in user defined directories. As part of the scanning, RAMAN will also create and maintain a file called RAMAN.SCN. This file contains the path and filename of files RAMAN has already scanned so it will not scan them twice. After each run, RAMAN checks this file against reality to make sure that the files logged in RAMAN.SCN are still present on disk. If they are not, their record is removed. This file is stored in the RAMAN system directory. SCAN FILES FOR VIRUSES (B) - This function calls a virus scanner to scan files for viruses in files that were uploaded. RAMAN will scan your RA logfile to see what files were uploaded. It will then scan only those files for viruses. The RAMAN.SCN file is used in this option in the same manner as with the 'A' method. This 'B' method is ideal to run in your batch file after a user logs off to scan any and all files that were uploaded. BACK UP USER FILES - This function will make an archive, in the format of your choice of your USERS*.BBS files. The filename of the archive that will be in the format of UFmmddyy.<arc extensin> where mm is the month, dd is the day, and yy is the year. Should a file exist with the same name (UF070492.ARJ for example), the name of the extension will be changed to reflect a different file. In this example, the filename of the second file would be UF070492.AR0. CREATE A REPORT OF UPLOADS - This option scans your RA logfile and will create a bulletin of all uploads recorded by RA in the logfile. Each time this option is run, RAMAN reads the RA logfile from the beginning and creates a new bulletin. The information in this bulletin is: User name, file uploaded, protocol used. CREATE A REPORT OF DAILY DOWNLOADS - Identical to the above option, but creates a report of downloadeds. CREATE TOP UPLOADERS BULLETIN - Creates a bulletin of the top x uploaders according to the number of files uploaded. The x is the number of users you want included in the report, as defined in the configuration file. CREATE TOP DOWNLOADERS BULLETIN - Same as the top uploaders but uses the number of downloads instead. 10 RAMAN Remote Access Manager December 29, 1992 11 CREATE TOP MESSAGE POSTERS BULLETIN - Same as the top uploaders but uses the number of messages posted instead. CREATE TOP CALLERS BULLETIN - Same as the top uploaders but uses the number of calls instead. CREATE REPORT OF MESSAGE BASE ACTIVITY - This option scans your RA logfile to generate an ANSI and ASCII file bulletin showing the number of times someone has posted a message and the number of times someone has read a message in each sepearate message area. In unregistered mode, RA does not log message READS to it's logfile. Therefore, if your copy of RA is not registered, then you will see nothing but zeros for the Reads of each area. If RAMAN finds a line saying the user read in Combined Mode and you have registered, RAMAN will look at that users combined information record in USERSXI.BBS and update each area listed. Since offline mail doors are in wide use, RAMAN also makes provisions for recording their activity as well. At the end of the report, RAMAN will tell you how many messages have been downloaded through the offline door and how many have been uploaded through the offline door. RAMAN recognizes the log formats of: RAMail, XRS, Silver Express, MkQwk, and BlueWave. RAMAN keeps a file called RAMAN.MSG. This file contains information about the RA logfile that RAMAN uses to make sure it doesn't count things more than once and also to determine if the RA logfile it's working on is a new one or an old one. CREATE FILE AREA OVERVIEW - This option will scan your file directories and create a bulletin containing the number of files and bytes in each area, and a total at the end for the system. PICK RANDOM MENUS/SCREENS - This function allows you to specify, in a file called MENSCR.CTL, the names of files you want to switch around. This could be useful if you want a different WELCOME.A?? or LOGO.A?? screen to be displayed each time someone logs on. The best way to explain this file is to show an example of the control file: 11 RAMAN Remote Access Manager December 29, 1992 12 -c:\ra\txtfiles\welcome1.ans <---- Full path/filename to Target file c:\hold\welcome1.an1 \ Up to 50 files that are c:\hold\welcome1.an2 \ possible source files to be c:\hold\welcome1.an3 >randomly copied to the c:\hold\welcome1.an4 / Target path and filename c:\hold\welcome1.an5 / specified above. -c:\ra\txtfiles\welcome1.asc c:\hold\welcome1.as1 c:\hold\welcome1.as2 - Note the '-' at the end. This tells RAMAN that there are no more entries after that '-' DO NOT FORGET TO ADD THIS! The '-' in front of the filename tells RAMAN that this is the target filename, and the files listed after that are source files. You may specify up to 50 source files for each target file. The number of target files is unlimited, but a '-' MUST appear at the end of the file, and a '-' MUST appear before each target file. DELETE ALLFILES TEXT AFTER ARCHIVED - When your Allfiles listing is created, RAMAN automatically archives it. With this option set, RAMAN will remove the text listing of the allfiles list. When this option is disabled, both the text and compressed version will be left. DELETE NEWFILES TEXT AFTER ARCHIVED - Same as the above, but applies to your Newfiles listing. DELETE LOGFILES AFTER ARCHIVED - Same as the above, but applies to your Logfiles. The next two items on the Options menu are self-explanatory. They control which file/message areas you want included in each of the different options. When an area is active, a solid square will appear on the far right hand side. When not active, it will be clear on the right hand side. By default, all 200 areas are active. You can toggle an area ON/OFF by pressing the space bar. 12 RAMAN Remote Access Manager December 29, 1992 12 PATHS.System_Paths RAMAN SYSTEM PATH - Director where your RAMAN executables are located. RAMAN also looks for certain files such as RAMAN.SCN, COMMENT.TXT, etc. in this directory. This can be any directory, but it is advisable that this is not the same as your RA directory so you can keep things straight. RAMAN LOGFILE - Path and filename for your RAMAN logfile. RA LOGFILE - Path and filename of your RemoteAccess 1.1x logfile. MAILER LOGFILE - Path and filename of your mailer's logfile. USER FILE BACKUPS - Directory where you want the backups of your user files to go. This can be on a separate drive, such as A:\BACKUPS\. TIC FILES - Directory where your inbound .TIC files are located. TIC CONFIGURATION - Path and filename to your TICK configuration file. TEMP DIRECTORY - If you use the options that kill/move files older than x days, or older than x days which haven't been downloaded, and if you have specified that the files should be MOVED, this is the directory they will be moved to. 12 RAMAN Remote Access Manager December 29, 1992 13 PATHS.Bulletin_Paths ************************************************************ * Do not append an extension to any of these filenames. * * RAMAN will create an .ASC and an .ANS version of each. * ************************************************************ MESSAGE BASE - Path and filename of the Message Base Usage Report. FILE AREA - Path and filename of the File Area Overview Report. DAILY UPLOADS - Path and filename of the Report Of Daily Uploads. DAILY DOWNLOADS - Path and filename of the Report Of Daily Downloads. TOP UPLOADERS - Path and filename of the Top Uploaders Bulletin. TOP DOWNLOADERS - Path and filename of the Top Downloaders Bulletin. TOP CALLERS - Path and filename of the Top Callers Bulletin. TOP POSTERS - Path and filename of the Top Message Posters Bulletin. 13 RAMAN Remote Access Manager December 29, 1992 14 ***************************************************************** * If a listing/logfile is defined in any of these next three * * sections, it will be created/archived each time RAMAN runs * * with the configuration file. To disable any of these from * * being done, place NOT USED in the first field. If you put * * blanks or nothing at all, RAMANCFG will insert NOT USED for * * you. * ***************************************************************** MANAGER.Allfiles Here, you may define up to 5 files to contain different Allfiles listings. Which file areas are included in each listing is determined by what you have specified for each on the Options.Area_Selection menu. If RAMAN finds a file called ALLHEAD.TXT in its system directory, the text in that file will be placed at the top of each allfiles listing. Text in a file called ALLFOOT.TXT will be appended to the end of the allfiles listing. These two files will NOT be appended if you have not registered. MANAGER.Newfiles Here, you may define up to 5 files to contain different Newfiles listings. Which file areas are included in each listing is determined