Does Mystic currently handle netmail addressed to "ping" to reply back
to the sender a route path the netmail has taken thus far, and continue sending on the original as expected?

Let me make sure I understand exactly what you're asking for.

I've never heard of anything keying off of "ping" before. If someone has a handle of "ping" then they would never get netmail! What has this feature? If I do something like this it probably wouldn't be ping but something less likely to be someone's alias.

Anyway...

You want a message sent to "ping" to be replied to automatically and include the PATH kludges, I get that part. But then what happens to it? What do you mean by continuing to send? Send it to where? Mystic shouldn't be touching netmails that aren't addressed to it ever, except to reroute them if needed.

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On 09/01/14, g00r00 said the following...

Let me make sure I understand exactly what you're asking for.

I've never heard of anything keying off of "ping" before. If someone
has a handle of "ping" then they would never get netmail! What has this feature? If I do something like this it probably wouldn't be ping but something less likely to be someone's alias.

It's actually in the FTN spec for netmail, adopted about 15~20 years ago, to help locate routing issues. Learned about it just recently myself from Mark on Zone1 echomail conferences, as I'm trying to determine root cause for me not receiving netmail.

Anyway...

You want a message sent to "ping" to be replied to automatically and include the PATH kludges, I get that part. But then what happens to it? What do you mean by continuing to send? Send it to where? Mystic shouldn't be touching netmails that aren't addressed to it ever, except
to reroute them if needed.

I mean, when I send a netmail to the username "ping" (w/o quotes), to an address, systems that get that netmail routed to it, if they follow the ping protocol spec, it creates a new netmail to send back to the origin's sender name and FTN address with the route path, while not touching the original netmail, allowing further routing, as necessary, to continue its due course to the final destination.

I'll see if I can dig up more info on the actual spec... In fact, I just did..

http://ftsc.org/docs/fts-5001.002

Apparently there's also a PING flag as well in relation to this.

[Psi-Jack -//- Decker's Heaven]

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On 09/02/14, Psi-Jack said the following...

On 09/01/14, g00r00 said the following...

Let me make sure I understand exactly what you're asking for.

I've never heard of anything keying off of "ping" before. If someone has a handle of "ping" then they would never get netmail! What has t feature? If I do something like this it probably wouldn't be ping bu something less likely to be someone's alias.

It's actually in the FTN spec for netmail, adopted about 15~20 years
ago, to help locate routing issues. Learned about it just recently
myself from Mark on Zone1 echomail conferences, as I'm trying to
determine root cause for me not receiving netmail.

Anyway...

You want a message sent to "ping" to be replied to automatically and include the PATH kludges, I get that part. But then what happens to What do you mean by continuing to send? Send it to where? Mystic shouldn't be touching netmails that aren't addressed to it ever, exce to reroute them if needed.

I mean, when I send a netmail to the username "ping" (w/o quotes), to an address, systems that get that netmail routed to it, if they follow the ping protocol spec, it creates a new netmail to send back to the
origin's sender name and FTN address with the route path, while not touching the original netmail, allowing further routing, as necessary,
to continue its due course to the final destination.

I'll see if I can dig up more info on the actual spec... In fact, I just did..

http://ftsc.org/docs/fts-5001.002

Apparently there's also a PING flag as well in relation to this.

According to those docs you posted, it all hinges on the fact as to whether or not the dest node must fly the PING flag. Presumably that flag is in the nodelist. What happens when nodes in the chain don't support the ping function?

"No matter where you go, there you are!" - B. Bonzai

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On 09/02/14, Gryphon said the following...

According to those docs you posted, it all hinges on the fact as to whether or not the dest node must fly the PING flag. Presumably that
flag is in the nodelist. What happens when nodes in the chain don't support the ping function?

They basically ignore it, and pass it on. If the final destination doesn't
know it, it doesn't do anything. Any nodes in between that get it, will pass a ping responce back. This was designed to test routes overall basically. Yes, not every mailer supports it, but the more that do the better. :)

It does technically work the entire route through, each node that does support PING responds back to the netmail origin, the final destination if it supports it will reply back to the message with the full complete route path it took.
So you could, if you get it back fully, see the route to AND from the destination.

[Psi-Jack -//- Decker's Heaven]

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On 09/01/14, g00r00 said the following...

Does Mystic currently handle netmail addressed to "ping" to reply bac to the sender a route path the netmail has taken thus far, and contin sending on the original as expected?

Let me make sure I understand exactly what you're asking for.

http://ftsc.org/docs/fts-5001.005

====== snip ======

Publication: FTS-5001
Revision: 5
Title: Nodelist flags and userflags
Author: FTSC Members, Administrator and Honoured Guests

Date: 2014-07-01

[...]

