8 ============================================================================= SysOp's Guide File Transfers Messages Conferences Events System Security Maintenance Tasks New Users User Subscriptions Modem Discussions Searching for Text File Transfers Uploading Files When you upload files you are adding files to the bulletin board system. The files are posted so other users may download the files. How to Upload Files In order to upload a file, you must specify the filename(s) you will be uploading and a description for each file uploaded. Once all of the files and descriptions have been entered, you may begin the file transfer. As an example, we will upload a file called MNHIT110.ZIP. Begin by entering U at a conference command prompt to initiate an upload. PCBoard will display the following prompt: (1) Enter the Filename to Upload (Enter)=none? At this prompt, enter the filename which is MNHIT110.ZIP. Now, you are asked to enter a description for the filename that you just entered. You need to enter at least 5 characters for the filename. You are told how many 45 character description lines you can enter. We will enter the following: Before beginning, enter a description of: MNHIT110.ZIP Begin description with (/) to make upload `Private'. Enter your text. (Enter) alone to end. (45 chars/line, 12 lines maximum) ? (MANHIT v1.10 -- Utility you can use to enhance) ? (your computer/system security. ) On the next blank description line, press ENTER to finish entering the description. You will now either be asked for another filename to transfer or the transfer will begin. It all depends on how you answered the Promote to Batch Transfers question in PCBSetup | Configuration Options | File Transfers. If you are asked for another filename, you may enter another filename to transfer or press ENTER to begin the transfer. The transfer should now begin. There is a different method for uploading from remote or locally. The following describes each. Remote You need to transfer a file using your communications program. With most communication programs you can do this by pressing PgUp. You are usually prompted for the protocol you wish to use for the transfer. Make sure you select the same one as you did on the bulletin board system. Once you select the protocol, you are asked for the filename(s) you wish to transfer. Enter the location to find the files you want to upload on your disk and press ENTER. At this point you will see the files being transferred. Local Local uploads are a little different because PCBoard is in control. To perform a local upload, you need to make sure you have selected an internal protocol to PCBoard. At the point where you would press u from remote to begin the transfer you will see the following prompt at the top of your screen: Local Upload Path or Filename? ( ) In this field, enter the filename(s) you want to upload. For example, if you want to upload a single file called MNHIT110.ZIP that is located in D:\TEMP\, enter D:\TEMP\MNHIT110.ZIP at this prompt. If you want to upload every file in D:\TEMP\, enter D:\TEMP\*.*. If your file transfer is aborted, it may occur for any of the following reasons: You were using an internal protocol, and one or more of the files you were transferring duplicated filenames already on the system. The non-duplicate files (if any) will still be transferred, but you will receive the transfer aborted message to let you know one or more of your files were aborted. You took too long to begin the transfer. The internal protocols in PCBoard give you approximately 60 seconds to begin the transfer. Most external protocols have a built in time-out value as well. If you are prompted for any descriptions after the transfer has taken place, you have done an unannounced upload. This is where you send files you did not inform PCBoard you would be sending. Because PCBoard requires each filename to have a description, it will ask you for a description if it cannot find one. Before PCBoard asks for a description, however, it will check the file to see if it has a FILE_ID.DIZ in it. If so, the file will be immediately tested without prompting for a description. PCBoard is able to determine if a ZIP, ARJ, LZH, PAK, or ARC file has a FILE_ID.DIZ file. If it does, the description file will be used to describe the file. If PCBoard is unable to find a description in the file, it will ask for a description of the file. All files that are successfully transferred will be tested via PCBTEST.BAT if you have enabled the testing of uploads on your system. Testing Uploaded Files If you have configured your system to test all uploaded files, all successfully uploaded files will be tested (one at a time) using PCBTEST.BAT. Even if carrier is lost during the transfer, PCBoard will test all files that were successfully transferred. For more information about testing files using PCBTEST.BAT, see the Batch Files chapter of this manual. Disabling Uploads There are two methods you can use to disable uploads on your system. You can set the security level required to execute the U command in PCBSetup | Security Levels | User Commands very high so no one can upload. This would effectively disable uploads across the entire system. If you are looking to disable uploads on a conference by conference basis, you may do that as well. To disable uploads for a particular conference, clear out the field which contains the location of where uploads will be stored. The field you need to clear depends on how you answered the Make All Uploads Private question. If you answered with a Y, clear out the location of private uploads. The following is a sample display: Sort Name/Loc Upload DIR File Location of Uploads Public Upld: 0 : C:\PCB\MAIN\UPLOAD : C:\PCB\MAIN\UPLOAD Private Upld: 0 : C:\PCB\MAIN\PRIVATE : If you answered with an N instead (making all uploads in the conference public), clear out the Location of Uploads for the public upload directory instead. Determining Duplicates PCBoard uses a semi-intelligent method to determine if the file that is about to be uploaded is a duplicate of a file already on the system. A list of the filename extensions used by the most popular file compression programs is stored in memory. If it appears that the file is simply compressed with a different program, the file will be rejected as a duplicate. For example, if you have a file called SPECIAL.ARJ on your system and an attempt is made to upload SPECIAL.ZIP, the file will be rejected as a duplicate. However, a file such as SPECIAL.TXT could be uploaded, because the TXT extension is not used by any compression programs. Therefore, this file most likely has contents that are different from SPECIAL.ARJ. NOTE: The file extensions that are recognized as being used by compression programs are: ZIP, ARJ, LZH, LHA, ARC, PAK, ZOO, DWC, and EXE. PCBoard checks the filename being uploaded against entries in DLPATH.LST to determine what files exist on the system. If the file already exists, a message stating that the upload is a duplicate of a file already on the system is displayed. If you have a security level equal to or greater than the value specified by the Level Needed to Overwrite Files on Uploads (PCBSetup | Security Levels | Sysop Commands), you are given the option to remove the file from disk or to continue with the upload. You may also want to use what is called an ALLPATH.LST (All-Files DLPATH.LST in PCBSetup | File Locations | Configuration Files). In this file you can list all of the paths you want PCBoard to check when uploading a file. This way you could include download paths from multiple conferences so users do not upload files that may be located in another conference. Since the ALLPATH.LST file is never checked for downloads, you do not compromise the security of your system. If you leave this field blank, PCBoard resorts to using only the DLPATH.LST method for duplicate checking. Downloading Files When you download files, you are transferring a file which exists on the bulletin board to your machine. How to Download Files In order to download a file, you must enter the filename(s) you want to download. To help find the filenames you want to download, use the L, N, Z, and F user commands. All of these commands will list files. To actually download the file(s), use the D command to download a single file or the DB command to download more than one file. If you have answered Y to the Promote to Batch Transfers question, the D command will behave like the DB command. You will see the following prompt: (1) Enter the filename to Download (Enter)=none? At this prompt enter the filename you wish to download. You may stack multiple filenames at this prompt by separating each filename by either a space or a semi-colon. For example, enter BLADAR10.ZIP to download a file called BLADAR10.ZIP. If the file is found on disk, you will be shown the filename, how many bytes are in the file, and an estimate of how long it will take to transfer at your current speed. You will then be asked for another filename. If you are finished entering the files you want to download, simply press ENTER. After the filenames have been entered, you will be ready to begin the transfer. As with uploads, PCBoard treats remote and local transfers differently. The following describes each method: Remote You need to transfer a file using your communications program. With most communications program you can do this by pressing PgDn. You are usually prompted for the protocol you wish to use for the transfer. Make sure you select the same one as you did on the bulletin board system. Once you select the protocol, you are asked for the location where you wish to place the files you are about to download. Enter any valid subdirectory or filename in this box as necessary for your communications program. At this point you will see the files being transferred. NOTE: Some communications programs support what is called auto-downloading. This is where the transfer automatically begins as soon as the communications program recognizes the protocol. This is most common with protocols like Zmodem. Local Local downloads are a little different because PCBoard is in control. To perform a local download, you need to make sure you have selected an internal protocol to PCBoard. At the point where you would usually press d from remote to begin the transfer you will see the following prompt at the top of your screen: Local Download Path? ( ) In this field, enter the drive and subdirectory where you want to store the file(s) you are about to download. For example, if you want the files to be stored in D:\TEMP\, enter D:\TEMP at this prompt. If your file transfer is aborted, it may mean you took too long to start it. Internal protocols allow you about 90 seconds before they will abort. Local downloads will abort if you do not type anything in the box within 30 seconds. If your download is aborted, PCBoard will remember the filenames you typed in and they will remain as flagged files. Therefore, if you attempt to do a download again, you will be asked if you wish to download flagged files. Flagging Files For Download You can mark or flag files for download while you are viewing the file listings. When you are viewing file listings, you will notice that the More? prompt has a (F)lag