by what you have specified for each on the Options.Area_Selection menu. If RAMAN finds a file called NEWHEAD.TXT in its system directory, the text in that file will be placed at the top of each newfiles listing. Text in a file called NEWFOOT.TXT will be appended to the end of the newfiles listing. These two files will NOT be appended if you have not registered. MANAGER.Logfiles Here, you may define up to 5 logfiles to be archived and optionally deleted. There are three fields to fill in here. The first one is the path and filename of the logfile itself. The second defines the first two letters of the archive name, and the third is the directory where the archived file should be placed. The naming convention for the archives is identical to that used by the option to back up the user files. 14 RAMAN Remote Access Manager December 29, 1992 15 COMPRESSION The items on this menu are fairly self-explanatory and require only an explanation of what is expected. You only need to define the FILENAME of each (de)compressor, not the full path. RAMAN will search through your PATH setting to locate each of these. If it can not find one of these programs, it will be noted in the RAMAN logfile. Failure to locate one or more of these programs will NOT stop RAMAN from executing. As for the parameters for each of archivers, it is advisable that you LEAVE THE DEFAULTS ALONE unless you know exactly what you are doing. OTHER.Archive_types On this menu, you define which compression method to use for various options RAMAN performs. Currently, the following archive types are valid: ARC, ARJ, LZH, PAK, ZIP, ZOO. OTHER.Miscellaneous DOWNLOAD COUNTER - The download counter RAMAN should place in your file listings. Note that RAMAN will automatically increase the size of this counter depending on the number of files downloaded. For example, if you have defined [0] as the counter, but the file has been downloaded 11 times, RAMAN will adjust the counter to [11] in the file listing. DAYS DELETE - Number of days old a file has to be to be deleted by the option which deletes/moves files after X days. DAYS DELETE NO D/L - Number of days old a file has to be to be deleted by the option which deletes/moves files after X days which also have not been downloaded. MISSING DESC. - String RAMAN uses as the description for orphaned files that were added to the file listing. AREA TO POST - Message area RAMAN should post messages in (1-200). VIRUS SCANNER - The filename (not directory/path/filename) of the program you want RAMAN to use to scan files for viruses. VIRUS PARAMETERS - Parameters for the VIRUS SCANNER. TOP USER NUMBER - Number of users to include in the Top User bulletins. 15 RAMAN Remote Access Manager December 29, 1992 16 Running RAMAN ------------- Running RAMAN can be done in one of two ways. First, you can run it with the configuration file as the first parameter. An example of this is RAMAN RAMAN.CFG. When it is run in this manner, all options that are enabled in the configuration file will be processed. If you have Allfiles/Newfiles/Logfiles defined on the Manager menu, they will be processed as well. The second way to run RAMAN is by specifying the configuration file as the first parameter and the keyword of the option(s) you want run as the second, third, fourth, etc parameters. When run in this mode, RAMAN will execute only the options you have passed on the command line. It will use information from the configuration file such as paths, filenames, and which areas you have toggled ON for the option. The syntax for the keywords is pretty lax. You can place a '-', '/', or nothing at all before the keyword. This is to accomodate users who are accustommed to different methods for passing parameters. Example: RAMAN RAMAN.CFG -ALLFILE1 -ALLFILE4 /ADDHEAD ABC FREQCOUNT ! The first time you run RAMAN, a file called RAMAN.DAT must be created. This file contains several pieces of information RAMAN uses to reduce redundant disk accesses which will improve speed. HOWEVER, on large systems and particular on a system with a CD-ROM drive, this file can take some time to create. On an average system like mine it takes about 15 seconds. On a system with 400megs of files on a hard drive and 400meg on a 330ms CD-ROM drive it took about 17 minutes. This will only happen the very first time you run RAMAN, or if the RAMAN.DAT file becomes corrupted or deleted. This file is kept in the directory you start RAMAN from as it contains pointers for logfiles which can vary on a multi-line system. Also, RAMAN needs to scan your file listings at the start of each run. This does not take much time... on that large system with 400meg on a hard drive and 400meg on CD-ROM it took about 2 minutes. If you saw the first 2.00/beta copies, you would agree that this is a small price to pay for the tremendous speed increase it offers. It used to take over 2 hours to run RAMAN on that particular system. By scanning the file listings and using RAMAN.DAT, it now takes an average of 20-30 minutes. 