Hello everybody.

Well, I am back online after the telco took 16 days to replace fix the cable a few hundred meters from my wall socket to almost at the exchange, which leads me to ask,

about fidonet on a USB memory stick, and the problem of changing drive letters.

That is if I plug a USB memory stick into my computer it becomes drive F:, but plugging the same memory stick into the computer at work, it becomes drive H:.

Any suggestions on how to make Squish, msged, binkleyterm, binkd, etc operate in such a fashion that it matters not what the drive name is, the paths are sane and make sense to the programs.

I operate mostly on Linux, and Fido is stricly Linux here, but the computer at work is WINXP, and has an internet connection.

Things I have considered are;

Setting the drive in a batch file i.e.

Set drive "equals" F
and then writing paths as follows

$drive\squish\msgbase

or ..\squish\msgbase

otherwise writing seperate config files for each program, i.e.

squish.cfg.f
squish.cfg.h

and then run a batch file that will copy one or the other to squish.cfg depending on what drive letter is allocated to the USB drive?

Am I making sense?

Excuse the "equals" above, but my keyboard seems to have lost a few random key's :-((

Russell

--- GoldED+/LNX 1.1.5
* Origin: Rusty's BBS - Bloemfontein, Free State, South Africa (5:7105/1)

about fidonet on a USB memory stick, and the problem of changing drive letters.

That is if I plug a USB memory stick into my computer
it becomes drive F:, but
plugging the same memory stick into the computer at
work, it becomes drive H:.

Any suggestions on how to make Squish, msged,
binkleyterm, binkd, etc operate
in such a fashion that it matters not what the drive
name is, the paths are
sane and make sense to the programs.

Most of the squish, binkleyterm, and I think even binkd control files can be set up with relative paths specified. There may be one or two spots where it may need a drive letter defined in a windows or OS/2 type environment.

I operate mostly on Linux, and Fido is stricly Linux
here, but the computer at
work is WINXP, and has an internet connection.

Things I have considered are;

Setting the drive in a batch file i.e.

Set drive "equals" F
and then writing paths as follows

$drive\squish\msgbase

or ..\squish\msgbase

Games like this work in batch files, but not necessarily in the control files.

otherwise writing seperate config files for each program, i.e.

squish.cfg.f
squish.cfg.h

Use relative paths for most of the stuff in the control files, share the common
control information in one file, and then in use an include statement in the drive specific control file which should have very few lines..... That is if you can not get by with using all paths in the control files without drive letters and have the batch file set the default drive to the memory stick before processing....

and then run a batch file that will copy one or the other to squish.cfg depending on what drive letter is allocated to the USB drive?

Am I making sense?

In some ways.

Over the years of expanding disk drive capacity and need to move drive letters around, I tend to now have my batch files setup to use an enivornment parameter
for both the drive letter and the base path. Control files still have too much
hard coded in this regard, but are kept in a form where I can perform a one shot edit of the control files to change the drive and/or base path specification with a simple, global edit.....

Good luck....

Bob Jones, 1:343/41


--- Maximus/2 3.01
* Origin: Top Hat 2 BBS (1:343/41)

Quoting Russell Tiedt to All <=-

@MSGID: <44ECAE0F.1497.tub@vert.synchro.net>
Hello everybody.

Well, I am back online after the telco took 16 days to replace fix the cable a few hundred meters from my wall socket to almost at the
exchange, which leads me to ask,

about fidonet on a USB memory stick, and the problem of changing drive letters.

[cut]

Why not just install your entire BBS into one directory, eg.

C:\Bbs (or \\bbs (UNC path))

and map that directory to a network drive eg. M:.

Then set up global environment variables in Autoexec.bat or Control Panel-> System->Advanced->Environment Variables.

