How to use the UUCP <===> Fido-Net Gateway Version 2.3 as of 09 DEC 88 by Lee Damon of 105/302 and Dale Weber Assisted by Lisa Gronke on 105/6 I) To send mail FROM a Fido-Net <==> UUCP Gateway TO some one on a UUCP (or Internet) site. A) What you must know 1) The site name of the UUCP node the user is on. 2) The login name or mail alias (the mailbox name) that the user you want to send to uses there. 3) The path to the system the recipient is on *if that machine is not in the UUCP maps.* It is assumed that the UFGATE site is sending mail to a "smart" UUCP node which knows how to get mail to all other registered UUCP nodes. Or the domain ("at style") name of the recepient's system. 4) Which Fido-Net node forwards mail to UUCP nodes for your local network. When the new nodelist flags are in place and widely used, you won't even need to know this. If your FidoNode is using the new flags, don't worry about this step. You should get the first two pieces of information from the person that you want to send mail to and the third one should be given to you either by the Sysop of the Gateway you are using OR by the person you are sending mail to. In this documentation we will use Net 105's Gateway of Busker's Opus (105/14), also known as busker.FIDONET.ORG. As an example, let's say you want to send mail to Lisa Gronke. She has an account on percival and her login there is gronke. Let's also say that you want to send this mail from Busker's Opus (Fido-Net 105/14). Busker's UUCP/USENET Hosts are reed and oresoft. B) With these bits of information do the following steps 1) Go to the Net-Mail area on Busker's Opus 2) Enter a message to node 105/14 (that's Busker's Fido-Net address). 3) If the system asks you if you want the message to be killed after sending, PLEASE say yes. 4) Address the message to UUCP. 5) As the very FIRST line of your message you must enter a special line that will tell the gateway software how to send the message. This is the To: line and for the example above it would look like this: "To: reed!percival!gronke" (without the quotes). The actual path is "reed!percival!gronke" and "To: " is a keyword that MUST be there as shown or the Gateway won't process the message. You could also use the path "percival!gronke" (with out the reed) if you are on a system that handles smart paths. If you are not sure, try the short path first, and if that fails try again with the entire path. 6) Enter the rest of your message as you normally would. When you're finished, save it and it will be sent to your friend automagically. 7) If you are NOT on Busker's Opus (105/14), you can still send mail to UUCP nodes by following the same steps 1 through 6 above from any other Fido-Net node's Net-Mail area. The message will be sent from the node you are on to 105/14 and then on to the UUCP site. An example mail sending session, based on the previous examples, follows: > MATRIX area 9 ... Scribes Corner. (FidoNet Matrix and UUCP mail) > Select: e > Scribes Corner. (FidoNet Matrix and UUCP mail) > This will be a message in area #9. > Private [y,N,?=help]? y > To a #CM system [y,N]? n > Attach a file [y,N]? n > Matrix address: 105/14 > > Busker's Boneyard (105/14) Portland OR > To: uucp > Subject: sample message > > 1: To: reed!bucket!percival!lisag (could also be name@made.up.dom.ain) > 2: > 3: Hi Lisa, this is just a sample message to be used as an example in > 4: ufgate.how. > 5: > 6: Lee > 7: > Editor Options: > Select: s > Saving your message (#16)... II) To send mail from a UUCP Site TO a user that calls a Fido-Net system. IIa) The "simple" system, or ! (bang) paths. (Not recommended as an addressing system because of the ambiguity of the !number!number, left in for compatibility with an older system.) A) What you must know: 1) The node number of the Fido-Net system that your friend calls. 2) The path to use to get from the UUCP Site to the Fido-Net forwarder. 3) Does that UFGATE site have a UUCP map entry? If so, skip to the next section. B) With these bits of information do the following (assuming that you are sending a NEW message and NOT just replying to a message you received) 1) The path that you will send the message to will be in the form of UFGATE_site!Zone!Net!Node!First.Last. As an example, let's say you want to send a message to me (Dale Weber) at 105/55 from an account on percival (I'll use Lisa Gronke in this example). The UFGATE site here is busker (Busker's Opus - 105/14) and I am found on 105/55. 2) So the path would look like reed!busker!1!105!55!Dale.Weber and here is what it means: a) The UFGATE site is busker (Busker's Opus) and one of busker's UUCP hosts is reed and in this example you are sending mail from site percival. Since this you are sending mail locally only, you can shorten the path to reed!busker!55!Dale.Weber and it will work fine. You MUST enter the user's name as shown with the "." between the first and last names of the user. b) If you are replying to a message that you received then just use your mailer's normal reply function and everything will be taken care of automagically. IIb) The "smart" way, or RFC822 @ style. If the gateway site has a registered map entry, and you send mail from or to a "smart" mail site, use these steps instead. They are also the steps to use for sending mail from the Internet to FidoNet. Note that this is the "smart" way because you don't have to provide routing information - how to get the mail to its intended recipient is figured out by the system. *You should never mix ! and @ addressing, unpredictable results _will_ occur!!!!