16 RAMAN Remote Access Manager December 29, 1992 17 Parameter Listing ----------------- Following is a list of all the parameters/keywords. This list may also be brought up by typing 'RAMAN ?' at the DOS prompt: CLEAN : Cleans Up The User Records ADDHEAD : Adds Headers To File Listings ABC : Alphabetize File Listings ADDCOUNT : Adds Download Counters To Descriptions Without Them DLCOUNT : Updates Download Counters For Files Downloaded FREQCOUNT : Updates Download Counters For File Requests ORPDESC : Removes Orphanded Descriptions From File Listings ADDMSNG : Adds Orphaned Files To File Listings XDAYS : Kills Files x Days Old XDAYSDL : Kills Files x Days Old If Not Downloaded BAK : Creates Backups Of File Listings ALLFILEx : Creates Allfiles Listing(s) where x is the number of the listing you want created NEWFILEx : Creates Newfiles Listing(s) where x is the number of the listing you want created SCANx : Scans Files For Viruses, where x is the method you want to use, which is A or B ARCLOG : Archive And Delete Defined Logfile(s) REARC : Re-Archives Files SWITCH : Switches Defined Menus/Textfiles - MENSCR.CTL DAILY : Perform Daily Maintenance - DAILY.CTL WEEKLY : Perform Weekly Maintenance - WEEKLY.CTL MONTHLY : Perform Monthly Maintenance - MONTHLY.CTL BACKUP : Back Up Your User Files COMMENT : Adds Comments To ARJ And ZIP Files KILLOLD : Kills Old Files When New TICs Arrive UPLOAD : Post A Message To Users Who Have Uploaded CARRIER : Post A Message To Users Who Drop Carrier NEWUSER : Post A Message To New Users MSGACT : Generate Report Of Message Base Usage FILERPT : Generate Report Of File Areas ULREPORT : Generate Report Of Daily Uploads DLREPORT : Generate Report Of Daily Downloads ULBULL : Create Top Uploaders Bulletin DLBULL : Create Top Downloaders Bulletin POSTBULL : Create Top Message Posters Bulletin CALLBULL : Create Top Callers Bulletin 17 RAMAN Remote Access Manager December 29, 1992 18 Multi-Node Operation -------------------- It did not take long to realize that RAMAN 1.00 was a nightmare to run in a multi-line environment. RAMAN 2.01 is now DESQview/Windows aware and has full multi-line support. It has been sucessfully tested on boards running up to 3 remote nodes and one local node, as well as over a Lantastic network. RAMAN 2.01 fully recognizes and supports the RA 1.10/1.11 message base locking scheme as well. Enough of that, now here's how to USE it in a multi-line environment: The same as you run it on a single line BBS. If that is not simple, then nothing is! :-) The first parameter RAMAN takes is always the configuration file. For multi-line boards, you probably have more than one RA logfile and things of that nature. You can simply edit a different configuration file for each node. Each of these configuration files would contain the paths/filenames that apply to that particular node. Some multi-line sysops elect to have different .RA files. This is no problem. RAMAN first checks the current directory for the different .RA files. If one or more is not found in the current directory, it will look for them in the directory pointed to by your RA environment variable. Here are a couple examples: 1) 2 node board, all .RA files are in the main RA directory with different logfiles, and the same options enabled in the control file for each node. CD\RA rem Perform maintenance on line 1. The RAMAN1.CFG contains the rem proper paths/filenames pertinant to line 1 RAMAN C:\RA\LINE1\RAMAN1.CFG rem Perform maintenance on line 2. The RAMAN2.CFG contains the rem proper paths/filenames pertinant to line 2 RAMAN C:\RA\LINE2\RAMAN2.CFG 2) Same as number 1, but the .RA files are in the line directories. CD\RA\LINE1 rem Perform maintenance on line 1. The RAMAN1.CFG contains the rem proper paths/filenames pertinant to line 1 RAMAN RAMAN1.CFG rem Perform maintenance on