Release Notes DPBOX v5.04.00

Berlin, 04.12.96

Release Notes dpbox v5.04.00 / 04.12.96



Changes since v5.03.00 / 19.10.96



In the release notes of v5.03.00 you read:
>
>TPK / TSTHOST sf request mode (F< <msgnum>) now corrected,
>tested and running.
>
>TPK / TSTHOST unproto message list requests now corrected,
>tested and running. Needs a TNT version >= 0.9s
>
Unfortunately, it was only a "green table" test. Claudio, IW0FBB, spent a lot
of time and efforts in testing and programming to get it going under real
radio conditions. Actually, unproto features should work the way as expected.
Many thanks to Claudio!

Ulli, DL5HBF wrote two patches:
A file box/language/NEWS.<LAN> now only gets displayed once to a logging in
user (at his first login after sysop changed NEWS.<LAN>).
New config variable: When setting LOGINCHECK ON in box/system/config.box,
every local user first has to set its HomeBBS and name before proceeding.
Thank you, Ulli.

Finally, output of fortune cookies is no more a problem ;) If a file
"cookies.doc" is found in box/system/, randomly any of its cookies is
returned when quitting the BBS. Of course you may put a symbolic link to
any of the fortune - files in your linux distribution. Cookies (text chunks)
are separated by "-" or "%" in first column of a new line. Backspaces and
tabs are expanded by the output routine.

When calling an external command, two more environment variables are set:
DPBOXBOXDIR and DPBOXYAPPOUT.
DPBOXBOXDIR is set to the base directory of the bbs.
DPBOXYAPPOUT is set in analogy to DPBOXTEXTOUT, DPBOXTRANSOUT, DPBOXBINOUT:
Any data stored in the file denoted by DPBOXYAPPOUT is sent in YAPP mode
after termination of the external command. There is an important difference
to the other output files: DPBOXYAPPOUT is only send if the other output
files are _unused_!

One hint: DPBOX optimizes output of external commands in DPBOXTEXTOUT,
DPBOXBINOUT, DPBOXTRANSOUT, DPBOXYAPPOUT if only _one_ of those files is
existing/used.
If more than one is existing, they get spooled in whole to the internal
spooler of the BBS (but see the above restriction for DPBOXYAPPOUT). This
may fill up your swap file. Whenever you could, you should use only _one_
of the output files for your purposes. Although in most cases using the
spooler will not be a problem at all.

New config variable: LAZY_MD2 ON forces MD2 password algorithm to only prompt
with numbers, not with alphanumericals. This seems to be necessary for some
MD2 user password clients, although there is no natural reason to do so.

New config variable: PRIVATE_BADWORDFILTER ON|OFF defines if private mails
shall be filtered by the badword filter, too. Default (starting with
v5.04.00) is OFF, in former versions it was always ON.

Badword filter now also scans message title.

7PLUS detection on startup of the bbs is changed; did not work when DPBOX
was not started with root permissions.

Fixed an error that made PWMODE 10 really insecure. Anyway, PWMODE 11 is
always the better choice for sysops.

Correcting TRANSFER from board "D" to its original board: now, original
distribution area is always appended. Forget the "known bugs" note of the
last version

Now nearly never switching back to the _empty_ default board, whatever command
a user may have applied. Mainly was important for the handling of erroneously
sent text lines by user clients (GP etc.) after reception of a 7plus or
AutoBIN file.

Now expanding names of external commands, too. If a command "7get" exists, for
example, it will get called with 7g, 7ge, 7get. All external commands have to
be _lowercase_ files (in box/run/) to get executed. Don't forget to arrange
your box/system/commands.box correctly: an external command "new" has to be
invoked prior to an external command "news"...

One little fix in the badword filter: putting a space before or after the
incriminated word inhibited filtering completely. Spaces are (at least in
german language) needed to stop filtering "interaction" by a badword
"action" by defining instead " action" (german language consists of many
compositives). Use spaces at the start or end of a definition to unsharp
the filter!

When applying the "SERVER" command with no optional parameters, not only the
installed mailing list servers are returned but also the last access to them.

Now rejecting all invalid board names if proposed in forward. Example: *DX*
Thanks again to Claudio, IW0FBB for the hint.

Again changed wildcard expansion in DPBOX' file system modes. Now is using
the (slow but effective) general wildcard expansion of the BBS, as used for
search of messages, badword filter and similar. Should now _really_ avoid
expansion of ".*.foo" to "*" as has happened before. Was painful in file
server when applying a "RM *.foo" (what internally was expanded to ".*.foo"
and then deleting all files in the current directory...).

Recompiling fwd list when a sysop applies a LIST X command


And some other minor changes.


Known bugs:
===========

Still having problems when a private mail has to be converted from full binary
AutoBIN format to 7plus format (in case of forwarding via non-binary-
transparent message systems) and the mail _WAS_ in 7plus format, but
erroneously sent in AutoBIN-mode by the originator (silly, but often
happening). 7plus detects the mode of operation (encoding, decoding) by the
suffix of the files name and resigns re-encoding in 7plus if the file was in
7plus format before.
Mail then gets lost. Me personally I will not change the bbs' behaviour, if
you want to instead of teaching your users, you have all the sources. Send me
the diff if you did.



73 Joachim DL8HBS@DB0GR.#BLN.DEU.EU