I currently run my BBS under Windows 2000, and here's what I do with my AUTOEXEC.bat / AUTOEXEC.NT:

set bbsdrive=m
set boardroot=%bbsdrive%:\board
set fossroot=%bbsdrive%:\fossils
set mailroot=%bbsdrive%:\mailing
set toolsroot=%bbsdrive%:\tools

rem ; +----------+
rem ; | Comments |
rem ; +----------+
rem ;
rem ; bwave is run from %bbsdrive%:\batch
rem ; mtelnet is run from %bbsdrive%:\batch
rem ; mm.exe / multimail is run from %bbsdrive%:\batch

PATH=%boardroot%\max;%boardroot%\max\batch;%bbsdrive%:\batch;%toolsroot%\arcers;%fossroot%\TelSrv\NETFOSS

SET MAXIMUS=%boardroot%\Max\max.prm
set SQUISH=%mailroot%\squish\squish.cfg
set fd=%mailroot%\fd

doskey

and all your other BBS batch files would draw the same root directories from those environment variables.

That way you could copy your entire C:\Bbs to <anydrive/media>:\Bbs, and
map a network drive to whatever %bbsdrive% you defined.

All the BBS programs/doors would then be run under the mapped drive.

The limitations I've experienced with this approach is when batch files
cannot be used, and where path name & filenames need to be hardcoded eg.
*.cfg files. Or if your desired mapped drive letter is already in use by something else and cannot be changed eg. for business and/or practical reasons.

Unless you're going to dedicate a whole PC to your BBS, it's more convenient and portable to structure your BBS files & folders under one parent directory eg. C:\Bbs.


... RAM = Rarely Adequate Memory
___ Blue Wave/386 v2.30

Hello Bob.

23 Aug 06 11:17, you wrote to me:

Any suggestions on how to make Squish, msged,
binkleyterm, binkd, etc operate
in such a fashion that it matters not what the drive
name is, the paths are
sane and make sense to the programs.

Most of the squish, binkleyterm, and I think even binkd control files
can be set up with relative paths specified. There may be one or two spots where it may need a drive letter defined in a windows or OS/2
type environment.

Hmmm ... , so it should be do-able ...

Things I have considered are;

Setting the drive in a batch file i.e.

Set drive "equals" F
and then writing paths as follows

$drive\squish\msgbase

or ..\squish\msgbase

Games like this work in batch files, but not necessarily in the
control files.

Okay, batch files are fine, like this, if the control files will work with relative paths, then that would work ...

otherwise writing seperate config files for each program, i.e.

squish.cfg.f
squish.cfg.h

Use relative paths for most of the stuff in the control files, share
the common control information in one file, and then in use an include statement in the drive specific control file which should have very
few lines..... That is if you can not get by with using all paths in
the control files without drive letters and have the batch file set
the default drive to the memory stick before processing....

Okay ... sounds like it should be do-able

and then run a batch file that will copy one or the other to
squish.cfg depending on what drive letter is allocated to the USB
drive?

Am I making sense?

In some ways.

Good, so I am not yet toally insane. <VVBG>

Over the years of expanding disk drive capacity and need to move drive letters around, I tend to now have my batch files setup to use an enivornment parameter for both the drive letter and the base path.
Control files still have too much hard coded in this regard, but are
kept in a form where I can perform a one shot edit of the control
files to change the drive and/or base path specification with a
simple, global edit.....

Right ...

Good luck....

<BG> Thanks,

Russell

--- GoldED+/LNX 1.1.5
* Origin: Rusty's BBS - Bloemfontein, Free State, South Africa (5:7105/1)

Hello Mvan.

24 Aug 06 19:47, you wrote to me:

Quoting Russell Tiedt to All <=-

about fidonet on a USB memory stick, and the problem of changing
drive letters.

[cut]

Why not just install your entire BBS into one directory, eg.

C:\Bbs (or \\bbs (UNC path))

and map that directory to a network drive eg. M:.

Like the idea ... and maximus runs fine so I assume ...