option. When you select this option, you will be asked what filename you would like to flag for download. If the filename you enter is found, you will be shown the filename, file size, and approximate minutes to download. You can continue looking at the file listings without having to begin your transfer immediately. When you are ready to begin your transfer, simply use the D or DB commands. You will be asked if you wish to download the files that are flagged for download. Disabling Downloads Disabling downloads is a very simple process. To disable downloads across the entire system, you would set the security level in PCBSetup | Security Levels | User Commands for the D command very high. To disable downloads in a particular conference is very easy. Simply make sure that the DLPATH.LST field in the conference configuration is blank. If it is blank, PCBoard will inform the user that downloads are currently disabled. Below is an example from a conference configuration screen: Directories : C:\PCB\MAIN\DIRMNU : C:\PCB\MAIN\DIR.LST Download Paths (listing only) : Making files FREE for download A FREE file is considered a file which does not count towards the user's bytes or files downloaded. In other words, if the user has 280k of bytes available for the day and a free file is downloaded, 280k of bytes will still be available for downloading. To make a file free, you need to use the FSEC file which can be edited via PCBSetup | File Locations | Configuration Files. A file is considered FREE if the password required for the download is FREE. A couple of examples will help illustrate the point best. For example, all files in the G:\FORALL\ subdirectory will be considered FREE files. The entry you would make in the FSEC file looks like the following: Drive \ Path File Name Sec Password -------------------------------- -------------- ----- -------------- G:\FORALL\ *.* 0 FREE Because almost all bulletin boards store files on the system as compressed files, you may want to make the utility necessary to uncompress the files a FREE download. For example, the decompression utility may be called ARJ300.EXE. If so, you may want to make the following entry in the FSEC file: Drive \ Path File Name Sec Password -------------------------------- -------------- ----- -------------- ARJ*.EXE 0 FREE Notice how the Drive/Path field is left blank. This means that anytime a user downloads a file which begins with ARJ and has an extension of EXE it will be a FREE file. Batch Versus Single File Transfers As you know, you must use a file transfer protocol to transfer any files over the modem. As it turns out, some protocols can handle sending multiple files in a single transfer while others may be only capable of sending one file at a time. If a protocol can send more than one file in a single transfer, it is known as a batch protocol. On the other hand, if the protocol is capable of sending only one file at a time, it is sometimes termed a single file protocol. If you flag or attempt to download more than one file for a single transfer, PCBoard will only allow you to transfer the files using the batch protocols that are available on the system. If your default protocol is set to a single file protocol, you will be prompted for the batch protocol you wish to use for the transfer. Aborted Transfers An aborted file is any file which was not fully transferred. The following details some reasons why files may be aborted: excessive errors: Almost every protocol has some error-checking routines built in to assure the proper transfer of information. If an error in the transmission is detected the data packet will usually be re-sent. Most protocols also have a built in error limit. For example, if 10 successive errors occur, the protocol may decide to abort the transfer. line noise: No transmission over phone lines is immune from line noise. From time-to-time you may experience line noise. If you do not have an error-corrected connection, this may cause transmissions errors and if bad enough, could cause the transfer to be aborted. If you do have an error-corrected connection, it is quite unlikely that the transfer will be aborted (because modems are doing the error correcting automatically). However, if the line noise is extremely bad, your modem may decide to automatically drop carrier. dropped bytes: With the influx of high-speed modems into the market it has become more important than ever to have serial port hardware that is adequate enough to handle the speed of the modem. If you plan on using a modem which uses a port speed of 19200 or higher, you should plan on either using an intelligent serial card supported by the /M version of PCBoard or at the very least make sure all of your serial ports have NS16550AFN UARTs installed. flow control: It is very important that you use the right flow control. There are two types of flow control--software and hardware. The former is commonly referred to as XON/XOFF flow control and the latter is referred to as CTS/RTS flow control. It is important that your modem and your software be configured to use CTS/RTS flow control exclusively. Protocols such as Ymodem/G assume that flow control is operating properly. If flow control is not working properly, you can lose an excessive amount of characters, etc. NOTE: If the connection is set to be disconnected once the file transfer has completed and the file transfer aborts, PCBoard will wait 45 seconds instead of the normal 10 seconds. Messages Messages are a vital part of just about any bulletin board system. Messages are used to leave messages to the SysOp or to other users. Messages are the most common way of communicating with other users on the system. Reading A Message Because reading messages is one of the most commonly used functions when on a bulletin board system, PCBoard has numerous commands and subcommands dealing with reading messages. You can use the subcommands to view only those messages that interest you. For example, if you only want to see messages from JIM SMITH, use the FROM subcommand. Reading new messages Bulletin board systems are basically information banks. Because so much information is stored on a bulletin board system, you most likely want to view only new information that is placed online. Viewing any new messages on the system is very easy to do. From the conference command prompt you can type in the following: R S A This will Read mail Since the last time you were on in All conferences you have selected for scanning. If the bulletin board brings in a lot of mail each day, you may want to read only messages that are addressed to you. If so, you can type in the following command instead: R Y S A The only change is the addition of the Y to tell PCBoard to only read messages that are addressed to You. There are numerous other subcommands you can use with the R command. For a detailed list, see the R user command in the PCBoard Commands chapter of this manual.user command section. Downloading an attached file If you are reading a message which has an attached file, you will notice that you have the ability to flag the attached file for download. At the End of Message Command prompt, you simply type in FLAG -- the file will then be flagged for download. When you are done reading messages, you can use either the D or DB command to download the file. Entering A Message One of the most popular methods of communicating on a bulletin board system is via the message system. In order to communicate with another user or group of users on the system via a message, you need to enter a message. This section briefly talks about how to enter a message on the system. For more details about entering a message, you should refer to the E user command in the User Command section of this manual. To begin entering a message, you need to use the E user command. This means you will type in E followed by pressing ENTER. Addressing a Message Once you press E and then ENTER you will see the following prompt: To (Enter)='ALL'? ( ) This prompt asks to whom the message should be addressed to. Press ENTER to address the message to ALL, enter any valid user name on the system, or you can user some of the special addressees that are discussed in the Entering a Message section of the PCBoard Commands chapter (e.g., @USER@, @LIST@, etc.). The Subject Of The Message Just as you would enter a subject on a memorandum or other correspondence, you are asked to enter a subject of the message you will be entering. You are given up to 53 characters to describe the content of your message. The subject of the message is displayed when the message is read, when using the Q user command, etc. If you do not enter a subject for the message, the message you are entering will be aborted. Assigning Message Security Unless the current conference is defined to make all messages private, you will be asked what type of message security to use for the message you are about to enter. You may choose to make the message public so other users on the system may read it or you may make the message private so only certain persons can read the message. The most popular security options are N for a public message and R for a message which can be read only by the receiver of the message. Requesting A Return Receipt If you are entering a RECEIVER ONLY message, you may be asked if you wish to request a return-receipt. If you request a return receipt, a message will be sent to you when the recipient reads your message. Echoing a Message If you are leaving a message in a conference which has been configured to allow echo-mail, you may be asked if you wish to echo the message. If you choose to not echo the message, your message will remain on the local system only. Routing A Message You can configure a conference to request routing information if a message will be echoed and it is a private message. The routing information that is entered allows the message to take a direct route to the recipient rather than being broadcast over the entire mail network. The routing information that is entered depends on the software you are using for echoing mail as each can require different types of routing information. Check with the echoing software to see if message routing is allowed, and if so, the format that must be used. Choosing a Message Editor PCBoard gives you the option to ask if you wish to use the full-screen editor each time you enter a message. If you have enabled this feature, you will be asked this question before being allowed to enter your message. Of course, if you find you always use the full-screen editor or the line-editor, you may want to go use the W user command to change the Use Full Screen Editor? prompt to reflect the appropriate default response. The Message Editor Once you have answered the questions about the message you want to enter, you will be placed in the message editor. In the editor, you simply type in your message as you want it to read. To perform various functions inside of the editor such as deleting lines, saving the message, etc. you need to access the editor commands. To access these commands in the full-screen editor, you can press ESC. In the line-editor, you can access these commands by pressing ENTER on a blank line. There are far too many commands to discuss in