W i n N E T (TM) M a i l a n d N e w s w i t h T C P / I P Copyright (c) 1992-1995 by WinNET Communications, Inc. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED WinNET Communications, Inc. Post Office Box 4189 Louisville, KY 40204 Telephone: (502) 589-6800 Fax: (502) 589-7300 Internet Mail: winnet@win.net CompuServe Mail: 76130,1463 Note: This file assumes that you are *not* planning to use WinNET Communications, Inc., as your Internet/Usenet service provider. If that is not the case, please read the file READ_1ST.TXT instead of this file for introductory information. Please keep in mind that if you use WinNET Communications as your service provider, setup is completely automatic and you don't need to know any advanced technical information. Setting up with an alternative provider will tend to be challanging for all but experienced users. If you still want to set up with an alternative provider, please do not hesitate to call us for technical assistance. (ALT.TXT) Please read this file *carefully* before installing or attempting to use WinNET Mail. C o n t e n t s What is WinNET? What you need to run WinNET Registration fee for WinNET Setting up WinNET Mail on Your System Upgrading From an Earlier Version of WinNET Distribution of WinNET Mail W h a t i s W i n N E T ? WinNET Mail (TM) is a Windows 3.1 application for sending and receiving Electronic Mail and News articles with the world-wide Internet and Usenet networks using just your Windows system and a modem. W h a t i s TCP/IP? TCP/IP is software that allows you to establish a direct connection to the Internet network so that you can use client software that requires interactive access to network resources. Examples of such client software would include WWW browsing software such as NETSCAPE, on-line FTP programs, Internet Relay Chat, Internet Talk Radio, Gopher, and so forth. These programs are available through WinNET Communications once you set up an account. You can set up WinNET to work in conjunction with any system providing UUCP/PPP services, including commercial providers, your local University systems, or your UUCP/PPP network at your place of work. When WinNET is used with an alternative UUCP/PPP provider (i.e., if you will not be a WinNET Communications service client), WinNET is shareware software with a registration fee of $39.95 plus S&H. When you register we will provide you with a registration number and then mail you a copy of our new retail version WinNET Plus. To register all you have to do is send E-Mail to orders@win.net with the information from Register.txt or you can call us toll-free 9AM to 9PM EST Monday through Friday at: 1-800-WIN-NET2 or fax your order to us at 502-589-7300. Please provide a current shipping address and telephone number with your order along with and a credit card number and expiration date. Shipping and Handling to receive WinNET Plus: U.S. $3.50 Canada & Mexico $5.00 UK & Europe $9.00 All Other $12.00 Counties Site license pricing is available as well as wholesale pricing for qualified retailers and resellers. "WinNET will hold you spellbound .." PC Magazine, Sep. '94 What is WinNET Plus? WinNET Plus is similar to the WinNET Mail and News with which you are familiar, but includes new features and comes with a comprehensive manual in attractive shrink wrapped retail box. A few of the new features that we you will especially like are: * Ability to selectively call to: + Just get your mail - get in quickly get your mail and leave the news for later. + Just send, don't pick up anything for now. + Send and Receive everything normally. * Select News group subscriptions from a built-in list of News Groups. + All recent news groups are included built-in - easy to search, easy to select. + Interested in all groups that mention tennis? Just type in tennis, press a button, and sign-up from a list of just those news groups. "... possibly the best Technical Support in the business" PC Magazine. W h a t y o u n e e d t o R u n W i n N E T 1. Intel 80386/486/Pentium system with a minimum of 2 Mbytes RAM. 2. Microsoft Windows 3.1, Windows for Workgroups Microsoft Windows NT, or OS/2. 3. A Hayes compatible modem. 4. A UUCP provider -- For WinNET to be able to communicate with the rest of the Internet, you need to have a UUCP service provider (unix-to-unix-copy). R e g i s t r a t i o n F e e f o r W i n N E T WinNET is *NOT* freeware when used with alternative service providers; instead, it is a shareware program with a registration fee of $39.95. If you find WinNET useful, please take the time to read through the file REGISTER.TXT which explains how to register WinNET, and please contact us to register the product. S e t t i n g u p W i n N E T M a i l o n Y o u r S y s t e m Introduction For WinNET to be able to successfully communicate with your service provider, you need to have gotten in touch with your provider to obtain the following information: 1. Provider's service telephone number (modem). 2. Connection characteristics of your provider's communication equipment (maximum connect speed, etc...) 3. Your assigned login name 4. Your assigned password. 5. Your assigned UUCP system name. 5.5 Your assigned PPP login name and password if different from UUCP names. 6. Your provider's server's uucico "machine" name. 7. If you wish to use the automatic newsgroups signup procedure, the email address of the news administrator. 