SFADD for SFSEC v3.1 from MetaSys Page 1 --------------------------------------------------------------------- If you are totally new to SFSEC, you should read SFSEC.TXT before reading this file. It contains a full introduction to this program. SFADD is a utility to add and maintain records in the SFSEC database file. In short, SFSEC is a door that will allow a sysop to "reserve" a file or message for a given caller (or callers). It prevents anyone but the selected caller(s) from accessing the file and/or message. It will optionally delete the file after it has been downloaded, freeing up your disk space. The file can be a binary file (for example a ZIP file) for download, or it can be an ASCII file (like a bulletin) that the caller will read as a private message. SFADD controls who can get to what file(s). It is used to maintain the .DAT file for the SFSEC door. INSTALLATION ------------ To run SFADD, you don't need any special hardware or software. I have been able to shell from Spitfire and run this program. So you probably only require about 100k of memory, but the more memory you have, the faster this program will run. You must run SFADD from the SFSEC directory. So when installing this door, create a directory and place SFADD.EXE and SFSEC.EXE in this directory. You can run the same programs from a multi-node environment. There is no need to have multiple copies of these programs. The only special consideration when running SFADD, is that it needs to know where Spitfire has been installed. You should have an environment variable called SFPATH in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file. It should look like: SET SFPATH=D:\SF where D:\SF is the directory containing your SFNODE.DAT file for the current Spitfire node. This is the same directory containing your .MNU files. SFADD for SFSEC v3.1 from MetaSys Page 2 --------------------------------------------------------------------- EXECUTION --------- To run SFADD, go to the SFSEC directory and type: SFADD You will be presented with the SFADD menu: ÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍ SFADD V3.1 - A Spitfire Utility from MetaéSys ÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍ dd a record uit ist records elete/Undelete records hort list of records dit records Duplicate and modify an existing record Enter Choice [A E L D P U Q] The following functions are available: dd a record -------------- This is how you add a file and caller to SFSEC. You will be specifying who the file/msg is for, what is the name of the file, should SFSEC automatically delete the file after download (and free up your disk space) etc... You can attach a comment to the file and more. The following details adding a record to SFSEC. After selecting A, you will be presented with: Enter "?" to search for a given caller by name; Enter "#" to search for a given caller by seclevel; or Enter the Callers Name: At this point you may enter the callers name. This is the name of the person you want to give the private file or message to. This MUST be spelled exactly. To help you, you may specify a "?" or a "#" to search the user file for the callers name. For example, let's say you are not sure how to spell Zimmerman. Is it Zimmermann or Zimmerman and did I logon as Robert or as Bob... At the above prompt, specify "?" and press ENTER. You will be presented with: Enter the name to search for (partial strings allowed): If you did not setup the SFPATH environment variable correctly, then you will get an error that it cannot find a system file. SFADD for SFSEC v3.1 from MetaSys Page 3 --------------------------------------------------------------------- You must set SFPATH to point to your Spitfire Node Directory (see Installation instructions). Once you do get the prompt, you may now specify ZIM. Upper and lower case is ignored. SFADD will now load your user file into memory (using Z_IO routines makes this very fast. The more memory you have available, the faster this works), and will display to you all names that have ZIM "anywhere" in their name. If there is only one name, then only that name will be displayed. If you don't specify a search string (e.g. you simply press ENTER at the prompt), ALL callers in your user file are listed. SFADD supports listing up to 4095 callers. Also, you must have enough memory to list them. For 1000 callers, you will need about 200k free memory to run SFADD. For 3000 callers, you will need about 350k free memory. If you are out of memory, a message will appear. Simply "narrow" your search. This memory limit is only for the LISTED names (not the number of callers in the file). Note the instructions at the top of this display. You may select more then one caller! So if you have a file you want to give to 10 different callers, you may select all 10 callers from this single screen. Simply press the SPACE BAR to mark the callers. When you are done selecting them, press F10. If you only want to select a single caller, you don't need to use the SPACE BAR, simply highlight their name and press F10. To select all callers listed, press F9. And if you decided that you don't want to add the record, press ESC and you will be returned to the SFADD Main Menu. If at the screen: Enter "?" to search for a given caller by name; Enter "#" to search for a given caller by seclevel; or Enter the Callers Name: you enter # instead of ?, then you will be asked for a Security Level to search for. For example, if you want to send a personalized private message to everyone at a given security level, you will be listed all callers in this level. Then using the SPACE BAR, F10 or F9, you can select which callers to add to SFSEC. After