this section of the manual, however they are discussed in detail in the section of the manual which discusses the E user command. Once you have entered the text you want for your message, you are ready to save your message. Saving the Message To save a message, simply access the editor command prompt by pressing either ESC or ENTER on a blank line depending on which editor you are using. Then press S and R. Your message is now saved to the message base on the bulletin board system. Attaching A File To A Message Sometimes you need to distribute a file to a select group of users. What you can do is attach the file to a message. That way, only users which can read the message with the attached file can flag the file for download. To attach the file, select SA from the editor command prompt instead of S to save the message. You will be asked for the filename you wish to upload or attach. You may attach only one file to each message. If you need to attach more than one file, use a compression program which compresses the files and combines them into a single file. After you have entered the filename to attach, upload the file just as you would any other file to the system. If the transfer is successful, you will be notified that the message was saved. On the other hand, if the transfer is aborted, or if your file was tested and failed testing, you will be returned to the editor command prompt. Editing A Message Not everyone is perfect the first time around. Sooner or later, you may need to edit a message you have saved. You may need to edit the actual text in the message body, or perhaps just change who the message is addressed to. The following sections describe how to edit the header and body of a message. Header information If you entered a message to the wrong name, or you would like to change the subject of a message that you left, you may do so by typing E at the End of Message Command prompt. If you do not have SysOp security, you will only be able to edit the header information of messages which you have left. You may edit who the message is to, the subject of the message, the message security/protection, and the reference number of the message. If you have SysOp security, you will also be able to change who the message is from, and if it has been read or not. Body of message You can use the EDIT command at the End of Message Command prompt to edit the body of the current message. You may edit the message if it was left by you or if you have SysOp security. When you edit the message you are put back into the message editor. Make the changes you want to make and then re-save the message. The changes that you make will be saved to the message. NOTE: If you make numerous changes, PCBoard may have to delete the original message and create a new message at the end of the message base. Therefore, if you see Message Killed when you save your message, you will know PCBoard had to kill the original message and create a new message at the end of the message base. Searching PCBoard provides extensive search capabilities. This section describes some very simple searches you can use to help you find messages. For Text If you want to display any messages which contain particular text, use the TS subcommand. For example, if you enter the following: R;TS You can perform a text search on any message. PCBoard will ask you for the text you want to search for. After you enter the text, you will be asked what message number you want to begin the search at. You can stack all of this onto one line. For example: R;TS;EDITOR;1+ This command will perform a text search, looking for any message in the current conference which contains the word EDITOR. If you wish, you may also span the search across all conferences you have selected for scanning by using the following command: R;TS;EDITOR;1+;A Notice that only the A was added to the command. This tells PCBoard to search all conferences you have selected for reading. If you wish to search all conferences you can join, use ALL instead. NOTE: Text searches within PCBoard are not case-sensitive. Therefore, you do not have to worry about matching the case of the text you will be searching for. For User Sometimes you may only wish to read messages which are to or from a particular user. There is a USER subcommand you can use to read messages to or from a user. The following is an example: R;USER PCBoard will ask you for the user you wish to search for. You may also stack the user name on the command line as shown in the following example: R;USER;JIM BROWN The previous example will search for any messages in the current message base which are to or from JIM BROWN. For User & Text If you need to perform an even more specific search, you can combine the USER and TS commands. This will enable you to search for any message that is to or from a particular user and contains the text that you specify. The following is an example: R;TS;USER PCBoard will prompt you for the text you want to search for and the user you want to restrict the search to. As in the previous examples, you may stack the information on the command line: R;TS;EDITOR;USER;JIM BROWN In this example, it is important to place the text you want to search for after the TS and the user you want to search for after USER. Otherwise, PCBoard will not be able to properly discern the difference between the search text and the user. Look at the following example: R;TS;USER;EDITOR;JIM BROWN If you type in the previous example, PCBoard will think the user name was EDITOR;JIM BROWN and consequently prompt you for the text to search for. Capturing A Single Message The ability to capture a message to a printer or file can be important because it gives you a method to copy a message to a format which you can then share or use in another manner. You can capture messages to a file, or to the printer (if you are on locally). To The Printer If you are on locally, you can capture text that is displayed by PCBoard to the printer using ALT-P. Therefore, to capture a particular message, do the following: Read the message you want to capture. At the End of Message Command prompt, press ALT-P to turn on the printer. Now type / and press ENTER. This will re-display the message. Since you have printer capturing turned on, you will be capturing the message. Press ALT-P to turn off printer capturing and you are done. To A Text File You can easily capture a message to a file using the following steps: Read the message you want to capture. At the End of Message Command prompt, enter C to capture and download the message. Download this file like any other file on the system and you will have a hard-copy of the message in text file format in the location where you download the file. Capturing Multiple Messages The ability to capture messages to a printer or file can be important because it gives you a method to copy messages to a format which you can share or use in another manner. You can capture messages to a file, or to the printer (if you are on locally). To The Printer If you are on locally, you can capture text displayed by PCBoard to the printer using ALT-P. Therefore, to capture several messages, do the following: Press ALT-P to turn on printer capturing. Read the messages you want to capture. When done reading the messages, press ALT-P to turn off printer capturing. To A File The easiest way to capture messages to a file is to use the C subcommand of the R user command. Simply tack the C on to the end of your read command and those messages will be sent to a file instead of being displayed on the screen. Example: R;S;A;C would read new messages in all conferences that you have selected and capture them to a file. Once the messages have been captured to the file, you will be directed to download the capture file to your system. Of course, once you download it, you have an ASCII text capture of those messages. To a QWK Packet One of the most popular ways to read messages off-line is via an off-line mail reader which can handle QWK packets. PCBoard can capture messages into a QWK packet you can use with an off-line mail reader. If you want all of the new messages on the system, use the QWK command from the conference command prompt. If you want to capture a certain range of messages, or perhaps only messages that contain certain text, use the QWK subcommand that is available with the R user command. To captures messages to a packet, simply tack on QWK to the end of your read command. For example, if you want the new messages in the current conference instead of all conferences you have selected, enter the following command: R;S;QWK Taking this idea one step further, you can capture all messages that contain the word INERTIA in the current message base. To do this, enter the following: R;TS;INERTIA;1+;QWK Conferences Conferences provide you a way to separate information on your bulletin board system. Each conference can have different message bases, file areas, bulletins, scripts, etc. Creating Because the conference configuration screens are so extensive, it can take a while to create a conference. PCBoard does try to help you out with your conference configuration when you decide to create a new conference. To create a conference, you need to first load PCBSetup, and select Conferences from the Main Menu. You will see a list of conferences on your system. To create a conference, press ENTER on a blank conference number. You will be informed that you are setting up a new conference. You are then asked if you want PCBSetup to provide the defaults for this conference. If you did not see this screen, but heard a beep instead, it means you need to increase the Number of Highest Conference Desired in PCBSetup | Configuration Options | Messages. If you choose not to have PCBSetup provide the defaults, you will be placed in the conference screen for the conference you are creating. All of the fields will be blank and you will need to fill in the fields as described in the Conference Setup chapter of this manual. If you choose to let PCBSetup enter the defaults, you will be asked some additional information: Conference Name: You may enter up to 13 characters to describe the new conference. You may use both upper and lower case letters. Number of conference to clone (leave blank to skip): Sometimes your conferences may be very similar in configuration with only a field or two in the configuration screen being different. If you enter a number in this field, PCBoard will copy the conference settings for a conference and use them for your new conference. Before the conference is cloned, you are asked for the Default Conference Location. This is where your MSGS, INTRO, and NEWS files will be stored for this conference. These are the only files that will change from the conference that you are cloning. The rest of the file locations and the settings will be copied from the conference you enter in this field. For systems that have a lot of NetMail conferences, cloning conferences can save a lot of time because the MSGS file location is about the only thing that is different between each NetMail conference. Enter the Conference # on which to base the defaults: If you decide not to clone a conference, you will be asked what conference you wish to base your defaults on for the new conference. Once you enter the conference to base your defaults on, you will be asked for the Default Conference Location. This is the location where all of your conference specific information will be stored (message base, etc.) PCBSetup will now proceed to ask you about various file locations in the conference configuration screen to see how you want them to be configured. You will first be asked about your Upload definitions. These will specify information about your public and private upload directories. The following options are available at this prompt: 1 Copy the default upload paths and DIR file specifications. The sort method, name/location of the upload DIR file, and the location of uploads will be copied from the conference you are basing the defaults on. In other words, the following fields will be copied: Sort Name/Loc Upload DIR File Location of Uploads Public Upld: 0 : : Private Upld: 0 : : 2 Create new upload paths and DIR files for this conference. PCBSetup will create defaults for your private and public upload directories based on what you entered for your Default Conference Location. For example, if you entered C:\CONF\1\ for your default conference location, your description files will be stored in C:\CONF\1\, your private uploads will be stored in C:\CONF\1\PRIVUPLD\, and your public uploads will be stored in C:\CONF\1\UPLOAD\. 