SMLNET SETUP FOR WILDCAT

        In comparison to some mail readers I've had to set up (namely Quickbbs)
Smlnet is comparatively easy.  The docs are straight forward, and apart from a
few things you'll have to do, there is little I can add to them.  I'll try to
sumarize as best I can the procedure, however, I do emphasize the importance of
all documentation for these programs.  The nice thing about smlnet is that it
works well in a networking environment, supports up to 38000 baud, allows users
to download messages, and its ease to set up and use.  On the downside, it does
not have a full page editor, and does tend to operate a bit on the slow side in
comparison.  It is also not flashy like some, and you can't spruce it up any.


Setting up Smlnet:

1)  Decide on a directory you wish to put smlnet.  I've set aside a directory
    I call \smlnet.  You will need at least 5 to 10 k, maybe more depending on
    the amount of echo's you are going to receive.  A rule of thumb.  Each
    message is roughly 1-2k large.  Say you wish to keep only 150 messages in
    each echo.  You will then have between 150 - 300k taken up by that conference
    Before you purge those messages, you could have up to 500k, depending on
    the volume.  If you are getting 10 echo's, it could take up 5 megs. 20
    echo's 10 megs and so on.  I carry 55 echo's and devote a 33meg partition
    solely to db and smlnet.  I usually have between 5 - 8 megs left during
    the course of a day.  I have on occasion run out of space, which causes
    a complete lockup of the system.  So make sure you give an adequate amount
    of room for running echomail.

2)  Decompress all the smlnet files into that directory.  The major file
    you will need to edit is called smlnet.cnf.  This file contains all the
    information as to where the echomail is going (as defined by db).
    I generally make each echo a subdirectory off of smlnet.  You could point
    to another directory, the choice is entirely yours.  You must, however,
    correlate to the directories that you have defined in d'bridge, or vice
    versa.

The following is an example of the Smlnet.cnf I use on my system.

SMLNET.CNF:

;  Below options must be kept in the same order.
;  Conference list is best sorted in alphabetical order.
;
;  Each item is allowed only one line except for conference list.
;
;(A) Sysops   Firstname LastName
Hugh Mitchell

;(B) * Origin line of Netmail conference
;Do not exceed 65 characters on the line below        to here->|
Doctor On Board HST, St. Catharines, Ontario. (416) 684-7710

;(C) Your Net  Number (usually 3 digit)
250

;(D) Your Node Number (usually 2 digit)
101

;(E) Drive:\Path of NODELIST.DAT & FIDOUSER.LST that lists all the
;    sysops names and their  Net/Node numbers.
;    (used in the Netmail Net/Node number verification in Entering Netmail)
f:\binkley    ---------->  This is where I compile nodelist.

;(F) Drive:\Path of the Binkley's Outbound Area
;   (will create the .FLO (File Attach) files in this sub-directory)
;        NONE    will not create files and will mark attributes only
NONE
;(G) Drive:\Path\Filename of Default Extract File (at least 3 chars plus .TXT)
DOB-MAIL.TXT

;(H) Security Access to join <SYSOP> conferences and private mail (4 digits)
1000