selecting a caller, you will be presented with the prompt: Enter the File Name ( ? for search): SFADD for SFSEC v3.1 from MetaSys Page 4 --------------------------------------------------------------------- You may now type in a file name or specify a question mark. If you do press ?, then a window will pop open that will assist you in selecting the file to for the caller(s). You may not specify wild cards at this prompt! Regardless of using the window (?) or not, if the file begins with B: or A:, SFADD makes the assumption the file is on diskette and asks if it should copy the file to the hard drive. The following prompt is displayed: Enter the File Name ( ? for search): b:autoexec.bat AUTOEXEC BAT 1258 07-01-91 8:08p Should I ove/opy this file to the current directory? [m/c/enter] You may now press M and the file will be moved from diskette (from the B drive) to your current directory. Pressing C will copy the file to your current directory without deleting it from diskette. Pressing ENTER will leave the file on the A or B drive without copying or moving it. Next, SFADD will prompt: Should I Delete the file after it is downloaded? When a caller downloads his file, the SFSEC database will be cleaned up and this request is removed. By specifying Y to this prompt, the file he downloaded will also be deleted from disk, freeing up his disk space. If you specify N to this prompt, the file will remain on disk until you delete it. If you are giving a single file to multiple callers, you will not see this prompt. This is because, you cannot delete the file after the first caller downloads it. If you do, then the other callers won't be able to download it (the file will be missing). The next prompt is: Enter any additional comments to display for this file: At this point you may specify up to a 45 character comment. This will be used to identify the file and message. For example, if I am distributing software, this comment may be the software product name and version (e.g. SFSEC v3.1). Next, SFADD will ask if the file is an ASCII message the caller should read or if it is a binary file for download. You should NEVER set a binary file as being an ASCII message. The caller will receive a screen full of line noise and this may "hang" your bbs. The prompt for this question is: SFADD for SFSEC v3.1 from MetaSys Page 5 --------------------------------------------------------------------- Is this a File to download or a Message to read? [F/m] Specifying F tells SFADD that this is a file for download. Specifying M tells SFADD that this is a MESSAGE for the caller to read online. The final question (when adding a record) is: Should I Auto-Delete this record if the User Doesn't Logon? To further explain this question, I should explain the concept of "Auto-Delete". With version SFSEC v3.1, I have introduced a new feature into the door. Let us take an example. A caller calls up and asks for a copy of software (e.g. Spitfire upgrade from Mike Woltz). Mike will put the file out there and SFADD it for the caller. The caller does not call back for 6 months . The file has been out there taking up disk space for all this time. With a small SFSEC database, you could manually look at each record and manually delete them. But with Mike's database, this would be a nightmare. The door will now look at every SFADD record. If Auto-Delete is turned on, it will calculate how long the file should remain on disk. For example, if you set Auto-Delete to 30 days (the file should stay out there for one month), then after the 30 days, the door will automatically remove the record from the SFSEC database, and, if you requested that the file be DELETED (described above), then the file is automatically deleted freeing up your disk space! So in summary, Auto-Delete will automatically delete a file added to SFSEC after "xx" days. You may specify "xx" days either at the file level, at the door level, or both. If you specify Auto-Delete at the file level, then the file will be deleted after the "xx" days if the caller has not called. If you DON'T specify auto-delete at the file level, then you are able to set a "default" auto-delete "xx" days at the door level (see SFSEC.TXT for how). Any file that was NOT marked auto-delete will use the default door level. To set Auto-Delete at the file level, when SFADD asks: Should I Auto-Delete this record if the User Doesn't Logon? Specify Y. It will then ask after how many days. If you specify N at this prompt, then the file will not be auto-deleted UNLESS you specify a # of days at the door level. So in summary, auto-delete prevents a caller from chewing up your disk space. If he doesn't call for 2 months, you may want to delete the file and get back the disk space, even if he did SFADD for SFSEC v3.1 from MetaSys Page 6 --------------------------------------------------------------------- not download the file. That way, you won't lose disk space over a long time when callers don't call back. You can specify to automatically delete files that are xx days old on the SFSEC door command line. This will apply to every file in the system. However, you can also specify an auto-delete on a file by file basis. So this way, you may have all files (at the door level) auto-delete in 30 days. However, you may decide for a larger file, you only want to give them 7 days. In this case (since this will be the exception), you specify Auto-Delete on the "SFADD or file level". Check the SFSEC.TXT for a more detailed explanation. IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS ON AUTO-DELETE, PLEASE DON'T HESITATE TO CALL ME AND ASK FOR MORE EXPLANATION. This concludes adding a record. At this