I followed Avon's video tutorials on how to setup Mystic for the
Raspberry Pi but I'm having a small issue when trying to send echomail
out. Actually, the problem occurs when exporting echomail.

I've created all the message areas from fsxNet locally and set up
networking and the echomail hub like he describes. Then I posted a
message to FSX_GEN locally and was trying to export it using this
mailout.ini with mutil:

[General]

ExportEchoMail = true

;mystic_directory=/home/gluon/var/bbs/mystic/mystic.dat
logfile=mutil.log
logcache=true
loglevel=3
logtype = 2
maxlogfiles = 7
maxlogsize = 1000

[ExportEchoMail]

skip_online = false

When I run ./mutil mailout.ini, everything seems to work as expected and
I get this logged:

- May 20 13:05:17 LINKS:
+ May 20 13:05:17 Resuming from 1 in fsx_gen
+ May 20 13:05:17 Export FSX_GEN #1 to 21:1/100@fsxnet
- May 20 13:05:17 1 msgs from Chat, Testing + More..
+ May 20 13:05:17 Resuming from 1 in fsx_mys
+ May 20 13:05:17 Resuming from 1 in fsx_mag
+ May 20 13:05:17 Resuming from 1 in fsx_bbs
+ May 20 13:05:17 Resuming from 1 in fsx_eng
+ May 20 13:05:17 Resuming from 1 in fsx_ham
+ May 20 13:05:17 Resuming from 1 in fsx_cry
+ May 20 13:05:17 Resuming from 1 in fsx_net
+ May 20 13:05:17 Resuming from 1 in fsx_bot
+ May 20 13:05:17 Resuming from 1 in fsx_dat
- May 20 13:05:17 EXEC: zip -qj9 /home/gluon/var/bbs/mystic/echomail/out/primary/00000383.we0 /home/gluon/var/bbs/mystic/temputil/0c33a75f.pkt
+ May 20 13:05:17 Adding PKT to FLO (addr=21:1/100 pkt=/home/gluon/var/bbs/mystic/echomail/out/primary/00000383.we0 flo=/home/gluon/var/bbs/mystic/echomail/out/primary/00010064.clo)
+ May 20 13:05:17 Results: 1 echo, 0 net, 0 skipped in 0.03s
+ May 20 13:05:17 Shutdown Normal (0)

However under "mystic/echomail/out/primary/" I only see "00010064.clo".
The 00000383.we0 file, which presumably holds the actual message isn't
there, nor anywhere else. Running mutil with this export function
apparently runs successfully, but I'm left only with this .clo file,
which content is:

^/home/gluon/var/bbs/mystic/echomail/out/primary/00000383.we0

That 00000383.we0 is never actually generated and obviously running
./fidopoll 21:1/100 doesn't seem to send it either. Any ideas on what
could be wrong?

--- MultiMail/Linux v0.52
* Origin: Vertrauen - [vert/cvs/bbs].synchro.net (21:1/183)

However under "mystic/echomail/out/primary/" I only see "00010064.clo". The 00000383.we0 file, which presumably holds the actual message isn't there

Two things you can try.

Install the zip & unzip packages:

sudo apt install zip unzip

Or remove the Archive Type from the node entry under Echomail Nodes in mystic -cfg.

.J.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A45 2020/02/18 (Windows/32)
* Origin: Northern Realms BBS | bbs.nrbbs.net | Binbrook, ON (21:3/110)

Warpslide wrote to Gluon <=-

However under "mystic/echomail/out/primary/" I only see "00010064.clo". The 00000383.we0 file, which presumably holds the actual message isn't there

Two things you can try.

Install the zip & unzip packages:

sudo apt install zip unzip

Or remove the Archive Type from the node entry under Echomail Nodes in mystic -cfg.

The culprit was zip indeed. I had the BBS originally on a different
Raspberry Pi where I had already installed zip, but then I had to
migrate it to another Raspberry Pi and I forgot to make sure zip was
also installed there.

Thanks!

--- MultiMail/Linux v0.52
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I followed Avon's video tutorials on how to setup Mystic for the
Raspberry Pi but I'm having a small issue when trying to send echomail out. Actually, the problem occurs when exporting echomail.

Do you have ZIP installed, and in your path if it's Windows? that got me last time :)


|14▐ |07Alpha
|14▄▌ |13Card & Claw BBS
|06▐ |05cardandclaw.com:8888

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/04/26 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Card & Claw BBS (21:4/158)

Alpha wrote to Gluon <=-

I followed Avon's video tutorials on how to setup Mystic for the
Raspberry Pi but I'm having a small issue when trying to send echomail out. Actually, the problem occurs when exporting echomail.

Do you have ZIP installed, and in your path if it's Windows? that got
me last time :)

That was the issue. I had this BBS originally installed on a Raspberry
Pi with zip installed but then had to migrate it to another one, where I
forgot to check whether it was installed. All working fine now. :)

--- MultiMail/Linux v0.52
* Origin: Vertrauen - [vert/cvs/bbs].synchro.net (21:1/183)

I followed Avon's video tutorials on how to setup Mystic for the
Raspberry Pi but I'm having a small issue when trying to send
echomail out. Actually, the problem occurs when exporting echomail.

