Fidonet Software Reviews

A friendly bombing run
Björn Felten, 2:203/208

This really isn't a review but an unabashed plugging for a piece of software of mine. :)

It's almost ten years old now, but I still don't see nets, regions or zones making use of it. I've informed every *C I can think of about it's existence, to no avail. Maybe I'll be more lucky if I make it to the FidoNews.

In Sweden we've been using it to inform about elections, meetings, changes in echomail distribution and other, similar stuff for a decade, and it's been working like a charm. Maybe some more parts of the FidoNet community would like to take advantage of this concept.

Using CC as a magic freq name from 2:203/0 will get you the DOS version of the program. CC2 will get you the OS/2 version. If someone will provide me with an URL to upload it to, I'll be happy to do so.

The concept is so easy, it's a piece of cake to write even a small script to make it work. I've had an Amiga hub in my net that wrote a small ARexx script to make it happen.

The easiest way to present the concept, I guess, is to just copy the DOC-file. So here goes (remember it's from the early 1990's)...

THE IDEA:

CC is a totally new concept, built on an idea originally brought forward by my present (March -92) NEC, Dick Augustsson, in an article in FidoNews.

The idea was that it's kinda stupid to send a bunch of identical netmail, when one wants to reach every sysop in a net, region or may- be even zone. It would be better if the actual copying took place as close to the recipients as possible. Dicks original idea suggested a new kludge to mark the netmail, but that's not really necessary. All it takes is the word "All" in the "To:"-field and then the admin. nodenumber of the *C where the distribution shall start.

E.g. a netmail to all sysops in a net is addressed to

"All, z:nnn/0".

This single netmail can be routed the normal way, and will, hope- fully, eventually reach the host for the net nnn in zone z, where the following will happen (if he runs a copy of CC or a clone of it):

To all nodes (if any) between the host and the next *C in the nodelist, a copy of the netmail will be created.

To all hubs (if any) between the host and the next host in the nodelist, a copy of the netmail, but addressed to "All", will be created for further processing at that site.

All this applies to any level of the FidoNet organization. If the netmail is sent to All at the RC level, than the whole region will get the netmail.

And, of course, you can send a netmail to an entire zone, just by addressing it to "All, z:z/0".

USAGE:

Setting up.

Using CC.EXE is very simple if you're running a FrontDoor system, since the program uses SETUP.FD to find out what it needs to know. Just put the program in your FD system directory. You can delete the file CCSETUP.EXE, since it will be of no use to you. Do NOT attempt to run CCSETUP in your FD system directory, since it will destroy your SETUP.FD!!!

If you are not using FrontDoor, you can use CCSETUP.EXE to create the file SETUP.FD with the minimal data that the program needs.

If you have more than one hat (naughty, naughty!) it is important that the AKA of the highest level comes first in the AKA list, so that the program can solve all your levels in one single pass.

When to run.

The program can be run at any time. It takes just a few seconds to run, so there will be no major degradation of the mail processing time.

Exceptions.

Since it is possible that not every *C below your level can run the program, it can be issued with "exceptions" in parameters to it, in which case the copies to that area will be created at your system.

E.g. If you are a host and your hubs 200 and 400 are not taking part of this new concept, then you run the program like this:

"CC 200 400"

Log file.

If you want to keep a record of the CC activity you can simply redirect the program's output to a log file like this:

"CC >> CC.LOG"