That way you could copy your entire C:\Bbs to <anydrive/media>:\Bbs,
and map a network drive to whatever %bbsdrive% you defined.

All the BBS programs/doors would then be run under the mapped drive.

The limitations I've experienced with this approach is when batch
files cannot be used, and where path name & filenames need to be
hardcoded eg. *.cfg files. Or if your desired mapped drive letter is already in use by something else and cannot be changed eg. for
business and/or practical reasons.

"M" should be fine on the drives I envsion using, squish is working so far, have not had time for more ...

Russell

--- GoldED+/LNX 1.1.5
* Origin: Rusty's BBS - Bloemfontein, Free State, South Africa (5:7105/1)

Why not just install your entire BBS into one directory, eg.

C:\Bbs (or \\bbs (UNC path))

and map that directory to a network drive eg. M:.

Like the idea ... and maximus runs fine so I assume ...

Yeah. I installed Maximus 3.01 into C:\Bbs\board\max and mapped
C:\bbs to M:.

"M" drive was chosen because it was named after M)aximus :)

I currently split my BBS up into 3 core directories,

\board
\fossils
\mailing

Breaking things up in this way makes it easier to install new
BBS software & mix-and-match any associated tools you might like
to experiment with, or run multiple BBS' on the same machine (or
separate computers) while keeping all the files under one easily
accessible location. Makes backups much easier.

The BBS Software goes into \board. Some time down the track I'll
install Opus and Iniquity in there.

I have GameSrv & NetFOSS installed in \fossils, and also BNU, X00,
AnDan and Zoob Telnet Server just in case.

I've got 3 versions of BinkleyTerm installed (DOS, Win32, Gamma-6).
Setting it up like this allows me to switch mailers simply by
copying configuration & batch files, while keeping redundancy in
case the migration fails. (This is planned sometime in the future).

M:\mailing\binkd
M:\mailing\binkley.trm
M:\mailing\binkley.trm\bt (dos)
M:\mailing\binkley.trm\bw32_260 (w32 v2.60)
M:\mailing\binkley.trm\bw32_xr6 (XE gamma-6)
M:\mailing\fd (FrontDoor)
M:\mailing\flstW201
M:\mailing\NODELIST
M:\mailing\squish

M:\board\doors
M:\board\Filebase
M:\board\MAX
M:\board\MAX\MSGBASE

Volume in drive M has no label.
Volume Serial Number is 44FA-8034

Directory of M:\

26/08/2006 14:02 <DIR> .
26/08/2006 14:02 <DIR> ..
20/08/2006 22:57 1,474 AUTOEXEC.BAT
18/08/2006 03:06 1,449 AUTOEXEC.BAT~
22/08/2006 07:30 <DIR> batch
04/08/2006 08:15 <DIR> bgfax
26/08/2006 09:48 <DIR> board
26/08/2006 19:09 <DIR> bwrepfix
20/08/2006 22:59 1,134 CONFIG.SYS
20/08/2006 19:44 1,089 CONFIG.SYS~
12/08/2006 10:37 <DIR> fossils
05/08/2006 02:15 <DIR> mailing
09/08/2006 10:14 359 readme.txt
26/08/2006 09:24 <DIR> shortcuts
26/08/2006 20:57 <DIR> tmp
18/08/2006 20:38 <DIR> tools
5 File(s) 5,505 bytes
11 Dir(s) 3,881,250,816 bytes free

"M" should be fine on the drives I envsion using, squish is working so far, have not had time for more ...

Just pick a drive you like (and think nobody else will use (because
changing it later might be a bitch despite your best attempts to
properly organise and plan your directories (as you weed out all
the things that broke (eg. *.cfg, *.ctl, *.bat etc)))).

I'm also taking my time rebuilding my BBS :) I've been working at
it on-off since 1998 and I STILL haven't got Fidonet working. Heh.

... Don't hit me, Mr. Moderator... I'll go back on topic... I swear!
___ Blue Wave/386 v2.30