- May 20 13:05:17 EXEC: zip -qj9 /home/gluon/var/bbs/mystic/echomail/out/primary/00000383.we0 /home/gluon/var/bbs/mystic/temputil/0c33a75f.pkt
+ May 20 13:05:17 Adding PKT to FLO (addr=21:1/100 pkt=/home/gluon/var/bbs/mystic/echomail/out/primary/00000383.we0 flo=/home/gluon/var/bbs/mystic/echomail/out/primary/00010064.clo)

As others have already said, you didn't have zip/unzip installed, but why
not go one better and not even bother with them and use raw *.pkt
files? It's not like we are all on dialup these days.

To do that set no compression option for the nodes in your config.




\/orlon
VK3HEG


--- MagickaBBS v0.14alpha (Linux/armv6l)
* Origin: \/orlon Empire: Sector 550 (21:1/195.1)

vorlon wrote to Gluon <=-

I followed Avon's video tutorials on how to setup Mystic for the
Raspberry Pi but I'm having a small issue when trying to send
echomail out. Actually, the problem occurs when exporting echomail.

- May 20 13:05:17 EXEC: zip -qj9 /home/gluon/var/bbs/mystic/echomail/out/primary/00000383.we0 /home/gluon/var/bbs/mystic/temputil/0c33a75f.pkt
+ May 20 13:05:17 Adding PKT to FLO (addr=21:1/100 pkt=/home/gluon/var/bbs/mystic/echomail/out/primary/00000383.we0 flo=/home/gluon/var/bbs/mystic/echomail/out/primary/00010064.clo)

As others have already said, you didn't have zip/unzip installed, but
why not go one better and not even bother with them and use raw *.pkt files? It's not like we are all on dialup these days.

To do that set no compression option for the nodes in your config.

Yeah, that's a good idea, especially on a Raspberry Pi with a humble
CPU. On the other hand it means more I/O on the SD card. I'll see what
works best. Thanks.

--- MultiMail/Linux v0.52
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Gluon wrote to vorlon <=-

Yeah, that's a good idea, especially on a Raspberry Pi with a humble
CPU. On the other hand it means more I/O on the SD card. I'll see what works best. Thanks.

If I'm setting something up to run for the long term, I usually set it to boot from a hard drive or USB flash drive instead of the SD card. I was so surprised to see how much faster the Pi performs when it's not limited by the speed of the SD card. The Pi4 doesn't have direct boot to USB just yet, but I've set it up to boot to the SD card and then hand it off to a 200GB PiDrive
I have.
... The older you get, the better you get, unless you're a banana. - Rose
ylund
___ MultiMail/Win v0.52

--- Mystic BBS/QWK v1.12 A45 2020/02/18 (Windows/32)
* Origin: Northern Realms BBS | bbs.nrbbs.net | Binbrook, ON (21:3/110)

On 05-21-20 11:03, Gluon wrote to vorlon <=-

To do that set no compression option for the nodes in your config.

Yeah, that's a good idea, especially on a Raspberry Pi with a humble
CPU. On the other hand it means more I/O on the SD card. I'll see what works best. Thanks.

Really? Why? Compressing from *.pkt to arcmail bundles causes a fair bit of I/O.


... "Farfrompoopin'" - German word for constipation.
=== MultiMail/Win v0.51
--- SBBSecho 3.10-Linux
* Origin: Freeway BBS Bendigo,Australia freeway.apana.org.au (21:1/109)

Warpslide wrote to Gluon <=-

Gluon wrote to vorlon <=-

Yeah, that's a good idea, especially on a Raspberry Pi with a humble
CPU. On the other hand it means more I/O on the SD card. I'll see what works best. Thanks.

If I'm setting something up to run for the long term, I usually set it
to boot from a hard drive or USB flash drive instead of the SD card. I was so surprised to see how much faster the Pi performs when it's not limited by the speed of the SD card. The Pi4 doesn't have direct boot
to USB just yet, but I've set it up to boot to the SD card and then
hand it off to a 200GB PiDrive I have.

Yeah, I might start doing that as well.

--- MultiMail/Linux v0.52
* Origin: Vertrauen - [vert/cvs/bbs].synchro.net (21:1/183)

Vk3jed wrote to Gluon <=-

On 05-21-20 11:03, Gluon wrote to vorlon <=-

To do that set no compression option for the nodes in your config.

Yeah, that's a good idea, especially on a Raspberry Pi with a humble
CPU. On the other hand it means more I/O on the SD card. I'll see what works best. Thanks.

Really? Why? Compressing from *.pkt to arcmail bundles causes a fair
bit of I/O.

I was thinking that most of the compression was happening in RAM and
then only one file would be output to the SD, but yeah, at least input
for every file still happens.

--- MultiMail/Linux v0.52
* Origin: Vertrauen - [vert/cvs/bbs].synchro.net (21:1/183)

On 21 May 2020, Gluon said the following...

Yeah, that's a good idea, especially on a Raspberry Pi with a humble
CPU. On the other hand it means more I/O on the SD card. I'll see what works best. Thanks.