;(I) Maximum amount of K bytes an Extract file can use  (4 digits)
0750

;(J) Security Access needed to ENTER a Message (4 digits)
0005

;(K) # months of inactivity before a user record is erased in smlnet.dat
3

;(L) Program for Packing Messages into the downloadable  UNREDNET.ARC
;    NONE  -to download textfile without Sqweezing it
PKzip
ARC,LHARC,PKPAK,PKZIP
;This program uses Zmodem (DSZ.COM) for file transfers so it must be
;in the same directory as Smlnet.EXE
;(M) Conference List ((similar to areas.net))
;ID# Drive:\Path           DescriptionName     <SYSOP> Sysop(Co-sysop) Only
;                                            or <####> needed security level
;                                            or leave blank for Public Conf
;  ID# is Unique and nonchanging for each conference  (range 1-99)
;     (this is vital for the lastmsg read pointer)
;     but, the order of the conferences may be sorted as you wish.
;  Drive:\Path is the location of the messages for the conference
;  Name of the conference.  Upto 12 characters.
;    Note: if name has 'netmail' in it, then it is handled as a Netmail Conf
;
001 F:\binkley\netmail      NetMail          <----  This is the network mail
002 F:\smlnet\niagara       Niagara                 directory defined in DB!
004 F:\smlnet\Gr            Med Disc.
005 F:\smlnet\Humor         Humor
007 F:\smlnet\Wildcat       Wildcat       <0021>
008 F:\smlnet\Dr_debug      Dos Tips
009 F:\smlnet\Buysell       Buy & Sell
010 F:\smlnet\Thunder       Thunder      <0021>
011 F:\smlnet\hst           HST conf
012 F:\smlnet\MTASK         Multi-task
013 F:\smlnet\Reviews       Reviews
014 F:\smlnet\Debate        Debate
015 F:\smlnet\buynsel       Buynsell
016 F:\smlnet\Astronomy     Astronomy
018 F:\smlnet\Atari_ST      Atari ST
019 f:\smlnet\automotive    Automotive
020 F:\smlnet\buynsel       Tor. BuySel
023 F:\smlnet\Music         Music
024 F:\smlnet\Chatter       Discussions
025 F:\smlnet\COCO          COCO
026 F:\smlnet\Cooking       Cooking
027 f:\smlnet\atari         Atari
028 F:\smlnet\Educator      Education
029 F:\smlnet\Film          Film
031 F:\smlnet\FDECHO        Frontdoor    <0021>
032 F:\smlnet\HAM           HAM radio
033 F:\smlnet\LAW           LAW
035 F:\smlnet\Photo         Photography
036 F:\smlnet\Sports        Sports
038 F:\smlnet\Tw1000        TW1000
039 F:\smlnet\REG12         Sysops reg12     <0021>
041 F:\smlnet\kids          Kids echo
045 F:\smlnet\sysop250      Sysops 250  <0021>
046 F:\smlnet\hicsysop      HICN Sysops <SYSOP>
047 F:\smlnet\sdn_public    SDN Public
048 F:\smlnet\sdn_sysop     sdn sysops       <SYSOP>
049 F:\smlnet\sdn_reg12     sdn reg12.   <SYSOP>
051 f:\smlnet\science       Science
052 f:\smlnet\gaming        Gaming
053 f:\smlnet\genealogy     Genealogy
054 f:\smlnet\hotrod        Hotrod
055 f:\smlnet\dbridge       D'bridge     <0021>
060 f:\smlnet\midi-net      Midi-Music
061 f:\smlnet\c_echo        C Language
062 f:\smlnet\reviews       Film Reviews

                 -------------------------------------------

Each path must correlate to the path you defined in d'bridge.  Smlnet also has
a utility called sml-chk.exe.  Run this after you have configured your
smlnet.cnf.  This checks to make sure you have paths defined properly, and
will tell you if you've made an error.  It will also produce some text files
which give you some information about how you've set it up.


3)  There are other files you may want to edit, such as smlnet.zon, or smlnet.nam
    however, these files are not required for the initial running of smlnet,
    and I refer you to the docs if you wish to implement them.

4)  The next step is if you are allowing users to use netmail.  Many sysops
    do not, as it can result in costly phone bills for them.  I've found (mainly
    due to ignorance on the part of users) netmail is rarely used, but I leave
    it an option for them anyways.  The ones that use it, is usually to another
    user who they can reach locally on another board.  In order for this to
    be implemented, you must be able to create a nodelist.dat and fidouser.lst
    files accessable by smlnet.  I use parselst to create these files from
    the nodelist.### file.  You may wish to use others.  Unfortunetly D'bridge
    does not create a nodelist.dat file usable by smlnet, so these extra utility
    files are needed.  I've included an example of my parselst.cfg file.  Also
    included is Derek Koopowitz's node.bat file, will call parselst to process
    the nodelist.  Edit it for your system, and you will then be ready to use
    smlnet.