line 2. The RAMAN2.CFG contains the rem proper paths/filenames pertinant to line 2 CD\RA\LINE2 RAMAN RAMAN2.CFG 18 RAMAN Remote Access Manager December 29, 1992 19 Credits ------- All product names mentioned in this document other than RAMAN are copyrighted (C) material, Trademarks (tm), or Registered Trademarks (R) of their respective holders: Arj.Exe, ARJ Robert K. Jung IBM International Business Machines Corporation Lha.Exe, LZH H. Yoshizak Mbutil.Exe Gerard J. van der Land MS-DOS MicroSoft Corporation Pkzip.Exe, ZIP Pkware, Inc. Pkunzip.Exe, ZIP Pkware, Inc. RemoteAccess, RA, and associated programs Andrew Milner and Continental Software, Inc. Scan.Exe McAfee Associates Turbo Pascal Borland International, Inc. Bug Reports ----------- Any and all bug reports should be sent to me via netmail at 1:261/1108. If you do not have access to netmail, write them legibly on paper and mail them to me, or you can call my board at 1-410-974-9305 and leave a message. When reporting a bug please include the following: * Your computer type * Amount of RAM you are running RAMAN under * What you have tried, and a complete description of the problem you are having along with any runtime error and offset memory address it gives you. Please, do not send a bug report until you have gone over your configuration very carefully and made certain you have things set up properly. 80% of all so called "bugs" can be traced back to someone not reading the docs or some kind of silly mistake in the configuration. I can be reached on my board, via netmail, or through the RA_UTIL echo which is available from the FidoNet backbone. 19 RAMAN Remote Access Manager December 29, 1992 20 Beta testers/Thanks to... ------------------------- This is in recognition to those who voluntarily offered to test RAMAN while it was still in Beta stages. These people risked their entire system in testing unproven designs, and in a few instances spent a few weekends on reconstruction: Jim Henthorn - 1:261/1044 Sid Balcom - 1:109/343 Bruce Shetrone - 1:261/1128 Leslie Alexis - No Address Dave Martin - 1:280/43 Chuck Seehuetter - 1:3608/5, 1:3608/6 Bobby Posey - 1:388/20 Radi Shourbaji - 1:143/110 Bob Kristensen - 1:306/22 Duane Brown - 1:274/16 Aaron Davis - 1:124/3103 Steve Proctor - 1:203/529 Thanks guys, I couldn't have done it without you! This and That ------------- The latest version of RAMAN will always be requestable from my system, The North Star, at 1:261/1108 and from each of the Beta sites listed above. Magic name is RAMAN for the latest version. My board accepts file requests from anyone who can make a file request. Connect speeds are 1200-14400 V.32bis as of the time of this release. File requests are honored at all hours except ZMH. If you are logging onto my board, the latest version is available for download on your first call. I know that a lot of people have been burned by Shareware authors. I can only say that I will not take your money and run like some seem to do. Beyond that, you will just have to trust me. Should circumstances occur and I cannot continue RAMAN development, I will probably release the source code to registered users or make arrangements with someone else to take over RAMAN development. This is NOT a promise. I plan to be around for a while, but you never know what could happen. You can always netmail first to make sure that I'm still alive. 20 RAMAN Remote Access Manager December 29, 1992 21 Registering RAMAN ----------------- When registering, please fill out REGISTER.FRM and mail it along with your registration fee to: David Hickey 304 North Glen Avenue Annapolis, MD 21401 United States Of America The registration fee is 10 U.S. Dollars, or equivalent currency. I'll gladly accept it in the form of cash, check, money order... just about anything except for a credit card or an I.O.U. When I receive your money I will generate a key file for you. If you have a FidoNet address, I will CRASHmail it to you. If you do not have a FidoNet address, I will call your BBS and upload your key file to you in a private upload. Once you receive your key, place it in your RAMAN system directory. Be sure it is named RAMAN.KEY. If you do not have a FidoNet address, be sure to create an account for me under the name of David Hickey and put the password on the place provided on the registration form contained in the file REGISTER.FRM which is in the RAMAN distribution archive. 21 EOF