3 Leave the upload path and DIR file specifications blank. If you select this option, your private and public uploads locations will be left blank. You would want to select this option if you did not want to accept uploads in this new conference. Next, you will be asked about the following file locations: DOORS Files: The locations of your door menu and door configuration files. These are commonly referred to as DOORS and DOORS.LST. BULLETINS Files: The locations of your bulletin menu and bulletin configuration files. These are commonly referred to as BLT and BLT.LST. SCRIPTS File: The locations of your script menu and script configuration files. These are commonly referred to as SCRIPT and SCRIPT.LST. DIR File: The locations of your file directory menu and file directory configuration files. These are commonly referred to as DIR and DIR.LST. Download Paths File: The location of your download path list file. This file is sometimes referred to as DLPATH.LST. For each of these locations, you will be given the following options: 1 Use the default conference definitions directly. If you make any changes it will affect all conferences sharing the same defenitions. If you select this option, PCBSetup will store the same file locations you used in the conference you are basing the new conference on. Because the new conference and the conference you based the defaults on will share the same file, any changes you make in one conference will also be reflected in the other conference. 2 Copy the default conference definitions into a conference-specific file which you may then add to or delete from without affecting any other conference. PCBSetup will use new files based on your Default Conference Location, but will copy the data from the files in your base conference. This way, you can have conference specific files that you may change freely without affecting the conference you used to base your defaults on. 3 Start out with an empty conference-specific file which may be modified without affecting any other conference. PCBSetup will create new files based on your Default Conference Location. These files will be empty so you may customize/edit them to suit your needs. Once you have answered these questions, you will be returned to the conference configuration screen where you may fine-tune or edit any of the fields. Registering Users In A Conference There are several methods for registering users in a particular conference. Some methods will only register one user at a time. Other methods will register an entire group of users. Registering A Group Of Users In A Conference You can register a group of users in a conference at the same time. To accomplish this, load System Manager. Next, select Users File Maintenance, followed by Insert Group Conference. You will see the following fields on your screen: First number of conferences to be inserted in registrations : 0 Last number of conferences to be inserted in registrations : 0 Adjust conferences user is normally allowed to join : Y Adjust conferences user can join with expired subscription : Y Adjust the user selected conferences for scanning : Y Adjust conferences where user becomes a sysop when joining : N Reset user's last message read to zero in these conferences : N Adjust users with a security level greater than or equal to : 0 and less than or equal to : 110 Begin by specifying the beginning conference number followed by the ending conference number to register the users in. If you want to register the users in one conference, specify the same number for the first and last conference number. Next, you need to determine the conference flags that will be set in the user record. The following lists the flag that will be set in the user record based on how you answer the questions in the second section: R Adjust conferences user is normally allowed to join. If you put a Y in this field, the R flag will be put in the conference flag section of the user record. This flag controls if the user is able to join a particular conference or not. X Adjust conferences user can join with expired subscription. If you put a Y in this field, an X will be placed in the conference flag section of the user record. When the X flag is set, the user can join the conference if their subscription has expired. S Adjust the user selected conferences for scanning. If you put a Y in this field, an S will be placed in the conference flag section of the user record. This means that conference has been selected for scanning/reading. C Adjust conferences where user becomes a sysop when joining. Putting a Y in this field will put the C flag in the conference flag section of the users file. When users who have this flag join the conference, they will automatically be upgraded to the security level specified by the Sysop Level field in PCBSetup | Security Levels | Sysop Commands. Finally, you need to specify the security levels that the conference flags will be altered for. In the first field, enter the lowest security level you want the flags to be altered for. In the last field, enter the highest security level you want the flags altered for. All security levels between the low and high security levels will also have their flags altered. Registering A Single User Via System Manager If you need to register just one or two users in a particular conference, the easiest way to do it is via System Manager. Select Users File Maintenance, then Edit Users File. You should see your record on this screen. Now press A-F and type in the name of the user that you want to register in the conference. Once their record is on the screen, press 2 twice to go into conference view. You will see the conferences you have configured on the system with a Flags column next to each conference. To move between the fields on the screen use the TAB key. When you are in the Flags field, you can enter any of the flags that were described previously (R, X, S, and C). To save the new information, press ESC and tell System Manager that you want to save the changes made to the user record. Registering A Single User While Online If you have SysOp security level and you have sufficient security level to access the 7 command, you can edit almost any user record on the system. See the SysOp Commands section in the PCBoard Commands chapter of this manual for more information on the 7 command. First, locate the user record that you want to edit, then select C to change the current user record. As you step through the various items, you will see one which says Select Conferences. You may then select the conference number(s) to register the user in. Once you have selected the conference(s) you will be asked which conference flags you would like to set for the user. Simply enter the flags, and press ENTER. Restricting Access To A Conference There are five methods you can use to keep a particular user out of a conference. They are as follows: User does not have the R conference flag set in their user record for a private conference. User does not have sufficient security required to join a public conference or does not have the R conference flag set. User does not know the password for the conference if defined in the conference configuration screen and if the conference is a private conference. You have set the L conference flag in the user record to lock the user out of the conference in question. The subscription for the user has expired and the X conference flag is not set for the conference you are restricting them from. Deleting PCBSetup does not provide a method for deleting a conference. However, you can have PCBSetup re-ask you the initial questions for the conference so that you can re-configure it. To do this, clear out the name of the conference in the configuration screen by positioning your cursor in the name field and pressing CTRL-END. Next, press ESC to get back to the conference listing. Select the conference number that you just cleared the name out of. PCBSetup will now think that you are configuring a new conference and you can proceed to answer the questions. NOTE: You can temporarily disable a conference by clearing out the conference name or the location of the MSGS file. If a user attempts to join a conference when either of these fields are blank, they will be told the conference is an invalid conference. Sharing Information Between Conferences A conference has a few fields which give the location for configuration fields. If you have more than one conference which needs to share the information the easiest way to do it is to specify the same filenames in both conference configuration screens. For example, let's say that you have one conference which has the following information stored for your BLT and BLT.LST file: Bulletins : C:\PCB\GEN\BLTMENU : C:\PCB\GEN\BLT.LST If you want another conference to have the same bulletins available, enter the same filenames on the second conference. Because both conferences point to the same configuration files, the information stored in those files will be shared between the two conferences. When you edit one of the configuration files, any changes you make will be written to the configuration files. Any conferences that use these configuration files will see the changes because they all read from the same files. You can use this method to share data for any fields in the conference configuration screens which point to files. Creating Conference Menu In order for your users to know what conferences are available on your system (if any), you need to edit the Name/Loc of Conference Join Menu in PCBSetup | File Locations | Display Files. This is file is commonly referred to as CNFN. This file is a text file which you may edit with the editors you have defined in System Manager by pressing F2 or F3. You may make the menu look anyway you wish. As a bare minimum, you should include the conference name and/or number and a description