Subj : BSO .try files
To   : Michiel van der Vlist
From : Pavel Gulchouck
Date : Mon Jan 25 2016 06:48 pm

Hi Michiel!

25 Jan 16, Michiel van der Vlist ==> Pavel Gulchouck:

WvV>>> Is FTS-5005 not correct? Or does binkd have its own idea about
WvV>>> try files?

PG>> Yes, binkd is not compatible with FTS. Thank you for the finding.

PG>> I have no idea why FTSC published a standard which is not complies
PG>> widely-used software. Files *.try and *.csy in BSO initially created
PG>> by binkd many years ago as its private flags which did not conflict
PG>> with any other BSO files.

MvdV> The standard as published by the FTSC is based on older documents.
FTS-5005 is mainly based on FSP-1034 which in turn is
MvdV> based on the T-mail and Bibkleyterm manuals.

AFAIK neither BinkleyTerm nor T-mail use *.try and *.csy files in BSO. This
would cause inconsistency on systems with both t-mail/binkleyterm and binkd.

PG>> These are not informational flags, they contain technical information
PG>> and are not intended for reading by people or by another software.
PG>> FTSC documents which describe these files (in fact, another files with
PG>> the same names) appeared much later. I do not think that binkd have to
PG>> change its behaviour to comply FTS. IMHO FTS should be fixed according
PG>> to practice.

MvdV> Just tell us how binkd deals with the .try en .csy files and we will
adjust the documentation accordingly.

*.csy are used a similar way to *.bsy but they set on start calling node,
before handshake. It prevents simultaneous calls to the remote node by several
binkd processes.
I'm not sure it's good to standardize this due to two reasons: it's senseless
to call a node by two binkd processes, but it may make sense to call a node by
different protocols (i.e. binkd and ifmail or binkd and pstn). Then, binkd may
use for this purpose another kind of IPC such as named semaphores in the
future.

Files *.try used for prevent infinite call to undialable nodes. Its format:
16 bit: nok, number of good connects (bigendian)
16 bit: nbad, number of consequent bad connects (bigendian)
8 bit: comment length in bytes
N bytes: comment

nbad resets to zero on success outgoing connect.
If nbad reaches some configurable value, node status set to undialable, created
.hld flag, and both nok and nbad counters reset to 0.
File .hld contains line with single number: unixtime until the node is on hold.

I do not think that these files can be shared between mailers, because node
undialable by one protocol can be available by another. These semaphores are
private for binkd. May be it was not a good idea to create private mailer flags
in common BSO.

             Lucky carrier,
                          Pavel
                          aka  [email protected]
--- GoldED+/LNX 1.1.5
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