8. The login sequence to your provider's server. (Many providers can provide a sample login script that shows what prompts and responses are required). You will need both UUCP and PPP login sequences. If you have just acquired WinNET from CompuServe or some other electronic bulletin board, you may not as yet have a service provider, or may not yet know the details about your account. Even so, you may still be curious to see how the program works, and it is fine to set up the software without having your account information ready so that you can experiment with the software. You can just make up the information required by the setup program if you don't know it yet. Then, when you have bona fide information from your provider, you can set up the software again. SETUP STEP 1. If you received WinNET from CompuServe or some other electronic bulletin board, create a temporary directory and copy the wnmail.zip file to this directory. Run the pkunzip program (commonly available shareware from PKWARE) to unzip the wnmail.zip file in this directory. If you received WinNET on a diskette, insert the diskette in drive A: or B: of your computer system. STEP 2. From the Windows program manager File menu, or directly from the Window's File Manager program, run the SETUP.EXE program supplied with the WinNET distribution. Use the More Information button to get more information on each screen. Most of the selections you need to make are not difficult, but the screen that asks you about UUCP names is an area where you may need to don your "thinking cap" for some moderate intellectual exercise. Please press the 'More Information' button when you get to this screen, and print out the setup help file when it comes up. If you make a mistake here, you can rectify it later by re-running the installed version of SETUP.EXE and making the required changes. When you have finished making your selections and entering required information, setup will copy the WinNET program files to the directory you specified and ask if you want to create a Program Manager group for the installed programs. It is recommended that you create a Program Manager group. Also, the setup program will generate a file called CHAT.RC in the directory with the rest of your programs. This file will contain a simple script that the communications program uses to negotiate the login sequence after it connects to your UUCP provider. This chat.rc file will work unmodified for many systems, but in other cases additional configuration of this file may be required. (The file CHAT.TXT documents the syntax and contains pointers about working properly with login issues, and should make your life much easier if the default script doesn't work for logging in to your service provider's system). STEP 3. After the software has been installed, test to see if you can connect to your UUCP provider's server. To do so, first make sure that your modem is properly attached to your computer and powered on, etc. Next, start the main WinNET program (wnmail.exe -- its icon is labeled "WinNET Mail" in your Program Manager group) and click the picture of the silver telephone labeled "Call" on the toolbar. After doing this, select "Switch To" from the WinNET Mail system menu (located in the upper left hand corner of the title bar) and select "UUCICO -- File Transferer" from the "Task List" that comes up. You will then see the display of the communications program. The display shows numerous statistics but you should direct your attention to the two text fields at the bottom of the screen, labeled "Latest Error" and "Latest Event". If your system is configured properly, you should see the following messages in the field labeled "Latest Event": Port Opened Successfully Connected to Server Establishing Protocol Protocol Set If you already have messages waiting at your provider's server, you would then see the message(s): Reversing Role, becoming Receiver Receiving file File successfully received etc... for as many messages as are queued for you. If you have no messages waiting, you will see: Closing connection with remote The sequence outlined above indicates that your WinNET UUCP software is successfully installed, and you should give yourself a "high-five". If you aren't tired yet, go ahead and experiment more with the main program "WinNET Mail", and browse through the on-line help (F1), which contains full documentation for WinNET aside from setup procedures. If you didn't have the results outlined above, please read the section below regarding connection problems and how to resolve them. WHAT TO DO WHEN WINNET WON'T CONNECT Most of you will have to read this section at least once, as Murphy's Law operates extensively everywhere and at all times. Debugging your Installation The other field in the communication's program's display that was mentioned above was "Most Recent Error". Here are some of the more common error messages that occur and some pointers on getting past them. "No OK from modem" This error indicates that the communications program is not able to work properly with your modem. This may be because the modem is not turned on, or because the incorrect port has been selected when you configured communications. Please see the file "TROUBLE.TXT" for an explanation of how to use the "Terminal" program, supplied with Windows, to determine the correct communications port for your modem. Another