of each conference. The following is a sample: # Name Description --- ------------- -------------------------------------------- 1 PARANOID Discussions include paranoia and fears. The user can join a conference either by typing in the number or the name. Therefore you do not necessarily have to include the conference number and name. You could instead, list the conference number or conference name. You can create this text file using just about any text editor. Better yet, if you have defined your text editor or graphics editor in PCBSM, you can simply press 2 or 3 (depending on which file you want to edit). Otherwise you will have to manually edit the files while at the DOS prompt. Events An event is simply a batch file that gets executed during a specific time of the day. In this event batch file you can do some of the following things: Pack your users and/or message bases If you are part of a mail network, you will most likely transfer mail packets Some third party products you use on your bulletin board may need to run utilities to update databases, etc. Create a list of files on your system using PCBFiler and the /LIST parameter. Backup your system The previous examples are but only a few of the things you can do in your event. Since events execute batch files, you are more or less limited by your imagination as far as what you want to run in your event. Adding An Event To define the events on your system, you need to go to PCBSetup | Event Setup. Next, you need to make sure that you have answered Y to the Is a Timed Event Active question. Finally, if you cursor down to the EVENT.DAT line and press F2 you will a screen that resembles the following: The number to the left of each line is the event number that is being defined. The rest of the fields on the screen are as follows: Act You may enter either a Y or an N in this field. A Y signifies that the event is active and should be executed as configured. If you enter an N then the event will be considered inactive and will not be run as defined. Mod The mode of the event. You may enter either an E or an S in this field. If you enter an E, the event is a "rigid" or non-sliding event. If you enter an S as the event type, the event is referred to as a sliding event. If an event is an expedited or non-sliding event, PCBoard will make its best attempt to execute the event at the time you specify as the beginning time even if it means cutting users time short. Batch File In this field, specify the batch file you wish to execute for the event you are defining. Note that you are only given 8 characters for the batch filename. The reason for this is that by default this batch file will be run on all nodes. However, you can make node specific batch files by making the node number the filename extension. For example, if you entered a batch file of DAILY and you want node 5 to execute a different batch file, create a DAILY.005 file in the same directory where the DAILY file is located. Begin Time In this field, enter the earliest time that you want your event to run. The time you enter in this field must be in 24 hour format and there must be a colon between the hour and minutes. End Time The end time is the latest possible time you wish for the event to run. If the event has not run by the time you enter, the event will be skipped. Days You may also control which days the event you are defining is run on. In this field all seven days of the week are listed beginning with Sunday and ending with Saturday. Simply enter either a Y or N which signifies whether you want to run the event on the day listed or not. Date This field enables you to specify the dates PCBoard will run the event. For example, if you want the event to run on the first day of every month, enter a date of 00-01-00. Entering a 00 signifies a wildcard. Using the previous example, this means it would run for any month, and any year, but only when the day of the month is equal to 01. Another example would be to set the date to 07-04-00. This means the event would run every July 4th, no matter what the year is. Last Date Contains the date the event was last run on the node number specified in PCBSetup | Node Configuration. Not all events run system- wide - therefore, this field only contains the last date ran for the node you are currently editing. As an example, let's say you want to have an event that runs at 3:00am every morning and packs your message bases. The first step would be to edit your EVENT.DAT file in PCBSetup | Event Setup. First, place Y in the Act column, because this is an active event and you do want it to run. Next, place an S in the Mod column because you would like for this event to run at 3:00am but you would not mind waiting for a caller to logoff before running the event. Next, you need to enter a batch filename. For lack of a better name you can enter PACKMSGS as the batch filename. Now you must enter the earliest time that you wish for the event to run. As outlined earlier, you want this event to begin at 3:00am so you would enter 03:00 in this column. If the latest that you want the event to run is 08:00am, you would need to enter 08:00 in the End Time column. Finally, you need to specify the date and days that the event will run. If you leave the Date column blank or filled with 00-00-00 it will run for every day of the week that you specify in the Days columns. Because the event will pack the message bases, you probably want it to run every day of the week so put a Y in every day of the Days column. Once you have done this you will have an entry which looks like the following: Batch Begin End Last Act Mod File Time Time SMTWTFS Date Date --- --- -------- ----- ----- -------- -------- ------- 1) Y S PACKMSGS 03:00 08:00 YYYYYYY 00-00-00 00-00-00 Next, you need to create the actual batch file that will execute your event. In actuality, this is very easy to do. Simply highlight the batch file field you want to edit and press F2. Your default text editor defined in System Manager | Define Text & Graphics Editors will be used to edit the batch file. For example, your batch file might look like this: PCBPACK /AREA:ALL /MAXMSGS:1024 /PURGE BOARD This batch file simply runs PCBPack on all message bases. Once the message bases have been packed, BOARD.BAT is reloaded which will make the system once again available for callers. By default this event will run on every node of the system. Obviously this would not be a good idea to have every node packing the message base at the same time. What you should do is rename your batch file to make it a node specific event batch file. For example, to make this batch file run on node 3 only, rename the batch file from PACKMSGS to PACKMSGS.003. Adding the .003 to the end of the filename, tells PCBoard it is a node specific file and only node 3 should run the event. Multiple Nodes Frequently you will need more than one node to participate in an event. Whether you want each node to perform a particular task, or if you need all nodes to be down, it is important to understand how to control your events. Node Specific Events Most likely you do not want all of your nodes to run the event batch file. You may have one node that does all of the work while the others wait or do other tasks. In the EVENT.DAT file, specify the base event batch filename. This is the batch file that will be executed for all nodes unless there is a node specific event batch file. To create a node specific event batch file, create a file with the batch filename and an extension of the node number. For example, if your event batch file is called MAINT1 and if you want to make a batch file that only node 6 will execute, create a batch file called MAINT1.006. When event time rolls around, all of the nodes except node 6 will run the event using the MAINT1 file. Of course, node 6 will use the MAINT1.006 file. If you wanted only node 6 to run the event and the other nodes to not even both going down for the event, create the MAINT1.006 file and then delete the MAIN1 file. Since the other nodes would not have a batch file to execute, they will not execute the event. Making Sure All Nodes Are Down To perform global changes to the system such as sorting the user file, or doing a total backup of your system, you will need all of your nodes to be down. Perhaps the easiest way to accomplish this is to have your nodes simply run a program as they begin the event that will count for a certain amount of minutes or seconds while the event is running. When the nodes are down counting, they can then reload the board. As an example, let's assume that you are operating a three node system. You want node 1 to sort the users file. In order to do this, nodes 2, and 3 must not be operating. Quite simply, you create a node specific event file for node 1. If your event batch file is called USRSORT then you would create an event file called USRSORT.001. This batch file might look like the following: @ECHO OFF PCBSM /SORT;SECURITY;PRIREVERSE BOARD In your testing, you have found out that it takes about 4 minutes to complete the sorting process. Therefore, you need to make sure that the other nodes stay down for a bare minimum of 4 minutes. Just to be safe, you could even keep them down for 10 minutes or so because the time it takes to sort the file will increase as the number of users on your system increases. You should be able to find several utilities will count for seconds or minutes on the PCBoard Support BBS. For example, if you found one called Count which counts for the number of seconds specified, make your USRSORT batch file look like the following: @ECHO OFF COUNT 480 BOARD Quite simply, this would make nodes 2 and 3 (because a USRSORT.002 or USRSORT.003 file was not found) count for 480 seconds and then reload the bulletin board. This should give more than ample time for the sort process to be completed. There are several other methods you can use to make sure all events are down and stay down. Most of these have been addressed by third party authors and are available on the PCBoard Support BBS by using the Z user command and searching for EVENT. System Security An integral part in operating a bulletin board system is the security of the system. You need to be able to control what actions or commands a user can execute based on their security level. In fact, you should use security levels to determine what a user can do while online. Protecting SysOp Related Commands If you allow unauthorized users to access SysOp related commands they could do a great deal of damage to your system. That is why it is so important that you properly protect these commands with a security enabling only authorized users access to the SysOp commands. Some commands can be more dangerous than others if put in the wrong hands. Therefore, PCBoard enables you to specify the security level required to execute each SysOp related function. A command like the 11 which displays information about the callers currently online would not be as dangerous as the 9 command which enables you to drop to DOS from remote. Careful planning of your SysOp security levels and making sure you trust the users whom you give access to is the best way to prevent unauthorized users from accessing sensitive commands. There are two sections in