                        RUNNING SMLNET WITH WILDCAT


        Earlier, in the d'bridge setup, I had given an example of running
smlnet from an errorlevel 35 drop from wildcat.  Smlnet runs well as an rbbs
program and therefore requires a conversion program to create dorinfo?.def file.
WC2RBBS is an excellent conversion program which works very well in converting
callinfo.bbs to dorinfo?.def.  An example of wc2rbbs.cfg file is as follows:

Doctor On Board BBS
Doctor
On Call
c:\wildcat\    <----  Where callinfo.bbs resides
f:\smlnet\     <----  Where to put dorinfo1.def.
0

        The documentation to wc2rbbs is well written, and I encourage you to
read it to set it up for your system.


                       PURGING AND RENUMBERING MESSAGES


        The last thing to set up, and probably the most important, is a utility
to purge the messages you receive, as well as a means to renumber them.  DB has
such a utility to purge the messages, however, unfortunetly they do not have
a method to renumber them at the time of this writting.  SMLNET will not work
properly if the messages are not renumbered.  There is a utility which will do
both, and that is the "old" confmail program v 3.30.  This utility should be
run nightly, if not, your message base for each echo could grow to astronomical
proportions.  There are recent programs that work quickly to renumber and purge
messages separately, however they do not work well in a networking environment.
Confmail 3.30 does, and for that reason I use it.  The following is an example
of a renum and purge batch file I use as a nightly event.  As you will see, it
requires alot of work to set up, and must be edited with the addition of each
new echomail you receive (as does smlnet.cnf).

