[nos-bbs] Seriously revisiting B2F and "E" messages ???

[Gustavo Ponza]

On Tue, 2014-10-28 at 21:51 -0500, Maiko Langelaar wrote:
> Being a developer first, and a sysop second is dangerous. My level of sysop
> and practical forwarding knowledge is a far second to the development side
> of things unfortunately. I've learned tons, but there are guys out there
> who truly know the operational side of this better then I ever will :(

Don't worry because my problem is just the contrary: namely running tons
of applications and methods every day but *never* had the possibility to
learn any kinda code programming :(


> I have wondered sometimes if introducing B2F (and my implementation to
> date is far from near to perfect) into JNOS was a mistake, for the general
> population that is. I mean seriously, there is no benefit to using B2F for
> most NOS to NOS setups, if anyone thinks otherwise, I would be glad to sit
> back and listen. The "E" message itself comes from a Winlink/RMS/Airmail
> system, so the fact that it has appeared on a NOS exchange is because it
> is getting passed along, the originating station was not a NOS station.

A reply comment is impossible by using a reply message ... and then
(worst too) to write by using the right words...

1. Specific B2 expansion

FBB level B2 allows for FC proposals.
The FC proposal is initially used for any WinLink 2000 encapsulated
message or WinLink 2000 control message, so it is an *experimental*
and *innovative* feature.
Unlike FA and FB proposals, the FC proposal does not include sender or
receiver address information, as that is included within the
encapsulated messages’ header as described above.
FA, FB and FC proposals may be intermixed in any combination within a
proposal block.

2. JNOS2 <-> CMS forwarding

The JNOS2 results fully compatible with the CMS and fully operational
on 24/7 forwarding for sending and retrieving hamradio or commercial
emails, offering another capability for receiving/sending SP mails.

3. BF, B1F and B2F *Telnet* forwarding

As per my tests, the BF and B1F fails when JNOS2 telnet inbound/outbound
with other usual AX.25 PBBS systems (xfbb, obcm, etc).
The B2F telnet forwarding results almost *error free* when two JNOS2 or
a JNOS2 and a WL2K CMS are forwarding each other.

 
> I'm a systems integrator, I thought (perhaps naively) that having the
> ability to pass messages between W2LK and NOS was perhaps useful ? Like
> I said, the code is far from perfect, but is workable.
> 
> Questions : Perhaps I should leave B2F undefined in the default compile.
> 
>     Any objections to this ?

The JNOS2 is many things at same time, and so also a special B2F forwarder:
why do you use it in downgraded manner?
Who is searching/needing a full compatibility with a pure AX.25 PBBS system
may use, in parallel, any compatible FBB system! Why complicate the JNOS2 with
mbox nob2f <call>, mbox fbb x, etc beyond certain limits? 

 
> > Even if you and your partner have the mbox nob2f statements, you can still
> 
> > unwittingly forward affected "E" messages from further back along the line.
> 
> Questions : what should we or could we do about this ? Convert to 'P' ? or
>              do we stop and reject the message as not forwardable ?

Why convert to 'P' since the JNOS2 is capable to manage the 'E' messages?
The problem exits *only* on several FBB compatible software which *must*
be upgraded to *manage* or *reject* such kinda messages!

73, gus / i0ojj