PCBSetup that you will use to determine the security levels that protect SysOp commands and functions. These sections are found by selecting Security Levels from the Main Menu of PCBSetup. From there you can choose to define security levels for SysOp Functions or SysOp Commands Defining Which User Is The Main SysOp The user in record #1 of the USERS file is considered to be the Main SysOp. This record has certain privileges that are not associated with any other record. For example, when you select Sysop - Busy or Sysop - Not Busy from the call-waiting screen the user in record #1 is logged into the system. In addition, the user in record #1 is the only user that can join a conference even if they are not registered in the conference or do not have sufficient security to join the conference. Protecting SysOp Accounts There are no back-doors which users can log into PCBoard and gain SysOp access. The only way a user may log in using a SysOp account is to know the name of the account to log in under and the password for that account. Therefore, it is very important for you to change your password frequently to prevent an unauthorized user from hacking your account. To prevent users from knowing the name of the user in record #1 of the USERS file, you can answer N to the User Real Name question in PCBSetup | Sysop Information. If you do this, you will simply be known as SYSOP on the BBS. Any messages that you enter on the system will be from SYSOP and when a user displays who is online you will be listed as SYSOP. You could then have a different name in record #1 of the USERS file which means that a user attempting to hack your account would need to know two items of information -- your user name and your password. To prevent a breech in security, PCBoard will not allow a user to login with a user name of SYSOP. Protecting Files For Download PCBoard provides a method to protect any filename that is available for download by security level, password or both. This protection is done via the FSEC file which can be edited from PCBSetup | File Locations | Configuration Files. If you have sensitive files online, you should use the FSEC file to protect those files. As an example, if you want to protect the filename SENS0001.ARJ so only users with a security level greater than 100 and those that know the password can download it, make an entry like the following in your FSEC file: Drive \ Path File Name Sec Password -------------------------------- -------------- ----- -------------- SENS0001.ARJ 100 ENTER_THISPW The FSEC file is discussed in more depth in the PCBSetup chapter of this manual. Protecting Files From Being Uploaded PCBoard also provides a method to protect files from being uploaded to the system. Uploading files does not usually present a problem to system security however PCBoard still provides the capability. This protection is done via the UPSEC file which can be edited from PCBSetup | File Locations | Configuration Files. A good example would be if you were just informed that a file called VIRALM33.LZH contained a virus and was being distributed around your area. To protect this file from being uploaded, you could make the following entry in your UPSEC file: Drive \ Path File Name Sec Password -------------------------------- -------------- ----- -------------- VIRALM33.LZH 255 With this entry a user must have a security level of 255 or higher in order to upload the VIRALM33.LZH file to your system. Since it is quite likely that not many users have a security level of 255 on your system, it would be safe to assume that the file could not be uploaded to your system. The UPSEC file is discussed in greater detail in the PCBSetup chapter of this manual. Maintenance Tasks Once you have more or less finished your system configuration, the majority of your time will be spent maintaining your system. You will need to answer questions and comments left to the SysOp, pack your message base and user files, back-up your system in case of data loss, etc. The following section describes various examples of maintaining your system. File Maintenance If your bulletin board system encourages file transfers, you will most likely have a lot of uploads to your system. You may want to use PCBFiler on a regular basis to move the files in the upload directories to one of the file directories you have defined. By regularly moving the new files out of the upload directories, it will be easier for your users to find the files they are looking for. Log Maintenance PCBoard uses two system log files to record activity on the system. The caller log files record items of interest that occur while a user was logged into the system. The time the user logged in and logged out is recorded. In addition, events such as joining a conference, transferring a file, and entering a message are also recorded. If a user tries to access a command that is not available to them, it is also recorded in the log file to help keep you informed of possible breeches in security. The DOWNLOAD.TXT file stores information about every transfer (both uploads and downloads) on the system. Each line in this file stores the name of the file, the user who transferred the file, transfer speed, size of the file, and number of errors. If you do not delete or archive these log files frequently you may find that your drive space is being eaten up unnecessarily. On a daily, weekly, or even monthly basis, you may want to delete or archive these log files in one of your events. Packing files Both your USERS file and your message bases should be packed on a regular basis to help ensure data integrity and also to physically remove any unwanted entries or those which have been marked for deletion. Users File You can pack in interactive mode by loading System Manager and selecting Users File Maintenance. However, most SysOps elect to pack the users file during a daily event instead. System Manager provides command line parameters that you can specify to pack the USERS file. For example, to simply pack the file and ensure data integrity you may issue the following command: PCBSM /PACK You may choose to pack-out or delete any user which has not called the system within the last 90 days. In this case, you would issue the following command: PCBSM /PACK;DAYS:90 For more information on the command line parameters for System Manager see the Command Line Parameters section in the System Manager chapter of this manual. Message Bases If you have a lot of conferences on your system, you probably also have a lot of active message bases. In that case, it becomes essential that you pack the message bases down on a regular basis to prevent your message bases from taking too much space. Like the USERS file, most SysOps elect to pack the message bases in the events. You must use a program called PCBPack to pack your message bases -- this program is included with your purchase of PCBoard. To help keep the size of your message bases down, you can choose to pack all of your message bases so that no message base contains more than 500 messages. This is very easy to accomplish by entering the following: PCBPACK /AREA:ALL /MAXMSGS:500 You may choose to pack only messages older than 45 days by entering the following command: PCBPACK /AREA:ALL /DAYS:45 PCBPack has several other options available as well. See the Utilities chapter of this manual for additional details. Backing Up Most bulletin board systems will contain several megabytes or gigabytes of data. Therefore, it always wise to have some sort of backup system in place so you can regularly back up your system in case of data loss, hardware failure, etc. While you do not have to back up your system every day, it certainly would be a good idea to do a backup every other day, or perhaps once a week. Sooner or later, you will probably experience some sort of data loss where you need to access a backup to restore files. New Users Whenever users who have not established an account on your system logsinto your system, they will become a new users to your system. When the user enters a name not in the current user file, PCBoard will ask to confirm if their name is correct. If the name is correct, the user will be logged in as a new user. First of all, the NEWUSER will be displayed (as defined in PCBSetup | File Locations | Display Files). This file usually contains an introduction to your system. Once that information is displayed, the user is asked if they wish to register. If they choose to register, they will be asked to fill out some additional questions in order to become a registered user on the system. Asking Questions PCBoard begins by asking for the following information: Password City/State Business/Data Phone Home/Voice Phone Brand of CPU Clear Screen Between Messages Default Protocol for File Transfers The answers to these questions are stored in the user file record. The answer to the Brand of CPU question is stored in the Comment #1 field. All of the above questions are records in the PCBTEXT and may be configured to ask any question you wish. However, the location of where the answers are written cannot be changed. If you want to disable some of the questions, blank out the appropriate record in your PCBTEXT file using MKPCBTXT. Defining Security Level There are two security levels whch come into play for new users to your system. The security level of the new user depends on if they choose to register or not. If you look at PCBSetup | Security Levels | User Levels you will see the following fields: Level Given to Users Who Agree to Register : Level Given to Users Who Refuse to Register : You can specify the security level that users get when they agree or refuse to register. When a user agrees to register, a new record in the user file is created. However, when they refuse to register, no user record is created. By default the security level given to users who refuse to register is 0. This means that if the user refuses to register they will be immediately logged off of the system. You may want to change this value to another security if you wish to enable new users to look around the system without creating an account on your system. Defining Expiration Date If you have enabled subscription mode on your system, PCBoard will assign new users the value you have entered for the Default Subscription Length in PCBSetup | Subscription. If you have not enabled subscription mode, your new users will have an expirate date of 00-00-00 which means their accounts will never expire. The Default Subscription Length is in days and you can enter any value up to 9999 in that field although something like 365 may be more reasonable. Disallowing If you do not wish to allow new users to your system, there are two ways you can accomplish this setup: In PCBSetup | Configuration Options | System Control set the Run System as a Closed Board to Y. If you do not have a NEWASK questionnaire defined, when the user attempts to log in as a new user they will be shown the CLOSED file which explains that your system is a closed system. If you do have a NEWASK questionnaire defined, the user will be allowed to continue and fill out the NEWASK questionnaire. However, no user account is created. You would want to use this type of system if you want to screen your new users