UUCP <=> FidoNet Mail Link
downloaded from the Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link (The WELL: 415-332-6106)
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How to use the UUCP <===> Fido-Net<tm> 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
[email protected])
> 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
[email protected] 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%
[email protected]
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<tm>/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.
*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*
Tim Pozar adds on the WELL:
Since we have released the UFGATE package, and SRI-NIC has given
their blessings, you can now send mail (bidirectionally) between
INTERNET or UUCP to FidoNet.
The short version of how to do it:
Fido systems use numerical addressing much like phone numbers.
The top level is called a zone. North America is Zone 1, Europe is
Zone 2, and Oceania, which includes places like Australia, Singapore,
Malaysia, and Indonesia) is Zone 3.
The next level down is called either Net or Region. This is a
much smaller area. The size falls somewhere between a large city
to a State. San Francisco, for example is Net 125.
The last level is the machine number itself. The level is called
a Node. My board at work, the KKSF BBS, is FidoNode 406.
The whole address, when sending mail from a Fido node to another
Fido node, looks like:
1:125/406
The first number is the zone, followed by a colon. The next number
is the region or net, followed by a forward slash. The last number is
the node.
In order to have FidoNet reconized as a net and for ease of
"gatewaying", we established an INTERNET domain of "fidonet.org". A
FidoNet address translated into INTERNETese, looks like this:
[email protected]
As you can guess, the first part is the name of the recipiant with
an underscore where the space would be. The next part (after the '@' sign
is the FidoNet address with the domain at the end. The 'f', 'n', and 'z'
letters are used to denote what are the Fido node, Net, and Zone numbers.
This is a quicky description of the UUCP => FidoNet side of things.
If you are interested in the flip side and a more complete detail of how
things work, CAT a file named "~pozar/ufgate.how". [above]...
UFGATE can be downloaded from my BBS at +1 415 695 0759.
You can also send me floppies. I accept 360K and 1.2M, five and
a quarter inch discs. I will need four (4) 360K disks or one (1) 1.2M
disks. The disks should be formated on your machine. The discs should
be sent in a standard floppy mailer with a return label and postage.
The address is:
Tim Pozar
Late Night Software
671 28th Street
San Francisco, CA 94131
You can also call me at work (415-788-2022) for more info on the
package...
In the near future, file attaches will work from FidoNet to UUCPland...
DOWNLOADED FROM P-80 SYSTEMS 304-744-2253