Section 5.10. Robot Flags

PING
----

Specified as exactly "PING" with no arguments. Nodes flying this
flag will adhere to the following functionality:

1) PING-function:

If a message destined to "PING" arrives at its final destination
and this final destination flies the "PING"-flag, then the
receiving node will bounce the message back to the original sender
clearly quoting all the original via-lines.

If a message destined to "PING" arrives at its final destination
but this final destination does _not_ fly the "PING"-flag then the
message may be deleted from the inbound-queue without further
follow-up.

2) TRACE-function:

If a message destined to "PING" arrives at a node which flies the
PING-flag but is merely passing-through to another destination
then the in-transit node will notify the sender of this occurrence
and will forward the original mail unaltered towards its final
destination.

WARNING: the sender's name (in either direction) must *NEVER* be
"PING".

====== snip ======

as for software that supports it, numerous netmail trackers recognize and respond to ping messages... OT-Track does, netmgr can be configured to, GIGO (FTN<->internet gateway package) can be configured to... there are others, as well...


HTH

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On 09/02/14, Gryphon said the following...

According to those docs you posted, it all hinges on the fact as to whether or not the dest node must fly the PING flag. Presumably that
flag is in the nodelist. What happens when nodes in the chain don't support the ping function?

nothing... they simply pass the intransit netmail on like they normally would...

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Hello wkitty42,

On 02 Sep 14 15:04, wkitty42 wrote to g00r00:

as for software that supports it, numerous netmail trackers recognize
and respond to ping messages... OT-Track does, netmgr can be
configured to, GIGO (FTN<->internet gateway package) can be configured to... there are others, as well...

Unfortunately, according to the nodelist, only two people in zone 1 support it (you and Jame), so it must not have been a huge selling point. :)

Quite a few people in zone 2 seem to be listed with that flag, though. It seems

that more of them use netmail trackers than we do though, so I could see why that would be the case.

Regards,
Nick

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On 09/02/14, Access Denied said the following...

as for software that supports it, numerous netmail trackers recognize and respond to ping messages... OT-Track does, netmgr can be configured to, GIGO (FTN<->internet gateway package) can be configure to... there are others, as well...

Unfortunately, according to the nodelist, only two people in zone 1 support it (you and Jame), so it must not have been a huge selling
point. :)

ping usage used to be fairly common in Z1 but a lot of folks have left and the knowledge has left with them as well... it is during times like this when the knowledge and usage is resurrected... especially when it is helpful in trracking down problems like what is being seen by the OP ;)

Quite a few people in zone 2 seem to be listed with that flag, though.
It seems that more of them use netmail trackers than we do though, so I could see why that would be the case.

yeah but they are also the ones that started the "netmail tracker" thing... they aren't really necessary but they do provide some additional features for the systems that use them...

eg: bouncing netmail addressed to systems that do not exist in the nodelist, providing a "vacation" responder, etc...

in any case, having a mailer that can respond to ping is on the same grounds
of having a mailer/router that can add VIA lines to netmail transiting the system... i have at least one system that drops netmail off on my main system that doesn't place a VIA line in the netmails being delivered... it took me a bit of research and rummaging in the logs to figure out how those netmails were arriving... but that's another thing...

FWIW: having ping capability is a GoodThing<tm> for the benefits it
provides... especially in networks where there is no certain and specific netmail routing structure set up ;)

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Hello wkitty42,

On 02 Sep 14 20:15, wkitty42 wrote to Access Denied:

FWIW: having ping capability is a GoodThing<tm> for the benefits it provides... especially in networks where there is no certain and
specific netmail routing structure set up ;)

I think it would definitely be more beneficial than not. Anything that can help

track down problems is always a good idea. :)

Regards,
Nick

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It's actually in the FTN spec for netmail, adopted about 15~20 years
ago, to help locate routing issues. Learned about it just recently

I've been a FidoNet Sysop since 1992 and I never heard of it before, or
noticed any tosser that supports it. I'm not quite sure this goes back
20 years! :)

Publication: FTS-5001
Issue Date: 26 January 2005
Review Date: 26 January 2007

Rev.2, 20040904: re-re-draft by FTSC. - Added PING flag

I mean, when I send a netmail to the username "ping" (w/o quotes), to an address, systems that get that netmail routed to it, if they follow the ping protocol spec, it creates a new netmail to send back to the
origin's sender name and FTN address with the route path, while not

The problem with this idea is that its not very useful unless most systems support PING...

Seeing as many of the major tossers were out of development prior to this
being a thing, it will never be supported except by the few still writing
Fido software. I do like the "idea" of this, but I just don't see it being very useful unless the adoption rate is really high.

