Well, well, well... Look what the cat dragged in!


We'll set up some file echos now.  Should be fairly simple since we set
up all those groups the other day.  Probably the most common file echo
is the nodediff echo on the  FidoNet File Distribution Network (FDN).
This gets the weekly Nodediff to your system with a minimum of fuss and
distributes it to your downlinks.  With the magic names (which we'll set
up later) you can even run a batch file to update and compile the new
nodelist for you so that you don't have to even mess with it at all.

Pull up the ASETUP | fileecho System | Fileecho Manager screen and press
the INSERT key.  This brings up the picklist of the groups that you've
set up. Choose the one for Fido and press enter.  This Screen should pop
up.


 Adding new entry  1/1   Fileecho manager
                                                                       
 Tag                                                                   
 Desc                                                                  
 Dest     C:\PCB\DL06                                                  
 Use FDB  Yes, FidoNet Utilities                                       
 Group    3   - fido                                                   
 Keep #   -1                  Use aka       1:3825/21                  
 Template REPORTS             LongDesc      FILE_ID.DIZ/LDESC          
 Banner   REPORTS             Cost                                     
 Options  Convert       NONE  Virus scan    No    Security      No     
          Convert all   No    Dupe check    No    Send original Yes    
          Pass through  No    Visible       Yes   Add GIF specs No     
          Allow replace Yes   Tiny SB       No    Update magic  No     
          Announce      No    No Touch      No                         
 Systems                                                               
                                                                       
;

As you can see, most of the information is already there.  We just have
to fill in a few specifics.  Harald did good when he came up with the
idea of groups, huh?

Fill it in to look something like this.


 11/26  Fileecho manager
                                                                       
 Tag      NODEDIFF                                                     
 Desc     FidoNet: Weekly NodeList Updates                             
 Dest     C:\PCB\DL06\                                                 
 Use FDB  Yes, FidoNet Utilities                                       
 Group    4   - fido                                                   
 Keep #   -1                  Use aka       1:3825/21                  
 Template REPORTS             LongDesc      FILE_ID.DIZ/LDESC          
 Banner   BANNER              Cost                                     
 Options  Convert       NONE  Virus scan    No    Security      Yes    
          Convert all   No    Dupe check    No    Send original Yes    
          Pass through  No    Visible       Yes   Add GIF specs No     
          Allow replace Yes   Tiny SB       No    Update magic  No     
          Announce      No    No Touch      No                         
 Systems  1:3825/24 25                                                 
                                                                       
;

Tag  is the file echo tag found in the BACKBONE.NA file.  In this case
     is NODEDIFF.
Desc can be anything that you want.  It will be added to the file
     reports (if you set any up) that are sent out.
All the other entries should be OK as they are. except for the systems
entry.  When you press enter on the systems line you'll get a screen
that looks like this:

                   Systems list 
                     #  Status     Node          address       
                  ĳ
                  ;

Press the INSERT key and You'll get this screen:


             Edit Address 1 
                                                               
             Node Address                                      
             SysOp                                             
             Send files    No                                  
              Pause      No                                  
             Receive files No                                  
             PreRelease    No                                  
             Mandatory     No                                  
             Msg status    Setup                               
                                                               
            ;
Put the address of the UPLINK in the node address line and if you've
already put this system into the node manager it will fill in the Sysop
line for you.  Since this is an Uplink and a file echo that you won't
be sending any files upstream in, you should set the rest of the lines
like this

Send files  No          ;you'll not be hatching any nodelists into this
                        ;echo
Pause       No          ;You probably never want to set this to yes
                        ;unless you anticipate your board being down for
                        ;for a while
Receive filesYes        ;Obviously you want to get files from this node
                        ; since it is your uplink
PreRelease  No          ;since you won't be hatching any files to this
                        ; echo you certainly won't be pre-releasing any.
Mandatory   NO or YES   ;In this case it doesn't matter since this node
                        ;is an uplink he'll probably not be sending you
                        ;AREAMGR requests to turn this echo off.  If it
                        ;was a downlink and you wanted to make it where
                        ;he could not turn off the echo then you would
                        ;set this to Yes.
Message Status Setup    ; the options here are none, hold, crash or
                        ;setup.  Setup will tell allfix to use the
                        ;message status that you defined in the node
                        ;manager for this node.


Now press escape to save this info.  Next we'll add any downlinks for
this echo the same way as we added the uplink.  Press the Insert key and
type in the address of the downlink.  This time though, set the send
file to yes and the receive file to no. Continue in this fashion for
all downlinks for this file echo.

That's how you set up a file echo.
Some other file echos that you might want to set up in this group are
FIDONEWS, FILEBONE and BACKBONE.

This should get you to the point where you can send an AREAMGR request
to your uplink.  Contact him (her) and set up an ALLFIX (or RAID if
that's what they are using) password, if you haven't already done so.
When you get one put it in the System Data | Uplink Manager entry for 
this node and in the Node Manager entry for this node.

Once you have a password you can send the AREAMGR request.  To do this 
enter a netmail message in PCBoard addressed like this:

     To: ALLFIX@theiraddress  ( or RAID if they use that AREAMGR program)
Subject: yourpassword

and in line 1 column 1 type this command:

+NODEDIFF

You can add other commands also like

%LIST

to get a list of all file echos that are available to you.  If the
command is used for AREAFIX if can also be used with ALLFIX.


Next time we'll talk about reports and announcements.

later,
Mark