and manually add them to the user file after they answer some questions. Modify the security level entry that you assign to new users who agree to register. Set the time limit for that security level to 0. Any new user that attempts to call the system will be displayed the CLOSED file and promptly logged off. This will occur even if you do have a NEWASK questionnaire defined. User Subscriptions You may desire your users to have access to your system for a specified amount of time after which their security level will be dropped. The users can then follow further instructions to gain access again. This is called subscription mode. You can assign a date in the user record after which the user will become expired. When the user is expired, their security level is dropped to their expired security level. By dropping their security level, you can perhaps reduce the commands or functions they can access when they logon the system. Enabling Subscription Mode Enabling subscription mode is very easy. Load PCBSetup, and select Subscription from the Main Menu. The first option on the screen asks if you wish to enable subscription mode. If you enable subscription mode, PCBoard will pay attention to the expiration date and will also assign the default expiration length to all new users who call into the system. Setting Expiration Date When you enable subscription mode, new users will be assigned the default expiration length. However, you may have existing users on the system who logged in before you enabled subscription mode. This is one reason you may need to manually set the expiration dates. Another reason you may need to manually set expiration date is when your users expire and follow the instructions you provide them to renew their subscription Manually Entering Expiration Date If you need to manually edit the expiration date of a user so it is a non-expiring account, load System Manager, select Users File Maintenance, then Edit Users File. You will now see record number one on your screen. Next, locate the user name you need to update by pressing ALT-F. Cursor down to the expiration date field and type in the date the user will expire. If you enter 00-00-00, the user will be set to never expire. Group Security Levels Sometimes you may need to modify the expiration date of an entire group of users. Within System Manager there is a function which allows you to change the expiration date of users based on their security level. To access this function you need to load System Manager, select Users File Maintenance and then select Adjust Expiration Dates. Your screen should resemble the following: If you want to adjust everyone with a security level between 20 and 30 to an expiration date of 05-05-94, modify the following fields: Base Security Level Criteria on NORMAL or EXPIRED Level (N/E) : N Adjust Expiration Date if level is Greater than or equal to : 20 Adjust Expiration Date if level is Less than or equal to : 30 New Expiration Date (01/01/80 is ignored) : 05-05-94 Current Date in record plus XXXX days : 0 Once you press PgDn, all users with a security level between 20 and 30 will be assigned an expiration date of 05-05-93. Setting Expired Security Level If the expiration date in the user record is equal to or prior to the current date, the user is considered expired and will be given the expired security level as shown in the user record by the following field: Expired Sec : When a new-user logs into the system, they will be given the default expired security level as defined in PCBSetup | Subscriptions. If you would like to assign a different expired security level to a user, you will need to manually edit the expired security field in the user record. Warning Users Who Are About To Expire Another option you can configure within PCBSetup | Subscription is the number of days prior to expiring that users will be warned. For example, if you set this value to 30 and a user is due to expire on 03-31-94 a notification of expiration will be displayed from 03-01-94 all of the way up until the expiration date. PCBoard provides a file called WARNING which may be edited in PCBSetup | File Locations | Display Files. This is a display file which you can customize to suit your own tastes. As described in the Customizing Your BBS chapter of this manual, you can make security, language, and graphic specific versions of this file because it is a normal display file. Notification Of Expiration If a user has expired, PCBoard will display the EXPIRED file. This file location can be found in PCBSetup | File Locations | Display Files. Like the WARNING file, you can make security, graphic, and language specific versions of this file. Modem Discussions Most likely, the majority of your logins will be via modem connection. Therefore, it is to your advantage to have a general knowledge of how serial ports work. This section is dedicated to lightly cover some of the more advanced serial port topics to help answer many common questions. Serial Port Hardware PCBoard supports a wide variety of serial port software. Not only does it work with standard RS-232 serial port hardware but also with many intelligent and non-intelligent serial boards. Of course, to use the intelligent or non-intelligent serial boards, you will need to be using the /M version of PCBoard so it can properly access the serial port hardware. Standard RS-232 This type of serial board is the one that is installed in most computers when you originally buy them. Until the advent of the /M version of PCBoard, these were the only type of serial ports you could use with PCBoard. Non-intelligent Serial Board This type of serial board is quite similar to the standard boards except all of the serial ports share the same IRQ. With standard serial ports each has to have a unique IRQ. To use these serial ports with PCBoard you need to use the /M version. Intelligent Serial Board Perhaps the most proficient and consequently most expensive serial port hardware that you can buy is an intelligent serial board. These boards usually have at least 4 ports on a single card, but could easily have 16 ports as well. To help off-load some of the CPU processing, the board includes its own processor. The Arnet SmartPort Plus and the DigiBoard COM/xI boards are examples of intelligent serial boards that are supported by the /M version of PCBoard. The Importance Of Flow Control Serial communications is a two-way street. You send data and you also receive data. Therefore, it becomes important to have some sort of control in regards to the flow of data. This is where flow control comes into play. What Is Flow Control? Flow Control simply controls the sending or receiving of data. If one end of the connection can no longer send or receive data, the proper signal should be sent to signify that no more data should be received or sent. There are two types of flow control -- software and hardware. Software Versus Hardware Flow Control Software flow control is commonly referred to as XON/XOFF flow control. With software flow control, control characters are sent to signify that data transfer should stop. For example, sending a CTRL-S will stop the flow of data and CTRL-Q will restart the flow. The problem with software flow control is that it is very easy for these characters to accidentally be transmitted due to line noise or to be embedded inside of a perfectly valid binary file. Hardware flow control, on the other hand, is handled by the RS-232 (serial port) specification. The cable between your modem and your serial port has several wires inside of it. Two of these wires are labeled CTS and RTS. These wires can either be "up" or "down" (referring to their electrical state). The state of these wires, determines how the flow of data is controlled. Why Hardware Flow Control Should Be Used Both your hardware and your software should be configured to use hardware flow control. In fact, hardware flow control is a necessity when you lock in your port rate or transfer using Ymodem/G. If you are not using flow control or it is not working properly, it is quite possible for you to experience data loss. UARTs What is a UART The UART (Universal Asynchronous Receiver Transmitter) is a chip on most serial boards and is used to input and output data from the serial device. NOTE: Intelligent serial boards do not have UART chips. Instead, the multiport driver will communicate directly with the CPU on the serial board. Types of UARTs There are three basic types of UART chips with each chip being identified by a unique number. One of the first UARTs was the 8250 UART. It was replaced with the 8250A which fixed some bugs with the original 8250 UART. Both the 8250 and 8250A are capable of handling one byte at a time. Around the time when the original PC AT was introduced, the 16450 UART was also introduced. This chip was better designed for the faster architecture of the AT. Each type is determined by their part number. Although it handled the speed of the AT fine, the 16450 still handled data one byte at a time. In the late 1980's, the 16550 UART was introduced. This chip, while compatible with the 16450, also included the ability to handle more than one byte at a time via its 16 byte buffer. This buffer helps prevent data loss because more than one byte can be handled at a time. Some bugs were discovered in the original design and subsequent versions of the chip were released. If you have a 16550 UART, make sure that it is either the 16550A or 16550AFN model to ensure proper operation. Determining What UART(s) You Have Most good system diagnostic utilities will have some way or reporting the type of UART you have for each port. If you do not have any diagnostic utilities, PCBoard will report the UART that it finds in your system via the status line. You need to first load PCBoard, then select Sysop - Not Busy. At this point, you can press ALT-H four times and you will see your status line change to something like the following sample: Towards the bottom right-hand side of the status line you see the UART model (next to the ErrCorr field. You will then know what model UART PCBoard has been able to determine that you have. Typically you will see either 8250A/16450 or 16550A. Locking Opening Baud Rate High-speed modems (9600 bps or higher) are very popular on bulletin board services. Additionally, most of the modems being sold now have built in error-correction and data-compression. To get the highest transfer rate out of your connections, you must lock your port speed. While your modem may be only able to connect at 14400 bps, you can lock your port rate at 19200, 38400, or even 57600 bps. As a matter of fact, PCBoard will automatically lock the port for you at any speed above 9600 bps. Advantages By locking your port rate, you can give data to the modem faster rather than having the modem wait on the computer to send more data. This usually translates to higher transfer rates and is most noticeable when you are sending uncompressed data over the modem (such as a text file). In reality, PCBModem should configure your modem to operate properly under PCBoard. Therefore, you really do not need to worry about setting up either PCBoard or your modem to work with a locked port rate, as PCBModem will do that for you if your modem