point the record is added to the SFSEC database. If you selected multiple callers to add (using the "?" or the "#" prompts, then they are all added at this time. At the same time they are added, a log record is written to SFSEC.LOG. The time, date, callers name, and file name are recorded. An action code of A shows that you have added this request. When the caller downloads the file, you will see a similar record with the date and time they downloaded the file. It will also show the action code D for download/deleted. There is more information on SFSEC.LOG in the SFSEC.TXT file. uit ------ From the SFADD Main Menu, pressing Esc or typing Q for quit will terminate SFADD and return you to Dos. ist & hort List of Records -------------------------------- This will allow you to list all of the records currently in the SFSEC.DAT database. In other words, if you have added 5 callers, but forgot which files etc... this option Lists out each record. SFADD for SFSEC v3.1 from MetaSys Page 7 --------------------------------------------------------------------- The difference between Short List and List is how detailed the information is. Short List will only show you the callers name, the file name and the comment attached to the file. If you have already added some records using Add, try the short list and you will see the format. The normal List command gives a full detail listing of the contents of the database. When you choose List or Short List, you will be displayed with the following menu: Specify what type of listing you would like to view: ll Records uit Selected records by ser Selected records by ile Enter Choice [A U F Q] You are now able to specify which records to list. Pressing A will list all records in the database. Pressing Q will quit the "list" function and return you to the SFADD Main Menu. Pressing U or F will allow you to list only records containing a given name or file. If you do choose U or F, then the following prompt is displayed: Enter the User/File to search for (partial string allowed): As the prompt shows, you can specify a partial name or file name. The list of files will then display only those files that match the list. The following is a sample of the "detailed" listing that is displayed when using option L (List) not Short List: Bob Zimmerman - This is your registered copy of Spitfire 3.1 SF31.ZIP From: Sysop Date Added: 07/05/1991 4:48p To be Deleted: 08/04/1991 Binary File Purged: FALSE Delete the file: TRUE Bob Zimmerman - This is text about new features WHATSNEW.DOC From: Sysop Date Added: 07/05/1991 4:48p To be Deleted: * N/A * Ascii Msg Purged: FALSE Delete the file: FALSE The above 2 files show some of the different features of SFADD. The first field in both records is the name of the person you are allowing access to the file. In both cases above, the name is Bob Zimmerman. After the callers name is the comment you attached to the file. SFADD for SFSEC v3.1 from MetaSys Page 8 --------------------------------------------------------------------- On the second line is the name of the file and who SFADDed it. This will allow for future expansion, if other doors want to hook into this door. The third line shows when it was SFADD (date and time) and when it may be auto-deleted. The first record shows auto-delete on 8/4/91 (one month from the day it was added). So if Bob Zimmerman doesn't call the bbs by 8/4/91, the bbs will automatically delete this record, delete the file (since the DELETE file is Y) and free up the disk space. On the 4th line you have 3 different fields. The first is either Binary or ASCII. Binary means the file is for download only. ASCII says the caller can read the file and then, if they chose to, they can download the message as well. Purged will always read FALSE. This is mainly for "debugging purposes". Finally Delete This File says whether the file will be "deleted from disk" after a successful download (or an auto-delete). In other words, should the file be removed. dit records -------------- When editing records, you are again asked which records to edit. You can specify All or select records by caller's name or by file name. SFADD will show you the records you have selected and ask, record by record, if you want to edit the record. If you want to edit the record, you should specify Y and you will then be asked if you want to change each field. It will show you the current field (for example the current name) and ask for a new name. If you simply press ENTER without entering anything, it will leave the current name in place. After you edit a record, it will ask you if you want to edit the next record. Specifying Y will edit it, N will skip it and Q will quit asking and return you to the main menu. elete/Undelete ----------------- If you have added a record to the file and decided you no longer want it there, you can delete it from the file using this option. If a record is already deleted, you can UNDELETE the record with this option. You must make sure the file still SFADD for SFSEC v3.1 from MetaSys Page 9 --------------------------------------------------------------------- exists if you undelete a record. No checking of this sort is done. SUPPORT ------- As always, if you have any questions or need assistance, please don't hesitate to contact me on the Mainframe at 708-223-2344. This product is supported fully for Spitfire version 3.x. ************************************************ * * * The Mainframe BBS Sysop: Bob Zimmerman * * Home of MetaùSys Data: 708-223-2344 * * * * HST/V32 14400/9600/2400/1200 * * US Robotics Dual Std * * * ************************************************ PO Box 1387 é Arlington Hts, IL 60006