My goodness, how time flies. Here it's already time for "Page 2" as Paul Harvey would say. 1. Enter ASETUP | System Data | Address Manager | Uplink manager, highlight the first entry and press This screen deals primarily with AREAMgr request forwarding from your downlinks to your uplink -----------------------------------------------------------Uplink 1--- Uplink System 1:3825/24 ;The address of this uplink Areafix program ALLFIX ;see a below Ã-Password @@@@@@@@ ;See b below À Add '+' prefix YES ;See c below Authorized Groups 0 ;See d below Unconditional Yes ;See e below Areas Filename FILEBONE.NA ;See f below À-File format FILEBONE.NA format ;See g below Origin address 1:3825/21 ;See h below Direct Yes ;See i below ----------------------------------------------------------------------- a. This is the name of the program that this uplink uses to process file echo areafixes. Some of the most common programs are RAID, ALLFIX and for PCBoard exculsively, DWTIC. You'll just have to ask your uplink which one he uses, although to be honest with you, RAID and ALLFIX have the ability to answer mail that is addressed to any of these programs. It's just a matter of telling Allfix or Raid to answer to mail addressed to any of these programs. b. This is the password that you use to access this uplinks AreaMgr. Some AREAmgr processors have trouble with 8 characters so it's actually better to use just 7. Your uplink must have this password installed in his system and any mail you send to ALLFIX or RAID must have it. c. Most File area AREAMgr's use the + character to connect you to File areas and the - character to disconnect you, but not all. All fix needs to know whether or not to add this characters to any Forwarded ALLFIX or RAID requests. Allfix uses it and so does Raid. d. When we get to setting up file areas, weel put them into groups to make it easier to manage security and access. This is the group(s) that a downlink must have access to in order for their AREAmgr request to be forwarded to this uplink. In this case 0 is the group for FidoNet File echos (nodediff, fidonet.na, filebone.na, fidonews, etc.) e. This tells allfix that if a downlink belongs to a group that is designated in the previous field then it is ok to forward the AREAmgr request and to automatically set up a new file area on your system. f. The name of the file that contains the AREA TAGs that are available from this uplink. In this case, all of the filebone file echos are available from this system so I just use the FILEBONE.Na that I get from him each week. Just the name of the file. Its location will be configured in the next part of the setup (Pathnames) g. What format is the preceding file in. The choices are AREA or FileBone.NA The AREA is a file fomat that is exactly like the FIDONET.NA format, a filearea tag followed by a description. The FIDONET.NA format is what the FIDONET.NA file is in and has fields for security, etc. h. This is the Origin that you want ALLFIX to tell your uplink that the message is from. In this case, since this uplink is a FidoNet Hub, I want ALLFIX to use my FidoNet address when it forwards a request from one of my downlinks. i. Should any AREAMgr requests that need to be forwarded to this Uplink be sent directly to this Uplink or routed. This one goes directly to the uplink. There should be a screen like this for every Uplink that you have. 2. Now enter System Data | Pathnames (part 1) -------------------------------------------------------------PathNames-- MSG path Netmail C:\PCB\FIDO\NETMAIL\ Netmail out Inbound C:\QFRONT\REQUESTS\ Sec Inbound C:\QFRONT\REQUESTS\ Outbound PKT in C:PCB\FIDO\OUT\ PKT out Tic path C:\PCB\FIDO\TIC\ Queue path C:\PCB\FIDO\QUEUE\ DB queue Semaphore C:\PCB\ ----------------------------------------------------------------------- This screen and the pathnames 2 screen were probably the most confusing ones for me to understand. The blank entries are fields that apply to other BBS software packages and don't need to be setup for use with pcb. Netmail is the directory that holds all your inbound and outbound netmail Inbound is the directory that you put incoming files into. This is where all your compressed mail packets come to (the DDWOO35S.SA0 files) It is also where any files that are FREQed from another system by you or where files that aare sent file attached to a netmail message end up. Thats exactly what's happening when you get a file from a File Distribution network. A message called a TIC file is created and a file is attached to it and sent to you. The TIC is a specialized type of file that tells your file echo tosser (ALLFIX) what to do with the file. end up. Sec inbound is your secure inboud directory. If you don't have one just use the same as the Inbound directory. PKT in This entry was really confusing to me. As a matter of fact, it still is kinda. Trust me on this though. This is the directory that PCBoard puts its OUTGOING mail Packets. (yes I know it says PKT IN, I told you it was confusing) If you have any mail going to uplinks or downlinks or Netmail goin anywhere, this is the directory where PCB puts it. It should be the same as you entered in the PCBSETUP | Fido Configuration | File and Directory Configuration | Outbound packets line. PKT out is left blank because in PCBoard's case it is the same directory as PKT in. TIC path is the path that you want ALLFIX to store any tic files that have to be sent to your downlinks. For instance, if you are part of the distribution chain that distributes the weekly nodediff, you'll get the nodediff and it's tic file from your uplink. ALLFIX will store the TIC file here and the Nodediff in the Queue directory until all the downlinks have called in to collect their mail. It needs to be a separate directory with nothing else in it (although if you want it can be the same as the Queue dir) but tic files because everything will get deleted the next time allfix runs (after the files are all delivered) Queue path is where ALLFIx keeps any files that are still waiting to be delvered to your downlinks. This directory and the TIC directory can be the same directory if you want. Semaphore is where any semaphore files that ALLFIX creates will be stored. This was another confusing concept for me. A semaphore file is a file thats only purpose is to tell another program that it is time to do something. In this case it is created when ALLFIX finds something to do, like create a reply to someone in the FILEFIND echo or if Allfix posts a message in a filebase announcing that you've recieved new files. It's all automatic and all that really needs to be done is to point a PCB program like POSTCALL.BAT at it. Thus ends this episode of "How I did it". Tune in again tomorrow, same time, same channel. Later, Mark