[nos-bbs] JNOS (#define B2F) - fwding problem/disaster with *older* systems

[Maiko Langelaar]

Greetings,

I knew I should have documented this better :(

Several sysops have told me that when *older* bbs software connects to a
newer JNOS 2.0 system that has #define B2F, the result is something along
the line of the following :

    "for a while now I have been forwarding with an xfbb (or other) system
     quite nicely, everything is working well. JNOS does the connect, and
     starts the forward process each time."

    "today it was decided to allow the other system to connect and initiate
     forwarding when it can. The result was a big mess. Messages coming in
     would be decoded and stored as garbage text, size in Megabytes, not the
     usual one or two kilobytes I expect a message to be. The system would
     lock up, the hard drive would be going full blast for several minutes,
     and the CPU usage was through the roof (intense) during forwarding.

IF you have #define B2F in your JNOS compile and IF you have 'mbox fbb 3'
set in your autoexec.nos, you MUST identify *older* forwarding partners
that most likely do not support the B2F protocol, for example :

    #
    # MY AUTOEXEC.NOS - I connect to a local RMS packet node, so I need
    # my default mbox level to be B2F (3) - new level in later releases.
    #
    mbox fbb 3
    #
    # here is a list of my forwarding partners
    # ve4bbs is running an older FBB 7.0 system, B2F not supported
    # aa6hf is running a JNOS system without B2F support
    #
    mbox nob2f ve4bbs
    mbox nob2f aa6hf

Better yet, if you have no intention of ever using JNOS 2.0 with RMS or
Winlink stuff, then just #undef B2F and recompile JNOS from scratch, which
is probably the easier way to get rid of the *headache* mentioned earlier.

Hope that helps. I'll put this note in the documents area as well.

Maiko Langelaar / VE4KLM