Updated: 19 Aug 94 Trinet Installation Help By: HOST SYS ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The 1st most important thing to do is to: BACKUP YOUR BBS to disks or tape! There have been some cases where message bases have been totally corrupted due to errors in the installing process and or, incompatability of the version of Trinet being used with the version of TriBBS software. PLEASE BACKUP YOUR SYSTEM BEFORE INSTALLING TRINET AND IMPORTING MESSAGES TO YOUR SYSTEM! This text file is to assist new sysops who are considerning joining the TriLINK Network with the installation of the Trinet program. This program version is 601 and can be found in the TriBBS support files on most TriBBS Boards. Your first step is to download this program, unpack it and print out the documentation. Version 5.0 of Trinet works well with version 4.1 of TriBBS. Version 8.0 of Trinet works flawlessly with version 5.1 of TriBBS. Your next step is to create in your message/conference area at least the three main conferences in TriLINK. * - TriLINK General Messages These 3 are compulsory * - TriLINK TriBBS Support and must be carried by * - TriLINK Administration all participating systems Configure the first two conference with an access level of 10, not fidonet, delete messages after 90 days, do not allow user deletion of messages and ensure that Private messages are not allowed. Configure the third conference with an access level of 50 or whatever you allow your "visiting sysops". The rest of the configuration of this conference is the same as above. THIS CONFERENCE (TRILINK ADMINISTRATION) IS FOR TRILINK SYSOPS ONLY. IT MUST HAVE ACCESS LIMITED TO YOURSELF AND CO-SYSOP ONLY. This conference is used to inform you of any changes in the TriLINK conference areas or to advise you of other info concerning the operation of the TriLINK Network. The next thing to do is to go to your user files and setup the sysop information from where you are going to collect your QWK mail packets and upload your REP packets. The only thing you have to do here is to set the network access flag to YES. This allows that person to upload messages to your system. You would do the same thing for each board "node" that would be calling your BBS for their mail packets. Of course, you should have your Trimail Door up and running so that people can download mail packets and upload replies. This pretty much goes without saying. The next thing to do is to write down the conference numbers for the three conferences mentioned above as they appear on your BBS when you list your conferences or edit them. You must ensure that these numbers are as they appear on your BBS, not as they are numbered in Trimail. Your BBS starts the first conference with the number 1 while Trimail starts the first conference number as 0. It makes a difference! Assuming you have made a directory on your system called TRINET and have unpacked the program and printed the docs, the rest of this is just following the documention more or less. You should also ensure that you have in your PATH statement in your autoexec.bat file the location where it can find PKZIP.EXE and PKUNZIP.EXE. I place these programs in my root directory C:\ so that any program can find them from anywhere on my system. Now comes the part of creating the configuration file for Trinet. You must know what the conference numbers are on the BBS where you are going to collect your mail and upload your replies. THESE NUMBERS ARE AS THEY APPEAR IN THE TRIMAIL DOOR when you setup the conferences you wish to scan, Not as they are numbered on the BBS itself. (The documentation misses this little thing and you end up getting messages posted to the wrong conferences). Let's say for example the three conferences appear on the both BBS systems as so: Yours LOCAL Other HOST TriLINK General 27 14 TriLINK TRiBBS 28 15 TriLINK Admin 29 16 If you are involved on only ONE TriNet Network use the setup that follows, otherwise, add the network number to the lines where it shows you in the documention. Also remember that when you are doing the calling for mail and to upload replies, you are always considered as the LOCAL system. Who you are calling is the HOST. This is also very important. If you are strictly a HOST all of the time and other systems are calling you for their mail and uploading reply packets then you do not even have to setup Trinet. So, if I am setting up a TriNet configuration file that means I would be doing the calling for messages and, that I am considered the LOCAL sysop in the documentation. Here is how I would do it. tribbs=c:\tribbs Hsysop=Glen Oliver (this is the host I would be calling) Htag=* The Elf BBS Whitby Ont Canada (905) 430-9010 * Lsysop=Bill Dunn Ltag=The Safety Shoppe BBS Don Mills Ont Canada (416) 429-8251 noappend conf=27,14 conf=28,15 conf=29,16 stripnulls Once I have collected the messages I want to dump them into my conferences. In the TriNet directory I would type TRINET IMPORT ELF Before I can "send" the host system my reply packet I have to "scan" my message base to see if there are any new messages and have them packed up into a REP mail packet. In the TriNet directory I would type TRINET EXPORT ELF One really important thing to remember when participating in an echo mail network. DO NOT REMUMBER YOUR MESSAGES IN THE NETWORK CONFERENCES. It screws up the "last rec'd" numbers and you get a pile of duplicate messages on both of the BBS systems. If you are going to add conferences to the network, please ensure that the control Host and the other systems who are involved in the network are interested in carrying them. It does not make a lot of sense to add a pile of conferences in a network if no other system is interested in them. You can't upload messages to a system in the network who is not carrying a specific conference even though you are. Leave a message in the TriLINK Administration conference area so that the other sysops can say whether they would be interested or not. All of the details regarding new conferences should be posted in this conference area so that they are echoed to all sysops participating in the network. TriLINK makes it easy for new Sysops to join a QWK mail network. It is easy to setup and to maintain. If you want to automate your mail runs if you are drawing your mail from another system, I would recommend Intellicom, a communication program which can be found on most BBS systems, mine for sure. It is share ware but is limited until it is registered. Once registered, it will call another BBS, download a mail packet and upload a REP packet and log off, all done at whatever time you specify. I personally just do my mail runs manually. With TriLINK mail runs can be done at any old time so, unless you are paying long distance charges, manual mail runs are easy and no hassles. Each paticipating sysop is expected to read the messages in the TriLINK Administration Conference as soon as he/she downloads and dumps the messages into thier BBS. This is very important because there may be information there that is urgent and may affect your system. For example, a request may be made to advise a caller about improper message postings or improper usage of the message areas - like promoting a business - foul language - flamming - etc. _____________________________________________________________ One important thing I have notices with QWK Mail Networks is that sysops sometimes have a problem getting Trinet to pack all the messages for transfer to other systems. The most common cause of this is where users enter a message addressed to ALL. If, before the Trinet program is used, any user "reads" that message, the "received" flag is set and the Trinet will not pack this message for export to another BBS. If the "receiver" has read the message, it is not exported. The easiest way around this problem is for users entering a message addressed to ALL to use instead - "Everybody", without the quotes. There is no user named "Everybody" so the rec'd flag will never be set. Trinet will pack up this message in the mail packet no matter how many users on the BBS has read the message. ______________________________________________________________ Take Care and lets have fun with this. Bill Dunn