supports it. Troubleshooting The most common problem with locked port rates is that you have only configured either the modem or the software (but not both) to use a locked port rate. What happens in this case is that users will get a line of characters on their screen which looks like garbage. In fact, the user will not be able to type anything either. If you see this type of problem, double check and make sure both your modem and your software are configured to use locked port rates. Line Noise Line noise will always be around as long as modems are in use. Modems convert computer data into audio signals. Anytime there is interference with the audio signals it will generate line noise because the signals have been modified by interference. Non-Error Correcting Modems If your modem is not an error-correcting modem, line-noise will be displayed on your screen. This happens because your modem does not know the interference is line noise. Quite simply, the modem is translating the audio signals that it received back into computer data. If something interferes with these signals, you will see the interference as line noise when the modem translates the audio signals back into data. Error Correcting Modems Error correcting modems packet the information they send out so when the receiving modems receive the packets, they can check to insure the data is the same as it was sent out. If the data is not the same, the packet will be resent until it is properly transmitted. Of course, this means there will be a delay on the receiving end until the packet is received properly. The length of this delay could be un-noticeable or it could be quite noticable depending on how many times the packet must be resent. Nearly always when you see jerky screens, pauses, or your file transfer rates are noticeable slower it can be attributed to line noise. About the only thing that you could do in this case is to hang up and call back hoping to get a clearer line. Searching for Text Throughout this manual you have seen references to searching for text and the fact that PCBoard supports Boolean operands. This section discusses how you enter the text to search for when you are at the Enter the Text to Scan for (Enter)=none prompt. To begin with, you will be shown how to do some simple searches. From there, you will be shown how to do some more complex searches that involve Boolean operands. Simple Searches Single Word The simplest search you can perform is the single word search. You enter the word to search for and PCBoard will search the criteria you have specified for that word. For example, if you are using the Z command, the file directories will be searched. If you are using the TS command, the message base will be searched. For example, you may wish to search all messages in the current conference for the word monitor. If so, type the following at a conference command prompt: TS ENTER Enter the Text to Scan for (Enter)=none? monitor R Msg # to Begin Search from (1052-3904)? 1 R At this point, the search begins for the word monitor. PCBoard will display any message that has the word monitor in it. While searching, PCBoard does not pay attention to the case of the word so it can be either upper or lower case and it will still be found. Phrase Taking the single word approach one step further, you can search for a phrase that consists of one or more words. If you find that searching for monitor finds to many matches and consequently was not being effective, you may decide to search for something more specific like vga monitor instead. This may help reduce the number of matches and help find the messages you are after. This time, type the following at the conference command prompt: TS Enter the Text to Scan for (Enter)=none? VGA monitor Msg # to Begin Search from (1052-3904)? 1 At this point the search will begin again. However, this time, only messages which have the word VGA immediately followed by the word monitor will be displayed. When the message is displayed to you, PCBoard will highlight the match (f your graphics mode allows)so you can see where the match occurs. Complex (Boolean) Searches Boolean operands allow you to perform more complex searches than you would be able to perform searching for a word or phrase. With Boolean operators you can tell PCBoard to display a match only if it meets certain conditions you specify. An expression is made up of an operator which acts on one or more operands. With text searches, your operators are the Boolean operators. The operands are the word or phrases you are searching for. Do not over-burden yourself trying to remember the difference between operands and operators as you will find that the examples in this section will help you better understand the concept of Boolean text searching. The following discusses each of the Boolean operators. & - The And Operator The Boolean AND operator enables you to search in disjointed mode. In other words, both operands must exist in the target (message, file description, etc.) but they do not have to be in consecutive order. To help illustrate this, let's say you attempt to search for text editors that may exist on the system. Because you have no idea what the filename is, you decide to use the Z user command to search for text in the file directories. When prompted for the text to search for, you enter text editor because that is what you are looking for. From there you begin the search which may list a fewprograms that may interest you. The problem with this type of search is that you may have missed some files because you told PCBoard to find anything that had the text editor phrase in the description. What you may discover later when viewing file directories is the following file description: TXED100.ZIP 168046 12-28-93 TexEdit v1.00 -- Utility you can use to | edit any text file. Supports VGA text | mode. Includes mouse support. Obviously, this looks like a file that you would be interested in. Why did this description not show in your previous search? Quite simply, nowhere in the description is the phrase text editor contained. Obviously your previous search is not catching all of the files you want to find. This is not only where the Boolean AND operator becomes useful but also where it makes sense. If you had to sum up what you were looking for, you may say any file that can edit text. The italicized words are the key. You want to find any description which has both the word text and the word edit somewhere in the description. You do not know if the description will say something like "A utility to edit text" or if it will say "a wonderful text editor". Therefore, enter the following expression to search for: TEXT & EDIT The & in the search string represents the Boolean AND operator. If your translate the & into the actual word and it makes even more sense. This search would mean that you are searching for text and edit to be in the same description. It does not matter in what order, just simply that they occur in the description to become a match. You can have as many Boolean operands as you wish in your search string. For example, you can enter the following search: DISK & FORMAT & FLOPPY This would search for the words DISK, FORMAT, and FLOPPY must all occur in order for a record to match. | - The Or Operator Like the Boolean AND operator, this operator enables you to search in disjointed mode. With this operator only one of the words or phrases need to be in the target (message, file description, etc.) to be considered a match. As an example, you may wish to search the message bases using the TS user command for any message which talks about hard drives. You remember that some people call them hard drives and others may call them hard disks. In a case like this, use the OR operator to find any message that matches either phrase. Type the following Enter the Text to Scan for (Enter)=none prompt: HARD DISK | HARD DRIVE Any message that contains either the phrase hard disk or the phrase hard drive will be displayed to you. ! - The Not Operator Sometimes you may not want to display all matching records. Instead, you may want to search all records which do not match the text you enter to search for. This is precisely the user of the Boolean NOT operator. For example, you may want to search a directory that contains a bunch of GIF graphic images. All of the descriptions in this directory contain the resolution of the file. You decide that you do not wish to see the description of any pictures which are 320x200. If this is the case, type the following at the Enter the Text to Scan for prompt: ! 320x200 Any description which contains the phrase 320x200 will not be displayed to you because of the Boolean NOT operator ( ! ). Continuing on with the GIF examples, let's assume you want to see all pictures on the system that have a resolution of 1024x768 but you do not want to see any files that have swim in the description. If so, enter the following: 1024x768 &! SWIM If you read that out in English it says 1024x768 and not SWIM. This would display all file descriptions that have a 1024x768 in the description (denoting the resolution of the picture) and that do not have the word SWIM anywhere in the description. Using Parentheses To Group Remember in mathematics how you used parentheses not only make your problems clearer and easier to understand but more importantly to control the order of operations to suit your needs? With Boolean operators you can do the exact same thing. If you take the example that illustrates using the AND Boolean operator one step further you can easily see how parentheses help group things together. If you recall, you were using the AND operator to search for any description which contains both the words TEXT and EDIT. What happens if someone chooses to use the word ASCII instead of TEXT when they enter their description? To help you find this description, you can use parentheses to group items together. This may result in the following search string. EDIT & (TEXT | ASCII) This will tell PCBoard to find any description that contains the word edit, and either the word text or the word ASCII. If you don not use the parentheses, PCBoard will evaluate from the left to the right. This means that it would only display files that contained both the words EDIT and TEXT or the word ASCII. While it appears to be a very subtle difference, parentheses can make or break your search. Remember the easiest way to do Boolean searching is to read out the search in English. If you look at the previous example which uses parentheses you could read it as follows: EDIT and either Text or ASCII. Including The Boolean Characters In Your Search If you need to include any of the following characters in your search, use quote marks to prevent them from being interpreted by PCBoard's searching routine: & | ! ( ) [space] Obviously, these characters all have special meanings when involved in a search so you need some way of specifying them. For example, you may want to search for the phrase SMITH & JONES. If you type that phrase in as-is, the search will turn up anything with the word SMITH and the word JONES. What you would do in this case is to simply surround then entire search phrase with quote marks as illustrated in the following: "SMITH & JONES"