In any case, I've added it to the starting-to-get-pretty-large TODO list ;)

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On 09/02/14, Access Denied pondered and said...

I think it would definitely be more beneficial than not. Anything that
can help track down problems is always a good idea. :)

Agree with both of you, the key seems to be having software that reponds to
the PING request. If you have that then it's more of a motivation to include the flag in your nodelist records.


`I'm not expendable, I'm not stupid, and I'm not going' - Kerr Avon, Blake's 7

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On 09/02/14, wkitty42 said the following...

ping usage used to be fairly common in Z1 but a lot of folks have left
and the knowledge has left with them as well... it is during times like this when the knowledge and usage is resurrected... especially when it
is helpful in trracking down problems like what is being seen by the OP
;)

Exactly. After it was mentioned, I suddenly started recalling the info, as my original BBS ~20 years ago used OT-Tracker for that very purpose, especially since I was a local FidoNet hub for the area I was in, providing several hundred people a stable feed.

Honestly, if Mystic can be the swiss army knife all in one, it would continue to make it thrive as the best solution out there. Having ping would just be
one more step to that fact. :)

in any case, having a mailer that can respond to ping is on the same grounds of having a mailer/router that can add VIA lines to netmail transiting the system... i have at least one system that drops netmail
off on my main system that doesn't place a VIA line in the netmails
being delivered... it took me a bit of research and rummaging in the
logs to figure out how those netmails were arriving... but that's
another thing...

FWIW: having ping capability is a GoodThing<tm> for the benefits it provides... especially in networks where there is no certain and specific netmail routing structure set up ;)

Here here! Yeah, definitely would be nice to have it built-in and native, no doubt there. I mean, it's been in the FTSC spec for, what, 15? 20 years? I forget when I shut down my BBS, but I know I had the support for it at the time, likely before it was completely standardized, and even then it was amazingly useful in such a disjointed spoke and hub network system FTN has always been.

[Psi-Jack -//- Decker's Heaven]

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On 09/02/14, g00r00 said the following...

I've been a FidoNet Sysop since 1992 and I never heard of it before, or noticed any tosser that supports it. I'm not quite sure this goes back
20 years! :)

The problem with this idea is that its not very useful unless most
systems support PING...

Seeing as many of the major tossers were out of development prior to this being a thing, it will never be supported except by the few still writing Fido software. I do like the "idea" of this, but I just don't see it being very useful unless the adoption rate is really high.

In any case, I've added it to the starting-to-get-pretty-large TODO list

While this is true, it wasn't /standardized/ until late, but O/T-Track came
out long before that. O/T-Track came out in 1992 for exactly the purpose of helping track routes, but yeah.. I know I was one system that used it as soon as I'd heard about it.

This particular feature doesn't need to be high priority really, but being implemented would help keep surviving this spoke and hub network system known as FTN. Especially to help in diagnosing problems like the one I'm currently facing now, where I can't even /receive/ netmail via FidoNet because something's wrong somewhere.

And you, sir, would be the reason it would help come back to the surface by implementing it natively into Mystic, because you'll only get more Mystic
users at your rate of good software.

I /am/ possibly, for now, considering the notion of running O/T-Track via DOSEMU, before having Mystic process mail, but I'm not sure how well that'll work out. eheh

[Psi-Jack -//- Decker's Heaven]

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On 09/02/14, g00r00 said the following...

It's actually in the FTN spec for netmail, adopted about 15~20 years ago, to help locate routing issues. Learned about it just recently

I've been a FidoNet Sysop since 1992 and I never heard of it before, or noticed any tosser that supports it.

i've never known any /tossers/ to support it... it wasn't intended that tosser support it... other tools should handle that task...

eg1: on my main system, netmgr looks through the mailer's MSG style
netmail area for messages to "ping" and responds to them before
setting the received bit so it skips them the next time through.

eg2: on my main system, OT-Track (a netmail tracker) acts in similar
method to netmgr and creates ping response messages.

the difference between the two is slight but suffice it to say that netmgr is more robust and configurable whereas OT is really just a netmail tracker which mainly ensures that VIA lines are added to netmails as well as logging them if a problem comes up later concerning netmails transiting the system...

the other main thing about them is that they work on the original FIDO style MSG message format...

noticed any tosser that supports it. I'm not quite sure this goes back
20 years! :)

Publication: FTS-5001
Issue Date: 26 January 2005
Review Date: 26 January 2007

that's only the date of the nodelist document... the FTSC converted to a new numbering system... i think there was actually a document for the ping
proposal but i'm not where i can go digging thru my archives to see right now... sadly, some documents have gone missing over time and only a very few
of us might have them in our libraries...

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