potential source of this error is your having input a Hayes AT command that your modem does not recognize in the communication's section of setup. Please review your AT command strings and check with your modem manual to make sure that the AT commands you've included are supported by your modem. Also, if you are using a Telebit modem or a U.S. Robotics modem, please see TROUBLE.TXT for some suggested settings for configuring these modems properly for use with WinNET. One other possibility: make sure that the interface speed you selected during setup is not to great for you modem to handle. This should be documented in your modem manual. "No "connect" -- busy or no answer" This message means that, although your modem attempted to dial, it never connected with a modem at the server's site. This could be for the reasons given, "busy or no answer", and it may be necessary to wait for a time before attempting to call again. It may also indicate that you have entered your service provider's telephone number incorrectly. In this later case, run the installed copy of SETUP.EXE and make the necessary correction. If, however, you hear your modem connecting to another modem, and still get this message, it means that the two modems were not able to properly agree or sync on a common modem protocol. In this case, please consult with your provider and/or modem manufacturer about modem compatibility issues. (This can also happen when you connect to a fax machine, or if the hardware connection between your modem and computer system is loose or faulty). "login failed, suspect line noise" This error message indicates that something went wrong while logging in. Once you have a working installation, this problem usually occurs because of line noise conditions, but at this point (just after installation), it is much more likely that your CHAT.RC configuration may be faulty. As you will recall from the earlier discussion, the CHAT.RC file is a script which controls the initial login sequence on your provider's system. Please carefully read "CHAT.TXT" at this point to work with login issues. "UUCP login failed" This error message usually occurs when the login process is successfully passed, but the remote server doesn't accept either your login name or your password, and refuses to start its corresponding communication's process (UUCICO). This is usually because one of these two names is incorrect, or because your account is not yet set up on your provider's system. One other possibility is that you have entered the remote server's "machine" name incorrectly in the setup UUCP names section of the setup program. Please double-check to make sure you've entered this information correctly. (Please see the file SETUP.009) for more information. "UUCP System Recognition Failed" This error occurs because the provider's server doesn't recognize or acknowledge the validly of your "machine"/"system" name. Please double check to make sure that you have entered this correctly. STEP 4: PPP Setup After configuring UUCP, which will allow your WinNET Mail and News client applications to work properly, you will want to configure the TCP/IP stack so that you can aquire some TCP/IP client applications like a Web Browser and start using them. (WinNET Recommends NETSCAPE as the best Web browser for use with WinNET). Once you have contracted with a service provider and received details of your account, you can set up PPP for the WINSOCK TCP/IP stack. Use a text editor to open the file CORE.INI, which is located in your \wnmail\wonline directory. You need to modify several sections of this file to conform with the account information provided to you by your PPP service. Set the following fields as instructed by your service provider: [winsock] domainname= put your provider's domain name here nameservers=put your provider's primary dns server IP address here [tcpip] netmask=ask your provider for an appropriate netmask (255.255.255.0 will ususally work as a default gateways=probably blank, but your provider may require an entry here. [wsacore] visible=defaults to no, but you may want to change this while you debug the setup... [serial_0] port= make sure the com port selected is correct netmask=255.255.255.0 (again, ask about the correct netmask) myuserid=these fields should be left blank mypassword= "" LEAVE ALL OTHER FIELDS IN CORE.INI AT THEIR DEFAULTS! Next it is necessary to edit the wsaslip.scr file, which controls the login process to your providers PPP system. This file is located in the \wnmail\wonline directory. Use a text editor to edit the file. The syntax of the scripting language used in this file is fairly straight-forward. Use the default script produced by the setup program as a model. The script executes from top to bottom. The most important commands are the 'send' and 'expect' commands. The 'send' command allows causes the local system to emit the text that follows it. If the text contains punctuation characters or spaces, enclose the text in quotes. The 'expect' command programs the script to wait until the text immedeately following is received by the local software from the remote system. The 'expect' command is followed by an explicit timeout value followed by a label that tells the script where to route execution if the timeout specified occurs. Before actually editing the script, it is a good idea to use a terminal emulation program to dial up