So over the last couple of years I've been chipping away at my owner mailer and tosser "clrghouz" - it's been an interesting exercise, and
it's enabled me to put into practise some coding that I have used for other projects.
I created clrghouz to leverage modern software and coding principles (since many of the software used in this hobby is old and the author's
or their code is long gone), but to preserve the ability to continue
to use that old software (warts 'an all) - which is kind of why many
of us are here.
Ultimately I'm wanting it to become the new Hub 3 - making it easier
(for me at least) to manage an FTN network (or two), and make it
easier for systems that use it? I'm at the stage now that I should get some real users testing it and to see how you can break it :)
While I consider it still in development, if you are willing and would like to help me test it further, then please keep reading ...
Clearing Houz supports both EMSI mailers over TCP (the old modem,
dialup mailers like FrontDoor, Portal Of Power, ifcico, etc) and BINKP mailers. If you want to use an EMSI mailer with Windows, then I
recommend Digital Man's SVDM which is what I've been using. For DOS
you can use a serial cable and another device running tpcser.
(While I've tested a few old EMSI mailers with success, I know
D'Bridge with it's EMSI mode doesn't work - which I'll aim to fix one
day and I'll happily prioritise that if there is interest.)
For the EMSI mailers, I've only implemented ZModem with 1K block size,
but in time I'll enable up to 8K and a sliding window as well as maybe Hydra (since that seems to also be common).
For BINKP, I've not implemented all features (like Crypt, Compression)
- but I'll do that too in time too. The current BINKP seems to be
working well, as I've been feeding Clearing Houz from Hub 3 for quite
some time now (and you may have noticed the test message replies in FSX_TST).
At the moment, clrghouz will send out only uncompress packets (with up
to 50 messages in a packet), but can accept both uncompressed and ZIP archives. Any other file type is not processed and remains in the
inbound until I notice them.
Packets are processed in real time (unless there are more than 50
messages in it), so if your packet has a ping or a test message, you should get a reply in the same BINKP/EMSI session.
I'm also happy to look at implementing other packet transfer formats
if you want to try other things (eg: getting mail via a http API call,
so you can feed a BBS directly without a mailer.)
For testing, you could either:
* For your current BBS, get a second feed via Clearing Houz - using
your existing FSX address. Your mailer dupe processing should
illiminate duplicates that you will receive, and the hubs should drop
them for anything you send out. (If it doesn't please let me know). *
Spin up a new BBS with a new address and feed it from Clearing Houz
Ideally I'd like a few users in category :)
I've still got a lot I want to do on clearing houz, and there is
probably many bugs that need ironing out, so if you are interested in helping out let me know.
You can start by heading to its web address clrghouz.bbs.dege.au and create a user account. Your BBS "should be there", and you should be
able to claim it (although the claiming process it not that robust
yet). If you find things out of place, not intuitive or could be
improved let me know...
* Spin up a new BBS with a new address and feed it from Clearing Houz
You can start by heading to its web address clrghouz.bbs.dege.au and create a user account. Your BBS "should be there", and you should be
able to claim it (although the claiming process it not that robust yet). If you find things out of place, not intuitive or could be improved let
me know...
I'll send you netmail with the results of my trying to register and link my BBS.
I wouldn't mind doing this, I've set up a second BBS and am just feeding
it as a point, as I don't know how permanent it will be - I'm fairly busy
at present with other things, so setting it up has been fairly slow going.
It's running binki (my binkp mailer for talisman) so we might both be testing things at the same time :P
Also interested in your http rest idea, that sounds pretty neat, but
perhaps another time.
Apparently I set up an account on ClringHouz when it was at leenooks, and it's wanting me to verify my email i think so just waiting on that (seems iinet email is slloooww. :P)
I just tried registering but my old SciNet address is in there which I'm no longer using:
"OK, here's what we are going to do. I'm going to send you a routed netmail to 77:1/156.0@scinet with a code - please follow the instructions in that netmail.
I just tried registering but my old SciNet address is in there which I'm no longer using:
OK, I think I've fixed it.
The site should no longer use akas for nets that are no longer active.
I just triggered the registration netmail, so hopefully its in your
inbox :)
Let me know if it doesnt work (maybe its gone to your spam folder?) -
I'll verify you manually...
Yup yup, I have the netmail now, but now I can't browse to the webserver. I'm getting ERR_CONNECTION_REFUSED.
| Sysop: | Eric Oulashin |
|---|---|
| Location: | Beaverton, Oregon, USA |
| Users: | 100 |
| Nodes: | 16 (0 / 16) |
| Uptime: | 10:41:05 |
| Calls: | 3,464 |
| Files: | 8,461 |
| Messages: | 337,146 |