For what it's worth, a while back I set up Mystic on a Pi Zero W to see how
it would perform. It did well, so a few days ago I moved my (currently under development) BBS to it. All of the files in the Mystic home directory are on the SD card, but all of the Mystic subdirectories are links to a network
drive. So far, so good.

Admittedly, it hasn't been load-tested with actual users but with respect to message processing, I did request a full %RESCAN for all fsxNet message bases. It took a couple of hours to process that many messages, but it did not
crash. The BBS was a little slower than usual during the message processing, but was still usable by at least one user (me).

Jeff.
--------------------------
--- Cold War Computing ---
--------------------------

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A45 2020/02/18 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: Perceptronica (21:1/180)

Jeff wrote to Gluon <=-

For what it's worth, a while back I set up Mystic on a Pi Zero W to see how it would perform. It did well, so a few days ago I moved my
(currently under development) BBS to it. All of the files in the Mystic home directory are on the SD card, but all of the Mystic subdirectories are links to a network drive. So far, so good.

Admittedly, it hasn't been load-tested with actual users but with
respect to message processing, I did request a full %RESCAN for all
fsxNet message bases. It took a couple of hours to process that many messages, but it did not crash. The BBS was a little slower than usual during the message processing, but was still usable by at least one
user (me).

That's something I might need to consider if there's too much I/O on the
SD card. I was also considering the possibility of limiting the amount
of messages that fidopoll gets from the hub when you run it, but I
haven't seen any options for that. Right now I'm in the process of
waiting for my fsxNet address, so I can't test it yet. I wonder how many messages it'll poll the first time I run it and whether that can
overwhelm my Pi 3.

--- MultiMail/Linux v0.52
* Origin: Vertrauen - [vert/cvs/bbs].synchro.net (21:1/183)

On 22 May 2020, Gluon said the following...

That's something I might need to consider if there's too much I/O on the SD card. I was also considering the possibility of limiting the amount
of messages that fidopoll gets from the hub when you run it, but I
haven't seen any options for that. Right now I'm in the process of
waiting for my fsxNet address, so I can't test it yet. I wonder how many messages it'll poll the first time I run it and whether that can
overwhelm my Pi 3.

I doubt it. I had the %RESCAN set for 999 days, so there were a LOT of messages. If a Pi Zero W can handle them with only breaking a little sweat, a Pi 3 should do just fine. The Pi Zero W has half the memory (512GB) and only one core instead of 4.

Jeff.
--------------------------
--- Cold War Computing ---
--------------------------

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A45 2020/02/18 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: Perceptronica (21:1/180)

Jeff wrote to Gluon <=-

I doubt it. I had the %RESCAN set for 999 days, so there were a LOT of messages. If a Pi Zero W can handle them with only breaking a little sweat, a Pi 3 should do just fine. The Pi Zero W has half the memory (512GB) and only one core instead of 4.

Yeah, makes sense. Where can I set that %RESCAN parameter? Is it some
option inside Mystic's configuration console?

--- MultiMail/Linux v0.52
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On 22 May 2020, Gluon said the following...

Yeah, makes sense. Where can I set that %RESCAN parameter? Is it some option inside Mystic's configuration console?

No, it's a command to the AreaFix program on the Hub. When you get your Net Address, Avon should also give you a Hub Address (the 21:xxx.xxx address, not the URL one) and an AreaFix password.

To communicate with AreaFix, you send a private NetMail to AreaFix at the Hub Address. For the Subject line, put just your AreaFix password. Then, in the body of your message, you can put the % commands and then send it.

For example, if I sent a NetMail:

To: AreaFix
Destination NetMail Address: 21:1/100
Subject: MYPASSWORD
%HELP

Then in a few minutes I would get a reply (also via NetMail) with
instructions on all of the available AreaFix commands. Some of the main commands involve listing, subscribing to, and unsubscribing to available message areas. You'll probably want to get that set up before doing a rescan, because the rescan only sends messages from areas you're already subscribed
to.

Next, you'll have to prepare for those messages to go somewhere. You can manually set up message bases in Mystic to correspond to the message areas you've subscribed to, or you can set some parameters in the mailin.ini (or import.ini -- whatever .ini you use to process incoming messages). These settings are in the ImportEchoMail section. One parameter not listed by
default is "origin"; you might want to set that so that all message bases
have a default origin of your BBS name.

Once all that's set up, the AreaFix command to do a big rescan is:

%RESCAN D=999

And then prepare to get deluged with messages.

Hope that helps,

Jeff.
--------------------------
--- Cold War Computing ---
--------------------------

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A45 2020/02/18 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: Perceptronica (21:1/180)

On 05-22-20 15:10, Gluon wrote to Vk3jed <=-

Really? Why? Compressing from *.pkt to arcmail bundles causes a fair
bit of I/O.

I was thinking that most of the compression was happening in RAM and
then only one file would be output to the SD, but yeah, at least input
for every file still happens.

AND writing the arcmail bundle!



... Wow! Short runway....but look how WIDE it is!!
=== MultiMail/Win v0.51
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Thank you Jeff for the detailed explanation. I'll definitely save this
message for future reference. :)

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