F:
CD\CONF
CONFMAIL RENUM -Q -N 1 150 F:\BINKLEY\NETMAIL -R F:\BINKLEY\NETMAIL
CONFMAIL RENUM -Q -N 1 150 F:\SMLNET\NIAGARA  -R F:\SMLNET\NIAGARA
CONFMAIL RENUM -Q -N 1 150 F:\SMLNET\DEARDOC  -R F:\SMLNET\DEARDOC
CONFMAIL RENUM -Q -N 1 150 F:\SMLNET\GR       -R F:\SMLNET\GR
CONFMAIL RENUM -Q -N 1 150 F:\SMLNET\HUMOR    -R F:\SMLNET\HUMOR
CONFMAIL RENUM -Q -N 1 150 F:\SMLNET\WILDCAT  -R F:\SMLNET\WILDCAT
CONFMAIL RENUM -Q -N 1 150 F:\SMLNET\DR_DEBUG -R F:\SMLNET\DR_DEBUG
CONFMAIL RENUM -Q -N 1 150 F:\SMLNET\THUNDER  -R F:\SMLNET\THUNDER
CONFMAIL RENUM -Q -N 1 150 F:\SMLNET\HST      -R F:\SMLNET\HST
CONFMAIL RENUM -Q -N 1 150 F:\SMLNET\MTASK    -R F:\SMLNET\MTASK
CONFMAIL RENUM -Q -N 1 150 F:\SMLNET\REVIEWS  -R F:\SMLNET\REVIEWS
CONFMAIL RENUM -Q -N 1 150 F:\SMLNET\DEBATE   -R F:\SMLNET\DEBATE
CONFMAIL RENUM -Q -N 1 150 F:\SMLNET\SF       -R F:\SMLNET\SF
CONFMAIL RENUM -Q -N 1 150 F:\SMLNET\ASTRONOM -R F:\SMLNET\ASTRONOM
CONFMAIL RENUM -Q -N 1 150 F:\SMLNET\AUDIO    -R F:\SMLNET\AUDIO
CONFMAIL RENUM -Q -N 1 150 F:\SMLNET\ATARI_ST -R F:\SMLNET\ATARI_ST
CONFMAIL RENUM -Q -N 1 150 F:\SMLNET\AUTOMOTI -R F:\SMLNET\AUTOMOTI
CONFMAIL RENUM -Q -N 1 150 F:\SMLNET\LASERPUB -R F:\SMLNET\LASERPUB
CONFMAIL RENUM -Q -N 1 150 F:\SMLNET\BINKLEY  -R F:\SMLNET\BINKLEY
CONFMAIL RENUM -Q -N 1 150 F:\SMLNET\BUYNSEL  -R F:\SMLNET\BUYNSEL
CONFMAIL RENUM -Q -N 1 150 F:\SMLNET\MUSIC    -R F:\SMLNET\MUSIC
CONFMAIL RENUM -Q -N 1 150 F:\SMLNET\CHATTER  -R F:\SMLNET\CHATTER
CONFMAIL RENUM -Q -N 1 150 F:\SMLNET\COCO     -R F:\SMLNET\COCO
CONFMAIL RENUM -Q -N 1 150 F:\SMLNET\COOKING  -R F:\SMLNET\COOKING
CONFMAIL RENUM -Q -N 1 150 F:\SMLNET\DESQVIEW -R F:\SMLNET\DESQVIEW
CONFMAIL RENUM -Q -N 1 150 F:\SMLNET\EDUCATOR -R F:\SMLNET\EDUCATOR
CONFMAIL RENUM -Q -N 1 150 F:\SMLNET\FILM     -R F:\SMLNET\FILM
CONFMAIL RENUM -Q -N 1 150 F:\SMLNET\FIREARMS -R F:\SMLNET\FIREARMS
CONFMAIL RENUM -Q -N 1 150 F:\SMLNET\FDECHO   -R F:\SMLNET\FDECHO
CONFMAIL RENUM -Q -N 1 150 F:\SMLNET\HAM      -R F:\SMLNET\HAM
CONFMAIL RENUM -Q -N 1 150 F:\SMLNET\LAW      -R F:\SMLNET\LAW
CONFMAIL RENUM -Q -N 1 150 F:\SMLNET\TW1000   -R F:\SMLNET\TW1000
CONFMAIL RENUM -Q -N 1 150 F:\SMLNET\PHOTO    -R F:\SMLNET\PHOTO
CONFMAIL RENUM -Q -N 1 150 F:\SMLNET\SPORTS   -R F:\SMLNET\SPORTS
CONFMAIL RENUM -Q -N 1 150 F:\SMLNET\REG12    -R F:\SMLNET\REG12
CONFMAIL RENUM -Q -N 1 150 F:\SMLNET\POLITICS -R F:\SMLNET\POLITICS
CONFMAIL RENUM -Q -N 1 150 F:\SMLNET\SYSOP250 -R F:\SMLNET\SYSOP250
CONFMAIL RENUM -Q -N 1 150 F:\SMLNET\HICSYSOP -R F:\SMLNET\HICSYSOP
CONFMAIL RENUM -Q -N 1 150 F:\SMLNET\SDN_PUBL -R F:\SMLNET\SDN_PUBL
CONFMAIL RENUM -Q -N 1 150 F:\SMLNET\SDN_SYSO -R F:\SMLNET\SDN_SYSO
CONFMAIL RENUM -Q -N 1 150 F:\SMLNET\SDN_REG1 -R F:\SMLNET\SDN_REG1
CONFMAIL RENUM -Q -N 1 150 F:\SMLNET\BUYSELL  -R F:\SMLNET\BUYSELL
CONFMAIL RENUM -Q -N 1 150 F:\SMLNET\REG_12_U -R F:\SMLNET\REG_12_U
CONFMAIL RENUM -Q -N 1 150 F:\SMLNET\MEADOW   -R F:\SMLNET\MEADOW
CONFMAIL RENUM -Q -N 1 150 F:\SMLNET\DHBAG    -R F:\SMLNET\DHBAG
CONFMAIL RENUM -Q -N 1 150 F:\SMLNET\REG12USE -R F:\SMLNET\REG12USE
CONFMAIL RENUM -Q -N 1 150 F:\SMLNET\CANADA   -R F:\SMLNET\CANADA
