[nos-bbs] JNOS 2.0 and fbb forwarding (there is no problem)

[maiko at pcs.mb.ca]

Greetings all,

Oops, I forgot about this issue from some time ago. I guess
I should say something, considering that this is *problem* is
not even related to NOS at all.

When this *problem* first arose, there was no mention that the
attempt to do compressed forwarding was over a TELNET session,
not an AX25 session. I only discovered that after looking at
some traces that were sent to me.

Doing compressed forwarding or transferring binary files over a
telnet session is not a good idea. It *may* work, it *may* not,
it all depends on the type of data being sent over.

The TELNET session uses a special control character (IAC) which
has a value of 0xFF. This character allows changing of certain
underlying settings for that session. The likelihood of binary
and compressed forwarding containing one or more 0xFF characters
is pretty high, so the chance of a successfull forward over a
telnet session is not that great, since the 0xFF data will
essentially be dropped from the data.

Alot of people fall into that trap !

I've never (and will never) do compressed forwarding over a telnet
session. I've always setup an AXIP or AXUDP link, and now that we have
support for dynamic remote hosts in the AXIP or AXUDP interface, there
should be even less need for people to use telnet. They should really
setup an AXUDP link to their forwarding partner, and then compressed
forwarding will run no problemo.

Maiko Langelaar / VE4KLM