What is TH-FTPM? TH-FTPM is a PPE designed to allow people to access your PCBoard file system via email. A remote downloader, if you will. It does not implement every feature of the PCB file system, nor is it likely to ever do so. Most notably, it does not currently support uploads, and it may never, unless I have a flash of insight. Legal Information TH-FTPM is shareware. Use beyond 30 days requires a payment of $25. Registration also activates certain functions of the software, most notably the accounting features that allow it to automatically debit your users' ftp-by-mail accounts for a price per byte that you specify. TH-FTPM is copyright 1995 by Steven Karp. All rights are reserved. You are granted limited permission to distribute the UNREGISTERED version. You are specifically NOT granted permission to disassemble, decompile, or otherwise reverse-engineer the software. In short, TH-FTPM is MY program, and you are not authorized to make any changes or modifications to it. There are no guarantees associated with this program. It works on my system, but computers being what they are, it might not work on yours. If not, I will make a good-faith effort to help you isolate the problem and correct it, but I explicitly disclaim any responsibility for any problems or loss of time or money caused by use or misuse of TH-FTPM. Setup Those of you who have used my other programs have probably figured out that I like to keep things as simple as possible. Unfortunately, in this particular case, "as simple as possible" isn't very simple. Hang in there, follow the instructions below to the letter, and it should work. 1. Unzip all the files in this archive to their own subdirectory. I use c:\pcb\ppl\th-ftpm, and all my examples will be based on this. You'll need to make appropriate adjustments if you put them somewhere else. 2. Edit the configuration file (TH-FTPM.CFG) to match your system. Instructions are contained in the sample configuration file. Note that the conference number you enter as line 3 is for the conference you will be creating in step 3. 3. Create a new conference for TH-FTPM to use. The conference should be private. This conference will serve two purposes: Most importantly, because it is a separate conference from your regular conferences, it can have its own DIR, DIR.LST, and DLPATH.LST files, allowing you to have a different set of files available via email than those that can be downloaded by your callers. The secondary function of this conference is to separate the file request mail from your regular email. Your mail scans will be faster, and monitoring TH-FTPM will be much simpler. The first screen of the conference setup should be filled out in the standard fashion. Again, please make sure to make the conference private to keep your regular callers out of it. The lefthand side of the second conference configuration screen should look like this: Auto-Rejoin into this Conf. : N Allow Viewing Conf. Members : N Make All Uploads Private : Y Make All Messages Private : Y Echo Mail in Conference : Y Force Echo on All Messages : Y Type of NetMail Conference : 3 Allow Internet (long) TO: Names : Y Make Conference Read-Only : N Disallow Private Messages : N Place ORIGIN Info in Messages : Y Prompt for ROUTE Info : Y Allow Aliases to be used : Y Show INTRO in `R A' Scan : N Maintain Old MSGS.NDX File : N Note that TH-FTPM will only be able to search for and send files that can be found in the DIR, DIR.LST, and DLPATH.LST _of_this_ conference. If you plan to allow access to a different group of files than your regular callers can access, you'll need to make appropriate modifications to those files in this conference. Further note that TH-FTPM does _NOT_ support CD-ROM doors. If you wish to provide access to CDs, they will need to be added as file areas directly on the BBS _in_this_conference_. 4. Create an account on your BBS for TH-FTPM. This account can be named anything you want, with any password you want; it's necessary to give the program access to your Z and N commands. The only particular requirement is that you must give this account a security level high enough to access every file that you want accessible by email. IT IS NOT NECESSARY TO GIVE TH-FTPM SYSOP LEVEL ACCESS. Make sure that you include RX access to the conference you created in step 3 for this account. 5. Add the database maintenance program to your command file, giving it a high enough security level to lock out everyone except yourself and (optionally) any trusted co-sysops. This is actually optional, but highly recommended. If you don't add it to the command file, you'll have to run it by typing "ppe c:\pcb\ppl\th-ftpm\maint.ppe" every time you need to use it, which is a pain in the neck. Either way, the first time you run the maintenance program it will create the user database. You should probably set up an account for yourself, just to insure that there is some data in the database. Note that the User ID and the password should NOT be the same as the ones you use on your system for reasons of security. 6. Add the following line to your mail import event: pcboardm /runppe;first;last;PWRD:passwd;PPE:c:\pcb\ppl\th-ftpm\th-ftpm.ppe Make any necessary changes in your commandline, including replacing "first", "last", and "passwd" with the first name, last name, and password for the account you set up in step 4. IMPORTANT: This line must be executed from the same directory that you run UUIN from AND it must run AFTER UUXFER and BEFORE UUIN. Here's a simple example batch file: UUOUT UUXFER pcboardm /runppe;first;last;PWRD:passwd;PPE:c:\pcb\ppl\th-ftpm\th-ftpm.ppe UUIN BOARD 7. Start advertising that your files are now available via email. 8. Register the program! Please print out and use the form in the enclosed file REGISTER.FRM Special Notes 1. The popular anonymous server anon.penet.fi will reject any message larger than 48K. PCBoard splits uuencoded files into 64K chunks. To avoid potential problems with bounced or truncated messages, if a file request is received with an address containing the string "@anon.penet.fi", the file will be sent to the contact email address in the user's record in the database. If the contact address is also at the anon server, the user will receive an "unable to send requested file" message. Contact Information Please address any questions, comments, requests, and/or bug reports to me, either via email (steven.karp@teamhbbs.com) or via U.S. Mail: Steven Karp 2124 Kittredge St. #44 Berkeley, CA 94804 If you wish, you may also call my BBS at 510-236-5114. The latest versions of all of my programs are available in file area 2 and may be downloaded on the first call. To locate specific file names, use an L search in that area for TH*.* Planned Enhancements 1. Support for PCBoard's FSEC file. 2. Enhanced database maintenance program, allowing more user display and editing options. 3. Sysop selection of whether to charge for each command, not just the LIST command. 4. Option to charge a flat rate per file, rather than a per-byte charge.