[nos-bbs] JNOS closer to Winlink than many realize + hf.ampr.org anyone ?

[Bill Vodall]

On Tue, 4 Apr 2006 maiko at pcs.mb.ca wrote:

> JNOS closer to Winlink....

You mean they've added many features to Winlink to bring it close
to what JNOS can do?    <grin>


>  JNOS can be setup such that it polls a POP mail server (or more) at
>  regular intervals, and for different users. If any mail is found, it
>  is put in the users mail area, and deleted off the POP mail server
>  it got it from.
> 
> With WINlink, the ground stations regularly poll a centralized email
> server. The idea is that it DOES NOT MATTER what ground station a user
> connects to in order for them to retrieve their mail. All they have to
> do is connect to ANY of the ground stations, and the mail is there !

A slight tweak on that - the WL2K mail isn't automatically at all the
ground stations (PMBO's) -- only at the ones where you check in via RF.
Once you check in, you're mail will be picked up by that PMBO for the
next 90 days.

This is probably the biggest magic that WL2K brings to the table.  

I've been pondering on how to do this with "real Internet technology"
for a long time.

NNTP has been in mind as one option as it's a flooding system.

The 'multiple pop's but don't delete' scheme is another alternative. 

Maiko has some new ideas here that might just make it work.

> In a way, the WINlink looks and behaves alot like IMAP ...

Bah humbug - not even close.  <grin>

> A few enhancments would have to be made to JNOS in order to make it
> function in a truly *global* fashion as the winlink system does. For
> instance, if we had a centralized mail server, each JNOS ground box
> would have to have a POP client that only read (without deleting)
> from the centralized mail server. A mechanism would have to be put
> in to delete the message once a user has killed it locally on the
> box they happen to be on.

Or just delete it in X weeks.  That's another funtion of wl2k - messages
are only held for 2 (?) weeks.  The assumption is that if they're not
picked up by then, they're no longer relevant.

The delete the upstream message feature would be the best -- but I don't
think it's worth persuing unless we can do it in an TCP/IP standard way
so it works will other POP servers.  (Hmmm.  Since it's JNOS doing the
deleting, this should work regardless what the upstream server is...)

> I don't think it would be much to get a new feature like this thrown in.

And that would be very good.

> I have considered setting up a *centralized* server something like :
>     hf.ampr.org
> and going from there ...

Think bigger and generic.  hf-ve5.ampr.org,  hf-w7, or something equivalent
that allows building a whole network.

I hope to be on HF full time (P1 for now.  :-(  ) in a month or so.

> Anyways, there's some information that I hope a few of you may find useful.

Very good thoughts...  Well worth persuing.

73
Bill - WA7NWP

PS.  Another concept to ponder for HF...   UUCP