CONFMAIL RENUM -Q -N 1 150 F:\SMLNET\DBRIDGE  -R F:\SMLNET\DBRIDGE
CONFMAIL RENUM -Q -N 1 150 F:\SMLNET\PASCAL   -R F:\SMLNET\PASCAL
CONFMAIL RENUM -Q -N 1 150 F:\SMLNET\DOORWARE -R F:\SMLNET\DOORWARE
CONFMAIL RENUM -Q -N 1 150 F:\SMLNET\QUICKBBS -R F:\SMLNET\QUICKBBS
CONFMAIL RENUM -Q -N 1 150 F:\SMLNET\WRITING  -R F:\SMLNET\WRITING
CONFMAIL RENUM -Q -N 1 150 F:\SMLNET\SCIENCE  -R F:\SMLNET\SCIENCE
CONFMAIL RENUM -Q -N 1 150 F:\SMLNET\OPEN_BIB -R F:\SMLNET\OPEN_BIB
CONFMAIL RENUM -Q -N 1 150 F:\SMLNET\DBASE    -R F:\SMLNET\DBASE
CONFMAIL RENUM -Q -N 1 150 F:\SMLNET\GAMING   -R F:\SMLNET\GAMING
CONFMAIL RENUM -Q -N 1 150 F:\SMLNET\GENEALOG -R F:\SMLNET\GENEALOG
CONFMAIL RENUM -Q -N 1 150 F:\SMLNET\LOTUS    -R F:\SMLNET\LOTUS
CONFMAIL RENUM -Q -N 1 150 F:\SMLNET\OS2      -R F:\SMLNET\OS2
CONFMAIL RENUM -Q -N 1 150 F:\SMLNET\TECH     -R F:\SMLNET\TECH
CONFMAIL RENUM -Q -N 1 150 F:\SMLNET\NEWOPUS  -R F:\SMLNET\NEWOPUS
CONFMAIL RENUM -Q -N 1 150 F:\SMLNET\AMIGA    -R F:\SMLNET\AMIGA
CONFMAIL RENUM -Q -N 1 150 F:\SMLNET\OPUS_XPR -R F:\SMLNET\OPUS_XPR
CONFMAIL RENUM -Q -N 1 150 F:\SMLNET\HOTROD   -R F:\SMLNET\HOTROD
CONFMAIL RENUM -Q -N 1 150 F:\SMLNET\ADLIB    -R F:\SMLNET\ADLIB
CONFMAIL RENUM -Q -N 1 150 F:\SMLNET\C_ECHO   -R F:\SMLNET\C_ECHO
CONFMAIL RENUM -Q -N 1 150 F:\SMLNET\BADMSGS  -R F:\SMLNET\BADMSGS
CONFMAIL RENUM -Q -N 1 150 F:\SMLNET\ECUNET   -R F:\SMLNET\ECUNET
CONFMAIL RENUM -Q -N 1 150 F:\SMLNET\MIDI-NET -R F:\SMLNET\MIDI-NET
CONFMAIL RENUM -Q -N 1 150 F:\SMLNET\PEP      -R F:\SMLNET\PEP
CONFMAIL RENUM -Q -N 1 150 F:\SMLNET\UNIX     -R F:\SMLNET\UNIX
CONFMAIL RENUM -Q -N 1 150 F:\SMLNET\KIDS     -R F:\SMLNET\KIDS
CONFMAIL RENUM -Q -N 1 150 F:\SMLNET\ALL_CHAR -R F:\SMLNET\ALL_CHAR
CONFMAIL RENUM -Q -N 1 150 F:\SMLNET\ATARI    -R F:\SMLNET\ATARI
C:
CD\WILDCAT

                       --------------------

Basically the above batch file purges messages (-Q) based on numbers (-N) between
1 and 150 (you should leave the first message file as that is used by db) from
the directory you point to.  The -R prompt will then renumber those files in
that directory.  You could use the dbridge purge utility, and only use confmail
to renumber, however, I've found that dbridge tends to be slower than confmail
for that, so have resorted solely to confmail for message maintainance.



        Well, there you should have it.  I hope that db, smlnet, and wc works out
well for you as it has me.  Should you have any questions, comments, criticisms,
or advice regarding any of this writing, I would greatly appreciate hearing
from you.  Good Luck, and take care.


                                                        Hugh (Mitchell)
                                                        Doctor on Board HST
                                                        St. Catharines, ONT.
                                                        1:250/101
                                                        86:4162/2
                                                Data    (416)-684-7710
                                                Voice   (416)-684-0866