* A) The address of a FidoNode looks like this: 1:105/302.0. Usually the 1: and .0 are left off, but they are there by default. (In Europe it is 2: and in the Pacific Basin it is 3:.) That address can be translated as "Zone 1, Net 105, FidoNode 302, Point 0." or p0.f302.n105.z1. Add the FidoNet domain of .fidonet.org to the end of that, chop off the p0 (it is again, a default) and you have f302.n105.z1.fidonet.org - the "Fully Qualified Domain Name" of a FidoNode. Another example is 1:105/4.3 which would be written as p3.f4.n105.z1.fidonet.org (since there is a point number other than 0, we have to specify it). Note also that we are only using zone 1. This will also work for zones 2 and 3, just use z2 or z3 as appropriate. B) So, lets say you wanted to send mail to Dale Weber at 1:105/55.0, you would address your letter to dale.weber@f55.n105.z1.fidonet.org and you shouldn't have to worry about it from there. Note that this address will most likely work on the Internet. This address will be automaticly interpreted and routed via the correct gateway, so you won't have to specify any paths. All you need to know is the FidoNet address and logonid of the person you are trying to reach. C) If that address doesn't work, you can add a routing command. Since busker is the UFGATE site for net 105, the routed address would be: dale_weber%f55.n105.z1.fidonet.org@busker.fidonet.org Note that the @ between weber and f55 has been changed to a %. (I know, it is kind of long, but once all of the smart mailers get the new maps, and all the nets are covered, it shouldn't be necessary any more.) Note that the % character can be used differently on different systems, so don't go overboard in using it. D) If you are using a system that just insists on ! paths only, you can use the address f55.n105.z1.fidonet.org!dale.weber *if* you have your mail routed via a "smart" mail site. If you don't, you will have to give enough path to get from where you are to busker, then ! on from there. As the entire UUCP net is in a state of transition from the ! paths to the @ paths, this will be a problem for a while. Again I state: *You should never mix ! and @ addressing, unpredictable results _will_ occur!!!!* An example of routing using the ! notation is: tektronix!reed!busker!f55.n105.z1.fidonet.org!dale.weber III) Other features of the UUCP Gateway software (UFGATE) A) User Alias If you are sending and/or receiving a large volume of mail to/from UUCP sites then you may want to ask your UFGATE site Sysop to set up a UUCP alias for you. This is especially helpful if you have a long and/or difficult to spell name. It's easier to remember a six or seven letter name (this is what UUCP people are used to also) than a full name which may NOT be easy to remember. The UFGATE software on the UFGATE site node will handle all the translations automatically. B) Out of area mail forwarding If you are on a UUCP system, you may want to arrange for full mail forwarding to all of Fido-Net. This will cost you some money for the messages to be sent outside your local area, but may be worth the cost. Contact your local UFGATE site for further details. IV) Things to consider: As with sending mail to any UUCP or Internet site, some or all of this may not apply to your site. If you know that it won't work you can route mail to another site that you know will use the addresses correctly, and hope for the best. Mail from a FidoNet node to another FidoNet node can't be sent in this way. We (being FidoNet) still have to pay our own way. The Domain of FIDONET.ORG only includes those nodes listed in the official FidoNet nodelist as published by 1:1/0 or their designated deputy. It does not include any other networks that may use the FidoNet protocols to communicate. The Internet can not be used for profit. Mail sent via this system that gets routed to ARPANET, MILNET, NSFnet, etc, can not contain advertisements, sales literature, or other profit-making "things" unless in a direct reply to a query from an ARPANET or MILNET site that is working on a grant from DARPA or other authorized government agency. V) Glossary: ARPA style address: an address of the form "user@system" or user@domain. It is considered archaic to make the user rather than the computer route mail. Many UUCP systems now have "smart mailers" that can handle ARPA style addresses in addition to the traditional UUCP "bang paths". See the document on Internet addressing for a more complete description. This is also called "at sign syntax." The latter form, user@domain, is known as domain addressing. The particular kind is ARPA Internet domain addressing, or RFC973 domain addressing. There are others, for example that used in JANET, the British national research network. ARPANET: The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency Network. A major portion of the Internet. Soon to be replaced by the DRI (Defense Research Internet). At sign syntax: See "ARPA style address." BANG PATH: A UUCP node connects to only a limited number of other UUCP nodes. The bang path is the series of nodes the mail will pass through to reach the remote user. The node names are separated by exclamation marks (nicknamed "bangs"). The first node in the path must be a "link" on the local system, the second node must be linked to the first, etc. etc. The last name in the path is the user name on the remote system. The bang path must not contain