your PPP provider and log in once or twice by hand, using the login name and password provided to you by your PPP service. This will give you a clear idea of how to actually program the script. NOTE: If there is a considerable pause before the PPP protocol starts up (after login), it is a good idea to put in an 'expect' command that looks for some part of the message emitted by the remote to the effect that it is ready to start PPP. The example script contains an example of this: expect witching 30 failexit pause 1 where 'witching' is part of the phrase 'switching to PPP'. This keeps processing within the script long enough for the remote server to start up PPP, so that the local side doesn't time out waiting to negotiate dynamic IP assignments. When you think you have the script configured correctly, save the file, and try starting Enhanced Mosaic or some other on-line TCP/IP application to test your configuration. Configuration of the script can be tricky. Please don't hesitate to contact your provider for technical assistance if you have difficulty. Please call WinNET Communications' technical support staff for help if you continue to have problems getting your copy of WinNET installed and working properly. U p g r a d i n g f r o m a n e a r l i e r v e r s i o n o f W i n N E T The instructions for upgrading a previous version of WinNET are basically the same as outlined in the above steps describing a new installation. Make sure that you put the distribution .zip file wnmail.zip in a *temporary* directory before you start (NOT the directory that currently contains WinNET) and run setup from this temporary directory. When you are asked to specify the directory where WinNET should be installed, specify the same directory where your old copy of WinNET was installed. This will cause the setup program to overwrite the old WinNET files with the files from the new version. Your old setup parameters will be detected and appear as the defaults in the setup process. FOR THOSE WISHING TO DISTRIBUTE WinNET MAIL (TM), PLEASE READ ON. D i s t r i b u t i o n o f W i n N E T M a i l (TM) WinNET Communications, INC., UNCONDITIONALLY RETAINS ALL RIGHTS PURSUANT TO THE COPYRIGHT LAWS OF THE UNITED STATES. That said, we very much encourage distribution of this product, under the following conditions: 1. Any person serving as a distributor of WinNET Mail (TM) must retain exactly the original form of the WinNET Communications, Inc., distribution by including ALL files in unmodified condition. The following files that are included with the WinNET Mail (TM) distribution: REGISTER.TXT READ_1ST.TXT SETUP.007 QUEUED.EX_ TERMS.TXT SETUP.008 CLEANUP.EX_ TROUBLE.TXT SETUP.009 MEGAED.DLL VENDOR.TXT ACCOUNT.001 BWCC.DLL CHAT.TXT SETUP.EXE WNMAIL.HL_ ALT.TXT VIEWER.EXE CLEANUP.HL_ SETUP.001 WNMAIL.EX_ QUEUEED.HL_ SETUP.002 UUCICO.EX_ SOURCE.DAT SETUP.003 MAILMAN.EX_ ENCODE.EX_ SETUP.004 ACCOUNT.EX_ DECODE.EX_ SETUP.005 MAILCALL.EX_ FILE_ID.DIZ SETUP.006 DAEMON.EX_ HOSTS PROTOCOL SERVICES RESOLVER.CFG CORETCP.DL_ WINSOCK.DL_ WSACORE.EX_ WSASLIP.EX_ CTL3D.DL_ CORE.INI NETSCAPE.INI 2. Owners or operators of Electronic Bulletin Boards (EBB's), such as CompuServe, may acquire or accept, and then distribute copies of WinNET Mail (TM) through their EBB service, subject to the conditions above, and may further do so in the context of charging subscribers to their services a general fee for belonging to the membership of the service, and/or for time on-line, as long as these charges are not specifically related to overt sale of the WinNET Mail (TM) product. This should in no way be construed as relinquishment, by WinNET Communications, Inc., of its copyright protection and sole ownership of WinNET Mail (TM). 3. Persons wishing to contact WinNET Communications, Inc., for the purpose of negotiating limited distribution rights for WinNET Mail (TM) should review the file VENDOR.TXT, included with this distribution, which contains an application form that distributors may use to initiate the process. 4. Any persons possessing a bona fide copy of WinNET Mail (TM) as originally distributed by WinNET Communications, Inc., may freely copy and distribute the product to whomever they like, as long as exactly the original form of the distribution is retained, by including ALL files, in unmodified condition, especially but not limited to all documentation files, as long as they assess no fees beyond those required for materials needed in distributing the product, i.e., matching exactly the cost of floppy disks, mailing materials and costs, or long-distance phone charges relevant to electronic distribution. 5. With the exceptions of EBB operators, under the conditions described above, and that of persons entering into written contractual distribution agreements with WinNET Communications, Inc., other persons engaged in the distribution of software for profit ARE EXPLICITLY PROHIBITED from marketing or selling, in any form, any files or parts of files, or modified versions of files, that are part of WinNET Communications' distribution. 6. Developers of software products who incorporate ANY portion of the binary portions of the author's product, or who copy features or aspects of the user-interface of the product subject to protection by the laws of copyright, SHALL BE PROSECUTED, unless they have the express, written permission of WinNET Communications, Inc., to do so.