any spaces and is usually all lower case. Internet: The Internet is a set of networks all running the TCP/IP protocols, sharing the same underlying network address space as well as the same name space, and interconnected into an internet. BITNET, UUCP, and JANET are not part of this internet because they don't use the same protocols. They are only interconnected for mail. This makes the combination of their interconnections of that kind what many people call a metanetwork. internet: (with a little i) is any old internet. The Internet, with definite article and capital I, is a specific Internet, usually the one we are referring to above, whose proper name is the ARPA Internet. There are others, such as the XEROX Internet. There are also other TCP/IP internets. FidoNet: a network of systems that use the FidoNet protocol to transfer FidoNet (Matrix) mail and other things (EchoMail, files). Most of the FidoNet nodes are BBS running Fido/Opus/TBBS/QuickBBS BBS software under MS-DOS. A FidoNet address is usually of the form zone:net/fidonode (eg 1:105/6). FidoNet routing is theoretically direct ... node 1:105/6 dials up node 1:105/14 and transfers mail addressed to users at the destination system. FidoNet (Matrix) mail is usually free to the user when sent to a node in the SAME net and requires that the user have funds on deposit when sent to a node in a DIFFERENT net. FidoNet users mostly use their real name (eg Lisa Gronke). GATEWAY: a system that is a node in two (or more) networks. The two networks may use the same protocol or different protocols. The gateway has a name/address in EACH network and has to be running an implementation of each protocol. A gateway, sensu strictu, should forward material received from one network to addressees in the other network. MAIL: electronic text, typically private, addressed to a specific person. FidoNet calls this function "FidoNet (Matrix) mail". Not all FidoNet nodes offer the function to users. UUCP calls this function "mail". In both FidoNet and UUCP, mail can be sent to a user on the same node OR to a user on a remote node. Mail is distinguished from "broadcast messages" which are called "EchoMail" on FidoNet systems and "USENET News" on UUCP systems. MILNET: A specific military network within the Internet. NETWORK: a group of computers that communicate using the SAME protocol. A network is a real entity with a name, history, administration, financing and addressing/routing scheme in addition to the protocol. NODE: a {computer, machine, system, BBS} that is part of a network is often called a node or a site. NSFnet: National Science Foundation Network. Another part of the Internet. An internet in itself. PROTOCOL: the set of rules by which two computers communicate. Users do not need to know anything but the NAME of the protocol but should distinguish between the name of a PROTOCOL and the name of NETWORK that uses the protocol. We are concerned here with two protocols: the FidoNet protocol and the UUCP (Unix to Unix CoPy) protocol. Each protocol is historically associated with a certain {computer, operating system} but CAN be implemented on just about any hardware. To complete your confusion, the PROGRAM that IMPLEMENTS a specific protocol on a particular computer sometimes also has the same name. And to make things even more fun, sometimes a network built out of the protocol is named after it, as with the UUCP network. SMART MAILER: Mailing program(s) that know(s) how to route messages to other UUCP/Internet nodes. They use maps compiled by the UUCP project to route mail more intelligently, meaning the user often doesn't have to provide a route. SMail and Sendmail are programs that are smart mailers. Many UUCP sites have them, or know how to send mail to a site that runs one. UFGATE: A collection of software written by Tim Pozar, Garry Paxinos and John Galvin that allow Fido compatible BBSs to exchange UUCP mail with other UUCP sites. Also included are programs for the processing of Netnews - UUCP's older-brother equivalent to EchoMail. UFGATE site: A FidoNet node that is running the UFGATE software (or any other software that emulates the UFGATE system). USENET: The combined group of systems (a network as it were) that share Netnews with each other. It uses UUCP and other protocols for transmitting news between machines. It is not limited only to the UUCP network or the Internet. UUCP: Unix-Unix-CoPy. A protocol set for transferring files over dialup lines. It is also the name of a network much like FidoNet. (Only much bigger, and older.) UUCP Network: the network of systems that use the UUCP protocol to transfer mail and other things (USENET news, files). [ "USENET network" is sometimes incorrectly used as a synonym but specifically refers to the subset of UUCP, Internet, Bitnet, etc. nodes that subscribe to USENET news.] Most of the UUCP nodes are unix minicomputers at universities or high-tech companies. A UUCP node has a cryptic name (eg bucket). UUCP routing is "store and forward" whereby the mail is passed from system to system until it reaches its destination. Classic UUCP address are "bang paths" from the originating node to the destination node (eg reed!percival!bucket!lisag). UUCP mail is almost always free to the user. UUCP users use a one word alias name (eg lisag). ----------- UFGATE was written by Tim Pozar, Garry Paxinos, John Gilmore and John Galvin. "Fido" and "FidoNet" are trademarks of Tom Jennings, San Francisco, CA. used with permission.